Great news from CMP!

[Art]

The same thing happens every time the CMP releases a new variety of firearm, they're garbage, they're going to cost too much, heck, why isn't the CMP just giving them away. I guess it was better when the DCM was running things and you got one gun a life time and had to prove that you were a competition shooter to qualify and after doing so there was no guarantee of quality and you needed to check an actuarial table to be sure you'd be alive when it was delivered.

The CMP is a 501(c)(3) non profit that is supposed to promote civilian marksmanship through training programs and running matches. An admirable goal. The main source of money to achieve this is through the sale of surplus firearms donated to them through the government. After the surplus firearms are expended there will be no more of that income so that money has to be managed well.

Sooo here are my thoughts from my own observations of the CMP over 15 years of dealing with them:

"Fair market price:" For the life of me I don't see how anyone could say the CMP has caused the fair market value of M1 rifles, or anything they sold for that matter, to rise. Before the CMP finding a shooter M1 could be a challenge and the weren't cheap. $400.00 for a solid shooter M1 when I bought mine was a steal. Less than $800.00 for the same rifle today is also a steal; if you can get one. Unless I shop till I drop looking for someone who has a financial emergency and has to sell or doesn't know what he has I can't get a good M1 in Houston for less than $900.00 and $1,100 to $1,200.00 is more common. Cost rise is due largely to normal inflation and the fact that the supply has once again dried up. The CMP always sells firearms for less, usually much less than a comparable firearm can be bought from a civilian vendor. My Inland M1 Carbine, for example, cost me $400.00 at a time when a comparable good shooter M1 Carbine was going for from about $250.00 more if you got a great deal to maybe $400.00 more if you didn't. Today if you want to find a good shooter decent looking M1 Carbine be prepared to drop a grand, at least where I live if you're dealing with anyone who has the vaguest idea of what he's got. I will repeat something I've said over and over - there are two "fair" prices - buyer's price and seller's price. The real fair price is what a normal person who would purchase an item is willing to pay.

Condition: Speaking of the carbines. Before they were released the firearms know-it-alls were talking about what absolute garbage they were going to be, especially the crap after market stocks. Again that turned out not to be the case. My carbine has a USGI birch "pot belly" stock it got in a rebuild in the US. This is true of almost every one of the carbines I saw. Though refinished many times (the only sign of a cartouche is the very faint "proof P" on the front of the pistol grip) it's good sound wood. The barrel gauges "2" at the muzzle and its a straight shooter. I can say the same for every other CMP firearm I've bought.

On the M1911's specifically. I have a friend who was all excited and thought he was going to be able to pick up a USGI M1911 for a couple of hundred dollars.....NOT!!!. I told him my guess was $600.00-$750.00 for a service grade by a common manufacturer. He said "that isn't a good deal!" Well, with unmodified USGI M1911s in good shooting condition going for about $1,000.00 at the bottom I think its quite a good deal indeed. If my mission was to have a really good shooter for a good price I'd buy an Armscor or Springfield Armory Inc. (I've shot some of these and they outshoot any stock USGI .45 I've ever shot by a good margin.)

The extra hoops are, according to the CMP purely the work of the Department of the Army who will supply the pistols and the BATFE. Nothing can be done about that.

I don't know if I'm going to buy one just because I look on these guns as minimally functional compared to their modern equivalents for any purpose and I don't know if I'll buy one or not. I never thought I'd buy an M1 Carbine either but I did and I don't regret it, especially since it's become my wife's "house gun."

If you want one as a piece of history that you might want to expend a few rounds at tin cans though...they will almost surely be a good buy.

[togor]

Great post, Art.

Red: CMP sells stuff to raise money for youth shooting. Training on air rifles and .22LR and 5.56mm is appropriate, and Garands are not needed for that mission except as a source of revenue. How the CMP does that is up to them. If they sell a good product and demand is such that market price goes up and some get priced out, well that's life. I came along too late for cheap P.08s or M1 carbines.

[dave]

Bad analogy there. Sausage and coffee are always available. If not from one source, hundreds, even thousands of others. Nobody would go without for more than a day, and the prices wouldn't be inflated.

Exactly, I was being sarcastic!

[dave]

Great post, Art.

Red: CMP sells stuff to raise money for youth shooting. Training on air rifles and .22LR and 5.56mm is appropriate, and Garands are not needed for that mission except as a source of revenue. How the CMP does that is up to them. If they sell a good product and demand is such that market price goes up and some get priced out, well that's life. I came along too late for cheap P.08s or M1 carbines.

I belonged to a Shooting club/range for years, was an officer for some time. We had a youth shooting program, never got a darn thing from CMP, except Rem. White box .22 ammo, at the same price anyone would pay from CMP! They sold some M1 Carbines (limit three) but you had to certify they would be available for the Youth program for a period of 2-3 years. Never saw one of these carbines show up at the club, and I knew who got them. When you purchased M1's you had to sign that they were NOT for resale! CMP did nothing about it! No, they were maximizing profits so they could get high salaries. Youth shooting programs were a very small side line, if that! M1 Garands may not be needed now but back in the late '90's they dominated our Clubs matches, only a few AR types were used.

[bruce]

Another completely failed Government program.

Agree with you about the intent, etc. Do not agree with you about it being a failed government program. CMP chooses to operate as it operates in the sale of rifles, ammo, etc. The intent of Congress was that CMP would be a means of supporting marksmanship. The rifles/ammo, etc. were to be best used for that purpose. Any failure was not by the government but the CMP. Perhaps the rush to get rifles/ammo sold was driven by concern that a hostile legislative/executive branch would act to end CMP and restart Capt. Crunch. Anything is possible. But the sales policies, etc., were set by CMP. Those who bought maximum quantities of rifles/ammo from CMP for later resale were simply dishonest frauds. There is no other word for it. Those who calculated their purchases for resale were and remain frauds in every respect. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

[JB White]

Exactly, I was being sarcastic!

Ii obviously went over my head then.

[gwp]

I purchased all the M1s the CMP would sell me for a few years. I still have all but five. I gave my grandson and his father one M1 each and a good supply of ammo. I sold three with ammo, at my cost, to my SILs brother, for his three teenage boys. I will probably sell a few more at a very reasonable price to those people who I think will appreciate the M1 riffle. I do not, in any way, feel I abused the system by purchasing the amount of Garands the CMP allowed. My purchases were made when the CMP had an abundance of rifles and ammunition available so no one who ordered from the CMP was denied a rifle because of my purchases. The majority of the rifles I purchased were in the $300 - $400 range. I stopped buying the rifles when the price increased.

[togor]

Seems to me that the CMP is damned no matter what they do. If they price low enough to incentivize resellers then they are bad. If they raise the price to squeeze resellers then they are bad for a different reason.

So some guys want the CMP to price 1911s starting at $400, with a one pistol/person/year limit, so they can sell their one at a nice profit "in a couple of years if they feel like it."

In other words the CMP should deliberately squeeze themselves on both price and volume or in the eyes of some they are bad. Like I say, whatever they do, someone will bitch.