Future of Milsurps?

[WILCO]

What do you guys think the future has in store for Milsurps?

All rifles to be had are on the open market?

No more hundred dollar rifles?

South Korea rifles?

All new Milsurp will be space age junk?

What are your thoughts?

[lefty o]

milsurps are still trickling in, but i dont believe you'll see them in mass for much longer.

[TNsailorman]

The best of the milsurps are gone. What we have coming in now (for the most part) are the bottom of the barrel. I look for obamma to take pen in hand and ban the importation of all military configured rifles and handguns before he leaves office. I hope I am wrong but we will just have to wait and see. The price will continue to go up for the ones that have already made it to our shores. For me at least, the military rifle magnet has been pretty much turned off. When it cost as much to buy a battered 8x57 mauser or Swede as a modern bolt rifle like a Savage or Remington, then my money goes modern. With me at least, the attraction was always being able to buy and really good rifle for about 10 to 15 % of the cost of civilian rifles. In the old days, it was economically sound to buy the surplus, do a minimum amount of work on it and have it shooting with the civilian rifle or at least real close, not today. Most of the milsurps I have seen lately have worn barrels, cracked stock, oil soaked & softened wood, some mismatched parts(bolt and action) and other defects or other problems that are costly to fix. Take that situation with the new Ruger American and some other companies entries into the low cost field and the situation just gets worse. Now, a milsurp with documentation about its history in a military action, that's a different story. But it will cost you, big time. I have been told recently that my aunt is going to bring me a Jap 6.5 long rifle that my uncle picked up on Guadalcanal. He took the first wave ashore on Tulagi. I look forward to that one. My opinions anyway and not binding on anyone, james

[Nicholas]

I pine for the days when good buys for real quality bolt rifles were common in gun shows and stores. Fortunately, I bought enough to keep me entertained. Some have increase in market prices 3 or 4 times what I paid. However, recently at a small gun show in a local KC, I picked up a really sharp Moisin-Nagant with accessories for a mere $125. There are still a few bargains out there.

[Scharfschuetze]

As noted above, the halcyon days of surplus rifles and pistols seems to have passed. The once huge supply of WWI and WWII surplus firearms has been raided pretty hard and the current administration isn't doing anyone any favors with what's left out there. As the currently available models get Bubbed or forgotten in closets or garages, pristine examples will become tomorrow's Krags, Mausers and Springfields.

[Garyshome]

They will still be available for a while, plenty of time to get what you want.

[wallenba]

Bet there's still a bunch of old Mosin's in Cuba. Cuban Air force used P-51's for a long time too. Streets down there a full of classic cars.

[Artful]

Well, let's see - you can't import any Russian stuff thanks to Obama's pen -
Kit's can no longer come in with their original Barrels -
No M1 Garand's or Carbine can come in from S Korea per Bureaucratic decree -
UN says shouldn't be doing small arms trades between countries - So Swiss cut off K31's and stuff
Lot's of .Gov around the world doing destruction of surplus weapons -
I won't say you won't see some imports of older weapons but it's going to go from a river to a trickle
I do wish all the Winchester '95's in 7.62x54R would reappear here.

[Buckshot]

...............Most all the large quantities of ANYTHING are things of the past. About all there is now, at least from what I see are M91-30's and they've been scarce lately. I've heard that Brazil still has quite a few M98/08's in store and rumor has it that they were being saved back for ceremonial purposes. I don't doubt that there may be a store of something somewhere that might be importable, but the days of 10 - 20 years ago are (I'd bet) a definite thing of the past. After WW2 most countries that had the $$ were storing the bolt actions and converting to semi-autos, and we've seen and passed through the huge importations of those early autoloaders. I'm thinking the only milsurps to be seen anymore will be those coming out of individuals' closets.

.............Buckshot

[GhostHawk]

The pendulum swings, but unless someone reaches out and restrains it, it always swings back again.

History does repeat itself, but most likely it will not be US that see it.
Could be massive numbers of dirt cheap M16's for all we know.

Prices appear to be on the rise across the board. Prices appear to be 50-100$ higher than they were 6 months ago.
Glad I got mine when I did.

[Scharfschuetze]

During my military adventures on various continents, I saw arms rooms full of old British, German, French and US obsolete weapons. Some of those weapons were in pristine condition and stored with care. Others, well lets just say they were rusting into the floor by the thousands. The most interesting, yet the most neglected, were in Central and South America and included all sorts of H&Ks, Mausers, M1s, various MGs, anti-tank cannons and mortars. While the crew served weapons would be out of the question, some of those rifles would make fine additions to a collection.

A lot of the weapons that I saw in Central America in the 80s are now apparently in use by the drug gangs in Mexico. Despite all the UN whining and crying and hand wringing over weapons dealing, someone has figured out how to import/export them!

[jonk]

I think that given 100,000,000 Mausers made- and more than that for AKs- and plenty of Mosins- that there are still large caches of them sitting around in places around the globe.

The issues however, are many.

1. A lot of these guns are in places where the local governments would sooner throw them in the ocean than sell to the US.
2. Restrictions in the US are going up.
3. A large part of the impetus to import Turk Mausers, Mosins, etc., was the cheap surplus ammo that came with them. Not saying that would stop them from being imported if the first 2 issues were overcome, but in general, the guns that have readily available ammo command the best prices. There's a reason why the Kropatscheks that came in a few years back have only gone up in price a bit, and despite only a few ten thousand being imported, are still easy to find on auction. Who wants an expensive wall hanger? Same thing with the Swiss Vetterli. Most shooters don't reload.

I won't say we won't have any fun surprises down the road, but I think the 2 great floods- the 60s and the late 90s/early 2000s- are done. The most likely scenario would be a Republican administration easing the import rules for Korean M1s and Carbines, and perhaps Eastern bloc AKs, but beyond that I don't see much coming this way anytime soon. Mosins will continue to trickle in, probably very small lots of other stuff, but I think for the forseeable future that's about it.