Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I’m what economic experts would call ‘a cheap bastard’. I’ve got no problem paying the big bucks for something if I think it’s worth it. At the same time, though, if I can save a few bucks and not compromise my goals too badly I’ll do just that. Which brings us to today’s topic- the cheap surplus gun market.

Theres actually a pretty good amount of decent surplus firearms on the market these days. Some are better choices for folks of our mind than others. Of course, these are just my opinions and your mileage may vary.

The most common and cheapest rifle on the market these days are the Mosin Nagant rifles from the old Soviet/Russian/Communist arsenals. The two most common are the flagpole-like 91/30 and the compact and brutal M44 carbines. Both are chambered in the 7.62×54R cartridge…ballistically somewhere between a .308 and a .30-06. The guns are simple, utilitarian bolt guns of varying degrees of quality in terms of finish. The 91/30 rifles go back a ways and are usually huge long affairs with enormous bayonets to turn the rifle into a 6’ pigsticker. Prices have been running all over the place as supply dwindles but expect somewhere between $100-175. If you see one for more than $200 be sure to ask how many hookers come with it.

The M44 was a slightly ‘modernized’ version of the 91/30. Instead of being a flagpole, it’s a carbine. The bayonet was replaced with a side folding cruciform-style bayonet…much like an SKS. The carbine is short and ideal for use as a truck gun or leaving at a hunting cabin or other location. It can be a little…stiff…to shoot with that smaller size and steel buttplate. Forced to choose between the 91 and the 44, I’d go with the handier, newer M44. They’ve started to become a bit difficult to find but you can still get them at reasonable prices.

The guns have typical Communist ergonomics – the safety is a device better off being ignored. (You don’t point a loaded gun at anything you weren’t planning on shooting, do you?) It’s a pull-and-turn style like what you would find on an Arisaka. Difficult and awkward to use. On the infrequent times Ive carried a Nagant I have let the firing pin down and carried the gun with the safety off. When I was ready to shoot I simply grabbed the cocking piece and re-cocked the gun. A faster and less awkward move than manipulating the cocking piece to use it as a safety.

I normally do not like buying guns in ‘oddball’ calibers for stockpiling because the ammunition can be a trick to get. Currently 7.62×54R is one of the cheaper surplus cartridges to buy. You can still get spam cans of it at very reasonable prices. One rifle and two cans of ammo tucked away in safe, secure location could come in handy sometime and still not put you out a whole lot of money. Bullet diameter is, nominally, the same as a 7.7 or .303 ….. .311”~. Lee makes an inexpensive set of dies and there is reloadable brass out there if you feel the need to reload. For someone who wants to drop the minimum amount of money but have a decent rifle and a pile of ammo to squirrel away, these are one of the better choices.

For a bit more money you can pick up some of the Yugoslavian Mausers that are on the market. I’ve got a dealer catalog here that shows them around $275 … for that money you could buy a more ‘mainstream’ gun like a Remington 770 or other ‘bargain’ bolt gun. However, one appeal of the Mauser is that its an excellent platform to customize and 8mm ammo is quite cheap these days. My catalog says it can be had for twentyone cents a round.

Next up are the SMLEs that are on the market. Again, about twice the price of a Mosin Nagant, they clock in at around $230 dealer. Robust and with a 10-round capacity theyre a solid performer. Again, youre locked into slightly oddball ammo with the .303 cartridge. Nice guns, and quality is generally pretty good. A lot of them are still bumping around the hills in Afghanistan so thier durability and ruggedness isn’t really an issue.

If youre like me you probably would rather have something that shares ammo commonality with your other guns. Mausers in .308 do turn up infrequently but they cost almost as much as a commercial gun. My absolute favorite of the .308 Mausers is the Israeli version. I’ve had them in the past and they were great guns. Although some people swear its perfectly safe I generally avoid .308 Mausers built on anything other than the 98 action. Swede Mausers in 6.5 used to be common as grass but those days are long gone…they were excellent guns in a good caliber though. The 96 in 6.5 is about the only non-98 Mauser I’d mess with, but, again, that’s just my personal tastes.

