Collecting and Shooting the Military Surplus Rifle (2006)

Article by Jamie Mangrum

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June 6th, 2005, marks a major milestone for Surplusrifle.com and our readers. It is our third anniversary! We have been in publication now...for three years.

When we started Surplusrifle.com on June 6th, 2002, we really did not pick the date because of the historical significance. It was just a date as good as any other date to start something.

The first year we averaged around 500 to 1000 visitors per day and I was amazed that there were so many of us out there that appreciated military surplus firearms.

I have always heard pro-firearm people say that each of us should do something that supports our Second Amendment rights. Prior to Surplusrifle.com all I could associate my name with in the way of contributing to the proverbial cause was that I was somewhat sporadic in renewing my annual membership with the National Rifle Association (NRA). It was then that I realized that I had a tool at my disposal that could help novices become first time firearm owners. If we were able to expand the base of gun owners in America then it made sense that the support for our rights would increase as well. This became our underlying mission: To make people feel comfortable and confident in purchasing and maintaining inexpensive and very available firearms.

We have been greatly inspired by the great emails we get from readers, urging us to add more content and describing their own projects to us. The interaction is what makes all of this fun and worth it to continue. There is nothing like having someone send you an email with pictures saying "Thanks, I was able to do this project because I learned how on Surplusrifle.com!" That is one of the best feelings of accomplishment!

Jamie Mangrum

Jamie at Age 3 Years.

Jamie Mangrum born in Texas City, Texas has been shooting for most of his 41 years. Well, at least the years he could hold a firearm without falling down and from the picture to the left that was from the age of 3 on. He now lives with his wife of 22 years and 20 year old Daughter in Sacramento, California where he is the Chief Information Officer (Head Computer Guy) for the California, Department of General Services. Jamie loves everything about military surplus firearms and has learned to love and enjoy the writing, photography, and sharing his passion with the thousands of readers of Surplusrifle.com.

As the web site grew it moved around from one Internet service provider to another. A funny note: At one time Surplusrifle.com was actually hosted on servers in New Delhi, India. We had not intentionally placed the site in India, this is where the company had their servers I was later to find out. This was a very short engagement as we outgrew their capacity very quickly.

At the end of the first year, Mark Trope and Ted Jeo submitted their first article: Mounting a Modern Scope on a Classic Rifle. Since then Mark and Ted have helped establish one of the better online resources on the subject of reloading for the mil-surp firearm and Ted has written what I consider to be the best article ever on the subject of obtaining your Curio & Relic FFL 03 firearms license. I am proud to have Ted and Mark as my friends, co-editors, and ongoing contributors to Surplusrifle.com.

Mark Trope

Mark Trope has been shooting Mil-Surp Arms for over 3 decades. He is a proficient machinist, has been reloading and casting bullets for over 20 years, and enjoys competing in Mil-Surp, Benchrest, Silhouette, and Black Powder shooting events. Before retiring from his 20 + years in the United States Army, he was a Company First Sergeant, Material Maintenance Manager, an instructor in an Army Service School, and edited military technical manuals. He received a degree with honors from South Plains College where he was student president of his college program. He is a member of the National Honor Society. Today Mark works in the Medical Health Information field. Besides his love of anything that shoots, he collects gun books, and studies history & nature. He resides with his wife in Texas.

R. Ted Jeo

18 months old and being destructive to my brother's lever action (toy) rifle.

R. Ted Jeo has been into firearms for nearly all his life, except for when he was poor in college. Born as an Army Brat, Ted spent nearly his entire childhood overseas in Europe where he started shooting with his brother's .22 lever action. Returning to the US, he started competitive shooting (small bore 4-position) in high school, followed by both small bore and high power competition shooting while at Oregon State University. Following his Masters degree from Texas A&M, he took a 12 year hiatus from shooting, returning to small bore competition, reloading, and military surplus collecting and shooting 5 years ago. He currently plays a chemist but is actually a lab manager/technician for "Dubbya" (Federal Government) and lives with his wife and 4 kids (3 of which do have tails) in Minnesota.

