Milsurp purchase suggestion

caperbound

caperbound

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Recently I have been eyeballing milsurps. Obviously Russian long arms are quite popular as are the enfield line up. Besides those what are a couple other cost conscience milsurps people tend to gather/collect? Thanks
 
swiss k31s turkish mausers seem too be fairly cheap, and i own a turk they shoot great, tight sights, but if your looking too get into mil surps ur best getting a 91\30 like everyone else if you want a cheap shooter, the problem with the k31s is the ammo, i have never seen a box of it myself(in manitoba)
 
The Mosin nagant 91/30 is a good choice their fairly inexpensive and milsurp ammo is pretty plentiful or the Lee Enfield rifles are a good choice but are a bit more pricey and factory loads are available at a reasonable price. Personally my first milsurp was a Lee Enfield No4 mk1 and I love that rifle, its a pleasure to shoot and it has the history to boot.
 
For first milsurp I would go for MN 91/30 or maybe Finn M91.
Mosins can be accurate with corrosive ammo and are very accurate with proper reloads (cast and/or jacketed ammo)

For cleaning, disassembly and generaly learning about older rifles it will be very hard to beat simplicity and price of MN.
 
Buy a book and read up on some of them.

After you have done that, pick out one which INTERESTS you for some reason..... and go after that one.

On a limited budget, obviously you won't be going after high-dollar Garands and Gew41s of either make, but you should be able to find something interesting which won't break the bank. ITALIAN rifles are very much underpriced, always have been. People praise Uberti and Pietta and Beretta and Breda all up in heaps, but they say the Italian military rifles are junk. I have news for them: in the Italian army rifles, the quality was there, but it was all INSIDE. They didn't care much about finish but the things sure worked fine and they shot MUCH better than most people would believe. And a large proportion of them were MADE by Beretta and Breda. AMMO is the big problem for them, of course, but it's an easy cartridge to load........ and Trade-Ex has the brass and bullets and you can get inexpensive Lee dies through your local shop.

You can source a pretty good Carcano for about a sixth of the money a Garand will set you back...... and a good one will outshoot most Garands, too, which is why the Italians kept an 1891 rifle in service up until the 1970s.

But I am biased in this department.

Find one that interests you, then go find one.

And have fun.
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Yeah, a garand will be nice as the mausers appeal to me too. I didn't note it in my initial post but I do have variety of russian and enfield stuff but want to expand out.

My next purchase will probably be an M44 but also don't want to tunnel vision myself when other options are out there that I may not have considered.
 
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Right now, the "Bargain" Milsurps are the Mosin-Nagant and the SKS. Take a bit of time and look at several of them and select a good one. The best SKS rifles are the later ones after 1953 and some of the WWII dated Mosin-Nagants are pretty rough finish due to Wartime production.

A Swiss K31 or a Swedish M/96 or m/38 Mauser are hard to beat for accuracy, and the Swedes seem to have the edge in workmanship. Prices right now are generally in the Under $350 mark.

The Lee Enfields and Mausers are in the $500 range and are also usually good shooters. Over $500, the prices run expotentially.

As SMELLIE has given you the scoop on the Italian Carcano, I will not add to that, except to point out the the GARAND crowd that the Italians still used their Carcanos on the Military shoots to kick butt.

Best to take the advice about looking at different models, and getting some that will interest you. The rifle is one that you will probably shoot, so bore condition is important in shooting as well as collecting. Most of us older guys remember the $9.95 SMLE rifles in a barrel, take your pick. The same rifles 50 years later are in the $400-$500 range, and the supply dried up 30 years ago.

One of the best pieces of advice I was given when I started Collecting was "Buy a rifle - Buy a book." That is, when you buy a rifle, buy yourself a good book that tells you about that rifle. A good book might seem expensive, but you become familiar with what you want to specialize in. I like the Swedish Mauser rifles, particularly the FSR target rifles. The authoritive book on these is "Crown Jewels," by Dana Jones, and will set you back a $50 bill if you can find one. However the $50 I paid for my copy has enabled me to select some of the rarest Swedish Mauser rifles that were made as the information was invaluable in recognizing just what the rifle I was considering in buying was.

Good Luck, and welcome to the hobby.
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A K31 isn't a bad choice. Very accurate, very nice triggers for a milsurp, built like a tank and with an interesting mechanism. They're also not very expensive, most will go for under 300 dollars before tax, and there's still surplus GP11 out there for reasonable prices and it shoots very well. Most of the stocks on K31's are going to be a bit dinged up and the bluing will show some wear but the internals and the bore will be flawless. My K31 was made in 1934 and it sure doesn't look it despite being dinged up.

