The Military Surplus Firearm Hobby is Dead. Here's Why…
The Military Surplus Firearm Hobby is Dead. Here's Why…
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Thank you Mike B! I love the history on firearms and you are so knowledgeable. You definitely helped me, i came across a last ditch Arisaka my friend has and we were under the impression to never shoot it, it would explode. Now we are going to get it checked out some more and may shoot it
Prices are up but you just have to be smart and keep an eye out. Like 6 months ago I saw an Enfield No1 at a pawn shop for a great price and picked it up. Then recently saw the $200 carcano from PSA and grabbed one. Also saw CMP has garands for $650 so just ordered one of those yesterday. Whatever you do don’t pay gunbroker prices
Bought my first milsurp in May of 2020. It’s a Swiss k11. Found it at Gander Outdoors for $450. Didn’t know what it was or how it worked. Literally hundreds of hours of ytube, including Mike B videos, and I can strip it down like a champ. Any of you who owns one will understand my next statement. I Was Hooked. It’s now October 2021 and number 33, a beautiful Dutch Beaumont, just showed up at my door. I found it on an internet auction site and won it with a $190 bid. With auction fees and shipping, I paid $315 to get it to my door. The deals are still out there but few and far between. Auctions can get crazy so pick your rifle, pick your price, place your bid and walk away. It was literally the 15th Beaumont that I bid on before winning one at “my price”.
Its too sad I couldn’t make it to the end
I’m an ’03 kid. Obviously I picked a bad time to grow up cause holy shit I can’t find any gun at a reasonable price. It’s probably also due to my lack of knowledge, but I think I’ll just settle for a Carcano and ditch.
I started out with buying stuff like Mosin Nagants, and SKS’s and typical “low end” surplus and even those prices are creeping up. I don’t mean that as an asshole. I think it’s just a natural progression. My acquisitions the last couple of years a bit more costly. Stuff like the Norwegian M1914s, any of the M1911, 1911A1. M1 Carbines, Garands (especially the M1C and M1D) are going insane even with import marks, we all know where those are coming from. Even firearms I love to study and grab one of here and there at a decent price, in the last year have went insane. One firearm I thought would always be decently priced , from one seller, would maybe occasionally go up, but in the last month he has went to a price point that I am not too sure I even want to try to grab the very last of what I need for that collection, that’s my fault because I should have made that type my first buy instead of last, oh well. But even the high quality books that I love to collect, have gone insane on prices. I have books in my library now that go for as much as the firearms they are about just a few years ago. That’s nuts. There is like 5 items on my list that I feel “I got to have” but damn, the prices are getting insane. Mike B , is right there is so many new people over the last year and you can watch GunBroker and they are buying total crap and being taken advantage of. I hate it for them. I hope it’s something they want to keep forever because unless they are willing to take a loss they won’t be selling it. Like I said earlier, even the high quality books on specific firearms are going through the roof on cost, that doesn’t help the new guys. I will recommend the author Joe Poyer, he writes knowledgeable books in paperback that are very affordable and would be really everything that would need to be known on a particular firearm not to get ripped off on a purchase. For the new guys, ask for pictures, pictures and more pictures and compare to the books. Sometime these guys will not break them down on Gunbroker, they are either just lazy or don’t know how themselves or high volume. Or they could be hiding that scary word, rust. Surplus make look fine from the wood line up but detach it from the stock and it could be a nightmare. I have been there done that. Also, don’t settle for that crazy high price. I think I may even revisit what I am collecting and change directions for a little while. There is still cool stuff out there for lower prices that are very neat pieces. In the mean time I will sit and watch my top 5 and hopefully find decent deals on them as they come along. Notice I am not mentioning what I am looking for, lol, I don’t want to raise any more interest in them than there already is. Ok enough of my rambling, collecting can still be fun! And while the prices are high just spend time researching these cool pieces of history. Each design has its own story. Enjoy!
All them dumb people who traded in their ancestors firearms for the buyback program
I miss the days when every gun store had an entire wall of mil surp rifles 🙁
Hurray for CADPAT
I got my Mosin for free lol
Ruby
Seems to be anything that’s not a glock or an ar these days. Try finding a beater winchester 94, savage 99 or Remington 760 hell even single shot 12ga’s for prices that aren’t insane. Pretty sad you can’t get into anything interesting these days
Stupid import laws and price gouging sellers killed it.
After the American Civil War in 1865 a man named Francis Bannerman VI founded a Military Surplus -Firearms Company. Which grew and grew.
In the year 1900, Mr. Bannerman purchased an island in the Hudson river near Newburgh NY (Pollepell Island) also later referred to as Bannerman’s Island where he had built a hugh Castle that he used as his gaint Warehouse and stored surplus US Civil War and foreign Military surplus firearms etc.
Mr. Bannerman was known for his 300 page Military surplus catalog.
On 19. June 1901 at a US government auction Mr. Bannerman purchased some 30.000 Military surplus revolvers of this lot some 4.982 were the virtually brand new in storage Rodgers &Spencer 1864 percussion revolvers from the US government for some 25 cents a piece. Which originally cost the US Government $12.00 a peice in 1864.
After Mr. Bannerman’s Company went out of business other Military Surplus Firearms companies arouse such as ,Ye Old Hunter and Century International Arms etc.
I don’t have the infatuation with the ruby.
What do you think about surplus guns that have the stocks sanded and lacquer put on them? Does it ruin the collector value or is it seen as a preserving method?
So then you’ll be happy to hear I dropped $500 on the PSA Father’s Day Chinese SKS sale. Such a “deal,” coming down from $700 LoL
Ruby! I’ve seen this first hand working in a small Gun shop, it sucks to see.
