Never compare the prices of any other milsurp to that of German Mausers or especially US milsurps in the USA. The aforementioned are the most popular firearms in history and will always command a higher price than anything else. I recall the HXP ammo, but it was not as numerous or as cheap as the WW2 and post war British stuff I was buying in the late 80's. South American Mauser's are selling in the $350-$800 range depending on what it is and condition, remember that I bought these for as little as $45 just 25 years ago. Milsurp collectors aren't like the rest of the gun owning population. We beeline for the rusty musty relic on a table full of brand new AR's or 1911's. We will haggle over something so crusted with dirt it's hard to tell what it was, and do it standing over a table full of spotless sporters that we barely notice are there. We will buy these relics without knowing what it is yet, and without even a passing thought to what ammo it uses. This describes me at the shows years ago. Milsurp collectors think nothing of trading new guns, or at least recent sporter type guns for ancient relics with names we can't even pronounce let alone spell. I bought my first milsurp at a backyard tag sale 35 years ago for $25 and had no idea what it was, if it would shoot, or what it would shoot. Years later I learned I had a Swiss 1869-71 Vetterli that used the unobtainable .41 Swiss rimfire, news that the cartridges went out of production in 1940 didn't bother me in the least or stop me from acquiring 8 more of them over the years. Today that rifle sells for around $450-$600 and can only be fired with a bolt centerfire conversion and homemade ammo, something most owners will never get around to doing. You have to understand the milsurp collector before you understand how the market for these rifles works. I am not talking about the guy who gets one rifle so he can blast away with cheap surplus ammo. You can always tell a real milsurp collector, he's the guy at the gunshow who's head swivels around as if on ball bearings the moment you walk into a show carrying something rusty and crusty. He's the guy who would use cosmoline or GI bore cleaner as aftershave if it didn't give him a rash, and he does use it to perfume his work shop. He's the guy who shows up to a shoot with something nobody recognizes, and if asked can provide a level of detail about it's history and construction that would stun black rifle users who mostly don't even know who first designed what they shoot. This is the guy who knows it will take him several days or weeks to clean his new precious...and doesn't care, in fact he loves the prospect.
I come up in a time when misurp users were common enough, they were all called Bubba and used cut down stock Mausers to hunt. At that time milsurp collectors were few in number, and all pretty much considered insane by the rest of the shooting public. What kind of idiot wants that old shit when they could have a nice Winchester 70? Worse yet they wouldn't even make an effort to sporterize what they had and gave grief to Bubba's who did. We were a tiny minority of gun owners and were made fun of when spotted paying money for "old junk" Today the collecting population has grown probably 50 times as large if not more so. The internet and cable TV along with movies and video games sparked an interest in history and people want to own a tangible piece of that history. That's not going anywhere and I expect it will grow. The entertainment industry is out of new ideas, and the public will soon tire of seeing old movies made over with dumber actors. They have been, and will continue to mine history for story's and these are mostly about war, history is a pretty bloody place. How many US milsurp collectors were created by the cable mini series Band Of Brothers just by itself? Todays milsurp collector has what we diden't have back then, information, and information just a few key clicks away thanks to the internet, what once took me years to discover now takes seconds. The internet has also eased the search time for any milsurp , I had to pound ground at hundreds of shows and flea markets back in the day to ferret out the milsurps I wanted. Decades of time spent searching that now can be accomplished in a few hours on Gunbroker. Todays collectors will never know how easy they have it if they weren't there back then. Money is the least of the issues to a collector, money can be acquired any number of ways, but finding that long sought after second variation of the third revision of the fourth generation 1856 Snagglehower dragon shooting rifle.....this is the shit we live for, who cares what it costs
Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.
Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.
Theodore Roosevelt
.
