Proliferation means less value. How is that ?

[JerryEAL]

Just bought my first Mosin Nagant sniper. I have examined it thoroughly and was very surprised at the quality. Russia lost over a million at Stalingrad alone. Russia had to supply and equip thousands of snipers as it valued that type of warfare immensely.
Yes the No4 T is pretty and substantially fewer of them, but I feel the 91/30 is superior in many ways. No1 quality is proliferation. The rifle is every bit the combat sniper that its competition was and at current value 1/10 the price. Why is that?
Supply and demand dictates value and not performance. The world we live in.

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[Eaglelord17]

A K31 is a fraction of the cost of both of those firearms, and in the right hands will out shoot either rifle every time. Supply and demand is all there is too it.

[Seaspriter]

Supply and demand dictates value and not performance. The world we live in.

One dynamic in the Demand portion is Love, Passion, and Enthusiasm. Here in the good old US of A how many Americans Love the Mosin Nagant, had a Passion to own one, and are Enthusiasts who crave more information?

We have plenty of collectors and gun enthusiasts who have Enfielditis -- they protected the British Commonwealth Nations, and many today are the sons of those who bore the arms.

The same can be said for the M1 family -- 4 million rifles and 6 million carbines -- carried by Americans during WWII. Put the name Colt or Winchester or Enfield or Springfield on something and you know you have a brand you can trust. Put a Russian or Chinese name on something and trust in the brand is just not there. Quality is not just in the metallurgy, it's also in the wood finish, and we all know how the shellac men must have been breathing vodka fumes on the furniture

Infrastructure is also a key factor -- experts available, books to study, historians cultivating a cult following, armourers explaining the nuances of repair, shooters giving commentary on loads and techniques, and parts availability.

How many Yanks or Brits were supplied by Mosin Nagants? That's why the passion is not there, regardless of the proliferation. Hence the demand is lower, and the price is lower. It not just a game of economics; it's a game of devotion too.

[Eaglelord17]

One dynamic in the Demand portion is Love, Passion, and Enthusiasm. Here in the good old US of A how many Americans Love the Mosin Nagant, had a Passion to own one, and are Enthusiasts who crave more information?

We have plenty of collectors and gun enthusiasts who have Enfielditis -- they protected the British Commonwealth Nations, and many today are the sons of those who bore the arms.

The same can be said for the M1 family -- 4 million rifles and 6 million carbines -- carried by Americans during WWII. Put the name Colt or Winchester or Enfield or Springfield on something and you know you have a brand you can trust. Put a Russian or Chinese name on something and trust in the brand is just not there. Quality is not just in the metallurgy, it's also in the wood finish, and we all know how the shellac men must have been breathing vodka fumes on the furniture

Infrastructure is also a key factor -- experts available, books to study, historians cultivating a cult following, armourers explaining the nuances of repair, shooters giving commentary on loads and techniques, and parts availability.

How many Yanks or Brits were supplied by Mosin Nagants? That's why the passion is not there, regardless of the proliferation. Hence the demand is lower, and the price is lower. It not just a game of economics; it's a game of devotion too.

More people are beginning to appreciate the Mosin Nagant and its surprisingly rich history (and apparent history, as usually when they went places people marked them as such). Many books have been written recently (many more than some other rifles which have been available for much longer) and the information available has steadily been increasing.

Some fun facts for you, the Mosin Nagant was at one point produced in the USA (by both Remington, and New England Westinghouse) with about 1.6 million being produced by those two companies (almost half the number of M1 Garands, and in a 3 year time period). They were also issued to American soldiers in both the Russian Civil War, and as a training rifle in the US. It is also one of the three rifles the US experimented on with the Paterson device.

In regards to your quality argument especially the metallurgy, Springfield happened to write off 800,000 1903s due to lack of proper heat treating (not forgetting the 200,000ish rifles from RIA). This is from one of your 'brands you can trust' group. Personally I have more faith in the Russian products, for the simple reason, like buckleys, its awful but it works. I have never even heard of a unsafe to shoot Mosin Nagant, from anything other than extreme wear/someone messing with it (a lot).

