It's rare that I will promote a company's offering out of the blue, but in this case I took advantage of it and I think you should too. AIM Surplus is running a deal right now on
Mosin-Nagant M1891/30 rifles with full accessories for $69.95 each.
I ordered one from AIM because I was looking for a sling and a bayonet for one of my Mosins. A little digging around reveals that the sling and bayonet alone can run around $45 and a full accessory kit costs around $70. At that price, I decided I might as well add a rifle I was wanting to get at some point anyway to the collection since I was buying the accessories and getting the gun for free!
My fiancee agreed with that logic not to mention that it was only $70. Tough to argue with adding a gun for $70. She doesn't object to my firearms interest. She just wants it that I don't expend massive sums of money on them. To her, $1000 or more for a rifle is outrageous. $70, $100 or so is much more reasonable. I can acquire new additions more easily when they sit at the bottom end of the cost scale versus the top end.
Which leads to the subject of this post.
AIM, quite rightly, states in their ad: "Where else can you buy an authentic piece of Military History for only $69.95?"
In the
past, I bemoaned the high cost of shooting and how it is affecting current shooters as well as attracting new potential shooters and gun owners to the hobby. This deal from AIM is a wonderful counterpoint to that problem.
My first gun purchase ever was a
Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine. When I bought it, it was $60. I knew nothing about the gun except its name, caliber and the fact that it looked right for a bolt-action rifle. That's right, I literally chose my first gun solely on the basis that it "looked right". So it came home. I learned about what it was later.
Surplus rifles, especially Russian Mosin-Nagants, represent an excellent way for someone without a lot of money to acquire a firearm. Or several as it generally works out. Also, the ammunition is cheap. Although it is corrosive, almost nothing is cheaper than 7.62x54R in quantity. For $150, you can get a rifle, accessories, basic cleaning supplies and 440 rounds to take to the range. You'd be hard pressed to match that on a basic .22 rifle on sale.
The downside is that a Mosin-Nagant is not an ideal first shooter for someone who has never owned or fired a gun before. Especially the carbines. Putting a new shooter behind an M38, M44 or M91/59 is a surefire way to ensure they'll never try it again. The 91/30 (as this offered rifle is known as) is a little gentler but still packs a kick.
The upside is these rifles do represent a piece of history and this is why a lot of people own them. I do for that reason. My interests divide clearly between modern post-WW2 firearms and old surplus warhorses. Largely because of cost. For the cost of one good Remington or Winchester rifle, let alone an AR-15, I can buy 3-5 decent surplus rifles complete with ammunition to fire them.
Surplus rifles, even a basic Mosin-Nagant, share the common attribute of all firearms: They never go down in value. Firearms do represent an investment and provided you keep them clean and oil them once in a while, their value will alway increase. I would advise anyone looking at surplus guns to acquire them as they find them at a price they feel reasonable because they'll never drop in price. There are rarely "clearance sales" on guns and AIM's deal isn't a clearance. They've just got a boatload of them and they got them cheap. That situation will not last forever.
If you bought this deal today and just stuck the gun in the back of the closet, odds are good in two years, it will have picked up 10-20 percent more value. Unlike new guns, surplus guns don't suffer out-the-door depreciation like new cars do. Their values only rise. Even if you fire it but take care of it, that $70 Mosin-Nagant today will be worth $100 or more a few years down the road. Or even more.
I say that because eventually the supply of a given rifle will dry up. Last year, there was a glut of surplus Lee Enfield .303 rifles on the market. They could be had gun shows for $99. Look around now. Don't expect to find a .303 Enfield for under $150. And you'd be lucky. The only .303 Enfields I've seen in the past six months at the gun show have been restored examples commanding $400 or more.
Even the Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine, ubiquitous two years ago at $50 each and stacked like firewood, are all but gone. Today, M44s are still available but they are far fewer in number and now routinely ask $99 or more. Assuming you can find them. Many dealers no longer have them. Unless a new shipment of them comes in, eventually they will become rare too.
