Another one of those ehh!! I bought the gun a year ago fired 100 rounds since and it functions flawlessly, when you have fired 500 to 800 rounds in one day than i believe you otherwise NEA is a POS gun , first one lasted a bit over 1000 rounds and the second one "GEN 2" a bit over 500. My norinco has outlasted all of my guns 8k 5.56 and 5k .22lr in 5 years
I don't like to offer much opinion on NEA because I did do business with them a couple of years ago.
But I have an early 12.5" with roughly 3200 rounds through it, and it has not lived an easy life. Just prior to hitting the 3000 mark, the bolt failed to lock back on an empty mag when in an odd position, which was the first failure. I checked the bolt catch, and it was loose, so I figured the spring had broken and I ordered a new one.
When the new spring arrived (with a bunch of other stuff I was buying) I tapped out the roll pin, and realized that there was so much clay-mud caked inside the spring hole that it was jammed in a compressed state. Like I said, this gun has not had an easy life.
I cleaned it out with a pick, and put it back together. It's had a couple hundred rounds since then and it's fine.
I'm not going to say NEA hasn't had some serious issues, and I'm also not going to say that they haven't made some terrible choices in regards to suppliers, workmanship, and frankly ethics. I don't blame the people who are never going to forgive them. I understand perfectly the argument that there are guys like Paul Buffoni out there, who you could give your money to instead (I also did that).
BUT: if you have an NEA that doesn't work, they will sort you out. I do think they've improved a lot - they sell more guns than most people here would ever guess, by a long shot, to customers most here would never suspect, and while the owner is a bit of a nut (I think he would agree with this) he's also a guy who's committed his life to this stuff and he employs a bunch of people, in Canada, building guns.
I think it's really unfortunate that things happened the way they did, particularly in the beginning, because NEA's reputation on CGN at least is pretty much unfixable. And that's largely their own doing (I'm certain the owner would agree with this). But for all their faults, they're better people, building better guns, than this forum realizes. And the work they do internationally is pretty commendable, although also totally unknown by the Canadian shooting public.
Someday I will tell the whole story in print. It's a pretty good story.
