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it's government chartered which means it's completely civilian company that exists only as long as the government decides to keep giving them free surplus.
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Almost, but not there.
The CMP was charted by congress to provide marksmanship training to American Citizens, with emphasis on Juniors.
Surplus Sales is nothing but a means to fund those programs. The Forerunner of the CMP was the DCM which was run by the Army, and did received federal funds. The CMP doesn't depend on tax dollars, but is totally funded from sales.
When I was attending the CMP GSM MI course we were told that if the Sales was to stop today (that was 2-3 years ago) they have the means to continue their marksmanship activities almost indefinitely.
But again, the mission of the CMP is not to sell surplus military arms, ammo, and equipment, but to conduct marksmanship activities.
This just didn't start in 1996 when the CMP got it's charter, but in 1904 under Teddy Roosevelt.
It definitely is more efficient then the DCM.....not to say the Army was a fault, but they had to have their budget approved each year by congress, they were understaffed and under funded and had some silly rules.
To give you an example, when I got my Distinguished Rifle badge it took about 18 months under the DCM from the time I finished up on my points and I got the Badge.
Now under the CMP if you earn the points, they'll beat you home from the match.
To add, not all the stuff sold by the CMP is surplus military, a look at their Stores (e-store) lots of ammo, and other shooting equipment and parts come from commercial sources.
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Edit to add:
The CMP is about a lot more then M1 Sales, I encourage everyone to visit
www.odcmp.com and go through the site and forums. It's a great program.