The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

millman wrote:

LMAO!!

This is just like the SKS madness. You had guys not that long ago buying Mosin's for $69.00. Then they went on the Internet raving about what great rifles they were. How the ammo was so cheap and powerful. And how you could buy a crate of them for what a Mil-Spec AR costs. This sent more guys to buy them. A lot of these clowns never owned or shot a gun in their lives. They were all hooked on how plentiful, cheap, and powerful they were.

It was like a domino effect. Prices went up some, but not enough to discourage anyone enough to prevent them from bending the wheels on their shopping carts, as they pushed their new found treasures out to their trucks. Now, like with most cheap, stockpiled, milsurp bootie, the supply has finally started to dwindle.

Or perhaps not. Their may be crates full of these things just waiting to flood the market, just as soon as the price gets high enough. That's what broke the Hunt Brothers when they tried to corner the silver market in 1980. They had enough money to buy up all the silver on the market at that point in time. But they did not have enough to buy all the silver ever minted since the dawn of time. Which is what hit the market after it roared past $50.00 an ounce. People started bringing in grandma's tea pot, grandpa Joe's molars, the silver dollar the Tooth Fairy gave them, and everything else that was ever made from the shiny shit. They damn near went broke trying to make their margin calls. We could see something similar happen here. Remember, these things have been in production longer than Democrats have been socialists.

The Hunt Brothers, you date yourself with that one, some of us did very well off that mess, both selling high and buying when the bottom dropped out.

I can remember back when we first got going with the Old board when Bob owned it, everybody was buying, and buying a lot. At one point I was buying almost daily building a collection of refurb 91/30's by year and arsenal, plus extras for this or that marking, plus extras just because. I was far from the only one doing that so I know there are some sizable collections out there. Some of the old timers from the old board will remember Ter and his collection of 91/59's, I bought some of his culls, so did Rongo, and if the ones he kept were even nicer then he's sitting on a fortune now. I don't think too many individuals were buying crate loads to stash away, they take up a lot of room, and the Mosin wasn't getting a whole lot of collector respect yet at that time. It was more of a lets buy all the pretty red ones, or all the hex ones, or any rifle with the MO marking we don't know anything about yet because they are cheap and we can. More guys did what I did and buy a crate by itself and then fill it with select rifles we chose. I could have put together many crates that way, but they are almost coffin sized, they take up a lot of real estate. Also despite my warnings that one day the party would be over, it did seem as if the flow was endless and would continue for many years. There were story's of huge caves filled with millions of Mosins waiting to be shipped, every dealer seemed to have an endless supply. Most people figure that there was no need to rush out and buy up every Mosin in sight except a few crazy collectors here and on other Mosin boards, and back then we were few in number compared to the Mauser, or US rifle collectors. Most Mosin buyers were getting one-three Mosins, rifle, carbine, maybe an M39 later on. Then came war and sanctions, the party abruptly ended.


I have been in this game a long time, the Mosin hoard was far from the only large group of one type milsurp I have seen come in, just the largest and longest lasting. I saw it with US Garands and carbines, British SMLE's, various contract Mauser's back 25-30 years ago. All of these have continued to increase in value, and demand goes up. Carcano's, Arisakas, French Berthiers and Lebels, Swiss Vetterlis, all of these came in long ago, received little respect or demand, sold cheap ( sound familiar?) now all are commanding prices $500-$800 or more depending on the individual piece. I don't expect any great down spiral, if any loss at all, from the current Mosin values unless the floodgates open again. I don't think we will see that, and even then it would be a temporary dip. There are more than 350 million of us just in this country, more than that I think, they say some 80 million of us own guns, I know that's bullshit and the number is likely double that. Of that number of gun owners only a small percentage are collectors, say five or ten million. That's a pretty large number of people who might want to own a Mosin, and more come of age every day. With all the war video games, history channel documentary's, and movies there are more people interested it these weapons than in the entire history of martial arms collecting. We used to be a tiny minority of gun owners, the crazy nuts who would be over in the corner pouring over a pile of greasy beat up old crap while everyone else was fondling new Winchester 70's or the latest HK91 at the shows. Now we have become mainstream, now I know how hippies feel when they see legalized pot, you stand there wondering what the fuck happened. $200 used to buy me a pile of guns on any given flea market day, and I would still take shit from the older collectors for having overpaid. Different world now with a much larger collector base, no, you are not going to see lower prices, what you see is here to stay just like it was with the Enfields and Garands, and all the rest of my toys. Don't warry about economic downturns either, I have collected through two serious " corrections" of the economy, as well as during the Carter slump of the late 70's and early 80's and milsurp prices shot up during all of it so I am not worried about that either. SHotguns and canned food are indeed the investments during bad times.

