Milsurp rifles with the most bang for your buck

Kind of depends on your definition of 'the most bang for your buck'. However, a Mosin will go with what you have now. Of course, you'd need a rifle and a carbine.
Absolutely get into reloading if you're going to shoot anything. Means you control the quality and you'll never run out of ammo. Finding dies, brass and bullets can sometimes be an issue. So buy a copy of Cartridge Conversions too. Tells you how to make what cases you can't buy. Mind you, the donor cases can be as difficult to find as original brass.
 
EXCELLENT advice from friend SUNRAY.

Stashing away BRASS whenever you can get it into your hot little mitts always makes sense. If you pick up an old Kropatschek you will find that even empties are $3 or $4 apiece. But if you have a supply of that nice Partizan 8mm Lebel..... and a lathe..... 2 minutes per cartridge will give you a short-neck Krop casing for about 70 cents...... and it is brand-NEW.

Ally-samey thing, 7.62x54R can be converted to 8x56R or to 8x50R Austrian, that .30-'06 and .270 the guys leave on the range makes into 8x57, 7x57, .220 Swift makes into Carcano, Jap and Mannlicher-Schoenauer when you can't buy the stuff..... and even .308 CAN be repurposed to a 7.65 Argentine.... or for that EM-2 that Grandpa stashed away.

If you are going to be in this Milsurp racket, NEVER lose an opportunity to stash away oddball casings and dies. You just might NEED it..... right after the next gun show!
 
K31, by far. Nothing else I've owned shoots like these. I just bought two more as safe queens. Close second would be Swede 96s. Amazing quality for $300, and they are almost as accurate as the K31.
 
A canadian gun forum and nobody mentions a ross m-10. $250 and ammo is easy to get and it has a cool action. When I am rich I will buy the pricey ross, I think it is a .280
 
Larrysmith, the M-10 was only available in .280 Ross caliber. It is a common misconception that rifles with the M-10 stamp were in fact M-10 rifles which most were not. Model 1910 was the type of action, and it was used in something like 12 (not sure exactly how many) different models of rifle from R, E, and M-10 commercial sporters to the series of MkIII military rifles etc.

Yes I agree, bubba Ross rifles are a great value and if not too badly hacked up they can be made into superb sporters.

An actual Original M-10 will run a lot more than $250 though for sure!
 
smellie said:
EXCELLENT advice from friend SUNRAY.

Stashing away BRASS whenever you can get it into your hot little mitts always makes sense. If you pick up an old Kropatschek you will find that even empties are $3 or $4 apiece. But if you have a supply of that nice Partizan 8mm Lebel..... and a lathe..... 2 minutes per cartridge will give you a short-neck Krop casing for about 70 cents...... and it is brand-NEW.

Ally-samey thing, 7.62x54R can be converted to 8x56R or to 8x50R Austrian, that .30-'06 and .270 the guys leave on the range makes into 8x57, 7x57, .220 Swift makes into Carcano, Jap and Mannlicher-Schoenauer when you can't buy the stuff..... and even .308 CAN be repurposed to a 7.65 Argentine.... or for that EM-2 that Grandpa stashed away.

If you are going to be in this Milsurp racket, NEVER lose an opportunity to stash away oddball casings and dies. You just might NEED it..... right after the next gun show!
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My mentor Smellie is as always bang on!

Converting brass is often as easy as running it through a die and trimming to length.

Most of my 8x57 is stamped "30-06" and "270". The brass was free from hunter friends that shot a box or 2 and then said "here you reload"

Now then there's the envolved conversions like the one I finally did last weekend. I took 20 pieces of 45-90 brass that I bought at a gunshow like 6 months ago and made 43 Mauser out of it. I turned down the rim, beveled the base to fit the extractor if a 71-84 Mauser, soldered brass wire on the rim to correct headspace, necked them down, trimmed and annealed them!!

Phew!!!, 27 easy steps and presto!!! 43 Mauser brass at $20 for 20 cases instead of $78 for 20!!!

It's very doable with some good books and some time the sky is the limit!!

Maybe skip the next gun purchase and start reloading. Makes owning and shooting damn near anything a reality.
 
Tinman204 said:
They may have a few K31s left at Leila CT. They also have ammo there to

One thing I'll note on the K31's at Liela CT, last time my brother was there he checked the bores on several of them and he said it looks like they are getting pretty picked through. So if you go there check the bore on whatever rifle you're considering buying.

Or call Anthony at trade ex (CGN sponsor) and get him to pick you out a nice K31 priced @ $275. Or for $25 more grab a Swedish m96 FSR rifle complete with diopters.
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This Canadian Tire is fast becoming a bad place for my wallet to be near.....

I consider the K31 to be one of my best buys ever. What a fantastic piece of machinery. Hopefully I'll follow it up soon with a Swede. I also stumbled over a WWI Lee Enfield for $400 last year in original, full wood glory. They're still around at a decent price if you keep your eyes open.
For under $200 the Mosin is a great buy, usually at least half decently accurate too and ammo is for the time being cheap and plentiful. The bayonet is a real conversation starter too.
I have a Steyr M95 carbine but have yet to fire it, haven't got around to loading up some test rounds yet, and that's something you might want to consider if you don't hand load. Some milsurps are cheap because the ammo isn't easily found and is often on the pricey side when you do chance across it.
Happy hunting!
 
