x39 surplus, say norinco for example, at retail has risen to 4 times the cost it was in the early 90's. Prices ranged from 99 to 129 back then if I remember right and today are what ? 450ish on average? There will be another 100dollar per crate increase coming soon is my guess. Looking at how the price of 7.62x54r has been slowly creeping up..... I see another price increase coming across the board for popular surplus calibers. Best to buy what you can afford now.
Global supply of surplus 7.62x39 ammunition
- Thread starter chutch
- Start date
CZ 527 does well with it as well and there is also a Howa in 7.62. No problem so far with the surplus Czech, Russian and Chinese in my 527. I bought the CZ as an insurance policy against liberal stupidity and injustice in case they do something about the SKS. These days with soc boy in control you need to CYA!
CZ Shooter
CGN frequent flyer
It is not Liberal stupidity...it is their plan.
That's because you were buying them a few at a time????
When you purchased a full pallet, a few decades back, in a group buy, such as a container full, the price comes way down.
My post came across the wrong way. There are options to bring down the price of ammunition, etc but they aren't always available to the majority of shooters, unless they go to some lengths to search them out.
For instance, back in the late seventies, I purchased 250, all matching, fresh out of long term storage, FTRed M96 and M38 Swede Mausers. The price delivered from International Firearms out of Montreal to my garage at the time worked out to $18 per rifle.
There was a catch though. Ammunition for these rifles was almost unatainable in Canada, unless you could find old stock, made by Dominion/CIL which was the pre IVI company we have today. They tooled up to load 6.5x55 for those sweet little M94 Carbines and the odd Ag42B rifles that I missed out on, before the influx of the M96 and M38 models.
The tooling was sold off to a company in the US, where it went into storage and the only way to get these rifles shooting, was to import cases out of Europe, purchase large quantities of components, most of which was surplus, such as the #44 powder from Ammomart, which was close to the speed of the original 3031 military powder, pulled cupro metal jacket 160 grain bullets etc.
Many local gunshops, which may have been your local gas station had these rifles on their shelves in the $35 range for pristine models and $25 for rack grade models.
When ammo became readily available, the prices of those lovely rifles languished, for the same reason the price of Lee Enfields did. The shooting community was used to seeing them priced at bargain basement prices and wouldn't support higher prices.
As those of us that are blessed with 20/20 hindsight can see, those were the times to stock up on such items.
A 2000% return on invest within 30 years isn't to bad. I wish I still had those 250 rifles in my garage right now. Oh well.
India is set to start manufactiring a AK variant in 7.62x39 this year. And there are still nations who field 7.62x39 weapons as their primary service rifles.
Surplus ammo will be available for years to come. Not to mention western markest flooded with sks rifles demand will remain high, so commercial supply will also be there for many years to come.
Surplus ammo will be available for years to come. Not to mention western markest flooded with sks rifles demand will remain high, so commercial supply will also be there for many years to come.
Ummm maybe, it all depends on whether they signed onto the UN non proliferation and Small Arms agreements which limit firearms/ammo sales to governments.
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Of course, I have. I've been shooting the Chinese (both old military surplus and modern, white and red Norinco box), some Russian surplus leftovers from old good days, FMJ Barnauls and brass cased ammo (mostly PPU). No problems whatsoever. I can get around 2MOA from surplus and 1.1-1.2MOA from Barnauls (of course with a scope). Honestly, the RAR can eat whatever you feed into it as long as it's x39. Surprisingly, the worst results I was getting with the PPU FMJ brass case cartridges, like 3MOA or even bigger. The PPU soft points were a bit better but never very close to a 1MOA grouping. For clarification, at my outdoor range I can only shoot at 100y. No longer distance available.
Kentucky squirrel brains
New member
I'm saving up for some bulk, but now they won't ship bulk because of the OECD and the WEF. I'm rural so I will have to go to the big city, or find some on ###########. Either way I get gouged and have to eat travel costs. Buy some now is what I'd suggest, this shortage could be permanent for civilians, and even the American 7.62x39 ammo is all sold out. Interesting how the Americans have ammo still available and we don't??!? Has anything changed with ammo coming accross from the states into Canada?
KY - Whaddya mean "OECD & WEF" ? What do they have to do with it? Tenda and many others ship bulk Chinese with free shipping. About $450 + tax. Look at the sponsors on top of the page. If your "Rural" means you're out of range for UPS or Purolator, then maybe you need a friend in the 'big city' to accept delivery and p/u when you can?
that has been a while but at the end of the 80s beginning of 90s in some countries in africa they were giving you ammo for free
There is a lot of stuff around the world but the distributors here in Canada only buy if they have pre orders from dealers. Who is gonna buy 7.92x57JS? Honestly, I have no clue for what rifle that is. I see now, it is 8mm Mauser. Never had a Mauser. Maybe those are good, I just think they suck in the looks department. I very much prefer the Swiss rifles in 7,5x55 - I can reload the next round twice as fast than any other bolt action, basically a 308 magnum (or half magnum, between 308 and 30-06) - very much under stated rifles. Even in this "rare caliber", I got my hands on a lot and if I would have waited, I could have bought it even cheaper. People are hoarding.
Ah yes, but how free was free?
I was in Africa on a couple of occaisions and on some of them you pick up and carry away as much as you could, if you were in the right place at the right time.
If any African nation was shipping large quantities of ''free ammo'' out of country, they were not doing it for credible reasons, such as distributing surplus to firearms interested civilians out of the goodness of their hearts. They were getting payback somewhere along the line.
you re right it was never the intend to be free and someone was paying will it be in: blood, ivory or diamond.
like in ivory coast it was coming from a lot of countries in the case of CAR is was mostly coming from sudan and cameroon.
if you had a m76 you will have a good use of 8x57js ... but of course no one can use them legally here.
many nato observers were shocked of the damage that combo created on civilian and troops.
Kentucky squirrel brains
New member
The recent changes to our laws in Canada regarding ammo shipping was set in action by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in partnership with the World Economic Forum, in an effort to exert more restrictions for law abiding gun owners. You haven't noticed any changes or difficulty getting ammo shipped? Availability is a #####, and corrosive is going up.
