Cetme Rifle Questions

[rtimgray]

I'm planning on shooting steel cased ammo for the most part (as a bonus - it's the cheapest!). I've found some surplus and some (silver?) bear I think that is about $7 for 20 rounds.

As a question to Soundguy - and I'm not trying to argue, I just want to understand your reasoning, because I know that you have forgotten more about firearms than I'll every know - why do you feel it is unsafe to have live ammo around the gun? Once the charging handle is free, you can "rack the bolt" so to speak with minimal effort.

As I mentioned before, the stickiness of it has to do with the spring that holds the roller spread apartl. The seller (who is a gunsmith) had changed the spring and you could charge the weapon easily - however, it wouldn't feed and fire properly. After the weapon is charged, it fires and feeds flawlessly. I'm going to pursue this issue until it either is resolved or I decide I can live with it - but I don't want a gun that is inherantly unsafe.

Thanks for the advice and help. Take care.

 

[Soundguy]

I said keep the ammo away, as in.. don't use the firearm. There is nothing 'safe' about a firearm that does not function correctly. To phrase it another way... I would not fire a malfunctioning firearm... and one that does not function 100% correctly, by definition, is malfunctioning.

Even if it does not specifically produce an unsafe situation.. there is always the trial lawyer 'what if' argument.

Imagine this fictitious scenerio... guy owns a gun just like yours.. 'works great' except you have to beat it on the floor.. ya know.. Well.. one day cleaning the gun.. he accidentally shoots himself.. totally unrelated to having to beat it on the floor to make it work... now.. his wife and kids are getting ready to collect his life insurance so they can keep the milk and cerial coming.. and perhaps some blankets for the winter.... some swift lawyer for some insurance company finds out by doing a quick internet search that this guy has talked about this gun online.. and mentioned many times about problems with part of it's function.

that alone might be 'probably cause / doubt' in a juries mind if push came to shove.

Imagine that this guy lent this gun to a frined who accidentally shot himself, thru no direct relation to having to beat it ont he floor to make it work... no fast forward to that lawsuit / lawyer issue... Imagine this guy ont he stand when the lawyer asks him.. 'so.. mr xyz.. you loaned a gun that had known and documented problems to my zyx , who was subsequently killed by the gun.. is that correct? That right there would be all she wrote....

if the gun don't work.. get it fixed or get it demilled...

In a life or death situation.. and that is your only gun around.. you think mr nice criminal is going to stop, put his nife down.. wait for you do beat ont he gun to make it work, and then everybody gets back in their place and starts over???

It would be like carrying a hand grenade that had the pin already pulled and somebody shoved a toothpick in there and then said.. oh it works fine.. it just has this little problem.. NO BIG DEAL.

An improperly functioning gun is an unsafe gun.

would you want to fly in a malfunctioning plane. imagine boarding a small plane and seeing the pilot go out there and kick something an then the plane starts up.. then he turns around and says.. 'Oh no problem folks.. it works fine.. you just have to get a lil' ruff with her to make her start'

sure.. these are extreme.. though not imposible scenerios. It's not the mundane stuff that gets you.. it's the improbable stuff that gets you sometimes. On a gun with 2 safties.. a single one failing ain't too bad.. but when one fails and the other don't work... well.. you get a problem. not apples to apples I know... just.. it's a social responsibility issue thing... why use a firearm that don't work 100% correctly? That's just BEGING for a problem ( and some bad follow-up legislation by the anti-gun crowd )...

As you mention in the bottom of your message.. getting the gun back to 100% operational capability is the 'safe' bet.

soundguy

As a question to Soundguy - and I'm not trying to argue, I just want to understand your reasoning, because I know that you have forgotten more about firearms than I'll every know - why do you feel it is unsafe to have live ammo around the gun? Once the charging handle is free, you can "rack the bolt" so to speak with minimal effort.

.

 

[rtimgray]

Thanks - I kind of thought that was what you meant. I guess, that in my view, for my purposes, I don't consider the defect to be that great. I intend for the rifle to be used only casually. In the event of an actual need for the gun in a tight spot, it would not be my choice.

And of course, if it were the only gun I had available, I would rather have a gun that functioned right after a "bump" than no gun at all!

I do agree with you - there is no need to have a gun that is not 100% operational. Like you said, it's the improbable scenarios that you get you in trouble, not the impossible ones. I am going to rectify this situation in the near future - and I do appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Thanks. Take care.

 

[Z-Michigan]

check CDNN for HK style claw mounts - they're advertising the mount for $140 in their latest catalog. (fits Cetme as well)
they also sell an acessory rail adapter so you can use standard mounts instead of HK dedicated stuff.

also - there's an HK ejector buffer you can add to the port that will help with the case denting issue.

