FOTW 10/16: The AVS-36

Now, if you are a fan of Soviet Surplus firearms you have surely heard of the late and great Sergei Simonov…no? Sure you have, Simonov is responsible for the SKS which happens to be one of the first weapons to use the omnipresent 7.62x39mm cartridge. We are not here today to talk about the great SKS or even Simonov’s bigger project, the tank destroying PTRS-41. We are here to talk about Simonov’s “flop” gun: the AVS-36. The AVS-36 was innovative in Russia, it was one of the earliest select-fire firearms that was produced in the world and would be responsible for a shift that would become a trademark of all Soviet firearms.

The AVS-36 was adopted by the USSR and first saw action in the Battle of Halhin Gol and then the Winter War.  Though the firearm was used through the early years of the Second World War it was formally driven out of military use by 1941. The trademark image of the weapon occurred during the Winter War, when the AVS-36 and the Finnish LS-26s went head to head and both flopped tremendously. Throughout the war, the Finns saw issues with their LS-26s’ and continued to capture several hundred of the AVS-36’s and were so disappointed with it’s performance that once they could stockpile a decent number of the SVT-38 weapon (designed by Simonov’s rival Tokarev) they switched them, though they still were said to have many of the same issues. Stalin would ultimately force the AVS-36 out of military usage in favor of a Tokarev design, Stalin was said to favor Tokarev, that was to hold up better under harsh Russian conditions and easier to fire.

The AVS-36 had some unique designs for the time in which it was created. While Germany’s STG-44 and America’s Thompson were chambered in sub-rifle calibers, the Soviet’s went all in. The AVS-36 was chambered in the impressive 7.62x54R, I say impressive because if you have fired one you understand the power, this would however also prove to be a flaw in the design of the rifle. The action used a tilting-bolt design that would later be revised and simplified for use in the infamous SKS. Being an early select fire weapon, semi-auto or full-auto, called for some subtle things to be done the firearm as well. Due to the force of the large caliber and the rise of the barrel in full-auto, a large muzzle brake was added to the barrel. This muzzle brake helped reduce the barrel climb as well as reduced the recoil felt due to the large caliber. If you have ever fired a firearm with an effective muzzle break you know that this normally makes the firearm louder as well. This firearm would also be one of the first to be designed to have a detachable box magazine, in this case the magazines would hold 15 rounds of the 7.62x54R. Weighing a little over 9 lbs, the AVS-36 was not a light gun but not incredibly heavy either, even at 4′ long. The other distinguishing feature of the firearm, like most of it’s day, was that it came with a wooden stock from butt-stock to barrel (also not uncommon for Russian arms).

It has been briefly mentioned already that there were some issues with the firearm–that might be an understatement. The fatal flaw, and the one that would perhaps forever change the thinking of Soviet firearm designs, was that it would not function dirty. Seemingly small amounts of dirt and dust would stop up the gun and make it impossible to fire with field stripping and cleaning. This seems almost impossible to imagine seeing the rugged durability of the Mosin Nagant, SKS, AK-47, etc. So, instead of thinking of it negatively I will think of it as a sign that going forward, Soviet weapons would have to be able to fire in almost any conditions. Another problem the AVS-36 had was that it was chambered in too big of a caliber. I know, most of you are thinking I am an idiot, but full-auto Mosin in the 30’s? No way, and apparently the Soviets felt the same way. The muzzle brake did not work, the gun was uncontrollable on full auto, and blame was placed on the magazines being “too big”.  Some of the the issues the gun had operating were in fact troop induced. The gun was not idiot proof, it was intricate and came from the factory with protective grease in it, and the soldiers were facing failures in freezing conditions. Well, if you do not clean the grease out, guess what? It freezes, gums up the action, and creates failures all over. It was a great design, and a great weapon, it was just designed without anticipation of what Russian weather and untrained soldiers would do to/with it.

With only somewhere between 30,000 and 65,000 of these guns ever built, unusual for Soviet manufacturing and no one knows the real number, there were never many of these to start with. According to many people, after the weapons were decommissioned  many of them were scrapped which reduced the numbers even more. What does this mean? The AVS-36 makes for a rare, and rather collectible, piece of military surplus firearm collecting. While I could not find one of the AVS-36 for sale, the last prices I had seen on them were over $10,000–think same ballpark as a STG-44. If you are interested you could contact J&G sales or AIMsurplus, if you want ammo it can easily be found for around $12, again through people such as AIMsurplus or CheaperThanDirt. Hope you enjoyed this week’s Firearm of the Week and come back next Tuesday for another!

 

What is “Curio and Relic”?

