The old 91/30 Mosin Nagants are IMO pretty serviceable old war horses. Given their inexpensive price and the availibility of common reasonably priced surplus ammo they're cheap enough to were an average person can buy several and a decent cache of ammo so in the event of civil unrest they can arm friends or neighbors as well as have back up rifles for themselves. Not just real accurate rifles by any means but very much so minute of badguy out to a few hundred yards in the right hands. With soft point ammo they can also make decent medium to large sized game hunting rifles as well. I'd see them as decent bartering/trading currency in the event of an economic colapse as well similar to the "trade musket" of times past.
I agree -- the Mosin is the best bang for buck right now. Even someone with not very much available funds can buy a real combat-tested battle rifle and a case of ammunition for it for sub $300. If they have more money to spend, they can stock up on ammunition very easily and, to use the cliche, "buy it cheap and stack it deep".
Anyone know of places locally in OKC that sell Mosins sub $100?