I am not saying American firearms aren't interesting, or anyone elses for that matter, just that for the Mosin, it is quickly becoming more appreciated by people. Many different variants (though not massive numbers like Mausers), interesting history, variety of manufacturers in a variety of countries, quality ranging from almost being done with a chisel (some WWII Mosins), to excellent (get your hands on a Finnish M28/30 or M39 to understand what I mean).

[CINDERS]

Proliferation V's Workmanship can also be summed up in the T-34 V's Panzer VI (the Tiger cost $100,000 in 1941 U.S. dollars @ $1,250,000.oo today an M1 Abrams is over $4 million....) Tigers with @ 1,300 units made and the T-34 of which were 80,000 units made rest assured quality certainly dispatched allot of T-34's but eventually proliferation snowed the Tigers under (Not withstanding the battle plans made by the supreme leader!!!!)

Each rifle has its merits and from the Mosins I have seen at the range they do okay even more melt downs than the smellies.......

[Sentryduty]

I believe the Mosin Nagant (MN) values are somewhat temporary, mainly because the Warsaw pact countries have just flooded the markets by offloading their war stocks, and for pennies per pound of rifle by the looks of it.

Just free-fall thinking on this, with no actual numbers to back it up:

My basic MN rifle was a parts bin special, and cost $130 CDN, it is a Russian built rifle that I suspect was liquidated through the Ukraine before their recent geo-political struggles. Now, in most industry every time a product changes hands there is at least a 20% markup for profit. In automotive parts this margin is 35%-50% markup as a reference.

At the retailer, let assess they made 20% profit call it $26

Meaning they bought it for $104, let's only assume one importer/distributor who gets their 20% as well for round figures, say $20.

This puts a out the door of the arsenal price at $84, but each of these rifles underwent a basic refurbishment, which costs manpower, parts, overhead, and time delays of selling the product at market, for everyone to be paid and still make profit, we could assess that these rifles might only have cost the "Refurb Factory" $30-$50 each, and were almost certainly bought by the crate/truck/boxcar load.

In the middle of this, every time that single rifle changed hands, there was a shipping cost, and shipping is never free, each time it would be incrementally factored into the "snowballing" price of each MN rifle. These aren't exactly a "farm to table" product, they would have been shipped a number of times to find their way above your mantle.

Given the sheer volume of basic rifles that were being sold off only a small margin above their scrap metal value it is no surprise that these guns are arriving at market at a very low retail cost. There is nearly zero market for these guns from a military sense, which is where the real money is in international sales of firearms, contracts are the bread and butter of arms manufacture. The collector, hobby, and sportsman market does have a huge potential, but they are not guaranteed sales, so the product must very attractively priced to unload the volume in a timely fashion.

The MN is a good rifle, but the market is flooded with them right now, in much the same way all surplus guns were after the closeout of WW2 and into the 1960's, give it enough time, and the MN will become more valuable as they become less common. No one is making new ones, seems not even the Khyber pass, so they will only become incrementally less common as the years go on. Which reminds me, I have to grab a MN Sniper for my collection before they get priced out of my range.

Overall the MN rifle is a serviceable piece of equipment, but they are "good enough" to do the job, simple, and durable, but there were some things that I find are lacking in the design when compared against the contemporaries. For example, while accurate, the light profile barrel does start to open the groups when the rifle fires more than a few strings in succession. It would still be good enough in a combat role to hit an enemy soldier even when quite hot, but it wouldn't take home the Queen's Medal even on the best of days. I have a number of Soviet firearms in my collection and I appreciate their strengths and weaknesses respectively.

[Ridolpho]

As Seaspriter says, there is an epidemic of "Enfielditis" out there. I chatted up a younger fellow at a Calgary gun show a few months ago who was ogling a No. 4 T setup. He'd never owned a single firearm and wanted this to be his first! Aargh- it was a fake. He could have picked up a PU refurb for $600 a few rows over but his heart was set on the "T". I'm primarily a Lee Enfield collector but I have gotten heavily into the Russian/ Soviet stuff lately. Problem up here for collecting is an apparent shortage of good, original stuff. I've found good NEW's and Remington M1891's and even a few original non-refurb 91/30's but I'm starting to doubt I'll ever find a good Russian M1891 (other than Finn stuff).

Ridolpho

[boltaction]

"Everyone has 5" and these will never be worth much? Hmmm.

