Chinese guns are overrated.

[49north]

I own chinese rifles and find them to be of good quality...I especially like the 1.5mm thickness of their ak receivers . The bluing on them is nice also.
Bottom line is that if the chinese WANT to, they can make/copy an item and end up with a quality product.
Americans are killing themselve buying chinese JUNK! We should only purchase quality products regardless of country of origin.

 

[roscoe]

They make excellent SKS rifles, blenders - not so much.

But, seriously, are we generalizing enough? I mean, Americans make some good guns, and some junk, and a few decent cars, and alot of junk. I wouldn't want someone generalizing about the United States based off Ford compact cars, that's for sure.

 

[pinstripe]

I will have to disagree with the statement that you made about the Chinese rifle being overrated. I own a Chinese sks and it is flawless and accurate for what it is. I have owned other Chinese sks's and they to were of good quality. It would be the same as if you said that all American firearms are junk after firing a Lorcin, Bryco, or Jennings.

 

[Hoppy590]

Bottom line is that if the chinese WANT to, they can make/copy an item and end up with a quality product.
Americans are killing themselve buying chinese JUNK!

i agree with this.

americans know "made in china" as in Walmart. but the chinese can make quality products at a decent price. sure not as cheap as thier crap knock offs but cheaper tahn we could make comparable here in the US

 

[Deacon Blues]

Though not pertaining to any particular gun, what some others are saying about Chinese quality is correct. If you go to a Chinese manufacturer, they'll offer you whatever level of quality you want, and you get what you pay for. Right now, the popular route is to get the cheapest functional product in enormous quantities - the Wal-Mart way. But they're capable of top quality as well. They don't get much call for this, however, and don't really believe that they can compete with American manufacturers at that level. The CEO of one such manufacturer explained it like this: American companies have lots of skilled machinists, Chinese companies have lots of unskilled laborers. The Chinese factories will have to throw out thousands of parts to make sure that nothing defective gets sold, whereas the American factories save money by making more good parts in the first place. That's oversimplification, of course, but it gives you an idea as to why things are as they are.

 

[Master Blaster]

Most smiths have to buy carbide mill bits to work the steel, and even then there's a very high tool wear rate. This is probably why so few smiths will do Novak cuts to a Norinco slide - they probably only have HSS tooling!

This was where they lost me. No One who owns a milling machine, runs a machine shop, or is a gunsmith curently doing business, is using high speed tooling in their milling machine, Carbide tooling has been the standard for a very long time, you would have to search to find a high speed steel milling bit.

I have read that some of the smiths will not work on a Norinco because the holes in the frame tend to be in the wrong place, that makes them a real challenge to fit in spec parts to.

I seem to recall Tuner mentioning a norinco that was way out of spec that somone brought him to work on, I also recall him saying that he liked them, when they were in spec.