I have a jungle carbine version made by Ishapore. Its definitely one of the best bargains I have come across. The previous owner added a (Millet?) peep sight and with those sights I can shoot about a 1" group at 50 yds. Not bad for a little over 100$. In fact this is probably the most pleasing rifle purchase I have made in a long time. It is a rare and wonderful thing to pay a pittance for something and having it exceed your expectations. Its also nice that this gun holds twelve rounds of ammo in the magazine.
About Ammo...
There are many varying theories as to whether or not it is safe/advisable to shoot civilian .308 win ammo thru these rifles due to the minor differences between .308WIN and 7.62 NATO ammunition. There is a lot of confusion as to whether or not the military ammo is lower pressure than commercial ammo due to the different standards (CUP, SAMMII, mil yadayada yada) and methods of measuring the chamber pressure of these two rounds. I have done quite a bit of research on these two (on the internet, not real testing) and have come to the conclusion that until someone with real data steps forward and settles the issue by doing a scientific test, comparing apples to apples, we will not have a definitive answer. One thing everyone agrees on is that the NATO brass is thicker and preferrable for these rifles. Also, the commercial ammo is questionable, shoot it at your own risk. You might be causing damage to your barrel.
With all that being said, I occasionally shoot full pressure (308WIN) ammo thru it, but just to get the brass. Typically I stick to low pressure reloads using commercial .308WIN brass. I think the starting load for IMR 4064 Powder with a 150gr bullet is 38 grains, with the max load being about 43gr. The listed pressure for the max load being 50-55ksi (I think, look it up to be sure). The starting load is much lower. This leads me to believe the starting load is safe with a comfortable margin. In fact it is probably far, far below the actual limits that these rifles will take, but since this is a plinker for me this works well.
I would bet that the Remington Managed Recoil loads are another safe option as these are bound to be lower pressure than the typical commercial hunting ammo.
Magazines can be hard to find, I bought a ProMag spare and found that it doesnt really want to work. I have tinkered with it a little with very limited improvement. On the plus side you can just keep the original magazine in place and reload using M14 stripper clips. This is how the rifle was originally intended to be reloaded anyway.
The finish on these rifles is some kind of paint...If you want to spend the time removing it and refinishing it, God bless you, i know I saw an internet article about it. I cant remember where but I want to say it was on the BOX of Truth website. It looked to be a pain in the A$$ so I wouldnt go to the trouble personally.
