Surplus Garands from South Korea westrifle.com

[chief16]

M1 Garands are no longer a poor man's rifle! That is most likely not going to change... The purchase price aside, Garands cost a fortune to feed. I don't often see people at the range shooting over $100 worth or ammo. If I recall, the "Garand federal ammo costs about $28 per box.. It wouldn't take long before you have shot a thousand dollars worth of ammo, so at those prices, what is the diff between $600 and $900? The only way around the cost of the ammo is reloading, and not too many people in the low budget end of shooting reload anyways! If your looking for the magical $300 garand because that is all you can afford, don't buy one! You can't afford to shoot the damn thing!

[burnt_servo]

M1 Garands are no longer a poor man's rifle! That is most likely not going to change... The purchase price aside, Garands cost a fortune to feed. I don't often see people at the range shooting over $100 worth or ammo. If I recall, the "Garand federal ammo costs about $28 per box.. It wouldn't take long before you have shot a thousand dollars worth of ammo, so at those prices, what is the diff between $600 and $900? The only way around the cost of the ammo is reloading, and not too many people in the low budget end of shooting reload anyways! If your looking for the magical $300 garand because that is all you can afford, don't buy one! You can't afford to shoot the damn thing!

`garand ammo is just regular 30-06 ..... some of it might require a adjustable gasport (http://www.midwayusa.com/product/777...eel-parkerized ).

and if you look around you can factory made ammo for less than 20.00 , sometimes less than 15.00 .

if you reload and are careful about your costs under 50 cents per round should be possible ... possibly much less if you find some deals on powder and bullets . brass can be had really cheap if you know where to look .

also if the amount of garands is large enough ,I would imagine large amounts of cheap ammo would be on it's way too .




out of this shipment of rifles I will be looking for unwanted beat up rifles that need a caring , loving home to rebuild them .pricewise I'm thinking 150.00 - 200.00 , but in need of a full rebuild , new barrel , heavily rebuilt stock , or new stock and a lot of massaging rust out of the steel and refinishing .

[haretrigger]

Sergey asked what people were willing to spend, and we're telling him. It's called "gauging the market". Like I mentioned previously, it's all about supply and demand. We now know there is a large batch of rifles in South Korea, and few bidders. Probably more than enough rifles for the small markets in Europe, New Zealand, and Canada. By telling him what we're willing to pay, we're helping Sergey avoid bad business decisions like such:

a) Sergey listens to a small number of people willing to pay $1000 per rifle. He goes out and orders 10,000 rifles for $700 a piece. He sells them for $1000 (landed) a piece, and the initial surge of buyers with that money ends quite abruptly. Sergey is left with 8,000 rifles in his inventory collecting dust, selling a handful of rifles at a time over a long period of time.
b) Sergey listens to the people willing to pay $500 per rifle. He goes out and orders 10,000 rifles for an offer of $300 a piece. The auction house decides to sell them elsewhere for more money (say $700 a piece). Sergey is not out any money. We lose out on a relatively small order of EE-priced Garands. Whoopty-do, if you want to pay EE prices, buy a Garand from the EE.

and hoping for:

c) Sergey listens to the majority of people willing to pay $500 per rifle. He goes out and orders 10,000 rifles for an offer of $300 a piece. He sells them for around $500 (landed) AND UP a piece depending on make and quality, and not only is he capturing the lower income market, but the rifles are cheap enough that collectors are building multiples at a time. 10,000 rifles sell out in a few weeks, Sergey has more money to buy more rifles from Korea.

What we're trying to avoid - as customers - is the K98 situation we're in. Russia seems to think they are sitting on a pile of God's gift to military surplus, rotted out junker Mausers that are worth their weight in gold. They aren't. They sold for a little while they came in, but the sales are almost stagnant at this point, yet the prices aren't coming down. Supply vs. demand. There are plenty of K98's out there, we know that, we don't want them for $650. Trying to trick people into thinking the supply is low by importing a handful at a time to keep the prices high is B.S. We're nearing the exact same crossroads with Korea and their Garands. We tell Korea how much they are worth, not the other way around.

