How is the milsurp market these days?

[Lawdog734]

10thmountain got an idea going in my head a few weeks ago for a big Christmas gift for the lad this year. Both him and his sister are very well behaved, do excellent in school and he's taken his shooting very seriously. I don't feel that I need to worry about his handling/manipulation of firearms. So since both his mother and I have had a good year, we decided that we would let him go to the CMP and pick out his own M1 rifle. I had been prepping him for the last week or so on history of the Garand, etc. which was pretty fun. We ended up telling him the other night and went to the South Store yesterday. I'm not sure who was more excited about the trip.

Bobby at the South Store took him under his wing and really took him through the ins and outs of what to look for and helped him pick out an absolutely gorgeous service grade postage stamp International Harvester. The rifle was from the last year of M1 production (1956) and with the exception of the trigger guard and hammer, it's all International Harvester. The LMR barrel gauged at "1" for the ME and "2" for the TE. Even the stock is an International Harvester.

So of course, the prime reason for going was to help the boy pick out his own M1 - proud dad that I am, I'm pretty jealous of what he picked out as it is in that good of condition, but I needed to help myself to some early Christmas presents as well.

I ended up picking out a beautiful 1898 Krag with shiny bore and a Winchester M1917 rifle with a beautiful Winchester 1918 dated barrel.

 

[MILSURP Collector]

10thmountain got an idea going in my head a few weeks ago for a big Christmas gift for the lad this year. Both him and his sister are very well behaved, do excellent in school and he's taken his shooting very seriously. I don't feel that I need to worry about his handling/manipulation of firearms. So since both his mother and I have had a good year, we decided that we would let him go to the CMP and pick out his own M1 rifle. I had been prepping him for the last week or so on history of the Garand, etc. which was pretty fun. We ended up telling him the other night and went to the South Store yesterday. I'm not sure who was more excited about the trip.

Bobby at the South Store took him under his wing and really took him through the ins and outs of what to look for and helped him pick out an absolutely gorgeous service grade postage stamp International Harvester. The rifle was from the last year of M1 production (1956) and with the exception of the trigger guard and hammer, it's all International Harvester. The LMR barrel gauged at "1" for the ME and "2" for the TE. Even the stock is an International Harvester.

So of course, the prime reason for going was to help the boy pick out his own M1 - proud dad that I am, I'm pretty jealous of what he picked out as it is in that good of condition, but I needed to help myself to some early Christmas presents as well.

I ended up picking out a beautiful 1898 Krag with shiny bore and a Winchester M1917 rifle with a beautiful Winchester 1918 dated barrel.

Nice, I saw those on the CMP facebook page. Similar story w my son. When he got his eagle Scout at 15 he wanted an M1 Carbine but we couldn't find one so we went to the CMP and each of us picked out a Springfield Garand Field Grade.

I was able to score an Inland Carbine for him off ODT for his HS Graduation thanks to @monkeyfist (We found an authentic Paratrooper stock for it later on.)

When he turned 18 he bought a Mosin 91/30 Tula hex, a 98K and a No 1 Mk III. Chip off the old block.

 

[10thmountain]

10thmountain got an idea going in my head a few weeks ago for a big Christmas gift for the lad this year. Both him and his sister are very well behaved, do excellent in school and he's taken his shooting very seriously. I don't feel that I need to worry about his handling/manipulation of firearms. So since both his mother and I have had a good year, we decided that we would let him go to the CMP and pick out his own M1 rifle. I had been prepping him for the last week or so on history of the Garand, etc. which was pretty fun. We ended up telling him the other night and went to the South Store yesterday. I'm not sure who was more excited about the trip.

Bobby at the South Store took him under his wing and really took him through the ins and outs of what to look for and helped him pick out an absolutely gorgeous service grade postage stamp International Harvester. The rifle was from the last year of M1 production (1956) and with the exception of the trigger guard and hammer, it's all International Harvester. The LMR barrel gauged at "1" for the ME and "2" for the TE. Even the stock is an International Harvester.

So of course, the prime reason for going was to help the boy pick out his own M1 - proud dad that I am, I'm pretty jealous of what he picked out as it is in that good of condition, but I needed to help myself to some early Christmas presents as well.

I ended up picking out a beautiful 1898 Krag with shiny bore and a Winchester M1917 rifle with a beautiful Winchester 1918 dated barrel.

This is absolutely fantastic.

 

[10thmountain]

Some very expensive M1 Garands are changing hands these days...on the ODT. wow.

 

[Stampede]

10thmountain got an idea going in my head a few weeks ago for a big Christmas gift for the lad this year. Both him and his sister are very well behaved, do excellent in school and he's taken his shooting very seriously. I don't feel that I need to worry about his handling/manipulation of firearms. So since both his mother and I have had a good year, we decided that we would let him go to the CMP and pick out his own M1 rifle. I had been prepping him for the last week or so on history of the Garand, etc. which was pretty fun. We ended up telling him the other night and went to the South Store yesterday. I'm not sure who was more excited about the trip.

Bobby at the South Store took him under his wing and really took him through the ins and outs of what to look for and helped him pick out an absolutely gorgeous service grade postage stamp International Harvester. The rifle was from the last year of M1 production (1956) and with the exception of the trigger guard and hammer, it's all International Harvester. The LMR barrel gauged at "1" for the ME and "2" for the TE. Even the stock is an International Harvester.

So of course, the prime reason for going was to help the boy pick out his own M1 - proud dad that I am, I'm pretty jealous of what he picked out as it is in that good of condition, but I needed to help myself to some early Christmas presents as well.

I ended up picking out a beautiful 1898 Krag with shiny bore and a Winchester M1917 rifle with a beautiful Winchester 1918 dated barrel.

Congrats to you and your son on this.

When I was there a few weeks ago, they had a very good selection and the staff were very nice and helpful.

 

[10thmountain]

How much target shooting do you plan to do in the next 6 months? Lots? None? Some?

 

[alleycat]

How much target shooting do you plan to do in the next 6 months? Lots? None? Some?

hopefully more than ever

 

[10thmountain]

On a serious note , ammo availability online is non existent . It’s crazy .

 

[Lawdog734]

I've seriously curbed my shooting and taken to doing more dry-fire. While I'm sitting pretty good on ammo, refilling the stocks is pretty hard at the moment. What shooting I am doing is either with someone else's ammo (gov or company) or it's very purposeful - not just making noise to kill an afternoon, etc.

 

[Surplusnut]

I haven't changed my shooting habits at all, I'm still shooting ammo I bought 20 years ago back when surplus was truly cheap. I've got more 54R, 8x57, 30-06 and 303 than I will be able to run through my bolt guns for a very long time.