Milsurp rifle prices...
 

I can't get over it, K98's have gone even more nuts.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=178657539

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=178675248

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=178535107


It seems like everytime I look at K98's they skyrocket, K31's to. The economy may be bad but the market for these things is super hot. A good K98 ie not a Russian capture with matching parts in good condition is now a $1k rifle all day long.:eek: K31's are racing over $500 and will probably be at the grand mark in a year or two.

They look to be damn well built. How safe are they to actually shoot?

Quite safe.

I put a ton of rounds through my older stuff, guns last damn near forever if you take care of them and don't put bad reloads through them.


None of those Mausers have seen much action, they are to nice. The problem with the German stuff is that they lost, so most of their weapons were destroyed or taken by the Russians.

Which is another reason why they are so expensive and becoming pricier every year.

"I hate shopping on my days off" :D

Unless its guns.:D Its always a good day to buy a gun, my friend is due for his pistol permit anyday now...he is going to throw down for three in one day...HK MK23, Sig P220, and a Walther P99. I love America!:cool:

I actualy can't buy anything until I sell the FN49, I'm over my quota for this year so I have to make room before I buy another.

one can get k98's here in canada for about 300-600 right now. Don't know if the numbers match though....
Bought mine almost new for $150 7 years ago... How things are changing. Been reloading for my mauser and mauser action .22-250 for a little while. Probably done 50 rounds.
Used to be able to buy 1140 rounds for about $2-300. Now it's $2 a bullet. Surplus supplies have all dried up... Can reload for about 62 cents a shot based on 10 shots per piece of brass...

A quota on guns? Why that's crazy talk!

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/9831/about1y.jpg



:rolleyes:

It looks like you found a portion of my collection-

Yep. The prices just keep on arizin...

Still going to get me some more K98's some day. Economic reality being what it is probably have to settle for more RC's but they're OK. Still shoot fine. Four is just not enough :D

- Peter.

Well, you're buying history. A modern weapon can be had for nearly half those prices.

Modern weapons are not cheap either, the last Scar 16 I saw was $2,800. I'm going to wait until I can get a Scar 17 to buy one.

I haven't looked much at gun prices of late. Those Mausers pitured look premo, so they'd bring a premo price. Mil Surplus can fluxuate. It depends if any hidden storeage armouries are found. I think that is getting rare an slim pickings. Also, the Obama factor has jacked gun and ammo prices.
Tom

Whats driving the K98 prices up is that there are no more eastern block warehouses to raid, they have all be raided and brought to market.

Baring a new find the supply at this point is pretty fixed.


Also Band of Brothers drove the demand for anything European way up; I beleive the Pacific will start to have a similer affect on items from that theater.

I have noticed a bit of a price increase in Arisakas. In a weird way, the 'Last Ditch Rifles' have come into vouge. They are the rough ones. I have one, but missing some parts. I thought it was an ultra rare Nogoya series 12. The marking was hard to decifer. It was a series 10, bummer.
Tom

I am, or at least used to be, a pretty good shot. About 40 years or so ago I could buy mil-surp ammo for about 2 cents a round, but then I was also only making about $1.80 an hour.

I am by no means a gun expert, so I would like to ask a question or two.

Some background....

A friend of mine bought an 8mm Mauser, which I think might be a K98, in the late 70's for $35. This was at a Warehouse Sale for a company called Gibson's Discount (This was at their Garland, Texas, warehouse) which was a large chain in the Southwest. Sam Walton admits that he took much of his theory of discount sales from the Gibson brothers, and I only say this to let you know that GIbson's was as much as a gun dealer then as Walmart is today. They had a sporting goods section, but Gibson's also sold mil-surp guns like Mausers and Lee-Enfields.

At this sale, which I attended with him, the section of the store selling the Mausers would lay out five at a time and when those five were sold they would lay out five more. Most were really only worth $35 as they were really worn out and cracked up. The goal of the 'sale' was to get you into the store and make you stay there while your wife shopped.

Add to all of this that it was rather dark where the guns were being sold so it was hard to check the condition. I had not bought a light, but I did have one of those bent fiber-optic things to check the bore.

After about an hour a group of five came out and one was clearly above the rest. I picked it up and noticed it was stamped 'Loeweberlin 1890', and, by the light of a near-by time-clock, I was able to see that the inside of the barrel looked very good.

It also had numbers that matched on the receiver and the barrel, so I knew that had to be a good sign.

I just called him and he says the receiver is stamped 3814 and the barrel is stamped 814. Under that is a 1400 and under that is a P.

It also has Goew.88 in old German script on the receiver.

My questions on this would be: Anyone know what these numbers mean, and if not, can anyone direct me to a web-site that would be good for decoding these?

There is also an S stamped on the barrel that he already knows means it was Sized to take a longer round than the original.

The few times I fired it I was able to hit a horse-apple at about 30 yards, so it really shoots well. I can't think of anything else that is 120 years old and still works like new.

