Rock Solid Industries
https://www.rocksolidind.com/shop/
Bluegrass Gunstocks
https://www.bg-gunstocks.com/
If you are one of the millions of Americans who have introduced themselves to guns in shooting over the past 8 years (out of a terrifying suspicion that they would not be able to later), welcome to our club. I’m (not really) sorry to tell you, you have caught an infectious disease that could possibly spread to all areas of your life, for generations to come.
When you get bit by the gun bug, your collection tends to grow rapidly, specifically as it relates to military surplus firearms “too cheap to resist.” Proceed with caution.
One of the symptoms of the disease will be the mysterious appearance of “too cheap to resist” military surplus rifles, the most prolific of which is the Mosin Nagant, and they will multiply in number until your wife figures out how many you have, then they will stop for a while anyway.
In between buying guns, you may decide to build one of your Mosins out into a custom rifle project. There are some cheap ways to do this, with “no gunsmith” mounts you can get on Amazon and Midway, but you are better to start with a scope rail from Rock Solid Industries.
The Rock Solid mounts are mounted to drilled and tapped holes in your receiver, and they are infinitely more solid than the scout mounts you’ll find that mount just to the ladder sight position.
Looking around the website, I found most of the products that are in the video. The “Low Pro” is the newest product, and produces the lowest profile you can get for the Mosin. You don’t need a raised cheekpiece at all to get a proper cheek weld. That’s $70. The MI-25C is also there, for $100, and there are a number of both scout and rear scope mount systems in the $50-$80 range, including some we didn’t look at that have a side rail for an IR illuminator or flashlight.
If you are of the opinion that your “Finnish Hex” should not be drilled and tapped, that’s really up to you. But about month after my “Build a Mosin Express Rifle” article, where a bunch of people got upset that I boogered the stock on my rifle, I saw that a whole new batch of them came into the country for about $185 each retail. So much for collecting Mosins. As I’ve said several times, they are not collectible rifles. They have no true and provable history, and provable history is the only thing besides real engraving that brings collectible value to a firearm.
Unless your military surplus rifle has special engravings or a verifiable history, it’s not really all that “collectible.”
Another Classic – The Swiss K31
I warned y’all back in 2014 that there were very few of these incredible guns left in the country, and that they were about to dry up. Since then, the importer, Samco, has gone out of business, and the remainder of the inventory has not surfaced that I have found.
But thankfully, I heard rumors that there may be a whole bunch of these guns sitting on a dock waiting to come to the US. Trump has to remove some of the Obama executive orders to get there here but it looks promising. If I get an update on that story I will let you know.
Rock Solid Industries is a great place to start looking when you decide your rifle needs a makeover.
If you have a K31, or you find one on GunsAmerica (not sellin my 4), there is no better choice in a rifle for a modern upgrade than the K31. They are out of the box tack drivers with open peep sights and the wooden full length stocks, so I can’t even think of how good they’ll be with optics and a free float barrel.
Surplus ammo for the K31 is still cheap and available. I always call it 6.5 for some reason but it is 7.5mm X 55mm, and the Swiss military ammo is called GP11. The best price I have found of late is 59cents per round shipped, but I’ve bought it cheaper when I’ve seen some clearance sales. So keep your eyes open for it if you are interested in these awesome guns. See my other SHOT Show video on the Berdan repriming systems from 22LRReloader.com, as the GP11 ammo is Berdan primed, and not reusable without some sort of decapping and repriming system. Rock Solid also makes a flash hole deburrer.
The K31 is straight pull, like you’ll see in the video, and Rock Solid makes a whole upgrade system for it, partnered with Bluegrass Gunstocks, and I’ve seen some awesome builds. Hopefully we’ll get some stuff out to them and follow up with real world tests in the near future. You can reach Rock Solid in Lexington MO at (660) 259-2832.
“As I’ve said several times, they are not collectible rifles. They have no true and provable history, and provable history is the only thing besides real engraving that brings collectible value to a firearm.”
You obviously did not bother to read any reference books on the Mosin-Nagant and its use in wars of the last 112 years. That you have a job reviewing firearms with your fabulously pompous ignorance is quite astounding.
Well how do you even read with your head so far up your ass? You are never, and I mean never, going to buy a $200 surplus **anything** that has any provable provenance to it. You probably can only afford the books, so you’ve never tried to get one of the guns that they claim are legitimately collectible in those books. Go try. They don’t exist, except for the few known specific examples that the writer gains access to, and I know a lot of those writers. They all have an agenda to make themselves look like they discovered something collectible, and it is just to sell books. I actually have a “C block” Carcano. Go look that up. And yea, someone bought that out of a barrel in a gunshop for $20 in the 60s at some point, but there will never be a Nagant that comes out of a wooden crate of a container of crates from eastern europe that will ever have any true provenance. Maybe you should just buy them up and hope for another Oswald story.
Winston, just because a rifle LINE has history does not mean an individual rifle has any provenance, value or collectibility, and the author is 101% correct in his assertion. Your insult makes you look like a dolt. You should proceed with caution next time before you insult someone – make sure you know what you’re talking about. ANY Mosin you own is not worth jack squat, regardless of whether you think you have the rifle that killed Himmler, or some other such nonsense someone conned you into believing. They are NOT collector items, and you are welcome to prove me wrong – show me a receipt where you sold a Mosin at auction for several thousand dollars, and I’ll eat my Mosin in front of you. I don’t have much to worry about, however. These are surplus junkers that have been sitting in Russian warehouses for decades until the Rooskies realized Americans would drop a hundred or two for one. End of story.
I’ve seen them triple in price in a decade. Seems like something you would say about a collectable, doesn’t it? Collectable implies an increase in value. Someday you may see Mosins sold for 3 times today’s prices. Or more.
And I hope you choke on the buttplate.
Just because supply and demand has changed due to our current ban on imports. thanks to Obama that has created a shortage thus bringing the prices up, it still does not make these rifles collectables. There are so many of these rifles out there awaiting a change in policy to arrive which would once again drive prices down. I wish the ban would lift as Mosin surplus ammo which made these rifles fun to shoot has gone thru the roof and hard to find.