First you say it, then you do it.
South Korea has come up with a novel way to boost its defence budget – by selling a vast stockpile of old Korean-war rifles to collectors in the US.
The guns were originally sent to Korea as military aid, and some were also used during the war in Vietnam.
For more than five decades, they have been kept mothballed in warehouses.
Most of those on offer are M1 rifles – a weapon once described by US General George S Patton as “the greatest battle-implement ever devised”.
The rifles and carbines were originally sent by the Americans to help during the Korean war.
Since then they have occasionally glimpsed daylight, in training exercises for reserve forces, according to the BBC’s correspondent in Seoul, John Sudworth.
But for the most part these weapons have been quietly gathering value as collector’s items, our correspondent says.
A total of 86,000 M1 rifles will be sold, and another 22,000 carbines – although these have a more patchy reputation.
Time to warm up that CMP membership.
Found via Traction Control.
Waiddaminnit…we *gave* these weapons to the ROKs and now they’re *selling* them back to us? What am I missing here? We might pop for shipping charges, sure, but that’s it.
WAC is an affiliated club.
I hope they return all that surplus ammo too!