A very interesting rifle indeed. If it's really 8mm caliber then it's something with which I'm not familiar. Ludwig Lowe was a weapons manufacturer in Berlin back in those days and an 1890 date would seem to indicate it was originally an 1888 Comission rifle. But I wouldn't have thought that such a rifle could be re-arsenaled to 8mm caliber. However I'm also no expert and am not sure about which models existed between the "Commission" rifle and the Gewehr98.

I have a couple of books on Mausers back at home and I'll see if I can turn up any more info for you. One forum that might be of use to you is the

"Curioandrelicsfirearmsforum" of which I'm also a member.
http://curioandrelicfirearmsforum.yuku.com

And it doesn't particularly surprise me that such and Old Mauser, in good condition, is highly accurate. They were of fantastic quality back then and remained so right up till the necessities of wartime production started to result in some cheapening of the overall appearance, though not of functional reliability towards the end of WWII.

- Peter.

You are scaring me with this gun thing, hopefully you like me. :eek:

I've read many several about Post-1896 Rifles competing....successfully against many of their modern counterparts.

I do recall firing it and using 8mm ammo. The only rounds we could get were hunting rounds as all the surplus ammo was gone.

What I am trying to say here is that I don't really know what caliber it is or where to look on it for such info, but that 8mm ammo worked quite well.

Thanks for the website. I will pass it on to him to check out.

Depends on your taste and what it's purpose is, there are numerous high dollar rifles out there.

Oh yeah, a good Fin Mosin or any of the Swiss milsurps will shoot with very expensive modern rifles.

A good shooter, shooting a K31/K11 with competition sights can put to shame many modern rifles. I'd put the K31 sniper version, the ZFK55 up against just about anything. I have seen guys shoot sub MOA groups with them at 100 meters.:cool:

$2 each for Mauser ammo is nuts. Google 7.65x54 and you will find it for about $.50 each.

I think the last time we shot it was before the Internet was around. The only place to buy ammo for the thing was a sporting goods store and the only rounds available were hunting rounds.

It was a case of having to take what we could get and having to pay the price they were asking.

2 things. My mauser is 7.92x57mm also know as the 8x57 mm, and I'm in the country known as kanukistan.... Also sometimes called Canada.
Cheapest ammo that I have seen in a long time for a mauser like that is about $2 a round...

7.62x54R is the rimmed round the Russians use, its actualy the longest serving military cartridge. 1890 to present.

K98's shoot 7.92, also called 8mm Mauser.

You should be able to buy 440 spam cans for about $90. 8mm Mauser is similer, AIM has some pretty good deals.

The rifle I am talking about has an 'S' stamped into the barrel. I think this means it was re-sized after WW 1 to take a longer round.

During WW 1 dum-dum rounds were used, and somewhere along the line the major nations agreed to never use them again in combat. This led to a mass re-sizing of the bore where the bullet enters it to make is slightly, like 2mm, longer.

As weird as it sounds, the British did this to their .303 and then made millions of rounds that had a bit of sawdust in the tip of them. The lighter and less dense sawdust acted just like the hallow point of a dum-dum when it came to hitting a target, but since the rounds did not have a hallow nose they were 'legal'.

It probably took some Lawyer to come up with that.

Ah, Kanukistan! Land of the Kanuks, also known as the land above the 49th degree of Latitude, where Lumberjacks stir their coffee with their thumbs.

I remember I once shot a bear there in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I will never know.

Once, during a Masterdon hunt, it was my job to extract the tusks of the beast. It was a cold and difficult job, and one I prefer to do in Alabama since that is where you will find the Tuscaloosa.

Please feel to add your own memories of hunting trips like these....

The "S" stamp was a designator meaning that it was bored to .323. That means it can use almost all 8mm mauser rounds.
If it was stamped as "I" or "J", it manes that it was bored to .318, for which ammo is scarce, and you have to make sure it's correct, or you could blow your gun up.
Whether or not it's stamped with "s" does not mean that it has been resized. Many "S" stamps came from the factory without being resized...
The russian Draganov round is very similar to what you're describing. Oly that also had a bi metal core. steel front with a lead rear IIRC with a hollow area in the front of the SP jacket. Few people survive being shot with one of those rounds...

Sounds like the Marines new SOST round which is pretty much a hollow point.

Or my favorite the 5.45 Russian round that has a hollow section at the front. The tip flattens out and it travels all over the place once it hits flesh. Its nickname is the "poison bullet".

