It was December 1996. I was a 12-year-old kid with a bowl cut living in Appalachia who loved reading about war and guns. My personal Library of Alexandria and window to the world of firearms was an ancient gas station down the street run by a Vietnam vet who sold nudie magazines and cigarettes without carding and, more importantly, gun rags.
Bundled in my brother’s old Starter jacket, I saw an issue of Soldier of Fortune with the French Foreign Legion in full parade regalia on the cover. It also had a small blurb about something called an SVDS.
Intrigued, I quickly flipped through the pages, trying not to earn the ire of the salty vet behind the counter for loitering (which would earn me a parade-polished Mickey Mouse boot to the ass and a call to my parents — the latter being far more terrifying). Crouched between the aisles of overpriced, expired junk food, I ogled the black-and-white photos of the Russian beast inside and found my Soviet angel in the centerfold. I was hooked.
I had to have a legit Dragunov — not a PSL with some imitation furniture or a WASR-1 with a thumbhole stock, a real-deal Dragunov. At least until I saw the price tags on auction sites and realized I would have to sell a kidney to afford one.
But that all changed a
