I think I'm looking at it from a different angle. All these wonderful old firearms for sale, but what is the availability of ammunition? Why is the SKS so popular? look at the ammo supply. I see these old, beautiful svt40s, lee enfeilds, and old mausers that I would love to have and shoot, but the supply of ammo is just not happening. Its great to have something wonderful in the safe, but not much fun to shoot if you can't feed it. When ammunition is cheap, the guns sell like hotcakes.
Lets talk newly imported enfields
- Thread starter desporterizer
- Start date
fiddler, as mentioned above, this stuff is gone when it's gone. It won't come back again. Like it or not, that's life. The only way to keep these old beauties shooting is to reload. That requires an additional outlay of money. If you can't afford it, I'm sorry for you.
Deltasilver, thanks for taking the sarcasm the way it was meant. The first rule of milsurp collecting, is to be up front with the wife. If she doesn't like it "to bad". As long as all of the other requirements are met, well I will leave that to you.
Enjoy those LEs, take them out of the safe more often and let the sunlight shine on them while you make the thunder.
Deltasilver, thanks for taking the sarcasm the way it was meant. The first rule of milsurp collecting, is to be up front with the wife. If she doesn't like it "to bad". As long as all of the other requirements are met, well I will leave that to you.
Enjoy those LEs, take them out of the safe more often and let the sunlight shine on them while you make the thunder.
Actually, I retired at six years ago at age 40 care of the Alberta oil patch, so don't be too generous with your conclusions. My only bills are ammo, more guns, and my hunting trips, and more hunting trips. I do reload and have for over 30 years, I just find it a a pain in the butt because I shoot thousands of rounds in a the average month. I shoot the x39 russian because its easy and its available for shooting and good enough price to stock up. I realize others might have copulas amounts of time to reload, but I don't. I load my premium hunting loads, but target and shotgun stuff is cheaper by the truckload.
So really, if you look at the market for whats selling fast, is a shooters rifle with shooting priced ammo. That has been the trend, and its been that way for 30 years that I can speak of. There is very little hype about piles of milsurp rifles when there is no ammo pile the same size.
In my opinion, the rifle is the smallest cost of shooting. I have enough rifles sitting on the shelf waiting for good ammo prices to happen. Lots of my rifles I've only bought because the ammo was cheap, and SKS is the perfect example of this. I still have several cases of Norinco rounds from the early eighties when it was 80 bucks per thousand. If I can buy a truckload of ammo at a good price, then I'll look at picking up some rifles.
Bearhunter, I think you're really drawing wild conclusions and don't know the difference between what people can afford, as opposed to what is money and time well spent.
- Location
- Tucson, Arizona
Fiddler, that comment on ammo supply is funny. There is a very good reason why reloading presses are made.
You think you got problems with ammo?
I load for 577 snider
577-450 Martini-Henry
45-70
41 Swiss
10.5 Italian
8mm Kropatcheck
.455 webley
.45 Schofield
8mm steyr
297/230 Morris
11mm mouser
11mm GRAS
10.5 Italian vetterli
And a host of others.
30.06 and .303 are a given
There is NO reason to leave a rifle in the closet simply because you can't run out and buy cheap surplus ammo or brand new high priced ammunition.
Oh I also have a Vickers, Lewis,and Bren so reloading is a must.
I even reload 7,62x39 Russian since brass cases are easier to extract from my bolt action rifles then the steel ones. I leave the milsurp for the SKS
You think you got problems with ammo?
I load for 577 snider
577-450 Martini-Henry
45-70
41 Swiss
10.5 Italian
8mm Kropatcheck
.455 webley
.45 Schofield
8mm steyr
297/230 Morris
11mm mouser
11mm GRAS
10.5 Italian vetterli
And a host of others.
30.06 and .303 are a given
There is NO reason to leave a rifle in the closet simply because you can't run out and buy cheap surplus ammo or brand new high priced ammunition.
Oh I also have a Vickers, Lewis,and Bren so reloading is a must.
I even reload 7,62x39 Russian since brass cases are easier to extract from my bolt action rifles then the steel ones. I leave the milsurp for the SKS
fiddler, I wasn't drawing any conclusions. Good for you on your early retirement as well. I'm thinking there was a lot of time and energy put into that as well. Either that or some prudent or lucky investing, maybe a bit of both.
Many of the posters here complain about the unavailability of surplus or its exorbitant cost. I to remember the days when surplus was abundant and cheap. Eventually, if you are like me, you will have or already have accumulated a lot of different cartridge configurations. I agree with everything you've said.
Through your previous post, I have no idea of your age or circumstances. I was just stating my sympathy for you, if you couldn't afford to buy tailor made ammunition. It was by no means a flame. There are many here that love milsurps and other firearms. Many who only have the firearms, because they have been passed on by family etc. Many of those people have trouble scraping up enough money for a 50 round box of 22rf. This obviously doesn't include you. The fact is, most didn't have the fore sight or opportunity to get to the point your at today. It really was a sincere statement, not a slam.
I reload for over 30 different cartridge configurations. Most are either wild cats or obsolete.
Many of the posters here complain about the unavailability of surplus or its exorbitant cost. I to remember the days when surplus was abundant and cheap. Eventually, if you are like me, you will have or already have accumulated a lot of different cartridge configurations. I agree with everything you've said.
Through your previous post, I have no idea of your age or circumstances. I was just stating my sympathy for you, if you couldn't afford to buy tailor made ammunition. It was by no means a flame. There are many here that love milsurps and other firearms. Many who only have the firearms, because they have been passed on by family etc. Many of those people have trouble scraping up enough money for a 50 round box of 22rf. This obviously doesn't include you. The fact is, most didn't have the fore sight or opportunity to get to the point your at today. It really was a sincere statement, not a slam.