Theres a .308 version of the SMLE out there as well, and they still turn up with good frequency. In addition to being made in .308 the 10-rd magazine was replaced with one that held 12 rounds of .308. Either the Mauser or the Enfield would be an excellent choice in .308 for an ‘extra’ rifle to keep around. I prefer the Mauser but wouldn’t feel bad if all I had available to me was the Enfield.

What about the Swiss K-31 rifles that were on the market? Amazing guns. Magnificent craftsmanship, excellent attention to detail, awesome metalwork. They all seem to shoot better than most people can hold a rifle. When they first came into the country they could be had for about a hundred bucks. Prices have climbed a good bit but even then theyre an excellent value for the remarkable quality you get. The only drawback is that the ammo is a bit hard to get…harder than 8mm and .303. Being Swiss, they didn’t really export many of these things to other countries so there weren’t a whole lot of people cranking out 7.5 ammo. Hornady offers ammo and brass but its in the special order realm and it isn’t cheap and availability is spotty. The surplus 7.5 that you do come across is almost always Swiss manufacture so you know its good, but it is often out of stock or backordered. A great gun hampered by ammunition logistics.

One in a while a MAS 49 or 49/56 comes up. Again, a great gun (despite being French) but ammo is ridiculous to find. Some guns have been converted to .308 but results have been mixed. Fascinating gun for a hobbyist but not worth sinking money into if youre looking for something to lay back in quantity.

That’s really about it for the ‘cheap’ surplus rifles. What about the Garand? The Tokarev rifle? The Nazi K98? The FN-49? Those may indeed be surplus guns but they aren’t cheap.

Not worried about ammo availability or plan on stockpiling a large quantity of matching ammo? Get a stack of M44 Nagants or some 91/30’s. Don’t mind paying a bit more? Get the Mausers in 8mm and a couple cases of ammo. Want to keep caliber commonality with your HK,M1A, FAL or AR10? Get an Enfield or Mauser in .308.

Right now, though, the best value out there is the Mosin Nagant and the cheap ammo that matches it. Like everything else, it’s day will fade and we’ll wonder why we didn’t buy a garage full of them when we had the chance, ‘back when they were cheap’.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

A fortuitous episode while grocery shopping the other day. An item that we normally find for $10 was on sale for $8.89. Ok, not a huge sale price but saving something is better than saving nothing. Problem was, they were out. I went to the customer service coutner and asked for a rain check and for them to order me a case. When the case showed up the other day it was in the midst of another sale and the price had been reduced further to $4.99. Well, half-price is sort of a magic threshold for me…I cleaned out the stock on the shelves and order another three cases.  Took our goodies back to the house and added them to the food stockpile. Once thats done it’s time to update the spreadsheets.

I cannot emphasize enough the sheer utility of spreadsheets for keeping track of stuff like this. I use Excel and am fairly good with it. I found this thread over at arfcom about how to have your spreadhseet automatically note when a product is nearing its expiration/best-by date.  When we upgraded out phones to Blackberry devices I discovered that the crippleware version of Excel in the BB would read my Excel spreadsheets. Joy! I now keep a copy of the spreadsheet in my cellphone. If we happen to be out shopping and discover something is on sale at a ridiculous price I can pull up a copy of the spreadsheet and see if the quantity we have on hand is sufficient or if we should go ahead and get more. Very useful, that.

The spreadsheets I use for tracking our food arent fancy, they just give a general description, brand, quantity, amount and that sort of info.  I keep it on a clipboard with a pen and the clipboard is hanging off the steel shelving by the food. When food is taken (or added) its noted on the spreadsheet and then once a week or so I update the spreadsheet on the computer and cellphone.  Once every few months I do an inventory to make sure all the numbers jibe. Usually they do…however, sometimes someone in this household will forget to update the clipboard…usually because their hands are full at the time. By and large, however, the accuracy of the count is never off by more than two or three items. Not bad when you consider theres about two hundred on the clipboard.

