Okay, friend, let's analyse this a bit.
Not much money. More interested in the history of the things than modern-day utility. You list so far has an MN, SKS and TT on it and an SVT has been proposed, as well as Lee-Enfields. Add Carcanos and it's starting to look like my rack. I have a friend who calls me "The Garbage Gun Curmudgeon"..... but he does it with a smile because I have more old wrecks than he has.
Cheapest old rifles on the go are the Moisin-Nagant series. I got a 1906 Tula and a 1907 Sestroryetsk back when they were $50 guns. They were both "worn-out" at one point and counterbored. They have been through the Great War, Finnish Independence War, Winter War, Second World War, Continuation War and that ugly little war on the Mannerheim Line when the Reds tried (again) to destroy Finland. That's enough history for anything to carry around, especially considering the cash-money price. Both rifles look as if those wars ran right over top of them...... and, if you feed them what they want, they BOTH are honest 1-1/2 MOA rifles. And here's the fun part: the 1906 ran for years and years with a CRACKED locking-lug (which I replaced)! I don't think there are ANY commercial rifles that TOUGH. And 1-1/2 MOA means a solid heart shot on a deer out to at least 200 yards, possibly double that with the tiniest bit of luck.
SKS is pure Cold War: occupation of Poland, occupation of East Germany, putting down the Hungarian Revolution. They are a solid, reliable little rifle, not all that accurate bu that is mostly doe to folks using 50-year-old scrap ammo in them. They CAN be more accurate but you have to feed them decent ammo. ENOUGH power to whack a deer but bullet placement is VERY important because you have no excess of power on your side. And they are "cheap like borshchdt" and they are a lot of fun. Anyone who can't see that far has no sense of FUN.
There are other funny old things out there which are frowned upon by the "shiny-new-is-best" guys. Other night, I was answering a query on this forum about a Carcano, wanted to double-check a statement, so I dragged a 1918 out of the closet. As I was confirming what I was writing, noticed a tiny chamber stamping which I had missed previously: crossed rifles and a target. My rifle was tested at the factory 94 years ago and approved for competition use and for sniping! It was dropped off here as a source of parts during the Registry because the old owner was afraid to keep it. I have an original WWI sniping rifle with an excellent bore.... for a net investment of $0.00. It HAD been on its way to the Pipestone Dump but, somehow, just never got that far. It will be on the range this coming Summer, along with a supply of GOOD ammo, so we will see just what one could DO.
You can get 1 MOA out of Garands, Springfields, many Mausers, Moisin-Nagants, Carcanos, Lee-Enfields and a host of others. SOME will shrink that to 1/2 MOA but the ammo must be CONSISTENT and the rifle bedded properly AND a good bore. A FEW will even go better than that: I have seen Mausers and Lee-Enfields and ROSSES shooting half-inch groups off the sandbags..... and I don't think there are very many shiny-new modern rifles which can do a lot better than that.
Modern rifles mostly have buttoned barrels. The process gives you an acceptable barrel cheaply, but most of them are not a lot better than the carefully-made, cut-rifled, hand-lapped barrels of a century ago. They are, simply, made with a faster and cheaper process which turns out a good barrel. What the old-timers did not have in TECHNOLOGY they made up for with KNOWLEDGE and SKILL and careful HAND-WORK. It is only NOW that we have the precision-made bullets and primers and propellants with which to take full advantage of many of these century-old barrels!
So go ahead, get what you want, learn about them, have fun with them, baby them, experiment with them, handload for them...... and MAKE them shoot as good as a new Remchester or Savington or Winmar. Your old "junkers" will still be on the range long after the shiny-new ones have been recycled into Toyotas.
Most important of all: have fun.
And welcome to The Club!
