Well, around these here parts, for well over a year, the dealers and places like Big 5 simply did not have any milsurps, regardless of what the prices were being asked for them. It has only been in the last couple of months that Big 5 was again offering Yugo 24/47's and Mosin Nagant M91-30 rifles. And I notice that the prices being asked for them now is about twice what it was a couple years ago when they were freely flowing thru the marketplace.

A newbie would most likely not notice the price increase after the long dry spell without any rifles at all being available. But us old timers who have been in the game for many years can plainly see how the prices made a fantastic jump when they became available again. Look at what Yugo AKS rifles are selling for now! Some places are asking as much as $400 for them! My first SKS rifles were Russians and I paid a little less than $200 for them back in 1996 or so. When the Yugo 59/66 rifles came into the country, it flooded the market with SKS variants and the price dropped considerably on them. I bought six of the 59/66 rifles at gun shows over the years and most of them were $149.95 in the box, unissued, and with all the accessories. I still have two of them in unopened boxes that I am saving for a rainy day with the $149.95 price tag on them.

What surprizes me more is the cost of ammunition! Gone are the days of 5.6 cent per round Turk 8mm Mauser ammo in quantity purchases. I can understand that, because there were only a finite amount of it left from the days it was used by armies thruout the world. It had to run out sometime. As far as 7.62X39 SKS ammo goes, it has at least doubled in price. There is a guy who makes the gun show circuit and I have purchased hundreds of dollars worth of ammo from him over the years. I could get Golden Tiger ammo from him cheaper than mail ordering it, even if his list prices were somewhat higher, but I saved on the shipping charges.

For about two years, he did not have any 7.62X39 ammo and could not get in any from his suppliers. Then it started to come in again and he had it. However things are different now. The old case of this ammo used to contain 1000 rounds. Now the cases only contain 500 rounds, but he is still asking the same amount of money per case. So for the same money, you only get half the number of cartridges! And being that the cardboard cases that constitute a case are only half the size of the previous cases, that tells me that it is not a case of someone in this country doing it, but it starts at the factory in Russia.

Then again, a newbie probably would not be aware of that, thinking he was still getting a good deal. Quite often the memories some of us have of back in the "gool old days" tend to taint our way of thinking.
Curt