Would you buy an AK mag for $1200? What if it’s a rare AK mag? What if stuff imported from Russia might be about to become very difficult to find, due to sanctions? This magazine on GunBroker for a cool $1,199.00 is a rare, current-issue four-column 5.45mm magazine. The magazine is historically and militarily significant, because it is a type that introduced three originally-foreign technologies into Russia’s venerable infantry rifle:

Stripper-based mag refilling, as has been standard on the M-16 for decades; Four column magazine, first made popular by the Finnish Suomi and later by the Swedish M45 submachineguns, and currently made in 60- and 100-round capacities for the AR by Surefire; and, Modern injection-molded polymer manufacturing, unlike the early-20th-Century technology used in previous Russian plastic mags.

It’s not a revolutionary improvement, it’s an evolutionary one. And it just puts a better magazine in the hands of Russian soldiers. Or in your hands, if you think it’s worth one Large two Hunge.

Here’s what the seller says (paragraph breaks added, but life is too short to fix his spelling):

Mega rare item. Only a handful of these made it to the US. I would speculate there are no more than 15 of them here. Those of you who don’t understand why it is so expensive, try to find it elsewhere for less. The price reflects the difficulty of finding it in the country of origin the difficulty of getting in to this country. These mags are new issue in Russian army and special forces. Originally this quad stack design had 60 round capacity. However, when fielded for trials, 60 rounders had few major issues. First, when loaded with ammo for long time spring would weaken. As a result as user would load the mag and start firing, after going through half or three quarters of the ammo in the mag, due to lack of sufficient pressure from the spring, remaining ammo would scramble inside of the mag (especially when running or shooting from upside down or at 90 degrees). Second issue was that 60 round mag was just a little too long for comfort. This new, 50rd model has the same profile as the regular 30rd magazine. Although these have been officially accepted by the military, there are virtually none of them in the regular regiments. As of today, only the special forces and some elite detachments have (limited) use of these types of mags. The item is in perfect working condition. What you see pictured, is what you will get. There are some minor dings from normal use (not by me) I have only plugged this particular mag in to a rifle 3 or 4 times, and only for a photo shoot.

You’d think that for 1200 bucks he’d at least offer free shipping, but no, that costs you an extra $12.

We used to collect Russian oddball equipment and exotica like this, but came around to thinking that it was a mug’s game; somebody’s always going to have stuff you can’t find for your collection, and you’re always going to face the threat of getting down in the weeds of collecting 43 variations of the way the wing-nut is attached, and missing something large and important. so we don’t buy anything any more, without at least planning to shoot it.

See, for us, $1200 for a magazine is just a gateway drug; then we would have to buy an AK 74 to plug it into. (Yes, we do have guns we bought because for no other reason than that we already had the magazines). Then would have to buy a bunch of 5.45 mm ammunition to launch out of it. Thousand here, thousand there, pretty soon you’re into real money.