Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander
Th. And two of the major islands where those arms will be stashed are Cuba and the Dominican Republic, where surplus Mausers in 7x57mm existed in vast stockpiles.
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Largish perhaps but I don't believe any nation in the Thrid World-to-be had vast stockplies by the standards of participants in WWI and II.
At any rate 7x57mms would have been bought before WWI and turned into military suprplus by WWI and then pushed out of the market by the surplus from _that_ war never mind the WW after it.
The 7x57mms could also have easily been expended in the region's many coups and dictatorial regimes. The US was also heavy-handedly involved in most of those too. Seeing as how long US troops collected customs duties in places like the Domenican Republic (33 years) I doubt US weapons are rarer than pre-WWI stuff.
So Trujillo probably rounded up any loose 7x57mms and Castro did the same if Batista et all didn't do it before him. I'd strongly expect any illegal rifles in Cuba today to be stolen AKs.
_Then_ we come to the effect of modern drug smuggling cartels....
So I really don't expect to see turn-of-the-century before this one military surplus to be common now.