Takedown Rifles (1990s)

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by Icelander

That's true, the Mauser actions would be suitably anonymous. The ammo for them is rarer than .308 Win, .30-06 and even .300 Win Mag today and I suspect even then, so it would probably be advantageous to chamber them in a caliber more off-the-shell ammo is sold for, as well as having a wider selection of bullets for handloading.

This is the 1990s, not the 1960s, right? Earlier, yes, it was very common to re-chamber old Mausers, but the surplus market was really firing up in the 1990s.
It really was not very hard to get your hands on pallets of cheap 7.92mm ammo in the late 1990s, at least. Yugoslav Mausers were very popular imports. There was (is?) a company called Mitchell's Mausers that imported tons of them. I bought one. And the ammo for it, no problem.

At least I think that was the 1990s...?

[Willy]

Originally Posted by acrosome

At least I think that was the 1990s...?

While I´m no expert, the date seems about right, during the civil war in Yugoslav, every side was pumped up with modern or at least semimodern weapons and training by either russia or the west. After that there were wonderful scenes in the european TV like a civil car aproaching a german control post, someone left the car salute gave a report in pure german and handed over a trunk full of AKs and RPGs. The officer on duty, with a gaping mouth open, asked what this guy was doing here, and got the answer that he was viviting his relatives while TSHTF. THAN came the big joke, asked if this was all of the guns , the guy waved and a dozen of trucks, flatbeds and civil cars shoved up slowly coming nearer, to cite the guy: " That´s all the stuff we didn´t need anymore, the good things we buried just in case! " . And no I´m neither joking, only the first part of it were shown in TV, and this wasn´t a sole scene, most stuff of course dropped to the black market.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by acrosome

This is the 1990s, not the 1960s, right?

The arms caches I was primarily considering were laid down in 1987-1995, or so.

The people involved, though, many of them were involved in mercenary activity in the 1960s and actually had significant stockpiles of arms stored in areas where they were based.

Ned Bannerman, the armourer in charge, comes from the British Army, where he was involved in commando operations in WWII, learned gunsmithing after the war, and then served the rest of his career as a senior NCO with the SAS. Then he spent a couple of decades doing mercenary work and corporate security in Africa, running a private security company since the mid-70s.

Then there are a number of former French Foreign Legion men, who went into security and arms dealing in the 1960s. Some of the younger men are Rhodesians and South Africans, also PMC/PSC personnel.

Then there's a couple of Americans, Vietnam veterans, with Special Forces experience. One of them spent a lot of time involved in stay-behind networks in Europe, as part of Special Forces Detachment A in Berlin in the 1950s and then in other countries later, so stay-behind caches were something he was deeply familiar with.

Several people close to the founders have CIA-connections, having flown for Air America and similar companies, in the 60s and 70s. There are also connections with French intelligence, some people having been involved in supporting paramilitary groups that France could not officially provide with military assistance.

Originally Posted by acrosome

Earlier, yes, it was very common to re-chamber old Mausers, but the surplus market was really firing up in the 1990s.
It really was not very hard to get your hands on pallets of cheap 7.92mm ammo in the late 1990s, at least. Yugoslav Mausers were very popular imports. There was (is?) a company called Mitchell's Mausers that imported tons of them. I bought one. And the ammo for it, no problem.

At least I think that was the 1990s...?

The selection of good quality hunting and long-range bullets for 7mm and .30 caliber in the United States is vastly better than for 7.92mm.

Also, of course, the people placing the arms caches in 1987-1989 did not foresee the fall of the Soviet Union and the absolute flood of cheap and easily accessible arms that caused.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Willy

While I´m no expert, the date seems about right, during the civil war in Yugoslav, every side was pumped up with modern or at least semimodern weapons and training by either russia or the west. After that there were wonderful scenes in the european TV like a civil car aproaching a german control post, someone left the car salute gave a report in pure german and handed over a trunk full of AKs and RPGs. The officer on duty, with a gaping mouth open, asked what this guy was doing here, and got the answer that he was viviting his relatives while TSHTF. THAN came the big joke, asked if this was all of the guns , the guy waved and a dozen of trucks, flatbeds and civil cars shoved up slowly coming nearer, to cite the guy: " That´s all the stuff we didn´t need anymore, the good things we buried just in case! " . And no I´m neither joking, only the first part of it were shown in TV, and this wasn´t a sole scene, most stuff of course dropped to the black market.

