I visit a few gun shops and have noticed a few trends regarding the surplus arms they have for sale. The arms are either pristine and expensive or beat up and expensive. Some of the shops will haggle a bit on price and that makes things better. The prices just keep marching off the chart. All the best...
Gil

Gill,

I've never been able to get much of a good deal from a "used gun" dealer, at least not around here. My brother hangs aroudn the gun shops and gets to know the dealers, and he has better luck. I will occationally buy a used gun from a private person who will come out to the ranch and let me shoot it first. Most of these people need money and will give you a pretty good deal. There's a lot of used gun listings in the newspapers down here, especially around tax time or Christmas time when people need cash.

Cary

Yesterday we were doing our last prairie dogging trip for this year. Where we shoot is on private property with the dogs in a valley about 1,500 yards wide. After expending much ammo at the PDs with shots limited to a minimum of 300 yds, we decided to break out the big guns for some fun, a tradition with our little group.

There were two NM Garands, a Druganov (sp?) sniper rifle, an O3A3 and two K31 Swiss, one of them mine. We lasered a rock that was 23" in diameter and 817 yards out, standing in the middle of a barren portion of a hillside. We shot one at a time with two spotters calling the shots. The K31s ruled the day and by a significant margin.

Mine cost $89, has a rather beat up stock but a pristine bore with no rust anywhere. Big Five was selling them a year and a half ago. Ammo is readily available locally but I was shooting handloads with Norma brass, dies courtesy of RCBS and 180gr Nosler BTs. Surplus Swiss ammo is amazingly accurate, too, as we found out. Shooting from a sturdy bench, and once ranged, the K31s would hit the rock almost every time with everyone that shot them. What a bargain!

I notice K31s in our area are now selling in the $150 range for beech and $225 for walnut, presuming normal condition. Surplus Swiss ammo varies from 38 to 65 cents locally and it is superb. If you find one of these K31s at an affordable price, I would highly recommend it.

The first group I ever fired from my K31, using Swiss ammo, was 1.5" at 100 yards, off the bench, iron sights. Since I have problems seeing iron sights any more I was pretty impressed! Anyone have a good load for the 7.5 Swiss using 165 grain bullets?

We used to be able to find nice tight Swede Model 96 Mausers at gun shows for $60-70. These days they go for $250-350 and thy're sloppy and often made up of different serial numbers. Thos old swedes would shoot excellent........

Gil, Alderfer auctions in Hatfield pa is having a gun auction Nov 12. Look'em over from 1200 to 1500 then bidding starts. They list a number of surplus rifles, Might be worth a look.
Bob