I stopped at "The Ocala Armory" today on my way home from visiting a soldier in my platoon. It's a medium sized shop in Ocala Fl with a decent selection of C&R rifles, and I hadn't been there in quite awhile.
I walked in and the owner greeted me and asked if he could help me with anything. I told him I was just looking. I walked around the shop and looked at everything he had out then walked up to the counter.
Employee: "Can I help you find anything today?"
Me: "I'm just looking around mostly, but have been looking for a couple different things. I've been trying to find a decent used .357 mag lever gun and an American made Mosin Nagant rifle."
employee: "We have a new rossi .357 here, it's $599, but I don't know about the nagant."
My first thought was that $600 for a rossi was about $100 over the going price and is overpriced when they sell for $500. My second thought was that the only people I ever heard call a Mosin-nagant a "nagant" were very unknowledgeable. Nagant's only contribution to the design was the magazine. Calling a Mosin a Nagant would be like calling a Carcano or Garand a Mannlicher.
He called out to the owner in a voice loud enough for a couple other shoppers to hear.
employee: "Hey boss, have you ever heard of an AMERICAN made Mosin Nagant"
other shopper: "Those are Russian rifles"
Owner: "I never heard of an American made Mosin, but we got some Russians and a Finn."
Me: "We made a bunch of Mosin Nagant rifles for the Czar before the Russian revolution in 1917."
Now I started getting looks from the old timers there that made it obvious they thought I was full of crap so I decided to share some information with them. I didn't like the loooks I was getting so I wanted to show off a little to prove that I knew more than they did about the history of these C&R rifles.
Me: "We never shipped them over to the Russia because they never paid Remington and Westinghouse for them. Alot of them ended up over there when they were issued to American soldiers who were sent to Siberia for a couple years after WW1. The US army occupied part of Siberia after landing in Vladivostok to keep Allied supplies from falling into Communist hands during the Russian Civil War."
Shopper: "We never occupied Russia, that was the Germans and they didn't stay long."
Owner: "We didn't try to keep the Russians from getting US supplies. In fact, we gave them millions of dollars of supplies, and there were so many US made Russian contract weapons that S&W had to open a new factory to build them all."
I didn't want to argue with the owner and have to tell him that the Russian S&W guns were revolvers that were made in the 1880s after the Cimean war or that the aid we gave Russia was during WWII, not AFTER WWI. I dropped the subject and layed down 10 boxes of 7.62x45 ammo that they had marked as "SHE" ammo $5/box.
Owner: "That's not AK ammo."
Me: "Yes sir, it's Czech 7.62x45 ammo for the VZ 52"
Owner: "Alot of those were converted to 7.62x39, you have to make sure you get the right kind of ammo for it."
Me: "Mine's still in the original caliber."
Owner: "I'd like to have one in 7.62x39"
Me: "The caliber adapter inserts are prone to coming out when the lock tite fails, I'd like to swap out the barrel on mine since mine is so corroded from this corrosive ammo."
Owner: "Don't you have to swap out the recoil springs?"
Me: "No, but they don't always feed right from original magazines. The Czechs made a vesion called the VZ 52/57 which has a sightly different magazine and two barrel retaining pins instead of just one like the 52. Other than that they're identical.
The owner finally shut up and stopped trying to catch me in a mistake. It reminded me why I haven't been there in so long.
I walked in and the owner greeted me and asked if he could help me with anything. I told him I was just looking. I walked around the shop and looked at everything he had out then walked up to the counter.
Employee: "Can I help you find anything today?"
Me: "I'm just looking around mostly, but have been looking for a couple different things. I've been trying to find a decent used .357 mag lever gun and an American made Mosin Nagant rifle."
employee: "We have a new rossi .357 here, it's $599, but I don't know about the nagant."
My first thought was that $600 for a rossi was about $100 over the going price and is overpriced when they sell for $500. My second thought was that the only people I ever heard call a Mosin-nagant a "nagant" were very unknowledgeable. Nagant's only contribution to the design was the magazine. Calling a Mosin a Nagant would be like calling a Carcano or Garand a Mannlicher.
He called out to the owner in a voice loud enough for a couple other shoppers to hear.
employee: "Hey boss, have you ever heard of an AMERICAN made Mosin Nagant"
other shopper: "Those are Russian rifles"
Owner: "I never heard of an American made Mosin, but we got some Russians and a Finn."
Me: "We made a bunch of Mosin Nagant rifles for the Czar before the Russian revolution in 1917."
Now I started getting looks from the old timers there that made it obvious they thought I was full of crap so I decided to share some information with them. I didn't like the loooks I was getting so I wanted to show off a little to prove that I knew more than they did about the history of these C&R rifles.
Me: "We never shipped them over to the Russia because they never paid Remington and Westinghouse for them. Alot of them ended up over there when they were issued to American soldiers who were sent to Siberia for a couple years after WW1. The US army occupied part of Siberia after landing in Vladivostok to keep Allied supplies from falling into Communist hands during the Russian Civil War."
Shopper: "We never occupied Russia, that was the Germans and they didn't stay long."
Owner: "We didn't try to keep the Russians from getting US supplies. In fact, we gave them millions of dollars of supplies, and there were so many US made Russian contract weapons that S&W had to open a new factory to build them all."
I didn't want to argue with the owner and have to tell him that the Russian S&W guns were revolvers that were made in the 1880s after the Cimean war or that the aid we gave Russia was during WWII, not AFTER WWI. I dropped the subject and layed down 10 boxes of 7.62x45 ammo that they had marked as "SHE" ammo $5/box.
Owner: "That's not AK ammo."
Me: "Yes sir, it's Czech 7.62x45 ammo for the VZ 52"
Owner: "Alot of those were converted to 7.62x39, you have to make sure you get the right kind of ammo for it."
Me: "Mine's still in the original caliber."
Owner: "I'd like to have one in 7.62x39"
Me: "The caliber adapter inserts are prone to coming out when the lock tite fails, I'd like to swap out the barrel on mine since mine is so corroded from this corrosive ammo."
Owner: "Don't you have to swap out the recoil springs?"
Me: "No, but they don't always feed right from original magazines. The Czechs made a vesion called the VZ 52/57 which has a sightly different magazine and two barrel retaining pins instead of just one like the 52. Other than that they're identical.
The owner finally shut up and stopped trying to catch me in a mistake. It reminded me why I haven't been there in so long.