jfruser, which milsurps were they?
Bubba plays a small role taking a few milsurps out of the poll of "collectibles," but he doesn't cut THAT many. I can generally find 20-30 decent milsurps at any gunshow for every similar milsurp that has been cut on.
Were they Swedish Mausers, M1 Garands, No5Mk1 Jungle Carbines, etc? I'd love to find a gun show that offers such a wide assortment in that good a condition, and at reasonable prices reminiscent of even 5-10 years ago.
There's a false belief that today's butt-ugly milsurp couldn't possibly be anything worth collecting or keeping in one piece, they're never going to amount to much. I disagree with that false premise.
Today's butt-ugly rifle is the Yugoslavian SKS. They're available for dirt-cheap, right?
So were the Lee-Enfields, 1903 Springfields, 1917 U.S. Enfields, Gew98 and Kar98K Mausers, M96 Swedes, M1 Carbines and M1 Garands. Would anybody dispute that these guns in this day and age are getting fewer and their prices have climbed accordingly? Lots of them got sporterized, and I have examples of each that have suffered accordingly, some irreversibly so. Those that couldn't be restored have completed their transformation to fine hunting or target rifles, and I shoot them on a regular basis, plenty of venison in my freezer.
Another ugly Warsaw-Pact rifle that really shouldn't have gotten a second look is the Czech VZ-52 SHE carbine. They were going for considerably less than $100 not even 8 years ago. See how many one can scare up now, and what prices they're garnering. It's clunky, poorly-balanced, shoots an intermediate cartridge, and has a permanently-mounted pivoting bayonet. There were all of about 5000 of them imported. I see a parallel between the VZ-52 and the current crop of Yugo SKS rifles.
You can see how this repeats itself over time. Nobody wants to take a hacksaw to an as-issued 1903 Springfield or or Kar98K Mauser when they're found in that condition these days, because they know that the old girls are best kept in one piece, so many of them got dissected over the years, and the supply was limited at best. And I can easily see sometime down the road when folks will lament the days of the cheap Yugo SKS, and trying to find a replacement grenade launcher to fix one that somebody hacked off. It's not your problem, I know. And I've made more than a couple dollars restoring the work of Bubba for others who found a rifle so modified.
So what's different about the Yugo SKS? Is it the Communist affiliation? Maybe a poor human rights record? Here's where the "it's just a tool" analogy plays best. There's a rifle out there that could be construed as a symbol of an administration with an abysmal human rights record. I'm not talking about a Luger, Mauser, Kalashnikov, Arisaka, or SKS. It's the Trapdoor Springfield. Is that going to make somebody want to sporterize it, based on it's history vs. the American Indian in the late 19th Century? Patriotism is a wonderful thing. I espouse it wholeheartedly, as long as it's not applied selectively.
Like I stated above, nobody's stopping you from hacking up that SKS. It's your bar of soap and washcloth...
I'm traditionally cheap, too. But I wouldn't use that as a reason to introduce Mr. Dremel Tool to Mr. Yugo SKS, in order to make something that's closer in configuration to an easily-available Chinese SKS.
