Russian American Armoury "Saiga" -- Legal in Canada?

Paul Morrison said:
Actually, the real reason it was changed is even more comical. See, the basis of the prohibition on the AK series and derivatives is that it has no practical sporting purpose, and it looks scary (honestly, they went through guns digest and banned stuff based on looks alone in many cases). However, unbeknowst to the gun grabbers, the Valmets, which had been banned by name as a derivative, existed in very large quantities in Canada's north, where the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT had given out mass amounts to the Inuit, purchased on the cheap from Valmet when they closed up shop.

Faced with the ridiculous prospect of arresting the Inuit for posession of an prohibited firearm, on the basis that it had no sporting purpose, but that the same government had given them for the sporting purpose, the end result was a new OIC being issued undoing the ban.

That's my understanding, although I am welcome to be corrected.
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I believe most of this is correct except for the "mass amounts" part. If Inuit had "mass amounts" of Valmets, they wouldnt be selling for 3-6k right now. Valmets were never even produced in "mass amounts", let alone sold to Canadian government at bulk prices.
Valmet factory never really went out of business, they got purchased by Sako, and Sako had little interest in military arms, especially after the Finnish army decided to go with Chineese AK's.

The truth is that the Canadian government did distribute some Valmets to the Inuit, because it was the only semi auto rifle that was reasonably accurate and could function reliably in the Arctic. I am willing to bet that 99% of those Valmets were sold to collectors long time ago.

The other theory as to why Valmets got de-prohibited is that Valmet supposedly had a legal battle with the Canadian goverment arguing that their rifles are suitable for hunting due to their accuracy. This simply not true.
 
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RobSmith said:
I wish someone had bought out Armrus and kept the business going, they had LOTS of rather cool stuff over there (not to mention that Valeri was a quite entertaining guy, I used to drop by every now and then and drool on their guns).... Incidentally, I've been sitting on a TOZ99 with a broken sear (snapped in half) for about 2 years now and nobody in North America seems to be willing to start importing some of these things again, or even parts for them ....

I don't know what it is about Russian firearms, but nobody seems to want to touch them with a 10 foot pole these days .... go figure ... Maybe some day someone will come up with a transcript of the court case with Armrus so we can finally figure out what the heck the judge was thinking, and/or what arguments were brought up, as I have a real feeling that the word "variant" was finally defined in court which is a significant thing for the 12(x) list and how to fight it. My understanding is that the CFC had approved them and even issued registration certificates for them, but a single CBSA officer decided otherwise once they landed, and the RCMP then piled on the charges. The guy was anything but stupid, samples had been provided for classification, but the powers that be all of a sudden decided to change their mind and Valeri was out of well over 100K in inventory, add the legal costs to this and it's not hard to see how a guy can go bankrupt.
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I'm happy Winchester bought the Toz78 so I can finally get parts/mags.
 
Was there actually a court case? If there was there is record of it in federal court somewhere.
I can't understand why they would import container loads. Why not just a few to test the waters? This doesn'r sound like a CBSA decision to me. CBSA knows very little about the regs and always falls back to the CFC/RCMP if there is a question.
 
As far as the gov't supplying Valmets in large, small or token amounts to the Inuit, I lived in the Eastern Arctic for over 30 years, operated a gunshop for 22 years, and never saw a single Valmet in the NWT/Nunavut all that time.
Some MAY have been supplied to Indian bands, I would not know from personal experience.
 
izh

either way it would be nice to get izhmash back in canada they have some nice stuff id like to get my hands on that RECORD bolt action it would be nice to have somthing precision in 7.62x54r
 
Valeri himself used to tell every customer who asked that the matter was currently before the courts. He closed up shop soon after the case was lost. The last time I saw him he mentioned something about Saiga .410 shotguns being defined by the judge as "machine gun prototypes" or some other such nonsense.

