Thinking back about milsurps

[gregintenn]

Through the years, I've seen gunshow tables stacked full of various, dirt cheap American and foreign military arms. M1 Garands, M1 Carbines, SKSs, AKs, Mosins, Makarovs, Mausers, etc.

Invariably, the supply dried up and prices steadily increased.

Are there any more large quantity milsurp dumps on the horizon, or are those days gone?

I've gathered a somewhat varied and modest collection of them through the years, and have yet to see them not be a good investment.

Edited December 9, 2017 by gregintenn

[DaveTN]

Well, there are possibly 86,000 Garand’s coming from the Philippines. But that’s been rumored for a couple of years.

CMP just posted up rules for buying 1911 when/if they get them. They estimate 5 months to inspect and determine pricing after they get them. Limit of 1 per year, no C&R, no store sales/ online only.

I guess the investment issue depends on how they price them.

[No_0ne]

The most likely answer to the original questions is "no", there are no more large amounts of milsurps which will be imported into the US. The Eastern Bloc stockpiles have been liquidated, as have all the  Western European nations, these countries updated and modernized their countries armaments decades ago, replacing the semiautomatic and bolt action guns with FA's, which will never be made available to civilian markets.  The 2 nations (Russia and China) who amassed the largest quantities of WWII era guns are closed to us as to further importation and have been for many years now.  Ukraine is probably the only of the former Soviet republics with any substantial inventory left and the recent sanctions proscribe even the Soviet era guns which were formerly coming in from Ukraine being imported in the future as they originated in the former USSR, not to mention the fact that they have been involved in a civil war which is never an ideal situation for exporting guns. There will be small quantities that are able to be brought in, we got small shipments from Albania and the former Yugoslavia as recently as last year, and Swiss rifles show up occasionally in small lots as private buyers put together small shipments of older rifles for sale on the secondary market in that country. In addition, we have competition for the few remaining guns from sources which were formerly of little consequence, one example is from collectors in Western Europe who actually pay more than we will for available examples of collectible pieces.  Buyers on the open gun markets are also snapping up any available weapons to supply to the many insurgencies, terrorist operations and revolutionaries who are operating in many theaters, these buyers do not have the same laws, rules and regulations that we have to deal with and in that market "cash is king".  On the other hand, the secondary market here has a lot of inventory becoming available as older collectors are starting to liquidate their collections, a lot of fairly rare pieces have come to market in the last few years which haven't been available in decades, of course not at the prices they sold for in the 50's - 90's ...

Edited December 15, 2017 by No_0ne

[DMark]

I think the next great wave of MILSURP firearms will come along in about 10-15 years......

....... about the time our Wills are read and the Executors begin the settle our estate.

[1gewehr]

As mentioned above, most countries are now fully equipped with select-fire long guns.  The bolt-action and semi-auto guns are long gone.

We might see some more handguns come in as the older models get replaced with Sig/Sauers, Glocks, and clones.

I hope that we see some of the WWII stockpiles still held in Russia and China come out.  But I'm not holding my breath.  I AM looking forward to seeing M1 Garands, Carbines, and possibly 1911s come back from Korea and the Phllippines.  Those deals stand a really good chance of getting into the country.

[No_0ne]

10 hours ago, DMark said:

I think the next great wave of MILSURP firearms will come along in about 10-15 years......

....... about the time our Wills are read and the Executors begin the settle our estate.

 

 

There's already a sizeable number coming available now, not necessarily due to estates, but a lot of older collectors are liquidating their collections now. Most likely, these are the folks who are looking to maximize the value of their guns, having seen first-hand how often that collections get dumped by surviving family members for a fraction of their current value, the family members having little interest and even less knowledge about how and where to sell off "grandpa's old guns" ...

 

 

8 hours ago, 1gewehr said:

As mentioned above, most countries are now fully equipped with select-fire long guns.  The bolt-action and semi-auto guns are long gone.

We might see some more handguns come in as the older models get replaced with Sig/Sauers, Glocks, and clones.

I hope that we see some of the WWII stockpiles still held in Russia and China come out.  But I'm not holding my breath.  I AM looking forward to seeing M1 Garands, Carbines, and possibly 1911s come back from Korea and the Phllippines.  Those deals stand a really good chance of getting into the country.

 

It's always possible some of these former US guns make it back, although I expect it will be in very limited quantities and over longer periods of time than what we've seen before. I've also read a few reports that a lot of these guns, especially those in the Philippines, are in really bad shape and might be considered more as "parts guns" than viable weapons now.  As for whatever stocks are left in China and Russia, current geopolitical realities make their importation highly unlikely anytime in the foreseeable future, after all the ban on both Chinese and Russian imports have been in effect for well over 20 years now through administrations of both parties.