#ak-5.45 price

[alurkerlieshere]

something really interesting to me is how call of duty has devs that are obviously massive gun nerds but like the other 2/3's of the staff are completely oblivious. like instead of the standard generic "ak-47" it's called the kastov 7.62 and it's clearly based off of an ak-103. like you can turn it into different versions of the ak platform that are in 7.62. there's also another one for 5.45 based on the 74M that accepts mostly the same stuff but with a few differences here and there. you can turn them into the carbine variants or give them the original wood furniture with some playing around. they even added the 107 and 109 as "conversion" kits, which are really cool and niche gun science things in their own right. they've even got really accurate reload animations with references to how people actually use these things. and then you look at the different skins and there's one that turns it into a bong that shoots weed bullets and turns people into vape clouds with a retail price of £16.79 and you get very upset

[arcticdementor]

The US Government has announced new sanctions on Russia, theoretically as a punishment for the poisoning of Aleksey Navalny. I say theoretically, because the sanctions within do not make much sense if you are trying to punish Russia for their actions.

What is being sanctioned you ask? Russian firearms and ammo imports. This is the big sticker item, the thing that is supposedly going to have the biggest impact on Russia's economy and actually cause a pain point. Unfortunately, the actual effect on Russia's economy is probably going to be pretty limited. While Russia is the world's second largest arms exporter, half of their exports are 4th generation aircraft, another 25% are anti-air missile systems. The US market is probably still a significant percentage of the small-arms exports of Russia, but most of that was already killed off by the 2014 sanctions. The only thing Russia really still exported to the American arms market was ammo, which is now gone.

There has been some confusion about what exactly the text of the order means, which I covered here, but the gist of it is that no more Russian ammo import permits will be issued starting September 7th of this year. As each individual shipment of arms or ammo requires a unique ATF Form 6 which takes 4-6 weeks to process, the actual availability of ammo is likely to drop off a steep cliff starting in September.

Why is this culture war you ask? Because if the sanctions aren't going to actually hurt the Russian economy that much, then who are they going to hurt? That's not hard to figure out, the answer is American gun owners. Russian steel-cased ammunition has been a staple of the American gun market for decades. It was cheap, plentiful, and went bang when you pulled the trigger. The effect this decision will have on the American ammunition market cannot be overstated. Before COVID-19, when ammo of all stripes was still (relatively) cheap and (definitely) plentiful, 7.62x39 could be had for as little as 18 cents per round (CPR) if you shopped around for a good deal. Since most people who shoot often buy in bulk, this meant spending maybe $200 on a case of 1,000 rounds shipped right to your door.

After COVID, the price of course skyrocketed, but has since been returning to normal. On Thursday the 19th, the day before these sanctions hit, you could reliably find 7.62x39 for 27cpr with free shipping. Less than two hours after the sanctions dropped, the same ammo was 32cpr shipped. By Saturday it was 40cpr shipped, and as I write this it is over 50 cents a round before shipping.

It's not just AK ammo that is impacted though. Russian ammo was a staple for almost all common calibers, such as 223 Remington or 9mm Luger, and of course all the other Russian calibers like 9x18 Makarov, 7.62x54r, and 5.45x39. They have all experienced sudden rises in price as a reaction to this import ban. 5.45 for example, was about the same as 7.62x39 on Thursday, and today is 50cpr before shipping. 223 Remington was about 30cpr shipped, and today is 50cpr shipped. 9mm Luger has mostly escaped this price increase, but had a much smaller share of steel-cased ammo when compared to popular rifle calibers.

It's hard as a gun enthusiast not to see this as an attack on gun culture, when it comes less than a month after the US struck a deal to allow the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a sanctioning or rejection of which would have a much larger impact on the Russian economy than banning ammo importation.

The reaction among the gun community has been, well, panic. Of course the gun community panics at the drop of a hat, but this time it's a much more fatalistic "here we go again" panic. I was one of those people in the community who believed that given time, and no more big shocks to the system, the ammo shortage would abate, prices would return to normal (after inflation) and capitalism would win again. Unfortunately, the government decided to stick it's big meaty paws into the market. Will ammo prices return to pre-COVID pricing? Probably not. The allure of 7.62x39, that it was far more affordable than 223/5.56, is now gone, likely for at least a few years. While production may get spun up in other countries, that will take time. In the meanwhile, my AK, SKS, and VZ-58 are going to be taking a back seat to some of my other guns. Which is a shame, but given that a month's supply of ammo has gone from $270 to more than $500, well it's just not affordable anymore.