Did someone call for....me?
Posted on 11/25/2011 9:33:13 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
At least someone is making money in these difficult times. Arms dealers in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley are making out like, well, bandits as unrest in Syria sends black market gun prices through the roof says this story in Lebanon’s Daily Star. Rocket grenade launchers appear to be the hottest investment grade item, with prices more than sextupling from $400 to $2500 in recent months. Kalashnikovs and M16s are also up sharply, with 75 percent appreciation on the Russian guns and 100 percent on the US model.
Perhaps more investments in Lebanese arms dealer funds could rescue US state and municipal pension funds; those are the kind of returns states like New York, Illinois, California and Rhode Island need to avoid massive service and benefit cuts in the years ahead.
But what this news really means, of course, is that more and more people in Syria and Lebanon are preparing for all out civil war. Religious and ethnic divides half forgotten during the long decades when the dictatorship was secure are now beginning to revive as the Assad clan looks weak.
This is the pattern I saw at work in Yugoslavia and the Caucasus twenty years ago as ethnic groups geared up to butcher their neighbors and drive them from their homes; I will never forget the night a Georgian poet asked me how much guns cost on the Istanbul black market; he was arming himself against what he called the “Abkhazian menace.”
I made a note to myself at that time: when poets buy guns, tourist season is over. They are buying them now in Damascus; something wicked this way comes.
Yes, it's a great idea for SOME people. It's not an activity for everyone. There are some people who definitely shouldn't try skydiving, either.
What's scary about them? Do you have ligyrophobia? A little time (say 4 years) in the Corps of Artillery might cure what ails you.
Did someone call for....me?
I've just been buying lots of fishing stuff -- bottom rigs and dragnets.
Good luck at keeping them. Someone with a gun will decide they need your fishing gear more than you do.
A more complete question: "Guns & Ammo a Better Investment Than Gold?"
IMHO, about the same...
But the time to be able to invest in sufficient quantity (for holding inventory at multiple geographical locations) cheaply was 1998 - 2002. AK's for a couple of hundred, the M4 family about half today's costs, 7.62 and .223 for 78 bucks a case of 1000, and gold for 260-285 an oz.
I bought 1000 rounds of .22 LR at Dick's sporting goods Black Friday sale for $30
What with all the folks above losing their guns overboard, fishing the bottom seems to be a good way to find a few.
In recent years, the component costs have gone way up. Availability has been a problem too. There were weeks when I scoured the shelves looking for boxes of bullets and boxes of primers to restock. Powder was acquired in 8 lb containers and divvied out 1 lb at a time to "working stock". The 38SPL brass was usually good for about 8 reloads before the case mouth becomes "work hardened", then splits. The .357mag nickel plated brass is most likely to split. It's pretty, but I think the dissimilar metals limit the number of reloads.
A vibratory cleaner using ground corn cob and a tablespoon of Dillon brass polish does a fine job. If the brass is really badly caked with dirt, you can start with ground walnut shells as a more abrasive medium. Either way, you want the brass sparkling clean. Any contaminants on the surface may become embedded in the resizing die. That produces lots of ugly, scratched brass. Damaging a $20 to $30 resizing die is a waste of resources.
Always weigh your powder and stay within the suppliers recommendations for loading a cartridge. Bullet type, powder load, primer type, cartridge overall length (COL) should be worked from the minimum load first. Check the limits of your firearm so you don't exceed the manufacturers pressure limits in PSI or CUP (copper units of pressure).
I tell you what...now that there...that's pure poetry.
I was kidding about fishing for guns. I can hardly catch a trout.
My guns and ammo are scary stuff, depending on which end one would be situated.
A good home protection firearm is the one that is in-hand and loaded.
You’re right about that!
More people live close to cows than elk. Some of us are more concerned about harvesting poachers than harvesting deer or elk...
Ditto's!
Wow, I didn’t know they made a Single Six with a barrel that long. What is that, 12 inches? I have one I bought in 1964, with the 6 inch barrel, it was originally a convertible, but somewhere during one of my many moves since then I lost the .22 Mag rimfire cylinder. Some day I will send it back to Ruger and have a new cylinder fitted to it.
What a coinicidence, I lost mine in an earthquake while out hiking in the wilderness.
Sweet!
That one right in the middle looks like my favorite gun, an S&W .357.
By the way, it looks like you lean more toward revolvers. Me too, by a mile.
Give me a no-doubt-about-it wheel gun any day.
Now that I look at it again I am not so sure that is a Ruger, unless you changed grips, I don’t see the Ruger logo on the grip. So, am I right or wrong?
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