Allah ackbar indeed! Why can’t I ever find a storeroom full of Sturmgewehrs?
If anyone reading this has contacts in Syria,you might consider recommending that they try to exchange them on some international market for a much larger number of more modern arms. The StG44 is a good design, but there probably isn’t a whole lot of 7.92×33 ammo floating around Syria. Plus, in my experience a lot of original StG magazines are pretty finicky, and that’s not what you want in a firefight.
The guns could only come to the US as parts kits, to be chopped up in a bonded warehouse (sadly) – but perhaps there are buyers in the middle east or former Soviet republics that could keep them intact and make it a profitable find for the Free Syrian Army (whom we wish the best of luck in toppling their dictator).
Hear, hear. Sounds like a good solution for all concerned. It would solve the most pressing problem of all, a supply of modern reliable firearms with which the Syrian rebels could effectively defend themselves — and it would, secondarily, help preserve quantities of a historically significant firearm that is an inextricable part of our heritage.
No wonders where all those German guns was floating to…
As you can see Ian German weapons always best in world,if Arab nations buy them it deffenatly must be the best…
MP44 usualy wont malufanction unless ones in while recoil spring have to be replaced but everything else it never have any problems,I also seen some muslim chronicles and not only STG44 there but also 98K,G41,G43 and even FG42 was there..
Seems like majority of German Guns Syria,Libiya,Africa,Asia and even some parts of Australia bought those guns..Thats explain why Germany nolonger have those guns or parts becouse they all was sold out..
Years ago there was a fellow by the name of Bill Petri (I think that was his name) who sold 7.92 Kurtz by the thousand round lot. It was German WWII manufacture and then repacked by the Czech military after WWII, I called Bill and asked him where it came from and he told me Syria. That would have been in the late 1980’s I bought a thousand rounds of it which I sold six years ago. Maybe these rifles also came from Czech.
Well, I doubt they will pass this chance to use those old guns; thought this may sound pessimistic, I am afraid some will probably even end up being used against US and Allied troops elsewhere.
It’s just plain dangerous, if any gun nut walked in there by accident they would have a stroke !
Gun Nutter is the term I prefer.. I like guns (as most red blooded males do) but I understand that owning guns or having guns makes one less safe..PERIOD. It gives many a false feeling of safety. It can lead many to feel like they can be a Super Hero. Owning a gun does not mean one has the Tactical Skills to intervene in a criminal situation. Walking around with an exposed holster makes one a prime target for a Career Criminal.. or the first victim that they would need to neutralize.
ALSO.. the Second Amendment did not foresee the advent of Cell Phones that our Master 0.01 Percenters could monitor.. or Facebook to gauge the Outrage of ‘The People’ over their Unmitigated Greed.. or Helicopter Gun Ships.. or Airborne Killer(remote controlled) Robots.. or Mass Media OWNED by Corporations.. or the NRA and/or the Military Industrial Complex or GREED driven Weapons Industries flooding our streets with firearms.
What’s my point? The Second Amendment has become little more than a Pacifier in the mouths of Racist, Reich Wingers, and, Ethnophobes. When we realize that the Corporatocracy does not give a Flying Fuck about us, 99% of The People, when we realize that Democrat and Republican are simply a ‘CHOICE’ between Coke or Pepsi, when we realize that the ‘Political Process’ is the Entertainment Division of the Military Industrial-Congressional Complex.. then we can start to look for solutions.
Rich, you are right! Btw, is that just me or the StG44 do look in great condition, despite being heaped one on top of the other. I am with Robert regarding the possible origin of the rifles (or possibly Yugoslavia).
These will not make it to the U.S. anytime soon even if they were available. Just look at the SNAFU involving the M1 Carbines in South Korea. U.S. made weapons to boot. The current administration feels they are too dangerous. What a crock. I can walk into a sporting good store and buy most type of assault rifles and 30-100 round magazines for it. I love the StG44 and all the other early assault rifle attempts. Great piece of history goin away like the vets of that era.
I suspect these are out of the old East Germany ( perhaps via the USSR?). Some StG44s came to New Zealand in the late 80s and got converted to semi auto. These came from East Germany in very god condition ( refurbished). I believe the East German boarder guards used them for some time after WWII and when they got retired I guess got sold off to client countries of the then USSR?. I recall a bunch of pristine unissued first model AK47s ( the original stamped receiver model) were captured when Israel invaded Lebanon in the early 80s.
I am sure there are still some interesting caches of arms in Russia or the old Soviet states. Personally I am hoping for a mint collection of the Winchester 1895 muskets in 7.62x54r to turn up one day.
I also think so, though the supply must be dwindling somehow. And yes, a cache of mint, original condition Winchester 1895 Muskets would be great… According to Luke Mercaldo and his co-authors A. Firestone and A. Vanderlinden (in ‘Allied Rifle Contracts in America’, published last year by Wet Dog Publications), Winchester made some 300,000 M 1895s for the Imperial Russian army. If you subtract to that total the 10,000 rifles thought to have been sold to the Spanish government during the Spanish Civil War (in Spain there has been some discussion on the numbers actually supplied), plus the ones inevitably lost and/or destroyed in the last stages of WWI, the Russian Revolution and all the turmoil that followed, the Russian Civil War included, I guess a few nice hundreds might still exist, somewhere… To the Winchester 1895 Musket I would add a mint collection/cache/full storeroom of original Mosin M 1907 carbines.