As of late I’ve been thinking that I need to expand this spreadsheet/clipboard system to some of the other consumables around here, most notably ammo. I have a reasonably good idea of how much ammo we have but I cannot say with 100% accuracy. Ditto for cosnumable gun stuff like spare parts and magazines. Really, I need to take a long weekend and work up a ‘master spreadsheeet’ with all of this crap.

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Speaking of mags, I had a customer who did a very very smart thing the other day. He’s been wanting a .308 battle rifle and I sold him on the PTR-91. He’s been dragging his feet but last week I gave him the hard sell with the same seriousness and somber tone as if I was telling him he had cancer. Look, I said, one of my vendors is having a sale on these things…it’ll cost you $1000. Cheaper Than Dirt still has mags for $1 ea. and spare parts are still abundant. If you dont buy now youre going to regret it later.  I know its a pile of money but youve been working ten, twelve hours of overtime every week, right? Buy this. I guarantee you that you will never regret this.

He handed over ten $100 bills and I ordered his gun. I then admonished him to get on the phone to CTD today and order at least fifty magazines.  Since the vendor ships the rifles ‘free shipping’, I added ten more Glock magazines for me and the missus. Strike while the iron is hot and all that.

Then, because I know the customer (who is also an LMI and a good friend) had to reach deep for the money for the rifle, I called CTD and ordered twenty magazines for him.  I’ll stick them in the closet and if he winds up not being able to come up with the scratch to get some magazines in a timely manner I’ll give these to him as an early Christmas gift.  He’s a good guy and I don’t want to see him get caught flat-footed if something goes weird in the world. This way if between the time he gets the rifle and the time he can actually get some mags he’ll at least have twenty mags to keep the gun running.

I really should nag him into some spare parts while Im at it. Hmmmm.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I get the most interesting things in the mail these days…..

So awesome, it hurts just to look at it

More details and much, much better photos to follow.

EDIT: Commenting disabled for now. This is just a teaser for a much longer post later.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Imagine, if you would, that your favorite pistol manufacturer (Glock, Ruger, Sig, Kimber) was offering a new model that was exactly like their regular models except that it fires only one round. Same price as the other models though, but only fires one round. Would you buy it? Would you plunk down $550 for a single shot Glock or Sig? Im guessing the answer is ‘no’. Why wouldn’t you buy such a gun? The answer, Im pretty sure, is because a single shot semiauto pistol is fairly useless. If they had a similar model, the same in every way except that it fires fifteen rounds before reloading, and it cost an extra $25 would you get it over the $550 single-shot version? Yet, if you buy a cheapo magazine that doesn’t work you have, essentially, turned your $550 gun into a single shot pistol.

Yup, he’s talking about magazines.

With a few exceptions, I try to stick with OEM (original equipment manufacturer) magazines whenever possible. That means that for my Glock I use magazines made by Glock. For the Ruger MkII I use magazines made by Ruger. Notable exceptions are military weapons…magazines made by contractors have to meet specs to ensure reliability and interchangeability. Usually, theyre okay although sometimes a contractor can be pretty off-spec. For my ARs I have no problem buying non-Colt magazines as long as those magazines are made by one of those outfits that make mags under contract for Uncle Sam or have proven to be an excellent product.