2003 brought about some new features to the site. We added "How-To" videos and a lot more content. Our web site traffic was now at an average of 3000 visitors per day viewing around 7000 pages of content per day. We even picked up our first sponsors with Huber Triggers and Mojo Sighting Systems.

Starting in 2004 we started to receive regular submissions from Finn Nielsen who is an excellent military surplus rifle resource. Finn has submitted wonderful and informative articles like Mr. Nielsen and the FN C1 Rifle and The Schmidt-Rubin Karabiner 31 just to name a few.

Finn Nielsen

Finn was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1943. His parents decided to immigrate to Canada in 1956 and of course, at age 13, he and his younger brother had to come along. At the conclusion of high school Finn joined The Canadian Army (Regular) as it was called then. It was an all volunteer force, and still is, and he signed up for three years in the Infantry. At that period in his life he was a budding history buff, and had already begun to have an interest in firearms. During his service time his Battalion also did a UN tour of duty in Cyprus of six months duration. The three years ended, and like so many other servicemen Finn joined a local police force. That ended when he obtained employment at the provincial Crime Lab in Toronto. Finn worked there as a Firearms Examiner for the next 33 years, with a 1 1/2 year break where he worked for F.D.L.E. in their Orlando Lab. He then returned to Toronto and did three more years there and was able to retire with a full pension in 2001. Ever since Finn joined "The Lab" he has been writing articles on firearms for a number of publications. His was first published in NRA's, The American Rifleman in 1968. Now that he has more time on his hands he can shoot, reload and write more than he was able to before.

Finn states: "I have been fortunate in my life that I had work that I enjoyed and the satisfaction of doing it well, which can't be measured."

By the end of 2004, Surplusrifle.com was being visited by 8000 visitors per day and they were viewing almost 20,000 pages per day.

Where are we today?

Surplusrifle.com now averages 20,000 visitors per day viewing over 60,000 pages per day. That is 600,000 visitors per month viewing over 1.8 million pages;
We have published over 300 articles since we launched;
We offer technical and instructional sections on over 40 rifles and pistols;
Surplusrifle.com has published (print) 23 disassembly and reassembly manuals and 6 CD-ROMs to date that are for sale on the web site and also on several online auction sites;
Surplusrifle.com now has a message forum with 3300+ users with over 90,000 posts;
Surplusrifle.com is now on its own dedicated web server;
Surplusrifle.com now sponsors and runs postal shoots and has just launched our 9th match so far. Match 8 had 28 contestants!;
We now have 12 sponsors of both the message forum and website.

Where are we going? Because we lack the limitations of printed media our articles are starting to taking on gargantuan proportions. Big photos and lots and lots of them! We recently rolled out the new U.S. 1917 disassembly and reassembly section and it has over 150 photos! The Adobe PDF version of the U.S. 1917 instructions is so large that we actually had to post a warning about how long it would take to download. Our content is maturing and moving in all kinds of directions. We now offer product reviews unlike any other publication. We not only tell you how the product works, but we show you step-by-step how to install the product. In most cases the instructions in each of the articles are more extensive than the manufacture provided documentation. We are also covering subjects like how to build rifles from parts kits like the FAL and the M1 Garand.

We have published some really great articles so far this year, like the following to just name a few:

When I think of all the things we can still do I really get excited. There are so many firearms and products we can still write about and publish "how-to" information on. Keep sending us the ideas and keep reading! We are planning on rolling out a Curio & Relic Sales page where dealers of firearms and firearm accessories will be able to post Adobe PDF versions of their monthly sales ads that they currently post in printed publications.

We wanted to take a moment and look back at what we were and to look forward to see what we can be. We would like to thank our Sponsors, Forum Moderators, and mostly all of you.

Thank you, from all of us at Surplusrifle.com!

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Article by Jamie Mangrum