What milsurp rifle should I buy?

W

WesternWannaBe

Member
Rating - 75%
3   1   0
Location
Toronto, ON
Hey guys I know I'm new here and all. But I was wondering, since you guys probably know way more about military surplus rifles then I do. What rifle should I look into buying.
My personal preference would be a lee enfield around the WWII era. But I heard 303 british military surplus ammo is really hard to find.
Basicly I would like a rifle from the WWII era that I can still find military surplus ammo for. Although the lee enfield would be what I would love to get.
I would use the rifle at the range regularly.

Thank you for your time.
 
.303 surplus is out there, but it is really difficult to find. The same goes for 8mm and .30-06 and as far as I know the Japanese stuff is uncommon surplus wise aswell. Your best bet for surplus would be the 7.62x54r round for the Soviet SVT and Mosin series of rifles. At the moment the surplus ammo isnt exactly common but it trickles in every so often.

That being said .303 and .30-06 ammo can be bought almost anywhere ammo is sold, including Canadian Tire. This is however factory ammo and will usually run around 1$ a shot or more. Sucks but it beats having no surplus and no factory for your Mosin/SVT.

Of course the best option if you plan to consistantly shoot any milsurp rifle aside from the SKS is to reload. In the long run you will always have "match grade" ammo at your disposal that will be non corrosive and inexpensive - its win win :)

A standard WW2 dated No4 Mk1 Lee Enfield rifle will run anywhere from 325-500$ depending on year, condition, country (Cdn ones seem to be more expensive here) etc... They can be found everywhere right now through our site sponsors.

A run of the Mill Mosin 91/30 or M44/M38 carbine will run you anywhere from 150$ - 225$. An inexpensive rifle however they are highly underappreciated and are some of the most accurate, robust rifles out there. Especially for that price. Again they can be found eveywhere through our site sponsors.

An M1 Garand is where things get pricey. Typically from what Ive seen prices start at around 800 and go up. I have seen some deals for cheaper ones, but typically there not a starter rifle as they are expensive. To find those your best bets are gunshows and online sites. A very fun rifle to shoot however!

The K98s are another option. Right now Russian captured pieces range from around 400-500$ depending on condition and markings (post war a lot of nazi stamps were ground off). These are excellent, extreamly accurate rifles with lots of history. The only downside is the ammo which where I am at times is very expensive. 35$ a box for factory wasnt uncommon.

Japenese stuff I have no idea, someone here will chime in :p

Overall it depends on what you want. What country? which years? what theatre of operations? etc...
 
Hello, and welcome =)

First thing you should know is that CURRENTLY there is almost no surplus ammo available from our vendors in any caliber except 7.62x39 (SKS & 858)

There is always some stuff to be found at gun shows and in the EE, but it's becoming more and more rare.

Milarm (see banner above) is apparently expecting a load of 7.62x54r in August? But that doesn't get you any .303... So you're going to need to reload. It's not difficult, and what you need can be had for reasonable cost. Wholesale sports had the Lee Anniversary set and sells .303 cases as well.

If you're wanting a LE (good choice, neat rifle) check Tradeex and P&S Militaria.

EDIT: Was eating breakfast while posting - Arty got his in first =) So basically, what he said... And my current deer rifle is a '43 M38 (Drachenblut's least favourite year =D). Shoots 5 into the bottom of a Coke can at 100 with Prvi Partizan SP and could probably be used to jack up my truck if I get a flat.
 
Last edited:
Yeah I'll probably end up reloading. I have never tried it. Do you know what I would all need?

Also do you know an online dealer that sells the tools I would need.
If this isn't the right fourm for these questions I appolgize.
 
Friend, loading your own is the ONLY way to go. Serious.

First off, military surplus ammo is military ammo right from the get-go and it is 'surplus' for a reason: either it's too old to be reliable, or the Army got rid of all the guns or they got rid of the ammo for some other very good REASON. There was lots of 8x57 around for a long time because Germany made huge loads of the stuff and they lost a little thing called the Second World War. After the German stuff was all shot off, other countries which were using German-calibre equipment started getting rid of their stuff, especially as NATO adopted its own special ammo, called the 7.62x51NATO, otherwise known as the .308 Winchester. Surplus .303 is pretty much at an end because we switched over to 7.62 NATO more than 50 years ago...... which means that almost ANY surplus .303 you are going to find is that old at LEAST.

Do you really expect to get match accuracy (which you will need to plink Coke cans at 100 yards) out of ammo that is older than your grandfather? Likely not.

So you reload.

There is no huge mystery to reloading. You knock out the dead cap, shrink the fired case back down to original size, make sure it isn't too long, press in a fresh cap, dump in the right charge of the right powder and seat a bullet. Then you go to the range, bang it off, take home the empty and do it again. I have .303 casings here that have been through my Ross 15 times, 8mm casings which have been through half a dozen rifles and they are still usable.

The cost is something like HALF the cost of running factory stuff, or about double what you would expect to pay for scroungy old 70-year-old War Two stuff. The big difference is that you will get match accuracy from your home-rolled stuff and it will go off every time, which you sure can't say for some of that Berdan-primed corrosive ammo that has been stored God-knows-where since Noah started working in the shipyard.

That said, you can get into casting your own bullets and this is where home-rolled ammo can beat out surplus in every category INCLUDING cost. I am shooting rather nice little 163-grainers out of a number 4 these days, getting about 1,5 MOA out of them and doing it with a light charge of shotgun powder. My costs are 3 cents for the cap, 4 cents for the bullet and 6-and-a-half cents for the powder: $13.50 per 100 rounds. Recoil is low and my barrel will outlast me... and I intend to shoot it a LOT before I kick off.

