CGN's effect on the milsurp market

MiG25

MiG25

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what effect do you guys think CGN has had on the milsurp market (aside from driving up prices)?

pre C-68, international firearms had a very wide selection of goodies available. i don't remember too much in the post C-68/pre widespread internet other than marstar's yugo stuff (and $199 garands).

now it seems we have our choice of soviet, soviet capture, swiss, non-milsurp swede, garands, ex-german police arms, some norwegian rifles, the czech vz58 and 858, the SSD clones, and soon russian SKS. i assume a large part of this is CGN (and the internet) driving interest and prices, which is a great incentive for dealers to bring in new toys.

seems too me that we are in pretty good times right now. it's not quite like looking through those old catelogues for either price or selection, but with my money handy, i can easily order 10 or a dozen different models and have them in my hands as fast as the mail allows. as too price, $139 for a mosin M44 is much more affordable to me today, than a $59 one was 20 years ago.

consider this, SIR is advertising that batch of russian SKS' for the same price as international was asking for them in 1987!
 
Supply has more effect than demand in most cases. Pricing on items always depends on what is available at any one time. Remember when M1 Garands became really cheap? That was because many were available. Now the supply has largely dried up. Same with Russian SKS', they are cheaper now because more have suddenly become available.
 
Does anybody know the answer to 7.62x54R surplus ammo? Is it worth getting a Mosin Nagant or should one get a SKS that shoots the 7.62x39 Soviet round instead since there's more around?
 
wiking said:
Does anybody know the answer to 7.62x54R surplus ammo? Is it worth getting a Mosin Nagant or should one get a SKS that shoots the 7.62x39 Soviet round instead since there's more around?
Click to expand...

Depends, do you want a Mosin, or do you want a SKS? :D

Really, ask yourself what you need (want), then see which rifle answers this better. Yes, SKS ammo is plentiful - right now. Yes, 54R is scarce - right now. I'm not sure I can predict the future for these types of rounds, others maybe. Personally, I like the Mosin I have, and since ammo's rare, I'm getting a Classic Lee Loader and keep my used brass!

Lou
 
yep, either buy an sks now and a few cases of ammo to go with it. or buy a mosin and 100 rounds of reloadable ammo and start rolling your own.

personally, i don't want to reload for anything that i have to chase after the brass from.
 
Has anyone checked out the Wolf 7.62/54? I was on a SVD site a while ago and they had got Wolf to start making a copy of the soviet 7.62/54 sniper ammo which has a lot better accuracy than the military ball. It was supposed to make the SVD and Mosins quite a bit better shots. I think it cost about half what commercial ammo was so it is a bit more expensive than milsurp.

There are still so many militaries using 7.62/39 and even 7.62/54 in their SVD's and similar designated marksmen rifles that someone has to be working on a new supply of ammo. We can't rely on old stocks of soviet ammo if we want to keep killing each other at the rate we have become used to.
 
There is tons of 7.62x54R ammo, just none up here. In the US they are selling czech ammo, hungarian, romanian, polish and some russian 7N1 ammo. 4,536 US dollars gets you 31,680 rounds of Polish 7.62x54R ammo. Chris at Canadaammo has a load of 7.62x54r coming in.... which is good as I am down to ~1500 rounds and need to stock up again.
 
- CGN effect is not a factor, when basically the only large scale importer of Surplus Firearms (Century Arms) left the country and no one replaced them Canadian dealers had no place to buy them, so they became scarce except for an occasional small amount imported by Marstar or Lever Arms. In the last few years, a few new small scale importers have appeared so we are seeing some new items on the market.

- Surplus ammo is not scarce, it is only scarce here because Canadian Importing Rules are so strict and most of the ammo on the world market can't come here because of these rules. In the last few years, we have missed out on many large lots of ammo.

- .303 Brit from Greece
- 30-06 from Greece and Korea
- 7.62x54R from Bulgaria, Hungary, Yougoslavia, etc........
- 8x57 Mauser from Yougoslavia, Turkey, Romania.
 
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To the original question in the thread:

Pre C68 (if that is a factor),
remember there was a VERY limited access/use of internet in Canada.
Information was spreading slow.
Today you know what JoeBlow sells in the other corner of the country
prices, availability, etc.
Internet also increased interest.

As an example, in mid 90's I bought 4 (four)
never-fired swedes from Lever Arms
(when Al Lever was there) for $120 each
but I gave it a deep tought for a couple of hours
before I put the money on the counter.
Good luck today with that availability, let alone price...


The lack of info for the general public meant that small stores
usualy had the first shot at the hot deals.
JoeAverage was left to buy with 2 or 3 mark-ups on top of the original price.

Also, consider $ depreciation,
availability at the moment (it was pointed in the thread)
and interest generated by the sheep-effect
when something is seen many times in other people's hands.
 
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