I'm perfectly willing to play along, as long as there is a little bit left over from Chimpy's Extravagant Tax Rebate to send to the ACLU.
Problem is, what I want isn't readily available locally, so I had to order it. That's a pain in the ass. When I was a kid, you could just order a rifle and get it. Now, you have to have it sent to a gun shop and then they hand it across the counter to you, in exchange for filling out a bullshit BATF form and a fee for their trouble.
So this is what I ordered:
A Russian Mosin-Nagant M91/30 with a 3.5x PU scope sight. And if you want one for your very own, you can get a reproduction (same rifle, newer manufacture scope and mount) for $400, or an original one from WW2 for at least twice as much.
My feeling on that is go for the reproduction one if you're looking for a shooter, get the original if you're a collector. $800 for a genuine WW2 sniper rifle is a steal these days. The last time the CMP got in some M-1Ds, they sold for about $2,000 each for pretty rough ones and they sold out in a jiffy. M1903A4s (sniper version of the Springfield) sell for several thousands, as do British Enfields.
Besides that, as some researchers have noted, most sniper rifles were made with an urgency that didn't exactly mandate keeping good records. Sniper rifles were used under conditions that would horrify most civilian shooters and they were then turned back for refurbishment and replacement. Military rifles, after all, were the first items designed for interchangeable parts and the parts were interchanged.
There are a lot of fakes out there, if you're into collecting weapons, so what the hell: Buy a reproduction. $400 buys a lot of ammo. :)
2 comments:
That's a beautiful rifle. I've got a great conditionMosin Nagant M44 - all matching from 1945 - and a force-matched 1936 91/30, both from the Izhevsk arsenal.
Getting a Tula hex receiver sniper with original scope would be the holy grail for me. Just call me Zaitsev!
The other holy grail would be a semi-auto DP-28 MG.... Anyone got $2600 to spare?
BTW, being that you're apparently into Russian weaponry and (maybe) history, you might want to check out this terrific book I just finished: A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish War of 1939-1940. One of the greatest underdog stories in history and it's written in a way that is emotional, compelling, and accurate. Just imagine a tiny country of 3 million people standing up to the military might of the Soviet Union with little more than obsolete weapons, obsolete aircraft, sheer willpower and intelligent tactics. I finished the book in a day and couldn't wait to read it again.
Nice rifle.
I've got an old '03A3 I used to use for deer hunting (cost me $46 back then). I won't be able to afford a gun this year, so I guess I'll have to stock up on ammo and reloading supplies instead.
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