war surplus

American  

noun

1. equipment, supplies, etc., originally used by or manufactured for the armed forces, but disposed of cheaply as surplus or obsolete.

   He made his fortune in war surplus.

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Etymology

Origin of war surplus

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

By 1968, when the Gun Control Act would attempt to slam the door on the flood from overseas, half of all handgun sales were imports, and those guns—whether they were war surplus like Oswald’s or cheaply manufactured in postwar Western Europe—were across the board less expensive than new U.S.–made handguns, driving down prices and forcing U.S. gunmakers to be competitive.

From Slate

By the end of the decade, Cummings was annually importing hundreds of thousands of war surplus weapons, Mausers and Carcanos chief among them, for sale on the U.S. consumer market.

From Slate

After all, who goes shopping for a high-quality, brand-new $150 hunting rifle and goes home with a beat-up $10 war surplus weapon?

From Slate

One of the war surplus weapons that entered the United States by the millions in the decade before the Gun Control Act of 1968 would prohibit the practice was Oswald’s Carcano.

From Slate

That weapon, too, was a war surplus import—shipped to Europe and then reimported for sale on the world’s biggest gun-consumer market.

From Slate