So by now, if you actually read these things, you might have wondered: “What in the h___ does ‘Curio and Relic’ mean”? I know, I through it around a lot and use it interchangeably with Surplus without explaining…and that is not fair. I apologize, but I realized the error of my ways and have come back to shed some light on the slightly, maybe, confusing terminology that I have become so obsessed with using. So, I will try in this post to fairly quickly explain what a Curio and Relic firearm is in the eyes of the federal government.

First, in order to be classified as a Curio and Relic firearm in the eyes of the federal government, the firearm must be at least fifty years old based on the current date.  This should be pretty straightforward, there is no real legal jargon to this it just means that a gun that is at least 50 years old is in fact a Curio and Relic. This does not mean from the design, just because you purchased a firearm who was designed and produced in 1947 does not mean that you have a Curio and Relic firearm. This becomes especially important if you are the proud possessor of the C&R FFL as a licensed collector, you do not want to end up with a firearm illegally shipped to your house: bad news from the ATF. By the way, if you are really interested in Curio and Relics, the license is not a bad way to go and will save you some money through transfer costs if you end up buying many guns. You need to make sure when you do this that the stamped date on the firearm is at least 50 years old to avoid a whole lot of issues, meaning that an AK-47M produced in 1975 is not a Curio and Relic Firearm. This, of course, extends to replicas of otherwise Curio and Relic firearms such as the fine goods produced by the Italian firm of Uberti. This firm makes fairly realistic reproductions of Colt Single-Action Army revolvers to Revolutionary War era muskets. These are fun to shoot and fairly inexpensive, you just need to remember they were made in the last 50 years and do NOT fall under the category of Curio and Relic firearms.

Second, a firearm can be decided by state/local/federal officials as a firearm that could find its way into a museum or some other form of collection. This does not mean that the firearm has to be of a extremely high quality in specific, just that it has enough historical value to be of some use to a museum or otherwise esteemed collection. This is very, very straightforward. There may be many guns which do not fall in the age category that can easily meet this one. I would guess that this would apply to actual Arma-Lite M-16s and M-4s, as well as several other guns…you just need to make sure and check with proper routes before you do this.

There are some other qualifications that can fit to this term, but for the average everyday collector these will be the most common deciding factors. It is important to remember that when dealing with Curio and Relic firearms that the date you have to be concerned with are the actual components of the firearm–specifically the action, receiver, and chambers. You can have a sporterized Mauser that has a 60 year old action, trigger, barrel, etc but a new stock and it still is in all technicalities a Curio and Relic gun.

Well, I think I have expounded all I can on what a Curio and Relic gun is. There are subtle intricacies and nuances to this term, if you ever find yourself a licensed collector and confused do not be afraid to contact BATFE to clear some things up. You also need to know that once you make the leap to become licensed that you will face a certain amount of due scrutiny (you are having firearms shipped to your doorstep) and your home or firearms will be inspected at their request. I hope that with this I have been able to clear up what my use of a certain abbreviation really means and if not…feel free to ask anymore questions that you might have. If you are interested in becoming a licensed collector or just want more information on it, go ahead and check out: http://www.crffl.org/. It provides some good information and other links to those who are looking to get their license.

Until next time, happy collecting y’all.

 

Where Can I Find Ammo?

Alright, to continue our installments based around getting started in the world of Curio and Relic firearms (going on I will continue to refer to this as C&R) this somewhat shorter post will take a look at places in which you can buy ammo for these guns. You may ask yourself, well can I not just go down to my local __mart and buy this ammo like I do all the rest? The answer, in some cases, is a resounding no. Sure if you find a surplus weapon chambered in the world famous 7.62x39mm (the round for Ak-47’s, SKS’s, and several contemporary firearms), this will not be an issue. However, trying to find a  __mart that sells 8mm Mauser (or 7.92x57mm) is a little bit trickier. I decided to dedicate a whole post to the efforts of finding ammo after almost being talked out of buying one firearm and re-chambering another because of “rarity” of ammunition. So, let us get underway for places to find ammunition.

Having a hard time finding contemporary rounds for your new C&R firearm? The first choice, if not the easiest in some sense, is to go ahead and buy surplus ammunition as well. Surplus ammunition is well known for being cheap and likely sealed, in the case of eastern-bloc weapons, in tuna can looking canisters that could seemingly outlast nuclear fallout.  This ammunition can usually be found at sights such as CheaperThanDirt.com, AIMsurplus.com, and so on. The ammunition is still in working order and you have nothing to fear about the pressure tolerance differences between firearms made over 100 years ago and contemporary ammunition. The one major drawback? Most, if not all, surplus ammunition is highly corrosive because of the the primers that were being used in that era (predominantly pre 1950’s). This means that you must break down and wash all metal components of your firearm after each shooting session to prevent corrosion and pitting. This really is not all that difficult to do, the army manuals provided with M1 Garands and Springfield 03A3’s told troops to wash weapons with warm soapy water. It is however time consuming and a royal pain in the rear if you get done shooting, eat, and then have to drive home. Just remember, for $73 you can get 440 rounds of surplus 7.62x54R ammo on AIMsurplus, which makes it hard to pass up seeing that the same amount of money will get you 120 rounds of clean ammo.

