I think Boris was really jumping to conclusions when he made some big generalizations.
Please, I beg of you, prove me and my generalizations wrong.
Photographic evidence of all matching, all original, non refurb 1957-58 letter guns in hardwood stocks. I've eaten crow before.serve me up another helping.
The evidence is key.
...........
And now back to the topic at hand:
With the massive quantities of Soviet 45's that made it to the US, our base for evidentiary examination is just better suited for study.
Add to that the fact that US importers got the creme of the crop, and had no reasons to modify, hump, or refinish the 45's they received, the US market is the most ideal environment for examination, research.
The pre-ban US market was the epitomal capitalist environment. During that period, importers had virtually unfettered access to the best of what the Soviets had stored away decades prior.
Are importers in Canada hamstrung by regulations, restrictions, limits on importable quantities, or other legal red tape? From what I've read on this and various other Canadian sites and from Candaian members is US forums, it seems as if the Importers and distributors (and buyers) face various limitations and regulations that US importers did not encounter prior to the ban.
What many in the US and in Canada overlook is the fact that by the late 1980s , the Soviet Union was in social, political, and
especially Economic collapse. They needed cash in the worst of ways. And the US gun market was itching (it's a perpetual yearning in the US) for everything.
You put that all together and it creates a perfect environment for capitalist doe-si-doe. All the reasons you'd need to get insanely massive, and seemingly endless mountains of crates on crates stuffed full of near pristine Soviet sks 45s overrunning the US warehouses.
It's a simple equation, really:
-Unfettered access for US importers and buyers
+ failed Soviet state and SSR'S bleeding for cash and literally spilling over with small arms surplus.
+ a firearms obsessed US public with a ceaseless and unquenchable thirst for more, more, more:
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= s-tons of Soviet 45s in the US.