Objective thoughts on the Century C308?

I just recently bought one of these, with the wood furniture. For me, it's solidly in the Fun Gun category, as I don't plan on holding off the zombie (coronavirus?) hoards anytime soon. Nor will I be hunting with it, or even have access to a good long distance range.

I like Spanish firearms and own a few Stars, and came to admire the CETME from afar. I'm fully aware of the Century complaints over the years, but this current rifle seems to be a different effort than the older runs. The few reviews I've seen have seemed positive, and combined with the price and the surplus/coolness factor it was what pushed me over the top to buy it.

I've seen the "save up and get a PTR" posts, but truth is, I've little desire for a brand new, $1K plinker. I want something that looks old. Cosmetically, I wish it had a metal trigger housing/grip, and I'd like to look into finding an honest Cetme one to fit.

Function- I want reliability, it would be great if it was accurate, but I won't be able to shoot beyond 100m at the most, and usually just in the 25m indoor range. I've broken it down and cleaned what I could, gonna try it out today with some cheap brass (got a deal on some Armscor recently).

Remember, we're talking a sub-$600 rifle with iron sights, $3 surplus mags, and maybe the loudest boom in the indoor range , not a $2k+ precision sniper rifle. Anyone have one, have experience with these current ones, etc?

Ironicaintit said:

at an indoor range, you will get the attention of the range officer, as well as the people at the counters out in the lobby, and they’ll ask you about your ammo and check to see if it’s magnetic.

I’m sure the newer ones are better than what they used to do (at least I hope so!)
It’s a fun rifle, and I would totally buy it again

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I'm lucky enough that my local range let's you shoot anything. I've shot tons of steel cased ammo there.

I was able to get in a range day yesterday, we had some fun. 100 rds of Armscor, "loose brass" from Ammoman. I assume it to be the 150 gr stuff, it wasn't labled. I had broken down and cleaned the gun, was using surplus Cetme mags that I'd also done my best to clean up.

Initially, was getting occasional failures... some rds failed to eject, a couple failed to feed. 1-2 light primer strikes. I didn't follow the prescribed break-in (clean after ever round), but did clean a couple times with a brush. I wasn't loading the magazines full (to 20), I was going 5 or so at a time. I did have to "pogo stick" it once, early in the session, to fully cycle. Wasn't trying to be too precise, just wanting to sling ammo downrange and wanting reliable function. Does seem that the longer the session went (and the gun warmed up), the smoother it went. I thought I'd gotten the cosmoline all off, perhaps I didn't? I've taken the bolt off the bolt carrier, taken the bolt apart as far as having:
bolt head assembly, firing pin, spring, locking piece. Didn't take the bolt head assembly apart (rollers, extractor etc). Hosed everything with carburetor cleaner and then rubbed down with some air compressor oil (Lubriplate equivalent). Not real sure how wet or dry to run it, I've seen people say both ways. Some guy on youtube was putting a lot of oil on the rollers, others have said a drop at most. Several places have said to basically run it dry.
When I search, I seem to find stuff about grinding the bolt heads down;... that isn't telling me if I should run it well-lubed or not.
BTW, the bolt doesn't seem to be ground down, it has the bevel and some finish remaining. I checked the bolt gap, and I'm getting 0.016. Should be good.

Seems like over the last half, the failures decreased and then went away. Last 20 or so went smoothly, strong ejection, good feed.

Accuracy- seems to be ok, we'll see later down the road how tight it is. It was at 25 yds indoors, and most were either me or my son (we're in the 5'7 range, I'm 175 lbs and have a good 35-40 lbs on him ) standing and firing offhand without a sling. It's a big heavy gun and I have progressive/bifocals, we kept it on paper in center mass. I did drop to a knee for a couple sets of 3-5, and focused on a fist-sized wrinkle in the target. Iron sights, using the 200m aperture. It put them in that wrinkle, it MAY be just a bit off to the right but not much.