Your next avenue of perusal would likely be your local sporting store, and I emphasize local because I try and give back as much of my money to local stores as possible. This can run from an Academy, started in Austin, all the way down to a small gun shop or outdoor store. I can find most of the ammo that I need for my firearms, ranging from 32ACP to 7.62x39mm to 303Brit, at Academy and at a great price. I have had some success in the past when looking for a round that these stores did not carry, to get a local store to bring it in. It does not take long for a manager to realize that when you stock affordable caliber ammunition there are people that will purchase it (in this particular case it was 7.62x54R). The next line of stores are your local small firearm shop or sporting good shop. Growing up in Austin was great to my hobby as it was home to a great store for C&R fans. Tex-Guns ( http://tex-guns.com/) is a great store locally owned and operated by a former high school history teacher that puts his emphasis on C&R guns. Need Ammo? Ask. Need a gun? Ask. If they do not have it, they will do their best to try and get it for you. I know that according to their ratings online, there are people who do not like the shop as it is small and crowded, but to me that is part of the charm. The guys here are knowledge (but not omnipotent) and are always willing to have a chat regardless of whether you are spending money or not. They have a great stock of surplus, new eastern bloc, and new premium brand ammunition for C&R calibers as well as reloading supplies. Here is my unpaid endorsement for these types of stores: I could not find a Nagant revolver anywhere, walked in and 30 minutes later they had ordered 3 for me to pick out my favorite and asked if I wanted to order ammunition for it as they were out of stock (7.62×35 being hard to find) and offered to call me when they got it in. True to their word I got a call as soon as it was in and the owner disassembled all three and used a bore light to let me check out all three, he would later pull one off the counter before I said anything to send back to the distributor because of pitting. So, give a smaller business your money and you help the community but you also find people that are willing to work harder for your money.

Where else can you look? The internet is still a great place to look for new non-corrosive ammunition for C&R firearms as well. Where you go online just depends on what you are looking for. I have not find one online ammunition site that differs tremendously in price from another. These sites (Ammunition Depot, Ammo to Go, MidwayUSA, Cheaper than Dirt, etc) offer all around pretty good prices for ammo varying from the ominous Wolf to Nosler and Hornady. Cheaper than Dirt, AIMSurplus, Ammunition Depot, and Ammo to Go offer great prices on a wide array of ammunition in caliber and country of origin (not to mention price ranges). MidwayUSA has, in my experience, offered a little bit larger selection of caliber sizes but also range into much higher priced ammunition (such as Nosler, Hornady, and the like) as some of the smaller ammunition companies. Do not mistake me, I think that every website that sells ammunition has it’s perks and for sure if you are looking for surplus ammunition that becomes tricky but, you need to find which one has all the ammunition you need (if possible) and purchase it there. On a finishing note for this subject, I have had great personal experiences with all of the websites I have listed (none of them know my name I guarantee you).

The last thing I can list is to visit the super-stores. I have not had much luck finding rounds for C&R guns at Bass Pro Shops, only have really found 7.62×39 at Wal Mart, and have found just about any caliber round at Cabelas. The thing is, I just try to stay away from them. They have great selection, some friendly employees, and are fun to go through, I just try to help out the smaller business first. This being said I have bought a few guns from Cabelas and a lot of ammunition, so please do not think that I view them as some sort of firearm industry pit. They have great sales, good ammo prices, and a large selection, the biggest problem most people will have with them is that they are not in every major town. Neither are in Austin, one being in Buda and the other in San Antonio.

So, I hope that this will help anyone who has had a hard time finding ammunition for their odd caliber firearms to find some ammunition so that you can get out and shoot and have a great time doing so. If there are any questions in regard to specific calibers, websites, or stores go ahead and leave a comment and we will see if I can not get you a little help and information in that regard. I can not emphasize enough that you should not feel obligated to alter or re-chamber your firearm on the basis of the rarity of ammunition. When I had first started looking at Nagant revolvers, not at Tex-Guns, someone had tried to convince me to swap cylinders to fire .32ACP. This is foolish, you are altering parts to create a good fit and the ammo is not really any cheaper (~$25 for 7.62 Nagant to ~$21 for 32ACP near me). So, until next time find some ammo for you and go shoot to your hearts content.