Certainly the Turks are probably not packed as nice as these "rearsenaled" mosins but they aren't usually in a jumble.
Aztec has these 91/30s at a great price too. 
Posted on 04/22/2004 1:51:15 AM PDT by kattracks
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:21:18 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
April 22, 2004 -- A Florida-based arms company is at the center of the international probe into a New York-bound ship seized in Italy while laden with thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles, The Post has learned.
The AK-47s were apparently bound for Vermont.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I'm sure BATFE got the paperwork on the import permit being issued. They may have lost it, but they surely got a copy.
They were all old military surplus, and most likely acquired for parts, not to be resold as complete guns. Even those intended for resale, the Mausers and SKS (not SKA) would likely be refinished and some might have new stocks put on as well.
A scary looking semiautomatic with wood "furniture". If it has plastic furniture it's a Military type "assault weapon". </sarcasm
Mausers? MAUSERS? Does Mauser even make a semi-auto rifle? Or was this a load of 98K bolt-action WWII vintage rifles headed for Mitchell's? Well, there goes that $295 price tag.
OK. Carolyn, thanks to socialist/communist dimwits like you I think that a civil war in this country is inevitable. I think that one of these days incidents will occur that will wake up a mass of sleeping sheeple to the treachery of pols like you and talking heads like Dan Blather and their anger will be uncontainable. The Feds will wipe out scores of them. Fringe nut groups will see that as the time to move. The Feds will wipe out scores of them. Then the Feds will be facing hundreds of thousands if not millions of more aware and level headed Americans so seething with rage at your idiocy and hypocrisy that nothing short of nuclear war or a massive land invasion by a foreign power will turn them away from purging you from the land. That's what I think.
It's hard to beat a 12 ga. for close work and pucker factor. No 'ballistic fingerprint' to be had either.
Century probably ordered "parts guns", plus the Mausers and SKS's, from some source that didn't take very good care to pack them, knowing that they'd be used for parts.
At least, that's my take. What say you guys?
Thanks to Article 16 of Chapter One of the VT Constitution us Green Mountain Boys don't have to do no
steenking esplaining about no steenking guns to nobody!
"We know that the [ship's] destination was North America, but we don't effectively know if that's where the [suspect] arms were going," one customs official told Italian state television.
The weapons were confiscated by the Italian authorities because of problems with the ship's customs forms. For example, the arms had been described on some of the forms as "common guns" instead of assault-style.
They are common. There is nothing unusual about the type or quantity of these arms being imported to the U.S.
The AK-47s had been tampered with so they couldn't be rapidly fired, but the modification was one that could easily have been reversed, authorities said.
Easily? Only if you have the right parts and illegally without a Fed type III license which is also required to purchase or own said parts. Those parts cost money too.
Again, common. Hundreds of thousands of semi-auto rifles, already legally owned, are capable of being converted to full-auto. If you have the parts and the license and the tax stamps.
The United States has banned such military-style semiautomatic weapons since 1994.
Not really true. Only specific models from specific origins with certain specific features have been banned from import, manufacture or sale since 1994. For example; an SKS from Russia or Romania is legal but an SKS from China is not. All arms of this type imported or manufactured before '94 remain legal except where specifically banned. VT ain't one o' those places. Georgia neither AFAIK.
As several gun-savvy FReepers have already suggested; the type of gun and the conditions they were being shipped in (bayonets attached, loosely dumped in a cargo container) strongly suggest that they were being imported for parts. Extremely common practice. Paperwork SNAFU's happen. Self serving busts by eager Euro-weenie LEO's happen.
When you blithely repeat the meaningless buzz words of the anti-gunners, such as 'cache' and 'assault guns' (other than full-auto, which these were not, there is no such thing from a functional POV and only a cosmetic definition from a legal POV) it calls into question your sincerity and/or your knowledge-ability of the subject. This article was an anti-gun slam aimed directly at the upcoming sunset of the AWB in Sept. from start to finish.
Certainly the Turks are probably not packed as nice as these "rearsenaled" mosins but they aren't usually in a jumble.
Aztec has these 91/30s at a great price too.
Century Arms is a good company. I shop there from time to time, and drool over some of the stuff on their website. They deal in antique, curio and relic, and some older East-bloc firearms.
IMHO, they were (are?) gambling on the AW Ban sunset. When the AWB sunsets they want to be the first to offer some nice semi-auto AK stype weapons with all the trappings (30 round magazines, bayonets, pistol grips, etc.) that have been banned for so long. It won't make them a fortune, but it has the potential to make them a tidy profit. Can you blame 'em? Personally, I think its great that they work so hard (and risk so much) anticipating the customer's wants.
This is just a combination of anti-gun bias, anti-terrorist hysteria, and some fuddled paperwork. Literally, there is nothing to see here - Move along!">
You called it; right on the money. From FReeppost and articles following:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1127236/posts
AK-47s Headed to U.S. Had Legal Permits
Posted on 04/30/2004 6:09:51 AM MDT by FooBarBaz
AK-47s Headed to U.S. Had Legal Permits
Wed Apr 28, 4:13 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A U.S.-bound shipment of thousands of AK-47 assault rifles and other combat-type weapons, seized by Italian authorities who suspected they were being smuggled, actually have legal permits to be imported, American officials said Wednesday.
About 7,500 AK-47s, AKM rifles and other weapons worth an estimated $6 million were seized April 20 aboard a Turkish-flagged ship in the port of Gioia Tauro. They were bound for New York from Romania.
At the time, Italian authorities said the guns were hidden aboard the ship.
But Andrew Lluberes, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the weapons actually were cleared by U.S. authorities. "The permits are valid," he said.
No, you should have said thousands of AKMs.
You could be technically picky and said thousands of Cugir, Romtechnika, or Sule AKMs or AK74s, though it's hard to tell from the photos I've seen without magazines in the rifle, but the generic *AKM* designation of a stamped receiver Kalishnikov is close enough.
A weapon to shoot alternative musicians?
Could it be the SKS?
Or, if you're a Russian or Bulgarian, a *CKC-45* rifle, from the designation actually stamped on the rifles in Cyrillic letter characters. I suspect an Italian language acronym derived from the rifle's designation translated from the Russian Samozaryadnyj Karabin Simonova, or Simonov Self-loading Carbine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.