Could a Company Oldie but Goodies thrive today

[MagnumDweeb]

I've been looking at Curio and Relics more and more. I don't have my own place place so C&Rs are not really eligible for ordering en masse. But I found that there is a lot of love for so many of these old guns. Folks using 91/30s and K31s for hunting exclusively, target shooting, and SHTF defenders.

Garands and .30 Carbines are being reproduced by top-notch companies like Fulton as well be other known companies. Not to mention the Thompson Semi-auto only carbines and such. And then there are the MP40s and MP38s, as well as, DP-28, MG34, MG42, PPSH41-43 semi only that are becoming popular.

But I pondered, one day most of the surpluses will be gone. It might take another thirty or fifty years but one day I can see some 91/30 fetching five hundred bucks. Many of these guns calibers are either produced here in the United States by Winchester or by Pri Partizan in Czech, for easy commercial consumption.

Not today, but maybe some day in the future could a company building oldie but goodie reproductions thrive as a business. Could someone building modern production 91/30s built to spec be able to sell them for $200 or more. Could someone buidling PPSH43s or other model get away with semi-onlys for three or four hundred dollars selling them as carbines. Personally a Suomi 9mm with a drum in Semi only for four hundred bucks would be a lot of fun as a plinker and possilbe home defender.

We have seen breach loaders become not only popular again but fetch high prices. The new Charles Daly 1884 is going for over $800 and is a breach loading .45LC or .45-70 and variety of other calibers. Garands are still popular with the CMP crowd but I can admit I'd love to own one years from now after I fufill my .308 Nato, 7.62x54R, 8mm Mause. Swiss 7.5. But by then it may be too late, already parts kits are hard to come by and unless some company gets ambitious and does a production run of parts kits, we might not see them ever again.

What other models might you think would be popular again if someone made them plentifully and there was ammo for them.

 

[Duke of Doubt]

Producing those guns would cost far more than they would sell for, today.

That's part of why we love them; a modern commercial equivalent, if available at all, would cost over a thousand dollars.

Eight years ago Turkish Mausers were selling 6 for $100. I handpicked mine for $41. It has gorgeous black walnut stockwork, a beautiful bluing job, many features no longer found in modern rifles, and all machined parts. They go for about $200 and up today. They'd cost $2,000 and up to produce, if they could be produced at all.

 

[eye5600]

I was just thinking this morning about the commercial market for a reproduction of the M1903 Springfield. (Maybe there is one. Don't know.) It could be marketed as a repro of "the best bolt action ever issued by the US", plus the historical links to various famous battles. But it does not have the built-in market of the cowboy rifles, and the cost, as noted, would be high. It's possible it could get some traction in a niche segment of the "service rifle" market.

They would be simpler to build than the M1A, but the market would be so much smaller that the cost might come out the same, or higher.

 

[Duke of Doubt]

eye: "It could be marketed as a repro of "the best bolt action ever issued by the US"

Fraudulent advertising. Give me a Model 1917 any time, and failing that, "Civilize 'em with a Krag."

 

[eye5600]

Whatever Duke. We'll make them both and lose two shirts instead of just one.

 

[Duke of Doubt]

It would be a fun shirt to lose, and that's for sure.

 

[deadin]

I'm sure if some manufacturer saw a big enough market for them, they would be made. The Civil War reenactors and the CASS has created a market. Pietta, Taylor, and others have risen to the market. Even the Chinese are getting in on it with some of their reproductions. (At least theirs are affordable when compared to Taylors

Time to join a WW1 reenactor group.