Att: Issues with lever arms and cf-98

rollingrock

rollingrock

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If anyone here is thinking to spend $500 on this CF-98 with Lever Arms, I would recommend that you hold on to your money and look somewhere else. Currently I'm dealing with Lever Arms on some issues of CF-98 and their customer service quality. Depending on the outcome, I will determine if a complaint would be filed against them to BBB.

Also to John at Marstar. If you try to import CF-98 or NP42, I would suggest a halt. Basically problems of the design and the manufacturing of this gun will bring a lot of complaints and warranty issues to you which will increase the cost of your business.

Stay tuned for further details.
 
Initially I was looking for a Ruger SR9 not long ago as I needed an inexpensive DA pistol with a small grip to fit in my hands for shooting practice.

Having lost touch with pistols for quite a while, I found SR9 was a quite interesting piece with the help of Internet. But while calling all the known dealers in the country, I was told SR9 had been sold out for a while and the time of the next shipment was unknown.

While disappointed, I ran into Lever's website and saw this CF-98. The weight of this gun is at par with SR9, even though the barrel is a little bit longer than SR9. Knowing that CF-98 was the civilian model of Chinese army issue T-92, I was kinda skeptical as I had heard of some issues with that gun through grapevine. The result of google search turned up a large number of comments mainly made by Pakistanis, and most of them were quite favourable. One caught my eyes though. It was a review done by Robak on this site. Obviously his review was quite favourable too.

I searched the same gun on Chinese websites and found one interesting report made by Chinese media. It was reported that the designer of T-92 made some key modifications of the original design to meet the foreign demands, including prolonged barrel life and lower failure rate.

The initial problem of T-92's mags not being interchangeable seemd to have been resolved, as Lever now carries extra mags for sale. It was known that T-92's mags were not interchangeable, meaning each T-92 had to use its own mags. That's why T-92s and CF-98s come with two mags with the same serial numbers engraved. The problem amplified after the gun was introduced to Chinese army. Can you imagine, during a gun battle you finish all your ammo , look around and grab an unused mag from your dead comrade, and slam it into your own gun to find the mag can't catch?
 
The mag problem was just one of the problems T-92 born with. But thinking that Lever was ballsy enough to bring it in to compete with other Chinese made small arms, I thought the CF-98 probably had truly been improved from T-92. So I decided to take a chance.

I brought a brand new 22 cal unfired pistol in for trade in. I hadn't been there for a long time. My past limited experience with them was quite mixed, depending on who was behind the counter. That day the one behind the counter was Jeremy, some guy I've never met before. No smile, no greeting.

After I identified the purpose of my visit, we negotiated the trade in price. It wasn't pleasant at all. I should've walked out. My mistake, I have to admit. But the idea of getting a CF-98 at minimal cost had occupied my mind, as I received this 22 cal pistol as a gift. Of course I lost money on my 22 cal by the end. But that's not the point, business is business. The mistake was I accepted their attitude and continued with the transaction, thinking I only came here to purchase the gun as long as the gun was fine.

So I picked a CF-98 and left. On my way home, I was thinking...wow, you wanna complain about customer service at other gun stores? People used to complain about Italian Sporting Goods, but look how much they have improved during the last few years?! There was no customer service at all at Lever Arms ! The two guys, Jeremy and Mike, didn't seem to be happy working there.

As to the gun, I couldn't tell much at that point as it was covered by cosmoline. The mags seemed to be okay. Otherwise you can refer to Robak's review. Nothing new at this point.
 
A few days later, I went to pick up the gun after all the paperwork went through. When Jeremy asked me if I needed anything else, I said no without hesitation. I had no interest in spending any money at that store.

I took the gun home, stripped it and cleaned the cosmo off. The finish of the slide isn't as good as any recently imported Chinese pistols I've seen at the range. I placed my NP22 right beside it and the difference was quite obvious. I bought my NP22 from Marstar years ago and truly love it. The reliability and the accuracy of NP22 is impressive, and it will take any type of ammunition you feed it as long as it's 9mm. LOL

This CF-98, AKA "T-92", is quite rough, especially on its plastic part. I really couldn't tell if it was polymer that went through tough tests or just cheap plastics used on cheap toy guns. The slide seemed to be quite solid. The rotating barrel system is one of its known features. The barrel is being connected to the guide rod seating block with a strangely shaped stud. The feeding ramp isn't integrated on the end of the barrel on the end of the seating block, which is being used as a connector at the same time. This type of design would require advanced CNC technology so that the feeding ramp, the opening of the barrel and the mags are so well machined that all three of them have to fit perfectly so that any ammunition could be fed smoothly. Since I hadn't fired the gun at this time, I couldn't judge that part.

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As I was cleaning the firing mechanism, the retaining pins of the trigger, the sear and the hammer slipped out by themselves. I could put the trigger back easily, but the sear and the hammer together was tricky enough to take me a couple of hours to figure out. The manual was useless except that I understood well that this gun can kill something at 50 meters.
 
