this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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It’s way too much. The value in this case is so high because it’s an old historic firearm.
With modern production capabilities you can buy brand new rifles for ~1000€ or handguns for a couple or 100€s. They just shoot as straight, if not better. Modern assault rifles cost around 1500-5000€s the last time I checked. Without full auto mode though, because they are illegal for civilians here in Germany (no civilian needs an assault rifle IMO). But technically/price wise I imagine the difference to be negligible between the two variants.
But some weapons from that period were masterpieces. Back then they had more or less only manually operated machines that needed a lot of experience and skill. A Mauser 98 for example can still be bought as a new weapon today. A century old design built today costs 10000€ upwards.
There's also the fact that it's a pre-1986 machine gun. Machine guns manufactured after that period are illegal to own as an unlicensed civilian in the US. The fact that it's a legal machine gun adds a few zeros to the overall value. Beaten up M16s receivers (the serialized bit of an AR-15) can go for over $10000 alone and you still need to build the rest of the gun on that receiver. All of that money just to have a legal machine gun in the US
TY for this context. I guess compared to a high end kitted out rifle, it’s like 5x the cost or more, and mostly because of the age of this piece
Semi-automatic rifles are also illegal for civilians in Germany. You can buy a hunting rifle, if you have a license, but those are bolt action.
That’s not correct. You can just walk into a shop, show some papers, pay ~3,5k€ and buy a H&K MR308 or some other semi auto rifle if you like.
But getting this privilege costs quite a bit of work and money: You have to go to a hunting school, learn a lot of stuff, prove that you’ve really learned everything, show you are able to use weapons in a safe manner, prove your ability to shoot etc. Also you get screened by the police on a regular basis. And if you ever get in serious trouble with the law the chances are high you’ll lose everything.
So it’s not like in other countries, that basically having at least one finger is enough to operate a Gatling gun in your backyard 😉