Glock – I stick with OEM Glock mags. On average theyre about $17-25 each and that’s a bargain for a mag that you’re going to have 100% faith and confidence in. I have used the Scherer aftermarket mags and found them to be a waste of money. Theres some Korean contract mags on the market and I haven’t heard anything bad about them, but I don’t want to trade my peace of mind that I get from OEM mags for saving $3 per mag with the Korean mags. To be fair, I haven’t tried them but I just don’t feel a need to. Recommend: Buy genuine Glock

AR – The usual suspects seem to do well…Okay, AdventureLine, Parsons, Colt, etc. I’ve been very pleased with the aluminum mags from CProducts and they can usually be found on sale somewhere for around $11-15 each. Theyre excellent magazines with MagPul followers and I recommend them unreservedly. I have no experience with the 100-rd Beta C-Mags but Ive read mixed things about them. In plastic mags, Ive only met a few that seemed worth a damn. The Eagle clear plastic mags with the constant-spring followers were actually quite good but I don’t think theyre made anymore. I haven’t had much experience with the MagPul Pmag but I just cant shake the feeling that theyre going to be a bit more fragile than the aluminum mags when it comes to dropping them on hard surfaces…I need to spend some time abusing one.
Recommend: Buy genuine military surplus mags (try before you buy) or buy the CProducts mags.

AK – Interestingly, its hard to find a bad mag for these things unless you buy an American one. Even the Chinese mags seem to work across the board. In terms of personal preference, I go for the Eastern European manufacture ones. The ones with the ‘rib’ running down the length of the spine of the mag seem to be of mostly European manufacture. I’ve had a little experience with some of the US made AK mags and while some are good they tend to be overpriced compared to the foreign made stuff. In terms of drums, the Chinese drums seem to work just fine. I’ve not met a plastic AK mag I liked and Im not sure theres an advantage to them.
Recommend: Eastern European made mags. Chinese mags as a second choice.

1911 – Everyone makes these things. I’ve been very pleased with Chip McCormick Shooting Star mags. Priced between $10-20 depending on where you find them, I’ve found them to be excellent magazines at a great price. The Wilson mags are very good but theyre usually around twice the price.
Recommend: Chip McCormick Shooting Star or Wilson.

P35 – I either use military mags (harder and harder to find) or OEM Browning mags.

HK91 – With genuine German military mags, many made by HK, for a lousy one dollar each why would you buy anything else? There are surplus steel mags as well as aluminum and the steel ones are usually around $5-10 each. If there are any aftermarket mags out there I’d just pass on them. The 30-rd mags that sometimes turn up are disturbingly primitive. There is one company offering a 50-rd drum for the HK91 but I haven’t tried it…yet.
Recommend: Genuine military surplus mags for $1 ea.

Ruger 10/22 – Ruger OEM or Butler Creek. In the Butler Creek the steel lip mags are the best but the cheaper Hot Lips mags are great too. Black Dog Machine is making a drum for the 10/22 and while I have no experience with it, people whose opinion I respect have reported positively on them. Eagle also makes a ‘hi-cap’ magazine and the ones I’ve used seem to work fine and are a good value.
Recommend: Butler Creek magazines or Black Dog. Eagle as 2nd choice.

Ruger Mk II/III – Ruger OEM. Possibly MecGar. Nothing else.
Recommend: Ruger OEM

Generalizations:
Anything marked “USA Brand” is utter crap. Maybe you have a few USA mags that work but I’ve had a lot of experience with them in a variety of guns and they are headaches waiting to happen. MecGar probably has the best reputation among aftermarket mag manufacturers and is known to make mags for some of the larger gun manufacturers. Triple K? Better than USA but not too much so from what Ive heard. Broadly speaking, any military-style gun is going to have a good selection and availability of magazines (AR, AK, FAL, HK91, M1A, etc) unless its an oddball that was never seen much in this country to begin with (FNC, HK93, Valmet, FAMAS, etc.) Sometimes a magazine will be made from a magazine of another type and modified to work in a different firearm. Examples of this would be AR-15 mags modified to work in original AR-180 carbines, magazines modified/welded to work in 7.62×39 ARs, M1A mags modified for AR-10s, and the worst offender – the Ramline ‘Combo Mag’ that was supposed to work in Mini-14, AR-15 and AR-180 carbines and didn’t seem to work reliably in any of them. These modified magazines are often problematic. Sometimes they are the only option against having no magazine at all but if you can find a magazine that is correct for your gun its probably a better buy, even at the higher price, than one of these shop-class project magazines.