After I put all the parts back together, I took a close look at the gun. According to the reports from Chinese media, T-92 went through a lot of tests under extreme conditions with huge tolerance. Sounds like a Glock, doesn't it? But the close inspection reveals the trick. This gun is made with huge tolerance, or you can say "sloppiness". Not only you can see through the cracks between the slide and the frame, but also the mag couldn't fit it the grip properly. A huge crack between the back of the mag and the back wall of the grip let you see all the way through to the firing mechanism.

The mags are pinned to meet the Canadian Firearms Act for 10 rounds. But the way it was done is 'awesome'. You basically can't clean the inside of the mags.

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The pin is caught in between the spring. It will be a pain in the a$$ or nearly impossible to pull the spring out for cleaning.

But this isn't the end of the problems of the mags.

So I waited for a few days till I had to go to my club to renew my membership. Of course I brought this gun with me, along with my NP22. I just wanted to compare the accuracy between the two guns as both are 9mm.

At the range, I fired two mags off my NP22 at 25 meters standing without support. I purposely fired the first shot of each mag from DA to compare. The DA of NP22 was long but smooth. The single action shots were nice but a bit long. Mind you I haven't fired this gun for a long time.
 
Here is the target at 25 meters of my NP22.

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Then I started firing my CF-98. As I slammed the mag in the grip, I check the bottom of the mag subconsciously. Oh cr@p! The bottom plate disengaged from the retainer. At first I wasn't sure if the mag came to the range like this. So I took it out and hammered the plate back in place. This time I inserted the mag nicely first and gave it a slap to make sure. Looked at the bottom, the plate came off again! I thought, wow! Not a good sign.

I used another mag. Same thing. At this point, I still couldn't figure where the problem was from. So I racked the slide and released. Duh! the slide didn't close! I looked down to find the bullet was caught in between the feed ramp and the mag's top retainer. I racked the slide again. Okay, this time the bullet went in. I released the hammer and was ready to fire off the first shot with DA.

To call its DA a pain in the a$$ is an understatement. Long, and extremely tight. I tried three times to pull the trigger to fire. I'm not exaggerating. Took me three time before I could fire off the first shot in DA! And I could feel the plastic trigger wiggle too. I didn't know where the bullet went.

The second shot became single action. To my surprise, the SA shots were extremely smooth and light, except for the wiggling trigger after the bang.

Then I noticed the slice was staying all the way back! I looked down, same thing, the bullet was caught in between the ramp and the mag retainer. I had to rack the slide twice to get the bullet chambered. Basically the misfeeding happened once very other shot. Not only that, the same thing happened to the other mag!

The other gunnut who was shooting right beside me was completely amazed at this.

After two mags, I finally figured out what happened. Since CF-98's mags are double stack double feeding, one side of the follower is lower, while the other side is bulged. It was always the bullets on the bulged side got caught.

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Needless to say, the target was beyond recognizeable.

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Upon close look I found some fresh grinding marks on top of the mags. That indicates that the slide was touching the top of the mags. So as the slide moves, the friction will reduce the speed and the force of its movement which in turn probably would increase the possibility of misfeeding. But this can't explain the fact that only the bullets on one side misfed.

However, after a few more mags this CF-98 does show some potential of good accuracy, even though the misfeeding kept occurring.

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After coming back home I searched the Internet for any information of CF-98's misfeeding issue. Some Pakistanis indicated that this gun didn't like JHP bullets but ball FMJ only. I looked at my bullets and realized that I had used Winchester 147 Super X uncapped FMJ, which basically has the same shape of JHP.

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So it's possible that the gun probably would have had no problem with ball ammo. But that's not an excuse as the gun has been advertised as a 9mm pistol, and Lever has never said FMJ ball ammo only. How retarded is that?

To further look into the problem, I stripped the gun and took one more close look at the ramp.
 
You get what you pay for, except when you pay too little.

Round nose bullets will probably feed better in that POS than do truncated cone bullets.

Maybe Lever will accept it on trade against a new SR9.
 
1)The mags are rivetted the way the vast majority of rifle mags are rivetted - that's just the way they're done, all of my Pmags and M1 Carbine mags are done the same way. The other ways to pin them mean that you can not disassemble them for cleaning - pistol mags MUST be cleaned. I would kill for rivetted M&P mags, the plastic platform mags are subject to breakage.
2) Don't slam the mag into the pistol - eventually you'll f*ck up the feed lips
3) Double action triggers suck, unless they're on Smith revolvers or striker fired pistols in which case they are tolerable
4) Looks like Winclean ammo, try using regualr ball ammo - it's a military service pistol, there are a lot of those that won't feed truncated cone bullets.

As far as ammo compatibility goes, I once spent $1100 (1987 dollars) on a Colt 1911 that wouldn't feed hollow points, or wadcutters, or anything but ball, brand new out of the box, in those days you paid $1100 for a Colt and then you took it to someone like Jo Dlask to make it work. This is a base model service pistol from an "emerging" country, if you want a gun that feeds fancy profiles or empty cases, you need to spend more.
 
