{"id":8472,"date":"2025-11-23T02:35:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T02:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/?p=8472"},"modified":"2025-11-23T02:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T02:49:21","slug":"an-interesting-romanian-find-and-other-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/23\/an-interesting-romanian-find-and-other-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interesting Romanian Find and Other Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Greetings and Salutations!
So a change of speed tonight. I got together with a bro who I met through this here blog, who’s a local, and a really cool cat, so he came by on his way out whilst ‘oot and aboot’ as for the most part, I’m a bit of a shut-in.

Not that I don’t like meeting folks and hanging out, but mostly I prefer on MY turf as I’m… I dunno… still wrapped a bit tight when it comes to local meet ups. Like my other buddy B who lives right up the street… he asks me over on the regular, and I feel bad<\/strong> in not going by, but I’m I dunno… PTSD? weirded out? Being off Ye Olde Home Turf… it’s not comfy for me yet.

Leaving the Area altogether? No issue…

I can pack up as y’all have seen and gone ‘downrange’ out of pocket with no issue… but going up the road to someone else’s A.O.? Someone I’m -just- getting to know? For whatever reason, it weirds me the fuck out. (Hope that Helps you understand me a bit more B! It ain’t a you thing, it’s a ‘me-being-cray-cray’ thing)

Anyways, b\/c of this, Mr. Man came by with some books and a show and tell… we exchange good reading on the regular which is cool as we BOTH have a love of literature as well as weaponry. He’s prior service as well, so hanging with a vet is a plus too… in today’s case, he had (what he thought) a Russian rifle with him that he wanted me to check out. A very basic<\/strong> .22 rifle.

Come to find out, it was pretty f’n cool!

The rifle itself appeared to be based off of a Mauser-looking\/styled bolt, and had a stepped-down barrel. The markings on it were at best, somewhat crude in their stampings, and the overall condition, well to be honest I’d rate it at NRA Very Good to almost Excellent.

Now MY mistake was to forget to take pictures as I didn’t realize I was going to do a poast about it. He’s sending pics to me NOW as I write this, but my bad in not realizing just how neat this thing is.

The stamping on the barrel collar has a marking “IMC2” and “1978” prominently on there, with what appeared to be a 5 digit serial number. I checked out the IMC2 and found out that it’s NOT a Russian rifle, but a Romanian<\/strong> rifle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Found on the web BTW…

The Romanian M69 was produced from 1969 to 1989 to serve as a training rifle for the Romanian population. In 1968,Ivan sent tanks into Czechoslovakia to put down a minor ‘disagreement called the “Prague Spring”… i.e. the usual Springtime Student rebellion kind of thing that happened in the Warsaw Pact throughout its entire lifetime…

Seems Romania was on the Czech side on that one, and their DotGov called to rally the people to join “paramilitary Patriotic Guards” groups in order to bolster the defense of Romania itself. The problem however was that Romania at the time was flat-ass busted broke as fuck. NO $$$ for weapons. And when they called for people to do their patriotic duty? Suddenly they had hundreds of thousands of people, men and <\/strong>women, who joined up to the point every community and factory had its own Patriotic Guards unit!

Which meant they needed something<\/strong> to train the Volk on.

Enter the M69.
A .22 caliber, Mauser styled rifle fed by a 5 round magazine. It has a 23-inch barrel, which uses a hooded front sight, and a three-position rear folding sight.

Now while typing this, Mr. Man sent me one of HIS rifle itself, taken just a few minutes ago:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now his has the bolt to the rear, but as you can see, for a rifle made in 1978 it’s pristine.<\/strong> And the rear sight that I just mentioned, as well as the barrel-band markings (minus the S\/N) is as such:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And yes, I know<\/strong> the pic looks like it said 1973, but trust me, it’s 78…

So the overwhelming attitude towards these things is positive.

The major negatives are the trigger (heavy and a looooong pull) and the style, is that it’s very “Warsaw Pact” in its raw, almost brutalist manufacture and utilitarian design.

