PSA re: bolt failures in recent import M-14 pattern rifles

I have a small handful of Chinese parts, not sure if I have anything anyone needs but I will dig them out if someone needs something.
Last I recall Canada imported a bunch of IDF M14 parts kits from Israel. What happened to the M14 clones that we're going to be made in Italy ?Vaporware?



No idea on the clones, but if you have a spare sling or few bits I'd love a list to see if I could use anything haha, I need a sling for my m305a haha
 
I have a small handful of Chinese parts, not sure if I have anything anyone needs but I will dig them out if someone needs something.
Last I recall Canada imported a bunch of IDF M14 parts kits from Israel. What happened to the M14 clones that we're going to be made in Italy ?Vaporware?

I was hoping those italians were gonna make us a modern day BM59 but one can only dream. I have a foggy recollection of the Italian made m14 discussions but don't think that ever went anywhere? One of the canadian importers or retailers was offering the chinese rifles in Italian wood stocks for a bit though I don't have much info on that.
It's so cool that wolverine supplies went out on the limb to import the IDF rifle parts kits. I know that for years , both in forum posts and in emails back and forth, John at m-arstar teased us all with his stories of offshore warehouses with considerable quantities of USGI m14 surplus rifles but he never did import them for us. I even volunteered to be the guy on the other end stripping the rifles LOL
The IDF kits arrived after I was pretty much done building rifles for myself but they are nice to see as an option for parts these days.
 
I have a small handful of Chinese parts, not sure if I have anything anyone needs but I will dig them out if someone needs something.
Last I recall Canada imported a bunch of IDF M14 parts kits from Israel. What happened to the M14 clones that we're going to be made in Italy ?Vaporware?

Hey Mike...I need an M14 winter safety if you've got one! ;-)
 
I had a TRW bolt end up the same way as in the picture

there were documented cases of fake trw bolts out there , mostly in the US though.
Also there were folks stateside that took decomissioned bolts and "recomissioned' them and sold them as NOS.
again..... mostly a US thing though many guys from canada brought in a lot of parts in the earlier years of this m14 game so depending where the bolt came from.....

then again, stuff fails , even usgi stuff.
 
Interesting, my 2016 socom bolt blew up sometime back and I did post it here. John the m14 medic literally just got back to me a couple days ago after assessing my rifle . I did send him a new used bolt But the receiver and the bolt cannot be easily dealt with. Seems that my rifle has a receiver that cannot take a different one than the one that was broken . So I am pretty much stuck with a bunch of spare parts . All due to poor quality control. And of course silence from the importer.
So if I had to do it again I would not buy anything later than 2012 in the M305 market . I own three other M305 rifles that are all flawless and excellent and no hiccoughs whatsoever but there is no way personally I would ever buy another SOCOM M305. I cannot believe the lack of quality control in the new were production rifles has gone unnoticed apparently buy the importer or the manufacturer.



NorthernCX;15488714]So I literally just ordered a Norinco M305 SOCOM today from Tenda... am I gonna be looking for a new bolt?[/QUOTE]
 
Interesting, my 2016 socom bolt blew up sometime back and I did post it here. John the m14 medic literally just got back to me a couple days ago after assessing my rifle . I did send him a new used bolt But the receiver and the bolt cannot be easily dealt with. Seems that my rifle has a receiver that cannot take a different one than the one that was broken . So I am pretty much stuck with a bunch of spare parts . All due to poor quality control. And of course silence from the importer.
So if I had to do it again I would not buy anything later than 2012 in the M305 market . I own three other M305 rifles that are all flawless and excellent and no hiccoughs whatsoever but there is no way personally I would ever buy another SOCOM M305. I cannot believe the lack of quality control in the new were production rifles has gone unnoticed apparently buy the importer or the manufacturer.

I did an IDF build on an M305, and found the Chinese barrel was too far back in the receiver to allow the USGI bolt to close. It had no issues with the USGI barrel installed, and in fact worked flawlessly.
 
I have done some work with various gun makers and it is not unusual for them to experiment with making some parts a new way.

If it works, they might switch over to that method. If it does not work, they stick with what then have.

The Chinese may have made a batch of MIM bolts and then decided that it did not work. What to do? Use them for some export rifles? Why not.
 
Interesting, my 2016 socom bolt blew up sometime back and I did post it here. John the m14 medic literally just got back to me a couple days ago after assessing my rifle . I did send him a new used bolt But the receiver and the bolt cannot be easily dealt with. Seems that my rifle has a receiver that cannot take a different one than the one that was broken . So I am pretty much stuck with a bunch of spare parts . All due to poor quality control. And of course silence from the importer.
So if I had to do it again I would not buy anything later than 2012 in the M305 market . I own three other M305 rifles that are all flawless and excellent and no hiccoughs whatsoever but there is no way personally I would ever buy another SOCOM M305. I cannot believe the lack of quality control in the new were production rifles has gone unnoticed apparently buy the importer or the manufacturer.



NorthernCX;15488714]So I literally just ordered a Norinco M305 SOCOM today from Tenda... am I gonna be looking for a new bolt?
[/QUOTE]

My Socom was fine taking both the older forged bolt and a USGI bolt, maybe when it kaboom, it took some material off the receiver, or threw the receiver outta whack?
 
Don't rely on the colour. Look for the MIM circles on the underside of the bolt to know for sure. A MIM bolt can be zinc parkerized grey like the rest of the rifle. The above bolts are either black-oxide finished or manganese-phosphate parkerized.

Are those the 5ish circles on the underside left of the bolt?
 
John looked at my receiver and it was concluded nothing could really be done with the thing without major modifications. We left it at that, now I have a tremendous amount of spare parts lol. I may try and find an older Norc receiver and get John to put the barrel on it, and build her up again.

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My Socom was fine taking both the older forged bolt and a USGI bolt, maybe when it kaboom, it took some material off the receiver, or threw the receiver outta whack?

VERY doubtful. M14 receivers don't fail at the bolt lug recesses, when they fail, the receiver ring cracks or the heel breaks off. Most chinese receivers take a GI or US commercial bolt just fine. Those that don't are usually close enough that you can lap them in to fit. RARELY you get one where the lapping would be excessive - for those ones, you use a forged Norinco bolt as the Norinco bolt lugs are a little shorter than GI.
 
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