Premature Norky Barrel Wear ?

Your answer is in your post

redivivus said:
Yes, I have used copper remover, Hoppes #9 Solven and Cleaner, CLP and even a bottle of magic bore cleaner (name escapes me at the moment). Like I said, the barrel shines like a mirror, but accuracy has been degrading rapidly.
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Your answer is above -

It appears you have NEVER removed copper -
NONE of your (cleaners) mentioned effectively remove copper.

Ammonia works but with lots of effort and barrel damage if not used correctly.

Try J.B paste and lots of effort or KG12 with little effort (the only two proven copper removers) - do the bore scope test or the cheap cotton swab visual test then shoot and test.

If it still shoots like sh!t - you shot to hot and burned out the bore, or the barrel is defective.

I doubt the barrel is defective as the chinese chrome plating process was taught to them by the russkies and they both have been neck in neck in a comparison of the most competent chrome bore plating process in the industry.

Now , having said that - the norc arms industry has had a marked decline (evident only in their M16 clones) in their quality recently and may be applicable to the bores.

I have 15000 rounds plus out of my old norc M14 and it is still one of my most accurate M14's.

:ar15:
swingerlh.gif
 
I have roughly 2500 rounds through my Norc, the majority were hand loads (62 grain surplus FMJ/24.5 grains of WIN 748/mixed brass/WIN primers). I have had four jams (due to bad dies), and one firing pin break on me.

Food for thought :D
 
chopper 1 said:
Your answer is above -

It appears you have NEVER removed copper -
NONE of your (cleaners) mentioned effectively remove copper.

Ammonia works but with lots of effort and barrel damage if not used correctly.

Try J.B paste and lots of effort or KG12 with little effort (the only two proven copper removers) - do the bore scope test or the cheap cotton swab visual test then shoot and test.

If it still shoots like sh!t - you shot to hot and burned out the bore, or the barrel is defective.

I doubt the barrel is defective as the chinese chrome plating process was taught to them by the russkies and they both have been neck in neck in a comparison of the most competent chrome bore plating process in the industry.

Now , having said that - the norc arms industry has had a marked decline (evident only in their M16 clones) in their quality recently and may be applicable to the bores.

I have 15000 rounds plus out of my old norc M14 and it is still one of my most accurate M14's.

:ar15:
swingerlh.gif
Click to expand...

Thx! It comes to me now - the magic bore cleaner I use is called Break-Free, which at the time, I was led to believe is one of the best in the business. It appears that I was mistaken. I'll give your recommendations a whirl.

I realize I may be skewing my own thread here a bit, but does cleaning with household ammonia not remove copper just as effectively ? Just curious :)

I do not believe the barrel is defective as it's accuracy has been exemplary throughout (when measured by the MIL acceptance standards) and it may very well be that it has reached the end of it's service life.

Interesting Re: your M14. Mine is at ~ 8100 rounds and the accuracy has not degraded yet. I wouldn't classify it as being my "most" accurate, but it does it's job acceptably well and, in the SAGE stock, has the "piss off" attitude that is unmatched by mere mortal firearms :p

I was led to believe by the informed intelligisia on CGN that the recent Norinco imports have substantially improved their standards in fit, finish and accuracy. My own examples are from 2009 and 2010 vintage and I have had no cause for classifying them as being of a marked lower quality than the previous generation of imports, in fact, I would believe that it is quite the opposite!
 
pobcat said:
I have roughly 2500 rounds through my Norc, the majority were hand loads (62 grain surplus FMJ/24.5 grains of WIN 748/mixed brass/WIN primers). I have had four jams (due to bad dies), and one firing pin break on me.

Food for thought :D
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Thx! Interesting. From my log book, my "failures" so far have been,

Failure to extract: 4
Failure of bolt to lock: 2
Failure to fire: 0
Failure to feed (from magazine): 29*
Failure to eject: 3
Failure to chamber: 2
Failure of bolt to lock back on empty magazine: 5

* 16 with the original magazines in the first 1000 rounds and 13 with the PMags for the balance.
 
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Xiao Xiong said:
Since I may be interested in acquiring some sort of M14 variant, which I would like to have "accurized", I guess this begs the question:

If you wanted to buy a high quality variant, apparently it's not a Norky. So what is?

How does one go about acquiring a high quality variant? In my case of an M14 but I gather the quality issues would be similar.
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Offtopic but I'll bite.

A Norky M14, while not a "high" quality variant, offers a competitive entry point into the platform and from my understand offers true GI specifications on their receivers - a claim very few manufactures can make.

Additionally, the stock components that it comes outfitted with are of way above average quality and respond well to tweaking and accurizing. I have found my Norky M14 to be an outstanding rifle and every bit as reliable and functional as my LRB. It does not have the LRBs' fit and finish and lags a bit in the accuracy department (mostly due to the lack of a medium weight barrel) - but that is to be expected for an off the shelf rifle costing a sixth of a hand built, match tuned custom rifle from an "exclusive" gunsmith.

Do they both work as advertised ? Yes
Do they both fire little holes in paper with repeatable precision and accuracy ? Yes - just the LRB's holes are a fraction of an inch smaller.

I love my Norky enough to stick it in a SAGE stock and haul it everywhere I go. If you are looking for a solid, reliable rifle that is reasonably accurate and don't mind the odd fit and finish issue (which are very easily fixed btw) then it would be a solid buy but if it is brand mystique and exclusiveness you are after then the Norky unfortunately will not fit your criteria. Then I would suggest importing a SEI/ LRB or Fulton 'variant' - cost would be about ~ 3-3.5k with import fees and taxes. The age old adage comes into play here - "what is it worth to you ?"

Note that accurizing the M14 platform is not cheap and after a few minor tweaks, the law of declining returns applies very quickly to these rifles!
 
Cleaning. I used some Sweets to clean copper out of a C7 once. made a fairly large pile of blue patches. If you use brake free, then your barrel could very well be copper-plated by now.

If it was mine, i would alternate between ammonia products and RemClean (or JB Paste).



Front Sight base removal. I read the saga of Mystic's attempt nad was somewhat concerned when it came time to install the float tube I got from Brownells.

A couple days before the event i squirted some Kroil (penetrating oil) on the base pins. They popped right out without undu pounding.

No doubt this will vary from gun to gun, so having a plan B might be in order if you don't want the rifle out of commission while you source a new base.
 
redivivus said:
A conclusion that I am leaning on as well. What concerns me is that it is wearing (if that what this is) after only 12k rounds. My expectation, based on what I have read, is that a chrome plated GI spec barrel should last a whole lot longer. Hence my query. Is barrel wear rate proportional to quality ?

No issues with buying a new one, it's the reasoning behind it that has me curious.
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Absolutely. Materials have a lot to do with it, too. And the type of shooting, a barrel will wear faster if you only do mag dumps, all day long.
 
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