If youre stocking away magazines for the uncertain future there are almost no special tricks involved in storage. Make sure the magazines are clean, perhaps a very light coating of oil on the surfaces, stack them in an ammo can, toss in a pack of dessicant, seal it up, see you in twentyfive years. From experience, a .30 can will hold 8 or 9 HK91 mags, 9 or 10 FAL mags and a 40mm can will hold around 75 HK91 mags if you stack them right.

For range trips and practice sessions, I try to use the same magazines over and over. My ‘range mags’ usually have a piece of orange duct tape wrapped around them at some point to identify them as range mags. These are the mags that get loaded/unloaded frequently, dropped, kicked, stepped on, bounced off concrete, muddy, dirty, wet, etc. I almost never use the magazine of the gun I carry daily…I might use them for a few rounds of practice just to check their function but normally I use a dedicated range mag. The idea is that the magazine in the gun you carry needs to be in top condition..once Im sure that the magazine works reliably I stop using it for anything other than daily carry. Why introduce unnecessary wear and tear and possible problems if I don’t have to? New mags are always tested at the range several times before being added to inventory. Never just buy a mag, assume its ‘good’, and toss it in with your others. Very bad. If you want, take it a step further and discretely number each mag so that if one gives you problems consistently you can sort it from the others for repair/cannibalization/destruction.

Magazine maintenance is pretty easy. Learn how to take apart your magazine and clean out the insides. Springs do go bad after a while and while it’s a good idea to have extra springs its almost easier to simply have extra mags. Some magazines (AR mags, for example) can benefit from having newer designed followers installed, and some magazines (1911 mags, most notably) have aftermarket springs available that provide more reliable feeding. Almost all my magazines, regardless of gun, are stock magazines with no aftermarket accessories or modification. The only exceptions are older AR mags that I sometimes swap out the followers.

I’ve gone on and on before about that classic argument “How many magazines should I have” so I won’t get into it here. I’ll just say that its hard to have too many. Any ‘extras’ will never have a problem finding a home..either with a buddy who got caught short, as a stash at the weekend place, as dedicated range mags, or as spares kept in stock against future restrictions. When HK91 mags hit $1 ea. I went long on them and have, no lie, about 500 of them sitting in storage. When people ask if I have enough magazines for a particular gun I usually say I’m “okay” on a particular magazine, except for the Hk mags…those Im “fine” on. Reality is, though, that “fine” for a particular gun is usually far, far, far less than that. How much is up to you.

I usually keep one magazine with each gun when they are stored. I don’t keep guns separate from magazines when theyre in the rack or the safe. The magazines may be unloaded but theres always a magazine with the gun. For pistols, if theyre still in their cases I usually keep an extra one or two magazines in the case. If you have to grab your guns and go, go ,go at least you have one or two mags. Running around with a single-shot AK or single-shot AR is embarrassing. I’d rather show up in Haiti with a 10/22 and a 25-rd magazine than an AR with no magazine.

As of today, you can still by the ‘normal capacity’ magazines pretty freely. That may change in the future so unless you like playing with the 10-round handicap that we had to endure in 1994-2004 you should inventory your stuff, see what you need, guess what you’ll need for an additional gun purchases, and get out there abd fill the holes in your magazine supply.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Doctor tells Obama supporters: Go elsewhere for health care

MOUNT DORA — A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care “elsewhere.”

“I’m not turning anybody away — that would be unethical,” Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. “But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it.”

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

These recent militia arrests are telling. On first face they appear to be no different than arresting any other criminal group – group plots something illegal, feds send an informer inside (most likely to agitate things to help build a case), arrests are made, and the feds crow about preventing an ‘impending’ violent act and that they were ‘forced’ to act quickly. Maybe, maybe not. That’s all academic to me … my interest isn’t in the event itself, wrong or right, my interest is in what affect this will have on me after its over.