CanAm said:
Was there actually a court case? If there was there is record of it in federal court somewhere.
I can't understand why they would import container loads. Why not just a few to test the waters? This doesn'r sound like a CBSA decision to me. CBSA knows very little about the regs and always falls back to the CFC/RCMP if there is a question.
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Valeri sold all his stuff to someone in the US and left the country for health reasons. I bought off him his personal brand new Sobol and Biathlon hunter :D
 
Guys, thanks for a great thread! "Great" as in informative, if not encouraging... ;) (And thanks for moving it, too, I didn't realise this forum existed.)
aiwa said:
It sounds like you are interested in restricted/nonrestricted black rifles. You will find there are about a half a dozen of each commonly available.
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I hadn't thought about it this way before, but it came to mind last night. In fact, before posting this topic, I was chatting with one of the young guys at Milarm, and he was commisserating about the silliness of restricting or prohibiting [fill in the blank] and not [fill in the blank]. He said that it's even possible to build (?) or get (?) an AR-15 configured in such a way to make it non-restricted. If that's the case, maybe sticking a target barrel on it would get me a semi-automatic varmint rifle in 5.56mm NATO much superior to the Mini-14 (which was the point of my interest in the Saiga anyway). So is that possible? (Maybe I oughtta go back to the black/green rifles forum for that query...)
 
RobSmith said:
Valeri himself used to tell every customer who asked that the matter was currently before the courts. He closed up shop soon after the case was lost. The last time I saw him he mentioned something about Saiga .410 shotguns being defined by the judge as "machine gun prototypes" or some other such nonsense.
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Is the court record not public on a website somewhereÉ Surely it can be searchedÉ
 
Legal proceding were probably in French since court case was in Montreal I think.
 
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I know it must be, but I never find out how .... All I know is the guy's first name was Valeri, and he was the owner of "Les Armureries Russes" (AKA armrus.com) .... Whatever can be found out about the case is of MASSIVE significance to our cause, which is why I'd so love to find out about it.

CanAm said:
Is the court record not public on a website somewhereÉ Surely it can be searchedÉ
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I recently test fired 5 shots through a Saiga at a gunstore I try to visit every few years. Cash list price tag is $299.99 USD. It had no scope on it although the left side of the reciever had provision for a scope mount. For iron sights the front bead was on the frontmost of the gas tube and the rear the usual AK U notch sight. IMO ergonomics of the rifle are not very comfortable. For me the iron sights were too low and I could imagine a poor cheek weld situation if it had a PSO type scope mounted SVD style. It felt and shot like a $299.99 rifle although it was fairly accurate 3-4 inch groups I thought considering shooting was not very comfortable. If I could get it in Canada I probably would but I would completely restock it and would require heavy tweaking to make it comfortable.
 
RobSmith said:
I wish someone had bought out Armrus and kept the business going, they had LOTS of rather cool stuff over there (not to mention that Valeri was a quite entertaining guy, I used to drop by every now and then and drool on their guns).... Incidentally, I've been sitting on a TOZ99 with a broken sear (snapped in half) for about 2 years now and nobody in North America seems to be willing to start importing some of these things again, or even parts for them ....

I don't know what it is about Russian firearms, but nobody seems to want to touch them with a 10 foot pole these days .... go figure ... Maybe some day someone will come up with a transcript of the court case with Armrus so we can finally figure out what the heck the judge was thinking, and/or what arguments were brought up, as I have a real feeling that the word "variant" was finally defined in court which is a significant thing for the 12(x) list and how to fight it. My understanding is that the CFC had approved them and even issued registration certificates for them, but a single CBSA officer decided otherwise once they landed, and the RCMP then piled on the charges. The guy was anything but stupid, samples had been provided for classification, but the powers that be all of a sudden decided to change their mind and Valeri was out of well over 100K in inventory, add the legal costs to this and it's not hard to see how a guy can go bankrupt.
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My buddy had the same problem. The part was hardened too much or something. Anyway, he took the part out, got it into the local metal shop, got a new one for $10 and shot it happily ever after. :wave:
 
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