Do you guys think there still any untouched large older weapons stockpiles left
Posted by Pleasant_Tomorrow713@reddit | ForgottenWeapons | View on Reddit | 46 comments
https://imgur.com/a/vietnamese-surplus-foreign-arms-storage-c-2011-ps7ukn7
when Rti goes through that Ethiopia stocks what will be left .
Yottah@reddit
Yes the biggest problem is that they are FULL AUTO. Italy for example has a large surplus of AR70s and AR70/90s that are occasionally converted to semi auto for civilians in Europe, but they cannot be exported to the US even after conversion (which is Permanent without significant machining) because the ATF states once a machine gun always a machine gun.
GamesFranco2819@reddit
I mean, that's not an issue really. They get the same chop treatment all the AKs and FALs and shit get and they are legal to be exported here. The issue is that they aren't allowed in their original configuration which is complete horse shit
xqk13@reddit
Well the lower demand for the ar70 means hardly anyone will want to pay for remaking the receiver, so it wouldn’t be financially viable.
GamesFranco2819@reddit
It's a case where the demand doesn't exist because there isn't a flood of cheap kits on the market. Look at the Cetme L kits. When they showed up, there were no barrels or receivers, but someone found a need for both and started cranking them out while another company started assembling/selling rifles. I guarantee the same would happen if enough of those ar70 kits hit our shores.
Yottah@reddit
The CETME L benefited from commonality with the HK roller rifles which already had lots of support in the US in terms of aftermarket parts fabrication.
xqk13@reddit
True, let’s hope someone likes the ar70 enough to bring the entire stock into the country like marcolmar did, because it’s always a gamble.
Yottah@reddit
Parts kits come in, in much smaller batches than completely rifles used to. Also you have to realise that you can’t compare some of these rifles to AK and FAL parts kits, which already have a massive communities in the US for parts and support, versus importing chopped exotic rifles that have zero civilian market presence in the US. Complete guns are always a much safer bet when it comes to bringing them to the civilian market, whilst US allies can just chuck their old weapons to the US and get paid up front for them instead of finding a company willing to destroy the rifles, import them to the US, and maybe rebuild them.
ChevTecGroup@reddit
Yes. Unfortunately many are in sanctioned countries now. Or are held by govts that frown upon selling to non-govts
Nikablah1884@reddit
But think of all the NEW surpluses that are being created, right now, by all kinds of conflicts around the grlobe.
Sea_Farmer_4812@reddit
There is a sweet spot with most of what people think of as milsurp. Once technology advanced into select fire guns it made it infeasible for govs to generally sell guns to the public.
Nikablah1884@reddit
And there's a whole army of amateur craftsmen with 1980s CNC machines to correcet the "problem" to make a few bucks.
GoldenDeagleSoldja@reddit
Yeah but then its not the same gun
Nikablah1884@reddit
meh, most milsurp rifles have either been bubbuh'd by some croatian guy or modified in some way.
GoldenDeagleSoldja@reddit
And those ones dont cost as much. Unmolested ones bring much more money
I_2_Cast_Lead_45acp@reddit
Dose the 30 year cool down apply to sanctioned countries? I thought I read a bunch of CCP SKS's came in recently after spending a several decades stored in some former Soviet Block countey.
GamesFranco2819@reddit
Albania is where they came from since we can't import rifles directly from China anymore.
wustenratte6d@reddit
Yes, absolutely. The Soviets kept damn near everything from at least WW2 up, and the production numbers for Mosins is ridiculous. Guaranteed sitting in mines and other underground depots. Same for rolling stock and artillery, except for the trucks. China probably did the same, North Korea will take anything and stores everything. Lots of talk about previous Soviet bloc countries sitting on massive depots. Iraq had all kinds of old equipment, and lots of older crap is spread all over the Middle East, Africa, and Asia I wouldn't be so sure about Western equipment. Between the US efforts to keep at least NATO allies modernized, I believe a lot of older stuff got moved on, again likely to the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, but not in the numbers the Soviets supplied. I doubt we'll see large numbers of NATO stuff sitting around.
abundanceofb@reddit
It’s a pretty open secret in the defence forces that Australia has a bunch of L1A1’s and semi-auto Austeyr F88’s sitting in storage. Depending on who you ask in the military, they’ll tell you it’s for civilian use if we get invaded.
RARE_ARMS_REVIVED@reddit
The state of that stockpile makes me sad. All those MG42s, MG34s, M60s and the poor rifles and other MGs! (Including miniguns) Why on earth couldn't they keep them in a warehouse like any normal sane country?
throwpayrollaway@reddit
Perhaps the IRA kept stockpiles after GFA. Theres maybe lots of Tommy guns knocking about hidden still.
froggit0@reddit
Both sets of paramilitaries put their dumps ‘beyond use’, for what that’s worth, with ‘verification’ as called for by the Agreement. These dumps are unlikely to be nothing but rusted masses of iron at this point. Whatever is left- and it’s likely there is SOMETHING as some 1874 Mausers turned up in an Orange Hall cupboard- will be destroyed in accordance with the Agreement.
throwpayrollaway@reddit
I think it wouldn't be beyond possibility that both sides would have people that would have spared some weapons somewhere. It's not like they were in the business of being a highly regulated organisation.
deuce-deuce-pap@reddit
If North Korea ever falls and their iron curtain lifts we will have a glorious amount of surplus shit.