SKS rifles are also good. Russian SKS's will have a superior fit and finish than the Chinese military surplus ones, but they'll both shoot the same. Surplus ammo is damn cheap and "good enough for government work." It's not a match rifle even with handloaded "match" ammunition, but for fun it's hard to beat. Chinese ones will go for just under $200 and Russian ones will go for just over $200, if you're just interested in a run of the mill SKS and not a collectors item. Most of the Russian SKS rifles will be refurbished, the Chinese ones are mostly unissued and will come in enough cosmoline to preserve a battleship. I own three SKS's, a 1954 Izhvesk, a mid 1960's Chinese and an Early 1970's Chinese. All function flawlessly but the Russian certainly wins style points, it also has a slightly better trigger than both my Chinese ones. But again, they all shoot basically the exact same. Despite not being something I'd grab to defend myself or for long range shooting, the SKS is one of my favourites. It's just cheap fun.

Lee Enfields are a good choice, but reloading your own ammunition will soon become a requirement as .303 British is spendy and there's no more surplus to be had. I have a Mk III* made in 1915 that shoots very well but I don't take it out much because I don't reload, yet. Every Canadian should own a Lee Enfield of some flavour or another. You can get a 7.62x51 Ishapore Enfield if you want to cut down on ammo costs by a bit, as they're still a good milsurp rifle, but you'll still probably gravitate to reloading.

These are really all the Milsurps I have, the rest of my firearms are black guns and a .22 bolt action, but I love milsurps and I hope to own much more in the future.
 
Anyone entering milsurp "collecting" is in a pretty unique situation now :yingyang: , owing to a combination of economic and LGR realities...:wave:

Americans (rightly) love their guns, and 1903's are pretty pricey as a result...."even" 1917's have begun to double in pricing from but a few years ago !

While prices on Garands have skyrocketed 3-6x what they were "at the turn of the centry" :redface: , prices on Enfields are pretty stabilized (for the moment ! ;) ), and prioces on "Swedish Mausers" and K-31's are similarly stable/slightly dropping.

Mausers, however, are picking up in price (though nowhere near the way Garands were). Carc's are "sleepers" price-wise, but one thing few mention is that finding an "unmolested" copy of these can sometimes be surprisingly difficult !...:(

The SKS is a great rifle for the money, as is the SVT....and Mosins are still (likewise) going for terrific prices....:evil:....

And one other random comment....if you are buying an "Enfield sporter", try to get a No.4 as oppose to an SMLE; the latter in "sporter configuration" tends to heat-up by the barrel pretty quick !....:D
 
Andurp said:
Lee Enfields are a good choice, but reloading your own ammunition will soon become a requirement as .303 British is spendy and there's no more surplus to be had. I have a Mk III* made in 1915 that shoots very well but I don't take it out much because I don't reload, yet. Every Canadian should own a Lee Enfield of some flavour or another. You can get a 7.62x51 Ishapore Enfield if you want to cut down on ammo costs by a bit, as they're still a good milsurp rifle, but you'll still probably gravitate to reloading.

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ive never come across any ishy 2A1 anybody know any source other then gun shows?
 
Thanks for the feedback. I have some more options to look into :), especially as some of the rifles mentioned I probably would not have considered for simply ignorance reasons.
 
A reloading press is a necessity for owning any milsurp these days unless you have lots of money for ammo. You can even buy un primed boxer style russian brass.
By the way, Never could understand why the europeans use american designed berdan primers and on this side of the pond and we use boxer primed cases designed by the Brits. Guess who got the better deal on that!;)
 
Everything Soviet from the Mosin-Nagant hex recievers to the SKS and everything in between.....M38's, M44's, SVT-40's. Buy a high quality example of each of these rifles and you'll stell get change from a $1000 bill. Ammo is stilll cheap. 7.62x54 is 75 cents a round tax/delivered, 7.62x39 is 25 cents a round and for this you get high quality aftermarket non-corrosive. Hunting ammo for any of these guns is $1.25 and I just bought tracers for the SKS..how cool is that.
 
chadeech said:
One word Garand
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Someone obviously didn't read the part about the OP being 'cost conscious'...:D

Welcome to the hobby Caperbound. My advice is hang out here a lot, read everything you can get your hands on, and soon your milsurp will pick you.

Adrian
 
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