The server would crash if everyone made a thread about .22's having FTF's...

This thread is weird. I have never even heard of this gun. Sounds iffy from the start.

What price are these selling at?
 
enefgee said:
1)The mags are rivetted the way the vast majority of rifle mags are rivetted - that's just the way they're done, all of my Pmags and M1 Carbine mags are done the same way. The other ways to pin them mean that you can not disassemble them for cleaning - pistol mags MUST be cleaned. I would kill for rivetted M&P mags, the plastic platform mags are subject to breakage.
2) Don't slam the mag into the pistol - eventually you'll f*ck up the feed lips
3) Double action triggers suck, unless they're on Smith revolvers or striker fired pistols in which case they are tolerable
4) Looks like Winclean ammo, try using regualr ball ammo - it's a military service pistol, there are a lot of those that won't feed truncated cone bullets.
Click to expand...

I don't think the design of the mag only really matters. The mags aren't plastic.

Talking about military service pistol, 92FS or even Sig P226 would have no problem taking truncated cone bullets. Like I said, I won't accept that excuse, unless the gun was advertised as taking ball ammo only. Any modern pistol shouldn't have problem with that.
 
rollingrock said:
I don't think the design of the mag only really matters. The mags aren't plastic.

Talking about military service pistol, 92FS or even Sig P226 would have no problem taking truncated cone bullets. Like I said, I won't accept that excuse, unless the gun was advertised as taking ball ammo only. Any modern pistol shouldn't have problem with that.
Click to expand...

You're entitled to your opinion, but since hollowpoint ammunition is never to be used in military pistols (Hague Accords) they have no need to feed them. Also like I said "emerging country" we're talking the PLA here not the US or Switzerland - I'd bet $20 that out of a cross section of Brownings in Canadian Forces Service right now 3 in 5 won't chamber 147 grain truncated cones, from unmolested mags. The mags are 15 or so rounders, they are required to be pinned by law, and yes, slamming steel mags home WILL fracture the feed lips eventually.
 
So I went home and stripped the gun for another close inspection. Like I said earlier, this type of design requires advanced CNC technology or good machining skills. Looking at the feeding ramp again, using the photo above,

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I could see with my bare eyes that the ramp isn't shaped symmetrically. The left side obvously wasn't open enough. As a result, the machining of the opening of the barrel and the ramp, the rotating of the barrel and the machining of the mag all played together to produce such a problem. As I mentioned earlier, the mags had problems too.

Saying not to slam or slap the bottom of the mag? You kidding me? How could that be an issue?

The biggest problem yet is the barrel. After I cleaned the barrel and looked at it closely, I found some tiny hair sized scratching marks laterally covering the seated the portion of the barrel.

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They weren't there before I took the gun to the range. The seating block was scraping the barrel while the barrel rotated. The problem is the block seems to have been heat treated and is very likely harder than the steel used on the barrel.

Before I thought the life of the barrel was short was because the gun was shooting the Chinese DAP92 ammo (fmj steel cored bullet pushed by hot recipe). Now I think the barrel life might be cut short mainly by the rotating.
 
Wendell said:
You get what you pay for, except when you pay too little.

Round nose bullets will probably feed better in that POS than do truncated cone bullets.

Maybe Lever will accept it on trade against a new SR9.
Click to expand...

I chuckled on this one!

So I went through Robak's thread and found that he was shooting 147 gr TMJ ball ammo.

Anyways, I phoned Lever. Jeremy answered the phone. When I asked him if he had heard of any feeding problems in the past, he said never! Oh really?! So he asked me to bring the gun back to let the service people have a look at the gun.

So I brought the gun back with a box of this Winchester ammo. Same attitude. Now this time tough but polite words were exchanged. I don't want to go into details. Anyway the gun was taken in for service.

I will see.
 
enefgee said:
You're the expert.
Click to expand...

Look, I'm just here to give a true version of the story and a review. I don't think I'm the only one who has had this type of experience with Lever.

Talking about this gun being selected as Chinese army standard issue, the factory which makes NP22 presented their model NP2000 for the bidding to compete with this POS. What I heard is that NP2000 was based on P226 with some extra good features and was supposedly very well made. But the contract was still awarded to the factory which makes this POS. Guess what? Some PLA general's overseas bank account grew substantially for sure.

In my opinion, this gun isn't even worth $350.
 
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...yes comparing your Chinese commercial version of a military pistol to a sig and beretta both of which are actively being used by many military forces world wide makes sense. You bought a cheap chinese gun, it was a piece of junk and you bought it from the store with the worst customer service on the western sea board by leaps and bounds over other poor service stores. Do more research next time on both the firearm and the places you do business, and you won't have a problem. Waiting for the sr5 would have been a good idea out of the box, or check out a glock
 
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