Anyone remember this price?

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Uncrated unissued Mosin Nagants cheaper than the wooden box they are in, a new urban legend like the $200. Surplus jeeps fifty years ago

“Remember this price?”
My Dad and Uncle went halves on one.
It was a ‘91 or dragoon, unfortunately it was stolen in the ‘80s before anybody cared enough to figure out what it was. In the ‘70s I wrote to Guns and Ammo magazine about it and they told me Russian Rifles had no value.

They didn't have any value at that time Robert. That was the height of the Cold War and the Soviet Union was the Big Bad Thing, the Enemy. Anything valued by the Soviets was dismissed as being a piece of commie crap. I had Mosins simply given to me more than once. Didn't matter if the name on the rifle was familiar like Remington, or not, it was still a piece of commie crap. Our troops who were issued M91's during the north Russian intervention 1919-1920 hated them, and happily tossed them over the side of the ship on the way out. Understandable given that they had trained with the M1903 Springfield, and while the Mosin is a serviceable weapon, it's no M1903. Something similar went on with the Italian Carcano, and Japanese Arisaka, these were enemy weapons made by an enemy we had little respect for. Same can be said for the French Berthier and Lebel after the French failed to cover themselves with glory during WW2. All of these rifles I have been gifted with in the past, often more than once. I have three Berthier carbines and two Lebel carbines, that's five carbines and I only paid ( very little) for two of them. Today generations that fought the wars these rifles were part of are gone or fading fast, the attitudes of those times are going with them. We now understand that no government deliberately equips it's military forces with unsafe, nonfunctional weapons. Circumstances may dictate that standards must be lowered due to desperation, like the Japanese so called " last ditch", or the Soviet June 1941-mid 1943 Mosins. Some weapon designs are easier to use, or simply better than others, but they all work. Many Carcano's for instance were made by Beretta, a 500 year old operation. The Arisaka is considered the strongest Mauser type action ever made.


Nobody's laughing now at my free rifles, not when some of them can bring $500-$800 or more. Likewise nobody is calling my Mosins "commie crap", not when I could cash them out and buy a very nice new car with the proceeds.

Back when I bought my first Mosin (58?) I had no idea where to get ammo. I f I could have shot it that would make the bond. What would a spam can have cost in 58? I was not sure it was even safe to shoot but I didn't know crap then anyway. I know crap now.

In the 70s I could only get ammo from my local bait shop, they ordered Norma for me, cost more than the rifle.
Talking about cheap rifles, I have a last ditch jap rifle with the mum that a stranger gave me because I was wearing a camo t shirt.

The only reason you could get 7.62x54r at all here before the end of the Cold War was due to the Mosin having been made here during the Great War and sold by the DCM to the public. There was a small demand, mostly due to hunters using Bubba Mosins, later there was a bit of ammo from Finland. The real supply didn't arrive until the wall came down and all the former commie countries began selling all their old crap to crazy Americans who would buy anything and pay cash. I remember picking and choosing what kind of surplus 7.62x54r to buy, More Czech, maybe some Hungarian or Polish, or Albanian, DDR gallery loads, Chinese, a couple more crates of Yugo, or just keep shooting the five or six different batches of Russian I have, decisions, decisions....

