Welcome to the wonderful world of Chinese M14 rifles,
where "Quality Control" is just a sign on the wall,
probably mis-spelled,
and the people building the guns probably can't read any how.
And I say this from great experience and with great affection.
If you view the Chinese M14 rifles as a top quality, near milspec FORGED receiver ...
with a bunch of other parts bolted up to it that may OR MAY NOT be usable,
you will never be disappointed,
and will often be pleasantly surprised.
Check out my posting about the Chinese M14 rifles,
http://www.m14.ca/seminar/M14_Seminar_EBR.pdf
I have PERSONALLY owned, inspected, repaired, rebuilt, and customised well over a hundred of the Chinese M14 rifles. COUNTING IN THE ONES I HAVE WORKED ON FOR OTHERS AS A PAID PROFESSIONAL GUN SMITH, my M14 count is probably closer to TWO hundred.
From this personal, hands on, real world experience, the one VALID generalisation that can be made about the Chinese M14 clones is that QUALITY CONTROL OF ASSEMBLY OF ANY INDIVIDUAL CHINESE M14 CLONE MAY VARY!!!
But then you could say this about some other high end M14 clones that cost more and STILL have issues.
As an example, I recently bough four Chinese M14 rifles to play around with. Three were BRAND NEW UNFIRED recent Canadian Chinese imports, with the factory installed shorty 18.6" barrels. The fourth was an older Polytech 22" standard M14 clone in a GI wood stock. I bought the standard model just because I wanted a spare uninstalled barrel with gas assembly ... and the seller made me but the complete M14 [ with very nice wood GI stock ] as well as the separate barrel. He made me an offer I just could not refuse.
The standard turned out to be an EXCELLENT rifle, and needed nothing to be good to go ... although i did my standard inspection and tightening and tweaking, then shoved it into the bench grinder until the barrel came out to the length I like, 18.75", and then added a comp and a decent trigger job.
TOP Rifle is the standard 22" model that was chopped and customised.
Two of the NEW Chinese shorty rifles were similar good to go examples,
HOWEVER,
the third shorty had some serious safety issues right out of the box. This one was quite horrible [ hammer dropped when safety set to off, AND left bolt lug NOT contacting receiver lug]. This one got a spare Chinese bolt fitted to give .308 GO plus .002 Head Space, and new trigger bits until the safety worked properly.
I SAY AGAIN,
QUALITY CONTROL OF ASSEMBLY OF ANY CHINESE M14 CLONE MAY VARY!!!
Knowledge is power, and if you read that posting I refer to above, you will have the knowledge you need to make good inspections become GREAT values.
LAZ 1
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