In the early 60s my grandfather went to the hardware store and bought M1 carbines out of an old rain barrel for $30-$50 depending on condition. He eventually ended up with a couple dozen. My druggie idiot cousin stole them and pawned them in the 80s.
Even though he’s a relative, if he were to suddenly find himself in front of my truck, I can’t guarantee I’d hit the brake. Just sayin’.
Because Kennedy WAS killed with a Carcano.
The only gun i own is a surplus Nagant given to me by a friend. He bought 20+ for $98 each years earlier. It made me want me more, a garand, k98 etc. But as you point out they are not $100 purchases on a good day. Anyway, might change, but not likely.
Hard for collectors here in the EU as well, cause all the good stuff got shipped to the US and sold for cheap……. There are guns I Can only dream of buying. Thx America
I got into it too late as well. Got my C&R license just as the pandemic started. Bought my first Mosin using the license for $325. My next two surplus guns (Garand ($650) and 1903A3($675)) were purchased at CMP. The only way I could afford a Garand is through CMP because those guns go for more than $1k on gun broker and other surplus sites these days. I have a list of guns I want to eventually get but the prices will have to drop, which I don’t see happening soon. Along with the price of ammo, which is killing me as well.
That’s why post USSR commercial Maks have adjustable sights to make them a "sporting pistol"….
OMG i love the walls behind you and wish I had them myself.
In ontario local gun shops got a whole crate of mosins for $320 each most in good shape spam can of ammo 880 rounds for $450!
Not a clue….
I’m sure glad I bought that Mauser for 200$ back in 2015…i wish the market had lasted longer though. Ruby.
Ruby:(
I see so many guns going for double their market value because someone thinks "they’re rare" or they are being jerks.
Mike, your skipping over a few things. I’m not saying the gun manufatcurers didn’t pull strings but your leaving out the civil rights movement and black panther party and all of a sudden African Americans could afford military weapons too and " the man" couldn’t be dealing with that so he stamped that shit before it became a bigger problem.
Ruby, I made it this far, baseball card Collectors have it worse.. not to mention Beanie Babies
Conservativism has conserved nothing
‘now 2020 happens’ why do I get the feeling this will be the new pre/post benchmark? At least 9/11 has finally moved into the history books 19 years of obsession is enough.
For the purpose of esthetics the rifles in the background should have some symmetry. Try having all the muzzles point into the corner and again point them away from the corner and see which has a better look. I understand that they may be organized by date, manufacturer or function (bolt vs mag) but with such a close up of your collection the organizing theme is lost, Placing yourself in the center and the symmetry of rifles pointing in toward or away from you will be a more dramatic flare for little effort. I enjoy your monologue and find myself looking at the rifles rather then listening to your point.
I blame the gop, right wing media, NRA and other gun rights scams and the arms industry. they all made guns such a hot topic that everyone started looking at them and too many people started thinking they need a gun or more guns and people who never would have had any said me too, then some of these people said hey look at those surplus guns, they are cool and I want one too.
no don’t blame liberals because they never did anything – all talk and no action, which was never going to happen even if they tried – people can have guns, it’s the law stupid! It was just a hyped topic to keep the base rabid dog mad so they could get elected and stay in power.
Military/war movies and video games drove the price up too.
Not just surplus going up. Everything is going up
I don’t why you came up in my recommend, but I’m now subscribed, couldn’t have picked a better time apparently…
I bought two surplus rifles in the last 8 months. An M1, and a m38 Swedish Mauser. I overpaid a little for the m38, but deals are out there. I reload, so I buy a few boxes of factory ammo, and use that to reload. I bought an SKS in late 2019 for less than $400, and I thought I way overpaid for that, at the time, lol.
I agree with you 100%. And I don’t live in USA….!!!
Boomers have literally ruined everything.
Ruby, great channel. Just started following. Its sad how things are going for surplus guns and surplus equipment. There’s a handful of firearms id like to have, but didn’t have the money at the time so I guess that ship has sailed,lol. Thanks again the vid!
100% agree with you. Last milsurp I bought was a Carcano, because they’re cheap. Although ammo is almost impossible to find. Before the carcano, the last milsurp I bought was an Arisaka on 2018.
I don’t think I’ll buy another milsurp in the near future. Ammo is scarce, expensive, qnd the milsurp guns are overpriced. So, my interest changed in the last four years and moved to collecting C&R shotguns. I use them for hunting, and at the beginning they were low priced. Since the covid, prices went up, so the last one I bought was a year ago.
It may be dead but I sure had fun with it when it was alive.
I want a Winchester Model 70 bolt-action, a Winchester Model 1894 lever action, a Winchester 1300 "Turkey" pump action, and Browning BL-22 lever action .22 rimfire.
If I found and affordable M1 Garand, then I would buy that too though.
Then I will be happy.
Ruby.
I recently won and purchased a Yugoslavian m24/47(my first milsurp) in a Gun Broker auction and when I went to my local FFL dealer to pick it up, the man behind the counter asked how much I payed for it and I told him my winning bid was $330 and he told me I got a really good deal. He then went on to tell me pretty much the same thing you said in this video all the while stating several more times that I got a really good deal.
I got a mosin for $300 today. I know thats $100 more than they were going for a couple years ago but, I think I got a good deal. But yea, affordable milsurp is def dead. good video
The gun control act of 1968 was almost the exact same as the Nazi Gun control act of 1938. “ for the first time in history, a civilized nation has complete gun registration.”- Adolf HItler