Equipment may be purchased to suit ANY budget level. If you want the very latest progressive machines, check out the Dillon equipment on their website. If you are shy a few grand, check out the tools at the Lee Precision website. LEE tools are not the snazziest-looking but they are very well-engineered, they WORK and they are budget-priced. Their line of ALUMINUM bullet-moulds is the single greatest boon to bullet-casting in the last century, and that is SERIOUS.

So go to it. If you have any questions, you can always post back here or PM somebody who might know.

For a RIFLE, though, my personal preference would be a good Number 4. Likely they are the single finest bolt-action military rifle ever designed. They cost money, yes, but they are so close to problem-free that it isn't even funny. My second choice would be a Swedish 1896 in 6.5x55: medium recoil, superb accuracy. Several of our site sponsors have both of these in stock at this time. My most recent dealings have been with Trade-Ex and they are fine folk to deal with. They have a lot of things and they photograph every single item, so you see exactly what you are getting. They don't handle Lee, though, so you might contact your local shop or get in touch with Higginson Powders. They handle a LOT of Lee Equipment AND canister and bulk powders at reasonable prices (for nowadays, anyway).

Go to it!
 
Here are a few range reports I have done on two of my milsurps that are pertinent to your search. First is the range report on my German WW2 K98 Mauser, the second is a report on a Soviet WW2 Mosin Nagant rifle. Just a look into what these rifles are capable of with good ammo. The K98 report has a comparison between reloaded ammo and the most common 8mm surplus - Turkish.

K98
http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=492275

Mosin
http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=437174
 
western:
Go to EPPS in Orillia. They have all of the reloading equipment that you need to get started. Don't buy online for your first reloading gear. Find a friend who reloads and get them to help you pick up what you need to start.
The other reason to go to EPPS is their selection of Enfields is very good. You should be able to get something at a good price. They also have the Mosin Nagants and the SKS. So you can see and feel the differences.

Just my two cents.
 
In regards to that Enfield it depends. Is the bolt matching? Hows the bore? The outside sure looks nice though! For any questions Enfield related send Louthepou a PM. Im sure he will be more then happy to help an upcoming Enfield collector!
 
I like the mausers, this is mine.

4fa4419d-a716-4182-b22a-4b2190beeeb5.jpg
 
Western:

Just looked at the picture. That is a Mark 2 rear sight on that critter. There were 7 different rear sights for this rifle, if you include the Canadian variants. This one was designed for emergency hurry-up production and it is a 2-position peep sight for 300 and 600 yards. There also exist very fine sights (Mark 1) with micrometer-screw-thread adjustments and stamped sights with quick-operating slides (Marks 3 and 4, also CMark 3 and another one that I forget). They all interchange and swapping them about is no problem at all: 1 tiny pin, 1 small pin and don't lose the spring & plunger before you pop the new sight into place. NO trouble.

BTW, the chargers (clips, a lot of people call them incorrectly) in the photo are loaded incorrectly. Correct way to load chargers is _-_-_; all the rounds point forward and not on a slant. The way they are shown, they will feed, but only from one direction; the Army way makes them feed perfectly BOTH ways. You don't even think about a spare magazine for any Lee-Enfield, by the way; it is actually MUCH faster to reload from Chargers.

Hope this is of some help.

Have fun!
 
This rifle puzzles me for a couple of reasons.

If the bolt and mag match the frame/barrel and the wood matches and the bore is good, then it's okay if it's a Long Branch.

If the bolt and mag match the frame/barrel and the wood matches and the bore is good, then it's okay if it's a Savage.

But Savage and Long Branch were two different plants, one in the States, the other in Toronto. BOTH made really decent rifles, quite likely the best rifles of World War Two.

But it's pretty hard to build one rifle in two plants. Get that straightened out and, if the rifle is to spec, then it should be a 'go', I would think.

The barrels on these are very nearly impossible to wear out; your shoulder will wear out first. This looks like a good, clean rifle but I haven't seen it 'in real life'. Talk to the guy who is selling it, get what he says on record, then make up your mind.

These had barrels generally with 5 grooves or with just 2. A lot of people will say that the 2-groove is junk, but that just is not so; a 2-groove will keep up with a 5 all the way out to 600 yards. Likely you won't want to shoot much farther than that.

BTW, you can scope one of these rifles very quickly with an S&K Insta-Mount. NO drilling holes at all: it's a bolt-on, takes about 10 minutes to install, very solid. I have one that I trade around between rifles when I want to see just how good one can be made to shoot, bignasty piece of glass on it. Handy, too, if you decide to go Bambi-blasting and don't like irons.

Good bore is important: spare barrels are no longer $5 as once they were.

Good luck and welcome to the club!
 
Thxs smellie. Yeah that confused me a bit too that it was made by Savage and sent to Long Branch. My first thought is that he just put a Savage and a Long Branch togther. I am tryen to contact him to figure it out.
Thxs again for your help.
 
The bolt & receiver were built by Savage in the US in the first half of 1944. However, before they could add the rest, Savage focused most of its production on Thompson sub-machine guns in preparation for the Invasion of Europe and shipped its surplus receivers etc to Long Branch in Canada.

That is his explination for why it has Savage and Long Branch parts. Is that possible?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom