Heres an ad from 1962 shooting times magazine that lists the "currently used Russian arm" at $250. That is over $1900 today with inflation! I wonder what the future price of these rifles will be... I'm posting these ads to drive people nuts 
The price of the sks stays about the same over 50 years!
- Thread starter wbaad
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- Durham Region
I'd like a wall hanger bazooka..........
Heres an ad from 1962 shooting times magazine that lists the "currently used Russian arm" at $250. That is over $1900 today with inflation! I wonder what the future price of these rifles will be... I'm posting these ads to drive people nuts
It is a magazine from the US... Surprised they weren't selling landmines for kids to play Army in the backyard ...
Yes very rare then as it was a Communist rifle. There was almost no contact with the West. And what there was wasn't friendly. It was the middle of the Cold War. I am surprised they had access to any at all...
For a long time, SKS rifles were very unusual in the West. I think the first ones to appear in any quantity in the US were ones brought back from Vietnam. Shooting one was a challenge. Cases were made by trimming and reforming 6.5x52 and 6.5x54 Mannlicher cases.
Donny Fenn1
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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- East Kootenays
and then in the 80s you could buy a case of ten or 12 with 1400ish rounds for 350$ at the Calgary Easter Gun Show
StrelokRussia
Regular
Wow nice find. That's a blast from the past (not that I was even alive back then). I'd totally buy that bazooka for $20 just as a wall hanger. Imagine the look on my friends' faces if I were to show them that piece. "And this, ladies and gentlemen, is used to destroy a tank". LOL, priceless.
Sure was at the time. We didn't exactly have stellar trade relations with a country that was seconds away from wiping our continent off the map. Not only that, but the Russians were still issuing these things at the time this ad was made. I've personally spoken with a man who worked on anti-aircraft batteries in the Soviet Army, stationed somewhere north in the late 70's and he was issued an SKS, he said that although the AK-74 was being issued at this time, even AKM's were somewhat scarce for anyone who wasn't in a trade that was expected to rush through the Fulda Gap or run around the Afghan mountains. I doubt the Soviets would have surplussed their SKS rifles in 1962 even if we had the trade relationship with them for that to be a possibility. When this ad was posted, the SKS was a legitimate rarity, which is very cool of you think about it.
A modern comparison to the 1960's "rarity" of the Russian SKS would be the North Korean SKS today. I'm sure that they made at least one million of them, but it's not like John from Marstar can go over to North Korea and buy a couple of sea containers of them to bring back to us, as much as I'd love for that to happen. It's artificially rare: tons of them around, but due to politics, they're super rare outside of where they're made.
On topic, great image! I wonder where they found these things at the time? Africa, maybe? 1962 was pretty damn early into the service life of the SKS, even most Soviet client states didn't start making their own until the late 50's, and as I said, I bet the Russians were still using a fair amount of these things at the time for second line troops. I am genuinely curious as to where these came from.
Finally, as tiriaq said, shooting them was very difficult to do until the early 1980's when boatloads of Chinese SKS' and ammo flooded the US market. Most stories you hear about SKS bringbacks from Vietnam usually involve their owner saying that he couldn't find any ammo for them until the 1980's. Ammo either had to be more or less made from different cases or bought for probably, with inflation, over a buck a round as an oddity at a gunshow if you were lucky enough to come across any. Can you imagine a time when not only was 7.62x39 expensive, but was almost impossible to find?
Times sure do change.
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Good eye.