I am not old enough to have been around when one could buy surplus Lee Enfields and Mausers for $25, but that time did exist. There were similar discussions in the magazines of the time about the 'endless' supplies of these rifles, and how best to sporterize them, etc. When I started collecting in the '80's, the Swedish Mausers were coming out and could be had for $35-45, and there were seemingly endless supplies of them. The bayonets were available by the pile. Then the Ishapore Lee Enfields and Lithgow Lee Enfields came on the market and there were tons of them too. Now not so much; when was the last time a Swedish Mauser in good original shape went for under $100? Market value is partially dictated by interest and there has always been an interest in LEe Enfields, Mausers (the cachet of the enemy rifle), and of course anything American whether it's any damn good or not seems to command a massive premium. Hollywood plays its role as well, as has been seen by Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates (lousy movie, good guns), etc. However, supply also dictates price and value.

It is true that AT THE MOMENT there are seemingly endless supplies of Mosin Nagants and SKS's on the market, but that will change. No one is making more, and it is hard to say how many warehouses are left to still be broached, and whether or not international trade relations, politics and UN regulations will guarantee they come in anyway. There is certainly a lot of negativity in the collecting and shooting world about Russian guns and their "inferiority", and that doesn't help. There is the long held view that most of the Russian soldiers in WWII were uneducated and ill trained, which indeed they were, and that therefore their weapons must somehow be bad too, which they weren't. One thing one can say about Russian weapons is that they may not be pretty or nicely finished, but they work, and work and work and work. I think Lee-Enfields, French MAS rifles, Russian MN rifles and SKS's are pretty much the epitome of what a service rifle should be--simple, easy to use, tough, and reliable. Russian stuff has the added advantage of being very simple to manufacture, which is a bonus.

I have a large collection of Rosses and Enfields, and really like them. I have also amassed a good stash of Russian stuff. I think it is pretty cool, and it is certainly sobering to hold a 1942 dated MN and know that given the shortages the Russians were facing at that time, that rifle absolutely has to have 'been there'. The ones with German and Finnish stamps on them were definitely "there". That is more than can be said for a lot of the Franken-Garands currently commanding such ridiculous prices. Goodness only knows where they served, or if.

IMO, the Russian SKS and MN rifles are the last of the milsurps we will EVER see on the market. All the WWI stuff has been found and released or destroyed. What's on the market is what there is. Same for the stored WWII stuff. International and domestic (in Canada at least) regulations certainly guarantee we will never be allowed to get our hands on anything newer than the 1960's, and even a lot of that is banned or restricted now. The current Russian stuff may never command the prices of a Smellie or a Garand or a Mauser, but the pieces will appreciate. There will be attrition--loss due to fires, seizures, floods, etc, and the hand of Bubba. I see that already--a recent auction had two MN rifles, still in full wood, but both drilled on the side for some sort of aftermarket scopes. I've seen similar at shows, with people talking about how it doesn't matter because there are endless supplies of MN still out there.......I think of the Swedish Mausers of the 1980's and chuckle to myself.

In ten years, we are going to be looking back on 2015-2016 and reminiscing about when we could buy Russian snipers for $600 and case lots of SKS's for $179 each, with their kits........

Ed

[Sentryduty]

There will be attrition--loss due to fires, seizures, floods, etc, and the hand of Bubba. I see that already--a recent auction had two MN rifles, still in full wood, but both drilled on the side for some sort of aftermarket scopes. I've seen similar at shows, with people talking about how it doesn't matter because there are endless supplies of MN still out there.......I think of the Swedish Mausers of the 1980's and chuckle to myself.

Agreed, I won't even consider buying a drill and tapped rifle in most cases because of how hard it is to fix, and because of how many Lee Enfields and other examples I have seen ruined because someone just had to screw a cheap scope on it. So many restoration candidates that are just beyond reasonable effort.

Flip side is it keeps the unmolested rifle market healthy.

[WarPig1976]

The current Russian stuff may never command the prices of a Smellie or a Garand or a Mauser, but the pieces will appreciate.

As I believe you are quoting me at the beginning of your post from another thread. I have to point out our thought process is basically the same. Removing the peeling shellac and/or rust from a refurb isn't going to hurt the value much if at all in the long run. Both need to be addressed at some point.
If I'm wrong I'm not concerned with the loss of a few hundred dollars 30yrs from now. It's not why I play this game.