I got a '28 Tula last week for $200. Nice bore, matching bolt, beech stock. It's on the forum. There's no reason to pay over $400 for a WW2 production, the deals are still around.

tailgunner67 wrote:I personally think we are experiencing a milsurp bubble. No I am not saying the days of $79 Mosins are returning but I do think that if you pay $350 for a round receiver you will never get your money back. Heck, I just paid $410 for a very nice, low production year M27. I agree with the new collectors over spending that are getting bad advice fueled by the internet. There are a lot of Mosins in basements across this country that will be popping out as collectors see the current prices as well.

I agree. There are some big collections out there. Also Sarco/Century are still bringing them in.


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Another thing to remember about Mosin's, is the fact today the power level has been magically elevated to almost "Magnum status" by today's younger shooters. 50 years ago shooters embraced the .300 Winchester and .300 Weatherby Magnums as powerful cartridges. Cartridges like the .308 and .30-06 were considered average in power, and barely suitable for deer hunting.

For Elk and Moose almost everyone went to one of the .300 or .338 Magnums. Either the .338 Winchester Magnum, or else the .340 Weatherby Magnum. Especially out West where the ranges were longer. Today .308 level cartridges are considered to be almost too much in performance. We got guys out there putting muzzle brakes on .223's and 6.5 Creedmore's. Because they whine about, "too much recoil and muzzle rise".

When I was in my 20's I couldn't wait to acquire .458's and .375 H&H Magnum rifles, and add them to my collection. Guns in those calibers sold as soon as dealers got them in stock back in the 70's. Today they don't even stock them. I bought a .460 Weatherby, and a .50 BMG as soon as I could afford them. Back in the 70's you couldn't buy a .44 Magnum hand gun anywhere because they sold so well. Today they're everywhere. Instead they want 9 MM Glock's with ported barrels that hold 33 rounds. (They're easier to hold sideways when shooting rapid fire).

So to be able to pick up .30-06 class performance in a relatively cheap bolt action today, has much broader appeal than it did 50 years ago when these things sold for literally pennies on the dollar, because no one wanted them. And were considered less powerful than the .30-06 class of cartridges... Especially for anyone who handloaded.... Which back then was mostly everyone. Today's shooters have become a bunch of Internet talking pantywaists.

steelbuttplate wrote:

capt14k wrote:

tailgunner67 wrote:I personally think we are experiencing a milsurp bubble. No I am not saying the days of $79 Mosins are returning but I do think that if you pay $350 for a round receiver you will never get your money back. Heck, I just paid $410 for a very nice, low production year M27. I agree with the new collectors over spending that are getting bad advice fueled by the internet. There are a lot of Mosins in basements across this country that will be popping out as collectors see the current prices as well.

I agree. There are some big collections out there. Also Sarco/Century are still bringing them in.

Are the new ones Molot ?
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No, but they do come with folding Bayonets on 91/30. More fake Mosin crap. These were for sale at Sarco along with a dozen more on the racks.




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There are a few legit 91/30s with folding bayonets out there but not many.

racerguy00 wrote:There are a few legit 91/30s with folding bayonets out there but not many.

That's what I hear. Those ones I do not believe are them. Though they did have some of the same characteristics as the supposed real ones. These some fold left and others right. $275 for round and $375 for Hex.


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Yup I see the same here in Fredericksburg VA. High prices. I love the M91's so far the ones I have found have been 400-475 for Fins. I won't pay that for a 91/30. Sadly if you want one you're going to pay a higher price now.

A pretty nice looking rifle just sold for $185 + shipping on GB.

I can tell you for a fact they are not moving at those kinds of prices down here. I have had several on consignment at a local shop for about 9 months at prices in the $250.00 range. They are gathering dust.