Having produced more than six million M1 Carbines over the course of the Second World War, the United States had rifles to spare. Instead of building up their own stockpiles, both countries used the immense surplus of arms produced domestically and collected from battlefields across the world as bargaining chips and aid items designed to bring nations within their sphere of influence. Immediately following World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an arms race, but not the kind of arms race we think of today. Pictures from the Royal Tiger Imports find will highlight the range of elements that factor into the condition of these guns, and they’re priced accordingly.
The M1 Carbine stood out as a particularly nice example, and M1 Carbines are one of the most difficult military-surplus guns to bring back from overseas caches, thanks to a litany of legal and political hurdles. 4 Mk I* and an Underwood M1 Carbine, which are all representative of many of the guns uncovered in those rural Ethiopian warehouses. Among the group were several FN Mausers, a Lee-Enfield No. The find encompassed tens of thousands of firearms, running the gamut from Italian rifles captured from invading forces, Belgian rifles with the imperial seal to post-WWII exports given to the Ethiopians as aid during the early decades of the Cold War.Īmerican Rifleman publicized this discovery in our magazine, highlighting several of the guns plucked from the stash. As a short recap, though, Weigand managed to get his hands on storehouses that held many of the military arms purchased by or given to the Ethiopian government from the late 19th century through the long reign of Emperor Haile Selassie and past the Communist takeover of the 1970s. The find is the result of years of work on the part of Uli Weigand, who spoke with American Rifleman Editor-in-Chief Mark Keefe about the magnificent discovery in this article.
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