As I noted, after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990-1991, the makeup of the stock on the international arms market will fundamentally change.

There will be an influx of all kinds of former Soviet weaponry at rock-bottom prices and even WWII surplus that still existed in former Soviet warehouses in the millions will be floated to the poorer markets, either by new governments desperate for foreign currency or simply by base commanders and supply clerks who weren't paid for months or years.

With the right connections and chutzpah, an arms dealer who seized the opportunity as everything was still falling apart could buy tanks and aircraft, let alone any small arms that were in storage in 1990.

However, for my purposes, I must stock the 1987-1989 caches without taking any of this into account, as the NPCs involved had no way to know that very soon, the international arms market would see the biggest free-for-all bonanza in history.

*After WWI and WWII, there was a massive amount of surplus, but the disposal of it was somewhat more organized, as the victors of that war still had governments and paid their armies.

[Icelander]

... They ended up not taking the time to find the cache, dig it up, ready all the gear for use and the risk being arrested with unlicensed firearms,

Entirely reasonable, motivated by a healthy fear of legal consequences and completely out of character for nearly all PCs, even those who are not Murder Hoboes.

Now the PCs are in another world where the locals seem to have TL0, there is a wrecked TL4 sloop and while they PCs have scavenged some archaic weaponry, they'll run out of lead for shot and powder to fire it quick.

[Rupert]

Well, as they say, they made their bed, now they get to lie in it.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Well, as they say, they made their bed, now they get to lie in it.

The funny thing is, if they'd armed up when they first suspected the presence of dangerous people who might try to steal the McGuffins with violence, maybe they'd have considered trying to defend themselves from the commandos who arrived in Zodiac boats, instead of playing supernatural Russian roulette by tearing a hole in reality with ancient artefacts during an occult storm and leaving our world.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The funny thing is, if they'd armed up when they first suspected the presence of dangerous people who might try to steal the McGuffins with violence, maybe they'd have considered trying to defend themselves from the commandos who arrived in Zodiac boats, instead of playing supernatural Russian roulette by tearing a hole in reality with ancient artefacts during an occult storm and leaving our world.

So, the players had their characters try to 'play it smart' at exactly the wrong time, which lead them to needing to make a desperation play? Oops.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

So, the players had their characters try to 'play it smart' at exactly the wrong time, which lead them to needing to make a desperation play? Oops.

Indeed.

In a way, they were just unlucky. They correctly estimated that the highly professional security personnel escorting one potential buyer would not break the law and they also correctly evaluated some of the lesser parties as not capable enough to require the use of weaponry to avoid.

They just missed the presence of a professional intelligence officer representing a nation state and directing the use of special operations forces. Which is not really something they could have foreseen, as governments in the setting are, to the players' knowledge, almost never aware of the existence of the occult and thus cannot be expected to be interested in ancient artefacts with esoteric origins.

It was supposed to be a short prequel campaign with different PCs working for the same employers as the main campaign, set in the past, and predicted to end either with the successful acquisition of the McGuffin or perhaps a crazy firefight using cached weaponry of very 80s and 90s movie vintage.

Now, it's a much longer-running campaign that is set in some wacky fey fantasy world, with almost no modern technology available to the PCs, which is certainly not a campaign prospectus I would have offered to run...

[ajardoor]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Thompson/Center has sold the T/C Contender since 1967. Seeing as this is meant to change barrels easily, it is a natural fit as a takedown weapon and with the factory buttstock, it makes a nice takedown rifle.

I remember someone reading a novel written around late-1990s on a different forum, where an assassin uses a Contender to murder a senator. The assassin does indeed use the Contender's easy assemble-dissemble to conceal it (along with a prepared change of clothes and hat and hairstyle, IIRC). I think the assassin hid the dissembled Contender parts under her shirt, along her back.