I stumbled blindly into my C308, just before the world went insane. I was always more of a fan of surplus pistols, while my son likes the old bolt rifles. We'd recently found him a decent Ishapore, and so we had picked up some surplus Korean 7.62 NATO. People were getting nervous about the virus (still called it coronavirus then), and we started seeing common calibers flying off the shelves. I could still find 9mm S&B online at some less popular sites, for about $210 or so; so
right before everything went to hell. *I just looked, early April 2020*
Wandered across Classic's site, and they had the C308's for $600. Wood stock, 2 mags.
I knew about the Cetme more from the old Cruffler site, than from people complaining about Century
, and either way I thought it might be a good idea for another semiauto rifle. At this point I just had a pair of SKS's, didn't have any 223/556 stashed yet. I did have the 7.62 NATO though, as well as a fair amount of 308 I got on a clearance deal (bag of bullets) from Lucky Gunner.
C308 is Cetme internals, Cetme wood stocks, PTR receiver and barrel, with Cetme iron sights and PTR Navy plastic trigger housing. Has a picatinny rail on the receiver so I can mount a scope. Mine shoots well, happily churns through steel 308 which I took advantage of, stocking up when I could. I picked up about $30 worth of magazines (at the old price
), which I keep loaded with Tula or Red Army. The plastic trigger housing always bugged me, so I eventually bought a clipped and pinned steel one from Bill Springfield, which makes it far more 'matching' IMO.
It seemed like prices doubled not more than 2 months after I bought it; but it took awhile for the Tula 308 to really go up a lot. I was still finding it for under 60 cents a rd recently.
Re my comments about not having any ARs yet... I managed to land a couple just as the real panic kicked in. Based on price searching and google history, I didn't do too bad there, maybe $50 higher than 2019 list, and I bought up all the 223/336 I could find at the 30 cents a rd price. I spent a good deal of money then, but it was ok... I work in healthcare, so while everyone else was out of work, I was doing overtime. I spent less than 2 yr's worth of vacation budget, which was out the window anyway at the time. So I'm good with that too, now.