The trigger at best<\/strong> has a LONG assed pull before engaging, and then<\/strong> once it does actually engage<\/strong>, it feels like it’s being pulled over sandpaper or broken glass… yeah… it’s that gritty.<\/strong>

And as to speaking of the “style” of said-rifle? When people talk up Communist era rifles they like to brag about function over form, this rifle takes that to an extreme even for Ivan and his subsidiaries… I mean even the buttstock has an AK\/SKS style spring loaded steel round ‘door’ with a storage compartment for cleaning supplies… I wouldn’t doubt if that butt plate was interchangeable with Romanian AKs and SKSs of the time TBH.

Overall, for what he paid for it? It was a steal.

As I told him, he’ll be able to pass it on to his Grans, and if maintained, they’ll be able to pass it on to their<\/strong> Grans as this thing, as far as I can (and reports about it) say that it’s pretty much unkillable.

And for shits n’grins, I pulled up the M69 on Gunbroken (intentional misspelling as that’s a pretty accurate description these days) and found that there are the usual Fudd “I know what I got!” assholes selling it at retarded prices, and one that while still having 8 days left in the auction, is at least, for now<\/strong> selling for what -I- consider a reasonable price for a non-rare Soviet Era Warsaw Pact .22 training rifle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The $299.95 is not<\/strong> the Fudd Gun I was talking about but THIS one here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Looking at the pics, it is in NO WAY in as good a shape as Mr. Man’s nor the other rifles in the auctions I poasted about above. In fact that $425 one is fucking worn the fuck out that I can tell…

ANOTHER thing that’s coming in the near-future is going to be what I’ll call “The Great Gun Depreciation” when the majority of the BoomerFudds start dying off en mass. And no, none of y’all here are of that ilk… so don’t start with me on the “You hate all Boomers!” and whatnot…. this’s a straight observation and I know I’m dead-nuts-on right about it…

See, the MAJORITY of gun-toting Boomers?

When they die? The MAJORITY of their weapons are going to start showing up either at Polizei gun turn ins (worst case scenario) OR more than likely, sold in HUUUUGE masses via consignment by their kids and\/or grandkids who never<\/strong> got “into” guns like the majority of us who come here and love us some firepower… A LOT of Gen X never<\/strong> got into weapons. AT ALL<\/strong>. And since there’s no connection<\/strong> nor interest, they’ll be dumping Dads or Uncle Johns VAST collection of firearms on the open market.

And what happens when a LARGE amount of -something- that was previously hard to come by ‘suddenly’ gets dumped in large amounts on the open market?

Prices crash.

The same thing is going to happen with Classic Cars.

In fact, I’ve heard that the Classic Car Market has already<\/strong> crashed the fuck out, as NO ONE can afford to spend $40-50k on a 1969 Camaro in this current economy. Why wouldn’t the same happen with ALLLLLLL them M1 Garands that the Boomers bought for $25 post-war when they were 16 and held on to? And you and I know<\/strong> there’s a metric fuckton of them floating around out there in various gun safes nationwide….

I’ve already seen this in action in a smol town by one of the Hot Springs north of me… it has got, or I should say had<\/strong> a VERY LARGE Veteran Community that in the past 5-8 years has seen a massive die off. Now when I say “Veterans” I mean the majority were World War Two and Korean War vets. Since this’s a Hot Spring that I’m talking about, a LOT of these vets moved there specifically<\/strong> for the rejuvative and medicinal qualities that a natural Hot Spring can provide…

And when they cashed in?

Well, the majority of the relations took the firepower Grandad and PawPaw down to the local gun shop and put it up on consignment. That’s where -I- had stepped in and went “Oh Holy Hells!” when I got there.

See, Gretchen and I had taken whatever holiday it was off (a 4 day as I recall), and gotten a hotel room, and had passes for the weekend to the Hot Springs. -Somewhere- in the trip, I realized I had fucked up and not<\/strong> packed the proper ammunition for my 9mm. I had gone to the range the weekend before, and the magazines were loaded with 115 grain FMJ ‘training rounds’ if you will. NOT ‘warshots’ as I call them.