I reload for over 30 different cartridge configurations. Most are either wild cats or obsolete.
I'm ok with loading, but only to a point. I have 3 presses that seem to circulate with a dozen different dies, and another 6 or 8 dies from my Father for his guns. An ugly winter day is a good day for loading, but in all honesty, I'd rather just buy ammo for the amount of lead that i toss. Other than reloading my best hunting loads, I'm quite tired of it.
If I find a place and a decent price that I can get a dozen crates of .303, x54R, ect, I would buy them up and think about finding rifles later if I don't already have them. I do have some success getting good deals as one of the shooting buddies is a long haul truck driver who scours the internet to buy bulk and bring it home with no shipping costs, but variety is limited.
The SKS hype would not be what it is if ammo were not so available. Its great that some shooters can self load or make mass purchases of personal ammo, but the bigger market seems to be the average shooter who wants a cheaply priced rifle with lots of rounds available.
As said before, there some wonderful old rifles available, but if you can't feed them, they just sit in the safe waiting for their turn for reloads to be made. Collecting rifles is ok, but for those of us who are shooters, hardcore or otherwise, like to get them to the range and make some noise.
Finding cheap components isn't easy either. It's almost as cheap to take up tradex on his free shipping offer on S&B ammunition at appx $1/round as it is to hand load.
I have a friend that shoots about 5000 rounds/year. He dislikes the SKS and the round it shoots. It's a purely emotional thing. His hired hand, loads his ammunition for him. The hand is on retainer. In the winter months, he doesn't have much to do. He is kept on because he is extremely good at what he does. His boss asked him if he would re load large quantities of ammunition for him. The hand is only to happy to oblige. They are great friends for one thing and for another, he gets his shooting supplies thrown in as a bonus.
They buy their stuff in lots of 10,000 but limit themselves to 270 and 30 cal projectiles. Again, an emotional thing. They also wear out barrels on a steady basis but prefer to buy a new rifle, rather than replace the barrels. It will blow you away to see an as new rifle, with a shot out bore.
fiddler, you need a hired hand. I can't personally afford one but I wouldn't mind having one.
I have a friend that shoots about 5000 rounds/year. He dislikes the SKS and the round it shoots. It's a purely emotional thing. His hired hand, loads his ammunition for him. The hand is on retainer. In the winter months, he doesn't have much to do. He is kept on because he is extremely good at what he does. His boss asked him if he would re load large quantities of ammunition for him. The hand is only to happy to oblige. They are great friends for one thing and for another, he gets his shooting supplies thrown in as a bonus.
They buy their stuff in lots of 10,000 but limit themselves to 270 and 30 cal projectiles. Again, an emotional thing. They also wear out barrels on a steady basis but prefer to buy a new rifle, rather than replace the barrels. It will blow you away to see an as new rifle, with a shot out bore.
fiddler, you need a hired hand. I can't personally afford one but I wouldn't mind having one.
I've got some nephews in training. Problem is they still need a lot of supervision, but I feel its only temporary and at this point, and they don't seem to load a terrible amount more that they actually shoot themselves.
I've got buddy the truck driver coming back west from the Maritimes in another week or two. He's found a few good deals on some cases of 7.62 nato as well as an elderly person selling off some ammo and reloading supplies and possibly one or two presses and dies, but doesn't sound like any rifles. I dumped 2500 bucks into his account and said get what ever you can and call me if you need more cash. Some of the components are for 9mm but even though I don't shoot much of it, it won't go to waist and I can always trade off for something that I can use. If he can bring back a few thousand rounds of 7.62x51, I might be tempted to acquire another M14 ( thats not worn out). If not I'll hang on to it anyways.
I shake my head at some of the nice prices of these old European firearms because i know its going to be a burden to feed them. I wish I hadn't sold off my Lee Enfeild, but even that seems scarce now to feed. Seems like 25 years ago , you couldn't give .303 away. It would have been a really good investment to stock up the way that I'm piling x39 Russian with the availability that it is now. I'm not a die-hard x39 fan, but it makes the most noise and kabooms for the buck.
I've got buddy the truck driver coming back west from the Maritimes in another week or two. He's found a few good deals on some cases of 7.62 nato as well as an elderly person selling off some ammo and reloading supplies and possibly one or two presses and dies, but doesn't sound like any rifles. I dumped 2500 bucks into his account and said get what ever you can and call me if you need more cash. Some of the components are for 9mm but even though I don't shoot much of it, it won't go to waist and I can always trade off for something that I can use. If he can bring back a few thousand rounds of 7.62x51, I might be tempted to acquire another M14 ( thats not worn out). If not I'll hang on to it anyways.
I shake my head at some of the nice prices of these old European firearms because i know its going to be a burden to feed them. I wish I hadn't sold off my Lee Enfeild, but even that seems scarce now to feed. Seems like 25 years ago , you couldn't give .303 away. It would have been a really good investment to stock up the way that I'm piling x39 Russian with the availability that it is now. I'm not a die-hard x39 fan, but it makes the most noise and kabooms for the buck.
Before 2001 I could sell 3 Enfields at a good show. Even helped Can am sell 30 mausers/enfields at just a single show! After 2001 I've never sold more than 3 per year.
After deregistration, milsurp shooting, collecting will be a more popular hobby by many more shooters once again.
After deregistration, milsurp shooting, collecting will be a more popular hobby by many more shooters once again.
