A little birdie told me

Same thing was said by a few months ago about the SKS rifle, couple people put the scare of God into us by saying it was the end of the cheap SKS, next thing you know my local gun shop has crates full of them. Didn't stop some individuals from jacking prices way up because of the "end of the cheap SKS". Last time I checked you can still grab one for $200 or less.
 
FLYBYU44 said:
Same thing was said by a few months ago about the SKS rifle, couple people put the scare of God into us by saying it was the end of the cheap SKS, next thing you know my local gun shop has crates full of them. Didn't stop some individuals from jacking prices way up because of the "end of the cheap SKS". Last time I checked you can still grab one for $200 or less.
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You sure can, there is a SIGNIFIGANT difference in what we are seeing as far as the quality. The ones coming into Canada in 2013 and a bit before that were beautiful Non refurb pieces. Everything I have seen at my local LGS the last while are BBQ painted, rougher looking refurbs. Not the Cherries we had become acustomed to seeing. Hope to see another store or 2 of these surface, however not looking likely with the turmoil in Ukraine, and the pieces that are finding there way into the US from other counrties that have stores left over. All the new US sneaks are ROUGH to say the least.
 
walleyed99 said:
You sure can, there is a SIGNIFIGANT difference in what we are seeing as far as the quality. The ones coming into Canada in 2013 and a bit before that were beautiful Non refurb pieces. Everything I have seen at my local LGS the last while are BBQ painted, rougher looking refurbs. Not the Cherries we had become acustomed to seeing. Hope to see another store or 2 of these surface, however not looking likely with the turmoil in Ukraine, and the pieces that are finding there way into the US from other counrties that have stores left over. All the new US sneaks are ROUGH to say the least.
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From what I understand, the ones going to CDN Tire, WSS, other big box retailers, were brought in by one of the usual importers, who was a bit shocked - and not in a good way - at the quality of the pieces coming in, which is why they got dumped on the big box dealers instead of spread around the specialty dealers as would normally happen.

There are still nice SKS's out there, and at good prices too. You just have to go through your bookmark list of dealers to find them, or go with one of the sponsor dealers with a good rep for turning down the Grade 'B' surplus and only shipping the cherry picked ones.

Ukraine is messing things up, currently, but I think we'll see a shift of the channel. I strongly suspect a lot of these Red Rifles were getting drop shipped through the Ukraine. Russia has a lot of export rules, and is also personna non-gratta for imports in a lot of places. I have a feeling they would move a few dozen containers of old surplus at a time into the Ukraine, and thereby "wash" them for export.

Or my other pet theory is that the only part of these rifles that went through the Ukraine was the paperwork. They would have had quite legit looking warehouses in the Ukraine for everyone to inspect at need, but once the deals got signed, they'd be fulfilled from storehouses somewhat further east.

If either one of those two theories holds correct, then we'll see supply start to come back to normal once the Russians figure out which other former client state they can channel the rifles through.

I dunno. I somewhat bought into "the end of cheap sks" panic earlier in the year (even started a thread about it that ended up going on way past its best before date), but I pretty much ended up eating crow on that one. There are still lots of great SKS's around at the moment, and a lot of crappy ones too. I think we've got a while to go before the Mosins, SKS's, SVT's, really start to dry up.

At the same time, it's unlikely they'll get any cheaper than they are right now.
 
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