As will this cheap 91/30 from AIM. Eventually, these pieces of military history will be history at the gun shows and all that are here are all that will ever be. As a result, invest in one when you can. You likely won't regret it. I predict within two years, you won't see M1891/30 rifles on sale anywhere in quantity for under $150. If at all.
Someone people think these cheap rifles will last forever. As a result, many people buy them, cut them up and turn them into hunting rifles. It's a process called "sporterizing". In some cases, it is necessary to restore an unworkable rifle back to usable condition. Perfect understandable. But not all cases. Many are perfectly clean, good condition guns that are simply modified because they are common and cheap. So why not?
Because someday they won't be common and cheap and you can't bring that history back. Many of these guns went straight from the factory to the warehouse so their history consists of sitting in cosmoline ans grease paper for the past 50 years. But many didn't.
For every "cosmo queen", there is a rifle with a battered stock and a little wear that has a story to tell. Holding a surplus rifle, you can imagine what it was like to carry it into battle. You can picture what life was like for the man who depended on that weapon with his life. Did he clean it and care for it? Or did he toss it aside after a hard days march or fighting? Perhaps it saw the rubble of Stalingrad or Berlin or the icy snows outside Moscow? You may never know the story but someone, somewhere carried a rifle like it with all their hopes and dreams along with it. And perhaps died with it, the last object they ever held in their hands.
This is why I collect them. Holding that rifle, I am making a connection to the past and preserving it for the future. All of my surplus rifles are shooters. Not all of them have been shot, mind you, but all of them have ammunition on hand for them to be. That way, I can go to the range and imagine what it was like for that German carrying a Kar98K or how
Ludmilla Pavlichenko must have felt looking through the scope of her Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle.
It can be a powerful thing. It's hard to explain that to a staunch anti-gun person when they ask "Why do you need so many guns?". They won't get it. All they see are a dozen guns with no purpose other than to kill. They've become blinded to the broad history those guns represent and where they might have been. It can be frustrating.
But it can be enriching. Not just for you but for future generations. How many rifles like the 91/30 will be around in 10, 20 or 30 years? How many will survive and be handed down from father to daughter? With each generation, they will preserve a piece of the past and become ever more valuable. Case in point: the Springfield 1903A3.
The Springfield 1903A3 was the primary rifle of the US Army in World War I. After the war, thousands, millions were sold off as surplus very cheaply. Many a surplus Springfield has taken deer over the years following the Great War. These rifles were sold for $2 or $3 and were left unmodified, others cut up, changed, abused and eventually disposed of.
By World War II twenty years later, the 1903A3 was a dedicated sniper rifle and following that war, rebuilt, rearsenaled and disposed of yet again. Through all those years, their numbers dwindled.
Today, you will not find a original World War II-era Springfield 1903A3 in good condition (outside of the CMP) for under $1200. $1600 seems to be pretty commonplace. A World War I era Springfield with its original wood and matching bolt, even in fair to poor condition, can command thousands.
Yet, in the 1920s, they were cheap and commonplace and no one thought twice about doing whatever they felt like to these old warhorses. Today, in 2008 some 90 years later, such a rifle would be a cherished collectors item. I'd settle for a decent replica or mismatched restoration. An original Springfield would receive an honored place in my collection assuming I ever had the means to afford it in one fell swoop.
Imagine what it will be like for your grandchild to display that rifle to their children and tell a story about 100 or 200 years of history that it saw? First in the hands of its makers, later in the hands of those who fought with it. And further on a lonely life gathering dust in a warehouse until finally landing in the hands of their grandparent, you. They'll feel that rifle as you felt it as their children will do so. By then, it may be one of the few surviving examples of its type and borne witness to things only seen in grainy movies or photographs long faded to blurriness.
Isn't that worth $69.95?
