The Rise and Fall of the Army Surplus Store

(From artofmanliness.com)

Above is a really interesting origin of the "Army Navy Store." Pretty fascinating stuff. 

Below is my personal experience with it. Pretty depressing stuff. 

My son, who is 8, has recently gotten into prepping. (Encouraged in no small part by me, I'll admit.) He and my daughter have "adventure packs," that we take on geocaching and bird watching trips. Each pack is a small Czech shoulder bag with a water bottle, some trail mix, a Swedish folding cup (for hot cocoa, obviously) a rain jacket, a headlamp and some band-aids. We use it all year round, and the highlight is breaking it out for backyard camping during the summer. 

This past weekend, he decided he wanted to upgrade his kit, so we headed out to the local surplus store. He had his heart set on a Yugo mess kit at first, but the only one there had a cracked lid, so he settled on a USGI kit, a P-38 can opener, and a canteen cup. 
He also picked out his first MRE. (Meatballs with marinara sauce. Yeah, he's definitely my kid. ) 

He'll get a lesson in how heavy all of that stuff is, but that's part of the process. Better to learn earlier, I think. 

This trip, more than others, I was struck by how little actual surplus gear there is. Tons of airsoft, tons of gas station knives, tons of smartass t-shirts, tons of Propper knock offs, but very little actual surplus gear. There are only 2 branches of this store in my state (a third one closed last year.) To an 8 year old who doesn't remember the "golden days," it wasn't too bad, but to his father, it was depressing. 

Besides Varusteleka, Sportsman's Guide, Major Surplus and Midway, do you guys have any legitimate milsurp sites that you prefer? Please post them up!

I haven't personally used them, but apparently Americana Pipedream is a good site for milsurp stuff.

There's also Liberty Tree Collectors, but they're a bit pricey and mostly cater to the firearms side of milsurp stuff.

I found this one the other day but haven't bought from them yet.

https://ufozs.com/smf/index.php?topic=1828.msg36185#msg36185

Thread Resurrection Alert!

AP and Varusteleka have already been mentioned but I am partial to KommandoStore and Venture Surplus:

https://kommandostore.com/

https://www.venturesurplus.com/

Quote from: Skidjit on August 06, 2025, 09:59:15 AMThread Resurrection Alert!

AP and Varusteleka have already been mentioned but I am partial to KommandoStore and Venture Surplus:

https://kommandostore.com/

https://www.venturesurplus.com/

Really glad you necro'd this thread. Just had to log back in on my Chromebook and all my bookmarks got wiped in the process. This thread restored a valuable chunk of them. 

Thank you!

I've been really disappointed at surplus stores in the last 15 years or so. I used to have to go to Sarge's or the other one in College Station as a Cadet in the mid-2000s for just about everything they didn't issue us (including keeping a spare set of grubby BDU and TA50 gear we were told to have for FTXs, but also told we couldn't be caught with in our rooms as personal gear was contraband) and so on. I built an ALICE belt rig in 2005 and an enhanced LBV set up the year after to airsoft with my friends. I've never had an ALICE pack, but been told I'm not missing anything. Both stores in College Station had mountains of uniforms in almost any pattern and size you could think of, and all kinds of hard to find items you could find a use for. Nearly all of it issue and the "junk" stuff was coming out of the Korean military shops, but it LOOKED like USGI issue stuff. It was always fascinating to see the shop owner's collection of foreign uniforms and gear, too at either shop.

Fast forward to the last 15-20 years and most places are nothing but airsoft quality tactical junk. If they do have authentic uniforms, they're BDU/DCU in odd sizes or faded and worn out, half of it is ACU or ABU (if you're close to an airbase), and the rest is commercial Multicam. Instead of ALICE gear, it's mostly plate carriers and tactical pouches, and very little is actual USGI issue stuff. I don't know what happened.

I think cost and availability became too much for a lot of surplus shops.

Especially with the rise of online shopping and folks basically hoarding the good stuff to sell online for ten times what they paid for it. Plus I think a lot of stuff got shipped overseas to allied nations.

But mainly it's likely a cost and availability thing.

I agree with "cost and availability" being the most likely culprits. 

I think Airsoft gear brought traffic back to surplus stores, but also put a huge dent in available inventory space. My local surplus store seems to lose more and more space to knockoff BDUs and chest rigs. 

The surplus ACU uniforms are odd sizes, in pretty rough shape, and tend to gather dust. Even old standbys like e-tools and canteens have been more or less replaced by cheaper, less durable overseas-manufactured gear. 

Oddly, the airsoft gear drives up the prices of actual surplus stuff. There are token amounts of M1 helmets with or without camo covers, for like $60 bucks each. There's a smattering of Eastern European gear, but I've seen the same Yugo mess kit sitting on the shelf for months. I don't think they'll order any more until the last one sells. 

MREs are still doing a brisk business though. Go figure. 

Market efficiency. Big on line retailers buy most of the items and sell it through their websites. That is how the rest of the world works now too. I'm not sure what you are looking for but if the following stores don't have it available on line I wouldn't be too shocked. More efficiency means that anyone can buy it now without having to drive to half a dozen stores to find the one thing they are looking for. With an inelastic supply of used equipment this creates shortages and increases prices for popular items. So while I think $89 for a used surplus poncho liner is a "tad high" someone really wants their woobie.

Army Navy Sales
Army Surplus World
Sportsmen's Guide
Coleman's Military Surplus



Oh look, the old poncho liner is on sale for $42!

https://colemans.com/u-s-g-i-poncho-liner

Commando Discount Military Surplus will sell you every item you need for Ranger School or to clear CIF after Ranger School.

Army Surplus Warehouse likely has the largest and most diverse inventory. They have everything from 20mm shell casings (and links) to Goretx Bivy covers AK-47 bayonets and 25 Meter M4 zero targets in 500 packs for only $29. M8 paper and CPOGs for $69.

https://armysurpluswarehouse.com/genuine-surplus/

This one is in NZ but they have a lot of stuff, from lots of nations.

So the stores never went away, they just went on line. No more browsing through dusty and mold infested repurposed warehouses. You can do it from your keyboard and not spend a dime in gas, you are welcome.

I was sad to see Vermont Army-Navy go under. I bought so much stuff for them cheap for field geology work and airsoft in the 2000s. They cut a deal with a Kentucky based DoD contractor for bulk lots of all kinds of ALICE and MOLLE contract overrun pouches and gear and they started doing everything in OD, khaki, Coyote Brown, foliage, Woodland, DCU, ACU, and MARPAT. All was top quality stuff, same as issue, just no DOD contract tags. Usually cost about as much as the surplus stuff I could find on eBay, so I figured for a couple bucks more, might as well get it new. Camo Outfitters, another company that did contract/LEO BDUs went under. Every bit as good as Propper and Tru-Spec Atlanco. Antipersonnel.net went under after the owner retired 10-12 years ago. Fire Force collapsed without warning a couple years ago, another DOD contractor that did most of the USAF and USMC MOLLE stuff you really can't get on eBay. They'd even do custom runs for you if they could source the fabric. Cost a bit though. Supposedly if you had the money, they'd do a full rig in 6 color desert or Vietnam tigerstripe, etc, kinda like how Eagle, LBT, and Blackhawk were back in the 90s. There was just so much good stuff 15+ years ago that evaporated since the mid-00s.