[rysmith;10106849]A canadian gun forum and nobody mentions a ross m-10. $250 and ammo is easy to get and it has a cool action. When I am rich I will buy the pricey ross, I think it is a .280[/QUOTE] I have buba'd ross 1910 in 303, and I had one rebarrelled to 7mm remmag. two very cool, accurate rifles. I would like to have a 280, but the magnum is good enough for me. I shoot moly coated 175 grain bullets out of the magnum at very close to 3000 ft per sec.. it is a bit heavy, but I need the exercise.
 
I piped in earlier with the K31... But thinking on it, that's because it's the gun I want as opposed to the guns I have...

I have a Mosin 91/30, M44, and an SVT-40... Bang for the buck, they are a pretty awesome combo. Full length and carbine length bolt actions for really thinking about my shots, and a semi-auto for... Well heck, it's a semi auto in the .308/30-06 power range, that only costs $0.25/round to shoot. What's not to love?

And all of them are easily "hunting accurate" - if not better.

I still want the K-31.

But at the moment, the absolute best bang for my buck, is the No4 Mk I and the No1 Mk III that got gifted to me this evening (well, the No4 I only get to keep until the fall... The No 1 I get to keep forever). Free is the best bang for the buck.

Sorry. Had to drop that in here somewhere. Been driving my wife nuts all night with an ear to ear grin.

But it actually raises a great aspect about the MilSurp community - Make friends, hang out, get to know people, and you'll be surprised what just falls into your hands. Show respect for the history of the weapons, and you'll be rewarded with people willing to loan/gift you gear you thought you'd have to pay good $$ for.
 
So it seems I need to add a K31 to my collection of guns I don't use......but it will fit in with my love of straight pull bolts!
 
The obvious answer is the k31, its accurate and powerful. The only problem is they are top eject, so mounting a scope straight over the bore is a difficult/costly task. There are some cheaper mounts that offset the scope, but there is something with offset scopes that bothers me...

If you already have the SVT-40, I say get a mosin because it uses the same ammo. If you dont want a mosin, Lee Enfields make nice shooters, are a good candidate for reloading, and you can buy anything from a $150 bubba-sporter, to a $1000 full wood military collectors piece.
 
With any milsurp collection, you need to up-front decide if you want to shoot your guns. If you do, the next question is: "am I willing to handload for them?" If not, your collection will be very small, perhaps an SKS, SVT-40 and K31 - at least until the milsurp ammo runs out. Many milsurps remain inexpensive in large part because there's no milsurp ammo available for them (e.g. M95's, Carcanos), and people stopped "collecting" them as soon as the milsurp ammo disappeared.
 
I'd plump for a Swedish Mauser Model 1896 or 1938. They are comparatively cheap and are made to a very high quality line. With a good barrel accuracy is excellent. The 6.5 Swede is easy to load for and fun to shoot. Recently I've been wringing out both a stock Model 1896 and a Model 1896 FSR target rifle with the Elit aperture sight at the bench using 142gr Sierra match bullets. The FSR rifle averages 1.32 inch 3 shot groups@ 100 yds and has an excellent trigger with a 3.75lb second stage let-off. The stock M1896 with the rear vee sight does even better showing an average group size of 1.14 inches. It also has a very crisp trigger with a 4.75lb second stage. These are precision rifles for a MILSURP which were never made under the press of wartime needs and were well maintained in service. The 6.5x55 is an inherently accurate ctg and will take any big game with proper bullet placement. Those 142gr match bullets are long, thin and accurate and look like a Nike missile.
 
The K31 as a lot have mentioned is an extremely good value for a solid rifle. If you don't reload, it's more expensive to shoot than the red rifles. The reds are solidly built, simple rifles that will last forever. There are a lot of options for the reds in terms of aftermarket stocks. The K31 has a small line of aftermarket parts, such as the clamp on scope mount; it was good enough that I recently had my K31 D&T and mounted with the permanent mount. This might offend some K31 purists :) but I want the rifle to shoot to its limits, and I don't shoot well with irons.

Other rifles you might want to consider are the Jungle Rifle, which typically goes for 500-550$l the Chilean or any other South American Mausers are great values. Am not a fan of the Swedish Mausers from a reloading standpoint, the caliber is a little bit oddball and not as much bulk bullets availability.

I haven't done it, but if you get into casting boolits, caliber definitely becomes much less important. Simple reloading without casting at least ensures a steady supply to feed the milsurp pigs. The K31 uses a standard .308 bullet just fine which is another reason it's a great value, and never had any problems ordering new production brass from Tradex.

The supply of cheap ammo for the SKS and Mosin probably won't dry up within our lifetimes, since there were so many of them made and used all over the world. The GP11 will become a mythical beast in 20 years though, I would stock up on it now if you don't reload.
 
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