Norinco M14 Bolt report

[hillbilly]

This morning, I have purchased a Norinco M14 for $700.

After purchase, I took the bolt to M&M Tool and Die in Barling, AR, for a Rockwell Hardness test. There is a lot of stuff out there about Chicom M14s having soft bolts.

My bolt was tested twice at M&M Tool and Die and registered a 45, which is plenty hard for a bolt.

A post at Battlerifles.com says M14 bolts should register between 42 and 50 on the Rockwell scale, as anything harder than 50 might be so hard that it would be brittle and potentially shatter.

After the hardness check, it was off to the gunsmith for a headspace check.

Rifle would not close on a "No Go" and wouldn't close on a "Field."

Again, the bolt would not actually close on a Field, but went far enough that the gunsmith said it "Looked like it might be a little long."

So, he rustled up a round of commercial .308 and we went outside to his test range. Shot was fired, and he examined the brass and pronounced it good.

So, for $700 I have an M14 or M1A that just needs a GI flash hider and synthetic stock to become exactly what I want it to be.

No range report yet, as I have to do some work around the house after this morning's forays.

And I will eventually post pics of my new M1A.

hillbilly

 

[4v50 Gary]

Thank you hillbilly for that first hand report on a Chinese made M-14 bolt.

 

[hillbilly]

In comparison to what I witnessed first hand today, here are some other websites.

First, Fulton Armory's slam on Chicom M14s because of soft bolts and bad headspace.

http://www.fulton-armory.com/M14S_Eval.htm#Bolt


And here's a thread from FALFiles about the same thing.

http://www.falfiles.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82617


The reason I posted this bit of info about a Chinese M14 bolt is as follows.

There is a lot controversy out there over Chinese M14s.

There are a lot of folks who say that Chinese M14s are basically bombs waiting to go off, and they spend big advertising dollars to say so.

There are folks who rake in lots of money charging people with Chicom M14s chunks of change to make their ticking rifle-bombs safe and friendly to shoot.

I can't speak for all Chicom M14s out there. There might be some real dogs out there.

But I have verified information that this particular rifle is perfectly acceptable and within spec and safe to shoot.

I actually almost did not buy it because of all the negative hype out there about Chinese M14s. But I decided to buy one any way and put it to the above tests.

hillbilly

 

[Dionysusigma]

I didn't know there were any Norinco M-14s in the US! The only place I've seen them was on some Canadian(?) website...

How 'bout submitting a review to Werewolf's new site? http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=88772

P.S. Found the Canadian site... Marstar http://www.marstar.ca/Norinco/M-305.htm

Too bad we can't get them here.

 

[hillbilly]

Dionysusigma, there are a bunch of Chinese M14s in the USA.

They were imported before the various bans and import bans.

There are both Norinco and Polytech versions out there.

hillbilly