M14's and variants

[jtoews80]

Has anybody here ever played with M14's?

We in Canuckistan are not supposed to be able to get or use them being the fearsome tool of war that they are....snicker now :wink: ... However, Norinco of the PRC bought the tooling from Winchester's wartime production and proceeded to make and sell an M305(m14 built with Winchester tooling), that is by some slip of the pen legal in Canada. The fit and finish is not great, and the headspace needs to be checked on them, but they sold alot of them here.

I had a one, traded it off on an AR, but talk about alot of fun. They were selling them here for 399 with 2 5 round mags and 1 20 blocked to 5.

Anyway, Those Norinco's are fine, especially when you can't own an m14 in Canada :evil: :evil: :evil: However, there are rumours of some itailian made m14's for a fraction more coming to Canada. We'll see if they can be brought in as m305's or get the prohib treatment like the m14, but I'm hoping for something cool to hunt with soon.

JT.

 

[DrMike]

Carried one during my time with the USMC, but haven't used one since. I've handled a few of the Norincos, but I haven't been overly impressed by the quality of the rifles. Believe it or not, I saw a fine Springfield for sale a short while back, but it was gone before I could examine it more closely.,

 

[roysclockgun]

During the last six months of my service with the 2nd Armored Division, I was handed an M14, to replace my beloved M1 Rifle. That was Oct. 1963. The Chi-Com clones, that I remember were called M14SA (semi-auto) were fun shooters. I was selling them out of my Maryland clock shop at the time. Re-builders, who charged a bundle to replace what they said was "soft Chinese steel", with their own American produced parts, were miraculously able to use the Chinese receiver! They claimed that the Chinese receiver, some how, was the only steel part in the rifle that had the correct hardness! Of course, the receiver was what they were not and could not produce, since they were only in the business of "up-grading" and not rifle building. I sold some of those Chinese made M14SA clones to competition shooters, who tweaked them for Across the Course shooting. I know at least two of those shooters, who were on their third barrel, because of putting so many rounds down range in competition, that they were burning out barrels. However, the rest of the parts were still running fine, just as they came off the line in China!
In those days, (around 1990) I was also buying M1A/M14 Rifles from Armscorp, of Catonsville, Md. Jack, the owner, was getting parts kits from Israel and using his own, home grown receivers. Those were very fine rifles and all that I range tested shot well against Springfield Inc. rifles, that were priced much higher.
Steven