I may be mistaken, but my understanding is that the reason large quantities of those 7.62mm M1895s are around the US collector market is this: the Revolution led the new government (I believe this is the Provisional Government that was in place between the February and October Revolutions) to repudiate the Tsar’s war debts. Stiffed on the part of the contract that had already been shipped, Winchester declined to ship the balance. With little demand for lever-action muskets in an odd-ball (for America) caliber, they blew the stock off to cut their losses, probably to Bannerman or someone like that.
This guy says some were sent to the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War:
http://imageevent.com/willyp/russiansovietcomblocsection/russia/weapons/1895winchesterm1916
Hi- just my 2 cents- The last deliveries of Winchester M1895 Russian Muskets were in December 1916. This was prior to the Russian Revolutions in 1917. The Russian M1895 is pretty rare in the US. Most of those found in the US were muskets rejected by Russian inspectors and sold later by Winchester on the commercial market. Most of the Russian proofed examples are really rough- well used. I think the Russian units given the Winchesters liked them –
That is correct: the East German Kasernierte Volkspolizei (KVP for short) used the StG44, both refurbished WWII vintage ones and, presumably, also some newly assembled batches put together from parts manufactured before VE day) till 1955. This was a much more military-like, gendarmerie force than the later Volkspolizei (or VoPo). From 1955 onwards, most of the combat functions of the KVP were taken over by the then newly-formed NVA, while the civilian police force duties were assigned to the VoPo.
As far as I can recall – no references at hand atm – the other main users of the StG44 in the GDR were several workers’ militias forces, the Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse (‘Combat groups of the Working Class’, in a more of less literal translation) and the Betriebskampfgruppen (‘factory combat groups’, tasked with the defence of factories, industrial sites in general, etc).
Czechoslovak paratroops also used the StG44 for a while, as did their Yugoslav counterparts, and the late ones until quite late I am told (apparently, the late 70s). The Yugoslavs got theirs through donation by their Soviet allies shortly after the war, before Tito and Stalin parted ways. A number was apparently put into storage and later sold to Middle Eastern countries after refurbishment.
Yugoslav army had 40.000 StG44 (about 10% of overall production), part was received from Russians and part was captured, lots of them in mint condition. It was used by paratroopers till late 60S and after substitution with AK transfered to army reserve.
Almost whole lot was sold to Libya in 1983.
Ammo 7,92×33 is still in production by Serbian factory Prvi Partizan Uzice (PPU).
In regards to the 1895 Winchesters, I heard at some point recently that there are stocks of them (probably not pristine, or unrefurbed) in Russia, but that the Russians and the importer couldn’t agree on a price. That may not be true, but I believe that that’s what I heard.
I wonder if the Russians put the Winchesters through the same post-WW2 refurbishment that they did their Mosin-Nagants and captured Mausers. If so, obviously it would reduce the value to collectors. But it also might result in a Winchester 1895 I can actually AFFORD.
Can go to Turkey to give it a try.
Arabs can not win the war, Jews, and fantasy to use German equipment can improve the situation, but ignores these Jews are the combat experience of the Allies.
Ultimately, the goal needs to be to overturn the “sporting test” that Thomas Dodd copied from Nazi and Weimar gun law into the Gun Control Act of 1968. At the Nuremburg Trials, where most of the prosecutors were repelled by Nazi methods, Dodd was taking notes!
Ironically, he’d be gone by the time his law took effect. A career of corruption caught up with him, and he was censured by the Senate, a very rare penalty, and retired. His son inherited his seat (and his predilections).
Anyway, that’s the construct that has to go to denazify our gun laws.
Yep, the sporting purpose test would be a good first step.
To get things like these Sturmgewehrs into the US, we’d also need to repeal that 1986 ban on registration of any new “machine guns”.
Repeal the Hughes amendment as well. Defacto ban; as MG’s wear out, destroyed or lost, no new ones to take their place. No reason for Hughes, or sporting purpose. What part of “shall not be infringed” is hard to understand?
Might be Jim Petrie who had the ammo, he’s a well known German collector here in NY state?
And I’ve heard many times from Russian/Soviet collectors that yes, there are crates of Winchesters over there, refurbed, but too expensive to import. The vast majority of Winchester 1895s in the US are MP-8 stamped Spanish imports- Russian contract rifles given to Spain as war-aid and then imported by Interarmco in the sixties. But since the Winchester was still issued by the Soviets in WW2, they’re out there.
You idiot why did you say “Free Arian army who we wish best of luck toppling their dictator” are you those brianwahed idiots who still believes what the US government is telling you? Those “free Syrian army” are actually al Qaeda terrorists supported by Turkey, US, Saudis Arabia to fight against Assad. you are a fool for supporting the “free Syrian Army” terrorists .
This post is 4 years old.
doesn’t change the fact that assad is still a dictator