[tojones]

I stopped in to a local gun shop this morning while waiting on mom to get out of an eye doctor visit. They surprised me by having a few milsurps. First one was a Factory 26 SKS in excellent condion. I thought great! Then I saw they wanted $399 for it. Not so great. I asked about the M1 Carbine next to it. $795 with most of the finish gone. Stock was decent but didn't look at it close at that price. I then noticed Japanese rifle. Probably in vg condition. No mum and bubba'd with a scope mount tapped and drilled and screwed to the receiver. $180. I couldn't help but tell them that the collector value was nothing since someone drilled and tapped it for the cheap scope they attached to it. One of the guys working there agreed quickly. He pointed me to a 91/30 for $99. All matching refurb. Nothing special. I then noticed that the bolt although matching had basically no wear on the bolt head/face and the bolt handle had been shortened up, though still straight. So I walked out of there with a soft case for my AR and left the milsurps for someone else.

 

[tojones]

I tend to pay a little more than I should for guns I want, but I don't see many bargains locally on any type of guns. I see fair prices for new stuff but not on milsurps. I did see a nice Mauser north of here that was a fair price, not a bargain, but fairly priced for the condition and so forth. Only hitch was that I had just bought my AR and didn't have the funds to grab it at the time. At least these local guys are consistent. They pretty much all have the same prices, give or take 20 bucks here or there.