Now birthdays are not a big financial deal in the Hart family so I was trying to figure out what to get with my $50 check. Videogames cost $50 but I don't currently have a computer or game console capable of playing modern games. Books? If I'm in bed and the kids aren't crying or screaming, I should be sleeping.
And $50 isn't enough money to get a gun, even an old WWII gun made in the Soviet Union by the tens of millions. Or so I thought...
Allow me to introduce the Mosin-Nagant M44. According to my research, based solely on watching "Enemy at the Gates," this gun or its longer variant, the M91/30, were given to every other soldier in Stalin's army. (The other guy just ran along unarmed.) The point is that they made a heck of a lot of these guns so even sixty odd years after WWII there are a bunch of them floating around. How many? So many that you can buy one for $49.99.
Have I mentioned how much I love this country? For $50 I can purchase, online, a fully functional WWII battlerifle made by our one time ally of convenience turned bitter Cold War adversary turned whatever Russia is today. $50. This thing meant all the world to one or more poor Russian peasants trying to survive the Nazi onslaught and their own officers, but for me it is a fun refinishing project and a few hours at the range, all purchased with discretionary income. Here's hoping I never value it as much as that peasant did.
2 comments:
Somehow I missed this post. What are you going to call this one? Mr. Kroutkill? Do you have any idea when this one was manufactured?
Well, I haven't gotten my hands on it yet so I'm not sure. They started limited manufacture in 1943 but didn't ramp up until 1944-1948. My notion of it being a WWII may be off. Some peasant may have carried it as part of the Soviet subjugation of Eastern Europe after the war.
Though I'd rather like to think of it as a Nazi slayer.
Post a Comment