Cetme or Remington 7400?

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cidirkona

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I'm looking for something semi-auto in .308 as a decent-range plinking rifle... I could get a DPMS Panther, but at $1000, it seems a bit excessive...

Right now, the obvious answers are the Remington 7400 and the Cetme... durability vs capacity at decent prices...

Are there any I'm missing?
-Colin
 
I don't like either (and have had the Remington)- the FAL or Saiga would be my choices....
 
I've seen the Saigas around, but haven't seen too many spare magazines for them. Some people have done pistol-grip conversions to them, but that doens't look to easy from the one site I saw explaining it. Not only that - but are they decently accurate?

-Colin
 
I tried to get many examples of the Eagle 10rd magazines to fit-n-feed in my Rem 7400 (chambered in 270) and none would.
 
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I've heard they're useless...

Wally World has the 7400 for $399 and Saiga prices are steadily climbing... anywhere from $275 to $400....

-Colin
 
the saiga prices will be high for at least a while. The old importer dropped them, and I don't think the new importer has started bringing them in yet. I don't know what will happen to prices when the new importer does get them going, but CDNN had them for 250 (synthetic stock, the wood was more) before.

There likely will be high cap mags for the saiga, but they will likely be somewhat expensive. There is a small company working on some right now. Until then, its just the 8 rounders.

I'd think a FAL would be good, but obviously more expensive.

patent
 
cidirkona,

I have a cetme, and it is actually a pretty nice rifle, but it took a fair amount of work.

If you can find a nice one, and there are nice ones out there, I would say go for it. But the odds of finding a nice one for a good price are actually fairly low.

Here is a couple pics of my CETME.
attachment.php


3 shots prone, supported at about 75-80 yards. The target I was aiming at was the lowerleft corner, and was using the 200 meter sight to put it 3.5" high at 100.

attachment.php

Here it is sporting the new camo paint job I did.

I.G.B.
 
Yeah, CETME's are nice rifles if you find a quality built one. Mine set me back $400, but it was a good price for a reliable accurate semi-auto .308 rifle. It's even got some purty wood furniture on it :p
 
My cetme ran $295. It runs really well NOW, but it took a few hours worth of workbench time wrenching on it to get it that way.

I'm pretty sure that's the norm for Century Cetmes.
 
Jobu,

Yeah, I paid too much for mine as well, about $429, but it was money well spent.

Another good thing is how easy they are to work on. If you have an unground bolt, and your BG is in a decent range (enough so that + rollers can put it in usable range), and your barrel is OK, most everything else is user fixable.

I.G.B.
 
My cetme ran $295. It runs really well NOW, but it took a few hours worth of workbench time wrenching on it to get it that way.
Click to expand...

My experience is the same. OTOH, now that my CETME is running fine, I would definitely pick it over a Rem 7400.

If I had it to do today, I would buy a CETME from a private party who has already worked the bugs out (via FFL Transfer, as needed.)
 
First I'll answer the thread IMO, the cetme is a good rifle. The one I own like everyone else had minor short comings but tearing it apart and some light tinkering and "BAM" done. No experience with the 7400 in 308 although I do have it in 30.06 with the eagle mags and no problems there. That is till you melt the feed lips on one of the mags. :cuss: Now for all you other Cetme owners, have any of you bought the H&K surplus mags? Any fit/function problems? I purchased 15 alloys with the metal followers and the H&K date codes stamped on them. They all fit and function like the 20 rd steel mag that came with my rifle. By the way my rifle is by Century Arms and has the full-auto bolt with the semi-auto trigger cartriage and the wood furniture.
 
Thank you all for your input, the Cetme I picked up today is brand "new" (new from used parts of course...) which is both good and bad. No extra wear... but no extra 'smithing' either. $359 with two magazines... one of which doesn't fit -- I'll get there eventually... First thing I did was take her apart and make sure the firing pin worked cleanly so it could be loaded safely this weekend. It seemed somewhat gritty inside, so I disassembled and cleaned it...

She sure looks pretty ("pretty" in this case meaning "evil black plastic").

I wish I could take pictures, but my camera phone broke IN HALF today!! :fire: :banghead: :fire: :banghead:

Oh well, I'll just have to play with the new firestorm .40 that came home with me as well... :D It sure is nice to :D be unmarried and childless... I actually get to spend my paychecks!

-Colin
 
Good price, Cidirkona. The only reason I got mine a little cheaper from a small gunshop is that, I suspect, I am the second buyer and whoever bought it first wasn't inclined to tinker with it to remove the bugs and just traded it in on something else.

If (when? :rolleyes: ) you run into problems check out the friendly folks at cetmerifles.com. Great database for fixing Century's minor screw-ups and breaking in a new action.

Magnuumpwr, I picked up a few old G3 aluminum mags too....work just fine, even with the small dings they have in em'. They come apart for cleaning much easier than the Cetme steel mag. I still haven't figured that one out. :scrutiny:
 
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