Do people choose a milsurp based on cheap ammo avail.?

I

Ignition Override

New member
This helped me decide to buy first LE (#5), and over two years ago, two Mosins.

At that time was not interested in reloading, and still prefer to have a heap of cheap Surplus ammo in reserve.
Recently the price of Yugo/Rom. 8mm attracted me to classic Mausers.

Life is too short to need to pretend otherwise.
 
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Probably just the opposite - I've walked away from plenty of cheap Mannlicher Steyrs and Arisakas because of ammo availability and cost.
 
Ammos never been a concern to me since I started collecting.I just buy what Im interested in.If theres cheap ammo available thats greats but if not its not a problem for me to reload.
 
I bought a Ruger M77 based on Surplus Ammo, I noticed lots of deals on 7.62x51 Nato Ammo, and wanted to be able to enjoy shooting more, so I purchased a little Ruger Bolt action .308:D
 
Mosins are some of the funnest rifles to shoot, and I'm very happy that they're so cheap to own! Albeit, components are a bit pricey and hard to find, I bought 4 cans of Eastern Bloc ammo 7 or 8 years ago, and it was only around 25 cents a round. I figure the stuff has been in the can for the past 50+ years ... .another 10 won't hurt it! :D They are also very accurate in the right hands.
 
In milsurps, I am intrested in the history of the firearm and its use, at one time the firearm you hold in your hands represented the pride of the country that issued it and was the chief means of the soldier it was issued to of protecting himself ...ammo is secondary(face it, none of them are dirt cheap to feed these days)
The more recognizable military firearms are because they are assciated with victory, or daring do...and had mechanical merit in their own right that made them worthy of the sporting fields as well as the battlefield( most pretty hunting bolt action rifles in the deerstand have a battlefield mauser as thier grandpa)

if its something I want in my shooting collection...ammo has nothing to do with the choice. Its just something I want to own, use, enjoy.
 
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Originally yes, but I'm lucky to have a local shop that carries pretty much everything ammo wise either in milsurp or Privi or Ruski or Norma etc., so now I'm looking at whatever interests me instead of what I fear I can get ammo for.

I've also noticed that over the past few years a lot of ammo has come back on the market due to cowboy action and milsurp collecting so that's a very good thing.

I don't have a place to set up a reloading bench and I'm not sure I'm well suited to it in any case but honestly, there isn't much these days you can't get ammo for.

Best,
Oly
 
I guess my last post didn't post... but, I consider GP-11 to be cheap compared to store bought new manufacture ammo, compared to 8mm Mauser and 7.62 russian surplus, it's not.
 
Makes no difference to me. I tend to not shoot bucketloads of ammo through my milsurps, so if ammo is hard to come by, I just reload. I figure that if I can load for .30 Gibbs (that was a moment of complete irrationality), I can load just about anything.
 
I bought a Romanian Tokarev because of the cheeeeeep surplus ammo for it. I shot it a lot last year when all other ammo was non-existent. About $90 for 1260 rounds kept me having fun. Quite powerful ammo too!
 
I guess it depends on why you collect. Some folks collect high-dollar pristine examples, so I imagine that ammo cost is of no concern to them. I purchase all of my milsurps as shooters, so cheap ammo is definitely a concern for me. However, lack of cheap ammo will not stop me from buying a particular gun. I find myself falling into 5 scenarios:

Cheap gun & cheap ammo – example: Mosin. Can’t go wrong there.

Cheap gun but pricey ammo – example: Steyr M95. I couldn’t pass up an $80 gun, so I decided to reload for this one. I guess I’ll just shoot it less.

Semi-cheap gun and cheap ammo – example: TTC. A nice little pistol for a not-too-steep price, and the ammo is still dirt cheap & plentiful.

Semi-cheap gun and semi-cheap ammo – example: VZ24 or M24/47. A little pricier than the Mosin, but you still won’t go broke at the range.

Pricey gun and pricey ammo – example: M1 Carbine or Garand. What can I say? If you are interested in WWII history you just gotta have ‘em! Cheap ammo be damned! :D
 
I've only been learning about/buying guns since late '07, despite my middle age.:o

Clark500:
My reloading is only for my LEs, and is for relative economics and the drought of avail. surplus .303.
Can a beginner reloader with the simplest (Lee Ann.) gear easily get three or more reloads with old GI M2 ball ammo using light powder loads/bullets?

This survey (on various websites) will help determine whether I drive with my 'gun guru' to Anniston AL later this year for a first Garand.
 
Yes and no for me. The most shot milsurps I have are obviously the Mosins. X54 ammo is so cheap it would be silly to not avail oneself of that shooting opportunity.

That said, I also like M96 Swedish Mausers because of the quality and workmanship although 6.5x55mm factory ammo is surely not cheap. I reload for it and have a lot of fun doing that plus get a good bit of shooting with a really neat caliber.
 
History!!!

I did not know much about the Russian campaign conducted by the German 6th army prior to my purchase of my first Mosin-Nagant many years ago. Collecting the milsurp rifles has made me a student of WWII. I was a baby, born in the late 1930s, and was to small to know about what was happening in the world. I saw my dad go off to war, like most of the kids in my neighborhood. When I hold these old guns in my hands I have often said...I wish you could talk...tell me your history. Russian guns, built by potato farmers, to be shot in battle by potato farmers.
I never thought much about the cost of ammo, ammo is not what drives my desire to collect. I do shoot on occasion, but, not as much as I would like....Health issues have slowed me down over the years..
 
I am in agreement with jsmaye in that I have been stopped from purchasing because of a lack of cheap ammo. I would love to have a K31 or a LE but have stopped short based upon the price of the gun combined with the lack of cheap ammo. That doesn't mean I will never, it just means they may be last on my list of "wants" (and boy what a long list THAT is). :D

Can a beginner reloader with the simplest (Lee Ann.) gear easily get three or more reloads with old GI M2 ball ammo using light powder loads/bullets?
Click to expand...

Ignitionoverride:

I use simple Lee equipment. It may be a little slow, but it works for me. I usually load near the lower end of the spectrum and have gotten well over 3reloads out of 223 brass. My only concern with "old GI M2 ball ammo" would be with the brittleness of the brass. As long as the old brass will hold up I don't see why you couldn't expect a couple of reloadings from M2. What are you loading M2 for? I understand there are some restrictions if you are reloading for a Garand.
 
Thanks Clark500:

I only reload for the .303, in order to conserve my large heap of surplus ammo, as there is almost none out there.

If GI M2 ball ammo is considered easy to reload three times or so (for economics), I will seriously consider a Garand.

Quite frankly, most of my shooting is for frequency and quantity, not quality, and the Savage .22 is the 'appetizer course'.
Most of the targets are bricks, empty plastic bottles at 80 feet on a river bank, just north of Memphis.
I missed a swimming cottonmouth snake from 30 feet with the SKS. He swam over to a grapefruit being shot!
 
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