I know it sounds really dumb, but IF I find myself away from the house, and don’t<\/strong> have ‘good man stopping ammunition’ for my weapon, well… that’s wrong, wrong, and wrong in my book. Sure, 115gn FMJ is fine in ordinary circumstances, HOWEVER it’s not great<\/strong> for a one-shot situation. I prefer a round that’ll fuck someone up to Hell and gone over just a solid FMJ ball that just ‘goes right on thru’ so to speak….

So I mosied on down to the local firearms store to get some good defensive 147gn +P Hollow-points to insure I had the kind of defensive round I prefered. And as I said, I was amazeballzed<\/strong> by the weapons they had on hand.

Oh Holy Hells!!! was an understatement<\/strong>

The front counter had a no shit M1918 BAR sitting on the display case as I walked in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No shit, it looked just like that<\/em>.
Just newer<\/strong> if you can believe it…

It was a WW2 ‘bring-back in a duffel’ and had the amnesty paperwork to go with it… Of course I think they wanted like $20,000.00 for it which was a <gulp!> OMG lot of $$$ for it, but it ALSO came with ALL the accoutrements\/extras and ‘stuff’ that would have been issued with it…

File under “Thank The Good Lord I don’t<\/strong> have great credit nor a credit card that could support such a purchase.” amiright?

This store is Trouble with a Capital Boldface “T”<\/strong> for people like us IMO. Mortgage? Electric Bill? Water Bill? I know not of what you speak of. “….did I show you my AWESOME Reich-Marked Kar98 I got with this 1941 matching number Walther PPK that has bring-back paperwork showing it was a Gestapo Agents personal weapon??? How cool is that!?!”

Yeeeeeeeeeeeah…..

So…. back to the BAR. Grandpa wasn’t fucking around when he brought his BAR home I can say that for damned sure. There were ALSO in the various display cases a HUGE amount <\/strong>of Luger P-08s (to include a RARE Long-Barreled Artillery Model), Walter P-38s and surprisingly a slew of Mauser C96 Broomhandles for what -I- considered to be short $$$ at the time… like $3k +\/- each, some of which even had number matching buttstocks w\/integrated holsters or in one case, the wooden holster that WAS\/IS the buttstock itself (rare AF for a original to be around still)

Never mind the GINORMOUS amount of Nazi Flags\/Memorabilia and the like… it was a WW2 time-warp. I talked to the owner who explained that generally, when ALL these local old timers “kicked off”, the majority of the kids were from New York or Jersey. And because of the draconian gun laws up there, and well… the overall general negative attitude towards guns that folks from that neck of the woods have if you will, they have\/had no interest in, nor ability to deal with ANY and ALL the guns and such that they found in Dad\/Grandpa’s stashes postmortem.

So they invariably found their way to Mister “Local Local Local Gun Dealer” who then took them on consignment.

Which reminds me, now that I have a positive cash flow, I need to look at heading back up there… I have a ‘secret lust’ for a C96 personally… I’ll take one in either caliber, just as long as it’s functional and sexy looking… in fact I personally think the Mauser C96 is one of the sexiest handguns ever made.<\/strong>

Change My Mind
(Not!)

I think it’s because it was used as the basis for the BlasTech Industries DL-44 that my main man Han Solo was slinging back in Star Wars…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Childish?
Maybe.
But oh so cool IMO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So on that note, I got a ton of ‘stuff’ to deal w\/tonight.

Took the dogs out for the evening deuce, and needed to recheck the perimeter as there was a ‘probe’ the other day which I’ll maybe<\/em> go into at a later date. Nothing big, but enough to be worrisome. Not enough to deploy any countermeasures yet<\/strong> but enough that I added a camera and some new coverage of what was<\/strong> a minor blind spot.

So More Later
Big Country<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings and Salutations!So a change of speed tonight. I got together with a bro who I met through this here blog, who’s a local, and a really cool cat, so he came by on his way out whilst ‘oot and aboot’ as for the most part, I’m a bit of a shut-in. Not that I … Continue reading “An Interesting Romanian Find and Other Stuff”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8472"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8495,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8472\/revisions\/8495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}