I can’t imagine all the stuff they have stockpiled.
420_Braze_it@reddit
Most of it is probably not going to be any good, let's be honest. Even the wood they use for their AK furniture is shit.
byteminer@reddit
Mosins for $50 again!
Spider95818@reddit
NGL, so many weapons have been produced and stockpiled in the last 100-125 years that I genuinely wouldn't be that surprised to see a functional Maxim or Vickers water-cooled machine gun, just because of the numbers made.
Handpaper@reddit
Where have you been hiding?
Ukraine has been using PM1910 Maxims on the front lines for two years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBrCChDxbKw
froggit0@reddit
Waaaaay back in the day Sam Cummings complained Vietnam wouldn’t sell him surplus from the First Indochinese war. Certain regime types like to hang onto stuff with the ‘rainy day’ mentality. Also, anti-proliferation measures are beginning to take hold, along with the West just not making that much weaponry anymore (no more conscript armies). And finally the preference for select-fire small arms further restricts the surplus market supply.
tula23@reddit
I mean can you really blame the Vietnamese? It’s not like they’ve got a lot of money to replace their old equipment and if there’s another war it’s likely they’ll need whatever they can get. I’m pretty sure Ukraine learnt this the hard way when their generals and government sold off all their weapons/surplus for pennies at the end of the Cold War
Yummy_Crayons91@reddit
To their credit, Ukraine was a big supplier of the cheap Mosins Nagant Rifles back in the 1990s along with a few others like SVTs. They were also known as a place that would sell modern Soviet equipment like T-80 tanks, SU-27s, Buk, and S-300 missiles at discount prices.
Then over time they discovered they really needed all that old stuff after all.
StandUpForYourWights@reddit
True story, a friend was working for John Deere in Ukraine back just after the fall of the USSR and he traded a crate of liquor for a tank. The police didn’t care, he fucked around with it for a few months then gave it to a farmer who pulled the turret off and used it as a tractor.
Pratt_@reddit
Yes, they usually can't be exported but there definitely is.
Just last year the Russians were showing off the brand new lendlea Thompson SMG they found in boxes in an Ukrainian salt mine use as long term storage depots
Talking about Russia id bet there is a lot of WWII stuff in storages somewhere lost to the layers of incompetency and bureaucracy.
And not only small arms, I mean id the US managed to lose it's heaviest tank ever built for 27 years (the T28, famously found in the middle of a military field hidden behind a bush 1/10 its size 27 years after anyone had any records of its whereabouts), I can only dream about all the stuff accumulating dust (and hopefully not rust) somewhere forgotten after decades of regime changes aforementioned bureaucracy and incompetency.
Like there is honestly a non-zero chance that somewhere in a Russian hangar a surviving Char 2C is just waiting to be discovered again.
trackerbuddy@reddit
That salt mine was something else. Really suprised the Ukrainians didn’t blow up the stash. Thermite or C-4
savingryansprvates@reddit
Heres those Thompsons
pontetorto@reddit
Char 2C its Possible its in the base where they keep foregn military wehicles for evaluation purposes, in som hangar or coud be at kubinka tank museum in russia in a restricted hangar where they keap the interesting stuff. The chieftan visited the plase some 11 years ago and if my hazy memory is right thear was plases he was not alowed accsses.
ShotgunEd1897@reddit
It's painful to see all of those Thompsons and Grease Guns, just rusting away through neglect. Money and history just turning into dust.
duga404@reddit
Most of the ex-USSR probably still has plenty surplus guns left over from the Soviet Army. IIRC Russia even had a decent number of captured Wehrmacht guns in storage until they melted them down to make a war memorial monument not too long ago.
Stefen_007@reddit
A lot of western governments have tons of g3 and fal type rifles that they are hanging onto, but are unlikely to sell to the civilian market
Beretta81Fan@reddit
I am sure someone has already commented on this, but I believe there is a stockpile of m1 carbines in Korea. Not sure the status of those. Mave have been scrapped by now. I heard it was a huge amount.
Domovie1@reddit
There absolutely are, the problem is that you’re going to go from the absolute crazy numbers of the First and Second World War production (2 million Berthiers, 17 million Lee-Enfield of various makes) to equivalent numbers of just three or four rifles.
Canada has seen this with the SKS. You used to be able to get matching, collector grade rifles for maybe $300, now the average price is between $500 and $700 for a run of the mill one.
They’ll certainly never be at the price/condition level you knew before.
famesjord13@reddit
I think there are very many, many of which will either rust away or just never be seen again before they could ever be redistributed.
firdaddy@reddit
Sounds like rti's bread and butter. Disintegrating stocks and sewer pipe bores .
AngryMillenialGuy@reddit
Uh, yeah. Probably more than we could imagine.
Occams_Razor42@reddit
Si, all the gun of the 1st Gulf War will someday flood the market as parts kits. 90s Civics weren't vintage until their owners were too. Ditto with old cop guns which might not have as many NFA issues
PercentageLow8563@reddit
Definitely. Belarus, China, all the central Asian countries, South Africa, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan...
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