Still I love my 7.62x54R steel core, I have shot through 3/8 plate like its nothing.:D

I haven't done much for hunting big game. Their season is in what is usually a very very busy time of year for me being on a grain farm. We're trying to harvest crops and plant winter crops...
I do do a bit of bird hunting. Mostly small birds such as partrige and prairie chickens. Their season goes into a time where most of my work is done, and I can just go out and bang away for a day here and there...
I have shot a bunch of coyotes this year, as the seem to like eating my calves. I tried barnes varment grenades in .22-250. Anything I shot with those loads died... Most of them wearing their internal organs on the outside...
I"ll tell a story about that.
There was a pup I was lining up on, and it was crouched. I couldn't see waht was behind it, and right as a shot it jumped about 18 inches to 2 feet into the air to try to get a gopher that was beyond it. Well, my shot hit the gopher, and caused it to splatter right as the pup was jumping on top of it. I have never seen a more puzzled coyote in my life. Poor thing was sniffing around like crazy to try to figure out what happened.
Anyways, I had my little chuckle, and as the pup was trotting off with the little remanant of the gopher in it's mouth, I shot it as well...

The Ak 74 poison bullet is simply a smaller version of the 7.62x54r sniper bullet. Unlike the 5.56, a lot fewer things get up after begin shot with a the 5.45x39

Well not really the 7.62X54R is an old design, it has a lot more in commen with the .303 than the 5.45.

The 5.45 was designed in direct response to the 5.56.

The 5.56 is a very good round. I have seen after action reports/pictures where a 5.56 went through a rear door on a Suburban, through a seat, another person, a headrest and still had enough energy to turn the drivers head to spam.:eek:

I have also seen them turn the lungs of a 300 pound pig to soup.

The 5.56 is a very deadly round. The key is velocity, out of a 16in or longer barrel they have enough to fragment and cause a massive wound.

I want an M1 Garand or something that was WWII and American.

I meant the slug of the bullet is a smaller version of the sniper round, not the case... Sorry for not making that clear, hattie.
The 7.62x54r sniper bullet has a very different slug than a normal 7.62x54r round does...

Pooka, info on mauser rifles.
http://www.mausershooters.org/k98k/k98kframe.html

Could you provide a link? I'd like to learn more about the different 7.62x54R type's I really do like that round!

The info I have on the bullet comes 2 ways. a friend of mine who was a colonel in the russian air force, and from a pre 2001 edition of Soldier of fortune magazine...
I have yet to find that info on the web, but both of these sources back the other up, and are completely separate....

Thats cool, I need to subscribe to SOF mag, it seems pretty good.


Since this is a MB forum, and since the 8mm is one heck of a round, here is the MG42...I want one bad!:cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxDauR7REPw&feature=related
AKA Hitlers buzz saw, being on the receiving end of that means a very bad day...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEo8yRiDU0w
I have also shot a BAR and want one of them. It shoots with authority is all I can say, weighs a ton. BAR is a nice rifle though, the Browning desinged action is impressive as hell. It just eats and spits out 30-06 it doesn't feel like a fragil weapon, I don't think their is much you can do to stop it from running.

John Browning was a genius, and designed some of the most influential firearms in history.

One of my favorites is the Browning M2, or Ma Deuce. My friend is in the Marines and says Ma Deuce is magic, when she opens up everyone on the receiving end heads for cover. You don't argue with Ma Deuce!:cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZoelnF87Fg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6ZhUCPMkB8

I so wish I could buy those. Wen can't even buy a broomstick pistol here.... :(

Thats a shame, anytime your in my area your more than welcome to shoot my stuff.:) I don't have anything that cool yet but I have a few neat toys.

You should look into visiting the Knob Creek machine gun shoot, its heaven on earth!:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31vm3-BQRJU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s6_vufc1ns

In this country we can also own big stuff.:D:cool:

Ah the joys of tracer rounds (Although I wouldn't want to give my position away.....) Fighting at night must completely suck.

Fighting at night would suck, its hard to see anything even with NV. Tracers also suck, since they point both ways.

Mike when are we shooting again? Call me!

What do you want to shoot?

Appreciate the offer. The same goes for you. If you're ever in alberta, do come by, and we'll pop off some rounds. As I live on a farm where the nearest neighbour is almost a mile and a half away, no one bothers me...

Nice, we could have a lot of fun!:cool:

I'm a member of a private club now, so a lot of stuff goes that didn't before.:cool::D

I always questioned the effectiveness of normal night vision goggles for standard infantry..... NV goggles work by amplifying the light that's available so I question if the muzzle flash would temporarily blind the user....


Your call, let me know.

You're welcome. Ludwig Lowe was one of the original companies that formed the Mauser cartel that created the "DWM" Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken prior to WWI. They had a controlling interest in FN at the time as well. But the two books I have on the subject don't mention the specifics of the rifle your friend has. I'm surprised that such an old rifle was used as the basis for conversion to K98 spec. If it's at all possible I'd sure like to see some pic's of that rifle, and closeups of the markings you mentioned.

- Peter.

Aparently, my mauser is a yugo M48BO with a K98 receiver, a bolt from who knows where, and the barrel has been shortened, making me wonder if it was actually a gwere 98 actually... It's unstamped. The stamps have been carefully filed off except for one nazi crest which is just visible under the right light...
I woudl really like to get a sniper version of the K98 with Waffen SS markings...

Good luck, most are fakes.