Thanks. I will have to look up the buffer. I love CDNN and read every catalog, and I've seen those mounts. I think you can get them with a Hensoldt scope too, right? Anyway I'm a bit cheap for that. I was looking more at their $50 red dot. You can also get HK91 claw mounts from Midway USA in the $75 range, and install any scope you want. That's probably what I really should do.

From what I've read, fitting a claw mount on a CETME or HK91 is somewhat iffy because of production tolerances. Apparently German army issue claw mounts had serial numbers matching the one and only G3 that they were hand-fitted to! The PTR91 is supposed to be machined precisely enough (With CNC) that a claw mount should fit without gunsmithing.

 

[Erik_in_Hoyt]

further back in the current CDNN catalog they have a red dot scope for the 91 as well - for a chunk less. Can't remember the price off the top of my head.

 

[Soundguy]

Are those buffers the polyurethane ones I've seen before?

soundguy

 

[MicroPilot]

THE place for CETME info:

Militaryfirearm

Very knowledgeable folks there. They even build their own CETME/G3's!

Please do check the above site. You've been given some here that is at best slightly erroneous to outright wrong.

There are several possibilities for the perceived difficult functioning of your firearm. The first thing that the folks at Militaryfirearm.com are gonna ask is if everything is in spec. There is detailed info posted there about how to check parts, and what the correct specifications are.

 

[rtimgray]

Just wanted to update this thread in case anyone ever comes across it with a similar problem.

I've tinkered with it on and off for several months when time allows, finally got on some dedicated firearm boards, and got some good advice.

The Cetme that I own came from Century Arms - as some folks noted on here, they are basically old de-milled rifle parts kits re-assembled with some US made parts and some surplus parts. Quality varies from pretty good to very poor. I think that I got one that is about in the middle.

Evidently, Century believes in the cut to fit/paint to match motto as opposed to doing it right the first time. That's the bad part. The good part is that parts, accessories and knowledge for the rifle is pretty easy to come by.

Turns out that my rifle suffered from two main problems: The first is that the bolt was ground about 25 thousands undersized, so I was getting a false gap reading. I talked to the guy that owned it before I did and he said he shot thousands of rounds through it and never did anything to it (and according to the guy that I bought it from - he agreed - he didn't think the gun had ever been cleaned!). Anyway, unsafe or not, the first owner got away with it unscathed (God protects children and morons - so I know I'm safe!). On these type rifles, having the proper bolt gap (.004" to .020") is critical to proper operation, loading, and ejection. The solution for this is a new bolt.

The actual hard-to-charge problem came from a ground bolt carrier tube. It turns out that when you lift the charging handle lever from its stowed position (parallel to the barrel) to its operating position (perpendicular to the barrel), it is the camming action of this that pushes the charging handle support to push against the bolt carrier tube that in turn pulls the bolt rearward, thus unlocking the rollers from the trunion. After that action, you just have to pull against the recoil spring (which is then a pretty much normal charging action). In my case, the charging handle support was not making contact with the bolt carrier tube, so I did not get the mechanical advantage of the camming action of the charging lever. The solution for this is a new bolt carrier.

Luckily for me, I was able to purchase a complete bolt carrier group, with a new bolt, etc. Cost with shipping as $82.50. That has pretty much cured all the ills associated with this. I actually have to do a little more work on it (because the bolt carrier tube is actually a little too long right now, I have to file it down just a bit). But overall, that in a nutshell, was the problem and the apparent solution. Thanks for all the help and take care.

 

[Soundguy]

Thanks for the followup!

soundguy

 

[rtimgray]

Thanks for the followup!

soundguy

Thank you for the good advice above (from a few months ago). I think you said to keep the ammo away, and that's exactly how it should be until the gun is fixed. While it's true that the rifle fired fine after it was charged, that didn't mean that it was functioning properly.

I don't know for certain that using the rifle with ground bolt would ever lead to a problem (or explosion!), but it is not an "in-spec" weapon. Like you said, there's no need to use a defective firearm for any reason - fix it or scrap it. You are 100% correct on that - better safe than sorry!

And the best part is, the figuring out of why it was doing what it was doing wasn't that bad - I learned a lot about how a roller-delayed blowback weapon is designed and meant to operate, and the fix for it is relatively simple and cheap.

Best of all, my Cetme functions better with G3 magazines than with Cetme magazines. G3 magazines are less thatn $2 apiece for 20 rounders when you buy 10 of them! Now if only it didn't cost so much to fill the magazines up!

Thanks again for your advice. I will continue to heed it in the future.