Norinco JW-20 '.22 Take Down' Bolt Action .22LR

jiffydawg

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anyone have one of these or have handled one? just looking around marstar's page and looks like a nice little 22 for grousin up where i fly in the bush?

your thoughts? for 189 can't really go wrong i guess
 
It's not a bolt action it's a semi auto copy of brownings semi auto takedown. I've got a Browning and it's a fun plinker but not super accurate. It has a bottom ejection and the mag tube is in the rear stock. I don't know how the Nork's are but for a couple hundred bucks it would probably be a pretty good backpacker and if you are not stoked you should be able to sell it for a minimal loss.
 
I have one of these and it is in fact very accurate.
I actually purchased it over a decade ago as a result of a test done in a rifle magazine (prior to the us ban on norincos by bill clinton in 94) and they were extremly surprised as to the accuracy and feeding reliability of this rifle. In fact the tolerances were even tighter then the original browning design . the rifle tested out performed all the other semi's in reliability accuracy and yes that included the 10-22 .
I figured it would be a cheap alternative to a rifle design i already liked.
I have had the original browning and i would say the wood in nicer, blueing better and the external appeal better on the browning(cept i didnt like the light wood) but the Cheap Norinco out performed it and i never worry about scratching, denting, scuffing and stuffing the norinco in a bag , box , utility tray etc . I have a fixed 4x scope and its favourite bullets to digest are hp AE bullets. My advice to you is do not wear loose cuffs:D
 
I have one of these and it is in fact very accurate.
I actually purchased it over a decade ago as a result of a test done in a rifle magazine (prior to the us ban on norincos by bill clinton in 94) and they were extremly surprised as to the accuracy and feeding reliability of this rifle. In fact the tolerances were even tighter then the original browning design . the rifle tested out performed all the other semi's in reliability accuracy and yes that included the 10-22 .
I figured it would be a cheap alternative to a rifle design i already liked.
I have had the original browning and i would say the wood in nicer, blueing better and the external appeal better on the browning(cept i didnt like the light wood) but the Cheap Norinco out performed it and i never worry about scratching, denting, scuffing and stuffing the norinco in a bag , box , utility tray etc . I have a fixed 4x scope and its favourite bullets to digest are hp AE bullets. My advice to you is do not wear loose cuffs:D

Good range review! Anyone else have/try the Norc copy?
 
I haven't tried the Norinco yet but I do own a Browning. It's a well built little rifle and I've found it surprisingly accurate, even with iron sights. It feeds everything but likes AE the most.
I think the Norinco is well worth the money considering that you'd pay about three times as much for the Browning - if you can get one...

Oh, yeah.... As Barracuda said, "do not wear loose cuffs" because if you're not careful the spent cases will burn your arm. :)
 
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I sold two of the Norinco clones in my shop. Had to work on both of them to get them to function well enough to stay sold.
I suspect that the sometimes erratic QC could be a factor. Personally, I would look for a used Browning, rather than buy a Norinco.
 
The two I have had hands on were definately not to better specs than the Browning that I have used.
More like, the machining was crude but effective.

The two my brother bought were really rough. Both had chamber edges that needed a little rounding in order to keep the edge from digging in to the bullet, and either shaving a huge chunk off the bullet, or jamming up the feed.

Once the chambers were chamfered, they were pretty decent guns. I put a Browning extractor into one last year (I could get a Browning one) as the original one lost a tooth. It fit in, and was not any looser fit than the original.

I dunno. At $189, dunno. If it won't kill the budget, and you can accept that you may have to "massage" it a bit to make it reliable, it could be a decent deal. I have not looked at any of the recent crop to see if the machining has improved. It's certainly light weight and compact when taken down.

Cheers
Trev
 
the norinco/brn semi-auto is a very good gun for the price. mine worked right out of the box with no problems. have put thousands of round through it...
 
Just picked one of these up. A local dealer had them
"on sale" for $199 and since I could check them out in person and there was no shipping charge for me, I figured what the heck. The fit and finish is pretty decent. I was surprised by how smooth the bolt is. The barrel locks up tight. Tried it today and it feed, fired and ejected without any issues, win dynapoints, fed 550 bulk, win powerpts, AE 40grn solid pt, AE 38grn hollow pt, Win wildcats, cci blazer. The only thing it did get hung up on was remington yellowjackets. It didn't want to feed those at all but in fairness I have had trouble with those in other semi's too. I didn't fire it at paper but it seemed accurate enough. I was popping 12g hulls at about 20 yrds.
After I was done shooting I noticed that the barrel had loosened up a tad (not enough to keep you from shooting but I did notice it). Its a 30 second remedy to tighten and from what I read the browning does the same thing.
t69jls.jpg

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Anyway, so far I'm quite pleased with it. Perfect functioning with most ammo, reasonably accurate, nice and small and the take down feature is great.

I had a pretty good chuckle out of the last 3 lines of the following page (and the first part of the next page) of the owners manual:
24pkiu1.jpg

16bn9c2.jpg
 
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Update....put about another 60 rounds through it today and all of a sudden it stopped cycling. The rounds would no longer chamber and would get a good gash cut into them while trying to chamber. I took it apart for a look and the problem is the extractor had damaged the chamber. It had dented the thin chamber wall in the extractor groove up so now the chamber is deformed. You can't even manually chamber a round with your own hand. Brought it back to the store and got a refund. :(
 
Got a brief try with it today. Put about 25 rnds of dynapoints through it that fed, fired and ejected perfectly. Then the trigger wouldn't reset consistently. Took it home and noticed that the sear pin had worked its way out of one side. Replaced the pin with a better fitting one I had kicking around. This poor sear pin must be a fairly common problem because when I picked these out I worked the bolt and trigger on several and a few seemed to have this problem before a shot was even fired from them. On a brighter note, the extractor on this one is totally different that #1. #1's must had just been a very poor cut. It didn't even look the same.
Will try it again tomorrow :).
 
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