What are the tangible results of this raid? Well, lets go back to the old investigative technique of asking “who benefits?” The Obama administration, right off the bat, gains the biggest benefit. Since the campaign began there has always been a faction in the Democratic camp saying that there will be great conspiracies and plots against Obama because he’s black. (He’s actually just as white as he is black, but calling him half-white or half-black wouldn’t give his side the same moral currency that calling him black does.) So now the administration can point to these Hutaree clowns and say “See! We told you there were racist plots against us!” The administration can claim victim status, the left triumphantly paints the right as a bunch of cammie-clad redneck racist gun freaks (more than they usually do, anyway), no one squawks when the feds start clamoring for more authority and regulation to stop these threats, and the next thing you know its 1994 redux.

I’ve mentioned this at least twice before – most successful political persecutions start with the dehumanizing and demonization of the target demographic. Almost from the first day of this administration there was the veiled implication that if you opposed the new President you must be a racist, what other reason could there be? Nowadays the implication isn’t even veiled. Those who oppose health care ‘reforms’, bailouts, and other platform main planks must be racists. My usual response to that is to tell the person that their opposition to the policies of George W. Bush must have been because of a racist dislike of white people. Invariably they sputter and say that Im being ridiculous, their opposition was to the policies not the fact that the president was white. I then tell them it’s the same thing here…my dislike of these policies has nothing to do with the color of the guy pushing the policies forward, it has everything to do with the policies. If career sycophant Hillary Clinton had won the nomination, become President and managed to pass this offensive legislation do you think there would be just as much anger and ‘extremist response’? Of course there would, although then theyd just substitute ‘sexist’ for ‘racist’ and otherwise leave the press releases unchanged. How do I know this? Because the closest thing we’ve seen to this level of factional saber-rattling and grassroots guerrillas happened when there was a white redneck in the Oval Office – Slick Willie Clinton. Those same militias, those same talk radio shows, those same ‘conspirators’ were doing the same things that are going on now and doing them for the same reasons…the only difference was the color of the skin of the guy running the show. So, no, it isn’t because he’s black. (Really, its more because he’s Red.) Opposing Obama’s health care reform doesn’t make you a racist any more than opposing Bush’s tax cuts made you a racist.

But, for now, you and I are going to be painted as right-wing racist religious extremists. This is pretty bizarre since Im about as unreligious as you can get and I cant think of anyone I dislike solely based on their skin color. (As I tell people, racism is silly…if you take the time to really get to know and understand someone you can find a much better reason to dislike them.) Getting painted with this brush means that we automatically take a -50 hit to our credibility scores in any discussion. “Oh, don’t listen to him, he’s one of those militia types” or “Yeah, youre only saying that because he’s black. I know how you people think!” (You people?????) And, it follows, once your opinion is disregarded or discounted it’s a lot easier for the other side to start making moves on pet projects.

So whats the immediate fallout from this Hutaree issue? We (meaning those of us on the right-of-center) lose some credibility, our image suffers and we become politically toxic for a little while. Advances in gun control, ‘hate crime’ legislation and increased federal heavyhandedness are now more palatable to the public. I wouldn’t call the Hutaree episode a Reichstag-esque event but it certainly does serve administration causes handily…this one event hits all the hot buttons – gun control, extremisim, ‘domestic terrorism’, racism (since any dislike of the current administration is, apparently, de facto racism these days), etc, etc.

What is there for us to take away from all this? Possible renewed interest and activity in the ‘assault weapons ban’ reinstatement. Certainly a small(?) increase in demand for the usual goodies as people anticipate the possibility of such a reinstatement. And, of course, the next time you take your AR out for a spin you’ll get a queer look from the neighbors as they wonder if maybe youre one of those racist militia types. It’ll be interesting to see what the repercussions of this event will be. Maybe it’ll just quietly pass from the media as they try not to fan the flames of discord. We’ll see.