Personally, I just think there are a bunch of Garand owners in here trying to keep the prices artificially high so the value of their guns doesn't drop catastrophically.

IMO Best post in this entire thread.

I was excited to hear RC K98's had arrived, until I heard the price. Same goes for the M38 Mosins, but the price is one I can't stomach.

Being that the condition of these rifles will be varied, I think option c) is the best way to go. The trick is to educate oneself about what is desirable to the collector, the shooter, or the hoarder and base your prices on that. I remember when Westrifle started bringing in SKS rifles the had 1949's listed with all the rest for little to no premium added. Once they got everything sorted out in terms of understanding where desirability to collectors originated from they adjusted their prices accordingly on subsequent offerings for sale.

[Don Kael]

M1 Garands are no longer a poor man's rifle! That is most likely not going to change... The purchase price aside, Garands cost a fortune to feed. I don't often see people at the range shooting over $100 worth or ammo. If I recall, the "Garand federal ammo costs about $28 per box.. It wouldn't take long before you have shot a thousand dollars worth of ammo, so at those prices, what is the diff between $600 and $900? The only way around the cost of the ammo is reloading, and not too many people in the low budget end of shooting reload anyways! If your looking for the magical $300 garand because that is all you can afford, don't buy one! You can't afford to shoot the damn thing!

They aren't a poor mans rifle because there hasn't been a shipment of surplus Garands since the Danish MAR rifles Marstar got in 2003, and prior to that Garands were practically unwanted. Again, supply and demand. Ammo's got little to do with it. Whether I want one to hang on my wall, to shoot one whole round of .30-06, or shoot ten crates at my own expense doesn't effect the price of the rifle itself.

Lots of Romanian, Yugo, and Czech Mausers around. They seem to be pretty affordable, I wonder why that is when 8mm is impossible to come by in bulk these days...

[Lock_Time]

I just thought I would contribute to this discussion since I'm one of those who bought one.... okay, TWO of the recent RC K98's that arrived on our shores. I paid in the $600 range for them and they seem nice... probably NRA "good" condition overall, but yes the quality of the available selection varied widely and honestly I feel like they were at least $100 over-priced. I was happy to have my WW2 relics but I felt like I was getting poor value for my money. These aren't exactly matching number, original condition, or even complete rifles.

I think these days most Garand buyers want them for semi-collectability and won't be putting thousands of rounds through them trying to win rifle matches, taking them out hunting, or even making it their daily plinking toy. So yes 30-06 isn't cheap but I imagine my consumption will be low, so I don't really care what the ammo costs.

If I got one I would probably just want something in decent shooting condition, and like others here would be willing to pay between $500-$700 in such shape. Anything in good to very good condition or something more collectable I could probably be persuaded to go into the $700-900 range, depending on the particulars, but that would be at my very upper limit. Any more than that and I would stay content just admiring them from a distance.

[ghostntheshell]

Condition is everything.
Sergey - you have some folks saying they'll buy them sight unseen for upwards of 750 bucks. I have a hard time believing anyone would pay 750 bucks for a rifle that is no guaranteed condition.

No one wants to pay top dollar for a rusted out rifle with no accuracy.

A well used weathered rifle with reasonable accuracy is ok.
As mentioned from the pictures / videos of the rifles they are treated like firewood.

[Duff350]

Do you really think 190 000 rifles was treated like firewood ?! I'm sure there is a lot of good one....

[TheManInBlack]

Lot that was offered to USA was 190k of rifles. This would flood Canada if we buy all of them.

if the market is flooded than I'm thinking sks prices

[TheManInBlack]

personally, i just think there are a bunch of garand owners in here trying to keep the prices artificially high so the value of their guns doesn't drop catastrophically.

isnt that the truth

[Mark-II]

Do you really think 190 000 rifles was treated like firewood ?! I'm sure there is a lot of good one....

And those are the ones the Koreans will hang on to until the end! - LOL

Mostly kidding. Honestly, though, some of the mosins I've seen in stores could have been smelted back in the Ukraine with no great loss to posterity, they're so rough. I appreciate when our importers do the legwork to make sure that what they bring in is quality. I know WR won't bring in junk.