CETME good for cast boolits??

[hotwheelz]

I was looking at these at the gun show today it appears to be a direct blow back design and the guy who selling them said it was but wouldnt field strip it for me. He seemed a little iffy to me so i didnt buy one. But if it is direct blow back should be good for cast boolits any thoughts.

[Vly]

I've never owned one, but have buddies who are into FAL/G3 type rifles and from conversations with them this is what I remember. If the CETME is built with a Century Arms receiver stay far away. For every guy who says his Century CETME runs good, 9 will say how much they suck.

They have fluted chambers and are hell on brass. They were built as battle rifles and reloading was never a consideration. Very reloading unfriendly. There are far better choices out there.

[wolfspotter]

I got lucky, my Century Arms CETME has had no issues at all. The fluted chambers don't effect brass at all, only aids in extraction and leaves burnt powder lines on the casing so you know which ones were yours at the range. LOL
They are not direct blowback but delayed blow back using rollers and a locking piece. The CETME will usually dent brass when leaving the receiver, ejecting it twenty feet or more. Bolt gap is an important issue on the CETME or HK. The lower the gap, the more your internal parts are warn out and need to be replaced. Century attempted a quick fix by grinding some bolts to increase the gap. This is a good place to learn all you should know about the CETME. http://www.militaryfirearm.com/Forum/index.php

As for shooting reloads in the CETME, that's all I shoot. You should use mil spec brass because some commercial brass is thinner and the base can be ripped off on extraction and the next shell loaded into what's left of the previous casing.
I've used mild loads of SR-4759 with cast bullets and the rifle functioned fine, something a gas operated semi might not do. If you want a CETME it pays to learn a little about them first, talk to the seller about any issues with the rifle. If they object to field stripping for inspection I'd walk away. :drinks:

[MtGun44]

My only issue with the CETME is that the safety works backwards of
every other gun that I can think of. I just know I'd have a problem with
that one day. I have a couple of G3s, same basic rifle but better rear
sight and the safety works the "right" way.

The roller "locked" action is sort of a 'mehanical advantage' blowback where
the rollers wind up giving leverage to the bolt so that the effective weight of
the block is much greater than the actual weight. Works great, recoil is more
pronounced than a gas gun IMHO. I do like the G3, no direct experience with
the essentially identical (except as noted above) CETME because of the safety.

They are hard on the brass, mangled rims, fluting and a big dent in the middle of the
case without the port buffer, which does nearly eliminate the dent. They eject
about 25-30 ft ! The brass looks pretty bad, but typically reloads just fine.

Bill

[Lloyd Smale]

the one i had did fine with cast. I think i was loading 20 grains of wc820 and a 170 lyman. At those levels it ejected fine and didnt leave the chamber marks on the brass and the brass piled up in a small pile a few feet away from you. What the cetme is not good for is full power 308 ammo especially if your using comercail brass which is softer then military brass. It will pull a case right in half on extraction. If you get it the first thing you need to buy is a broken case extractor as it IS going to happen to you eventually. Will full power loads brass life is short. the chambers run a little big and it really works the brass. A good max load for a cetme is the lowest published load in a loading manual for the bullet weight your using. Like was said earlier make sure you check that bolt gap before you buy it. If it doesnt have enough bolt gap it can be a bomb when shot. If its a decent one with a good bolt gap you have one of the finest battle rifles for the money made!

[hotwheelz]

My only issue with the CETME is that the safety works backwards of
every other gun that I can think of. I just know I'd have a problem with
that one day. I have a couple of G3s, same basic rifle but better rear
sight and the safety works the "right" way.

The roller "locked" action is sort of a 'mehanical advantage' blowback where
the rollers wind up giving leverage to the bolt so that the effective weight of
the block is much greater than the actual weight. Works great, recoil is more
pronounced than a gas gun IMHO. I do like the G3, no direct experience with
the essentially identical (except as noted above) CETME because of the safety.

They are hard on the brass, mangled rims, fluting and a big dent in the middle of the
case without the port buffer, which does nearly eliminate the dent. They eject
about 25-30 ft ! The brass looks pretty bad, but typically reloads just fine.

Bill


I have looked around and the G3's are $800 and up is this gun that good, or could I get a CETME and replace a few parts to get it up to snuff? Are there things a guy should look at on the G3's before buying? I have a Fal and a couple mini 14 and a a Ar but I am not fimilar with either the G3 or the CETME thanks for the help

[MtGun44]

The G3s were rebuilt with cast aluminum, cast stainless steel and finally
formed steel receivers. I have a pair of Century G3s with the steel formed
receivers. I'd call them "fairly good", but not perfect at all. I had to replace
the ejector in one, looked like somebody had ground the heck out of it, the
new one dropped in and worked fine. Both have medium crappy triggers,
typical of the type. My HK91 has a real factory sniper trigger group, which
is very nice but extremely pricey nowdays. Both Century G3 now work well
and are reasonably accurate. Takedown pins were extremely tight and had
to be reamed to get normal finger removal.

I don't know if you can convert the CETME to the G3 trigger/safety parts, they
are very similar guns but I don't know if parts like whole trigger groups, for
instance can interchange.

Another point on the use of cast boolits - I have never tried it, so can't say
anything about it except that softpoint bullets can jam in feeding due to the
soft tip and the tip usually gets pretty distorted in the feed cycle. These guns
treat the ammo harshly, so I would be a bit worried about cast either getting
beat up pretty bad or jamming. You'll have to try it, but I'd start with pointed
bullets for feeding reasons, and hard alloy to keep the mechanical damage down.

There is an expensive all US made version of the G3 that has been reported
(who knows how reliably?) to be much better quality than the Century rebuilds,
but it is expensive ($800 or more).

Bill

[budman46]

sorry about the late reply...years ago i shot my hk-91 exclusively with cast bullets; lyman's 311334, 200 gr gas-check design and 29 gr of rx-7 or 23 gr of aa-5744 functioned perfectly with 100 yd, gallon-jug accuracy offhand, tossing brass about 3' at 2 o'clock.

a port buffer prevented brass from ejection battering and the fluted chamber required neck sized only brass that was only slightly marked by the fluting due to the low-pressure loads...i even shot my my neck-sized ammo from two other 91's without a hitch.

the gun is long gone, but i still use the brass in my ishapore 2a.
budman46