All the fail to feed was ammo still stuck in the mags, so that would be a mag issue. I bought a few surplus Cetme mags, they came caked in cosmoline and look to be parkerized. To clean them, I boiled them in water, broke them down, scrubbed with brake/carb cleaner, sprayed a little silicone and gun oil and wiped it off, and reassembled. They still sound scratchy, and some feel almost like fine sandpaper to the touch, but most seem ok.

Would it matter if I told you that the least expensive PTR is only $216 more expensive than the least expensive C308?

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Yes, it would.

1. This is a fun gun for me. I'm not hunting with it, not going on a mercenary trip. Little to no access to a range beyond 200m.
2. I didn't want plastic furniture, I was drawn to the wood furniture on this.
3. The "surplus parts" bit doesn't bug me, I have plenty of surplus handguns.
4. This is already about twice the price of my other rifles, including the Winchester 94.

This is about as high as I was willing to go. I wouldn't be buying at all, if it were $200 more. I'm getting one to have one, to tear it down and clean and admire it, as much as anything. As long as it functions, I'm good.

I get that the PTR is supposed to be nicer. I get that the FAL is supposed to be a nicer platform. You start chasing the rabbit, it goes way up the ladder.

That's not meant to be a snarky answer, just saying "this is where I am".

I got mine at Classic, it was $599. That was with the wood furniture, it's sold out now. So we're talking closer to $250; and then the cost of wood furniture. From what I understand, the HK/PTR wood is pricey; and getting the Cetme wood to fit on one is a bit of a hassle.

Re the sight adjustment tool, I see them in stock at a site I frequent. $18, plus shipping.
Curious about whether I need one.

I have cleaning kits
added- I have both the surplus German kits with the pull through, and the Swiss kits with the grease. They both seem like they would be good fits for this rifle.

Ironicaintit said:

Those slim wood fore ends get too toasty to hold pretty quick

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I didn't notice it with running 100 rds through, and the barrel got plenty hot. I've read online that the Century plastic grips lack a heat shield, and that people have reported the fore end melted. I've seen a few people on some forums have commented that the wood grips are an improvement for that.

jdc1244 said:

In previous discussions it was stated that the barrel and receiver on the current Century C308 are actually made by PTR.

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Correct.

And the internal parts and buttstock are CETME surplus.

CAI finally made a decent rifle by not making the rifle.

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I've read that, too . Hopefully that is the case.

Here's a couple pictures

Brief update: had some initial problems (during the first couple dozen rds). That seems to have gone away, after repeated cleaning and firing. I'm a couple hundred rds in now, having shot Armscor .308 (all of the failures from this), some surplus 7.62 Korean, and some Russian steel (Red Army). She definitely gets dirty , but it seems like it's running slicker and smoother the more I shoot it.

Changed out the Century muzzle brake for an A2 flash hider, which lessened the flash considerably and doesn't seem to affect recoil much differently. It appears that my muzzle brake wasn't QUITE straight and true, and began to show evidence of bullet grazing on one spot. I said "F--- that", got a gunsmith to look it over, and we decided to put on the birdcage instead. Century offered an RMA, but we determined it was not a RIFLE issue, it was a MUZZLE DEVICE issue. The barrel is fine. I didn't want to send it off for 6+ weeks, since my gunsmith gave me the flash hider for $5 instead. No further problems, I've shot it more since changing than I did beforehand.

We shot about a dozen rounds with no device, just to check function after removing the brake. Crown of the barrel is good, and very impressive fireball flash . The A2 almost completely eliminates that.

Ammo-related observations:
The Armscor .308 came bagged up instead of boxed. It's the only stuff I had a malfunction with, a couple failures to extract early on. Striated the casing and put a small dent in the lip of the case. Bought that stuff as "loose"... didn't expect that to be literal, but apparently it was. One of the bullets came out of the shell and dumped powder in the magazine, a royal pain in the butt and a bit disturbing. The others from that batch all seem to be snug as expected, and have fired thus far.

The Korean surplus has run nicely, no problems. I'm going to assume this stuff is basically PMC, it's been good to go.
The Red Army steel cased has run nice also. Ejects beautifully, no problems at all. Since it beats the cases up anyway, it's nice to know cheaper steel runs fine.