How bad do CETME suck?

General Firearms Other Semi-Automatic Rifles
1

A guy had an AR15 lower of mine and gave me a CETME in lieu of returning the lower. That was fine.

Four of us shot the CETME out in the desert on Sunday. It was assembled by Century in Vermont. Here are my remarks:

  1. The safety is backwards. Why do I have to push it up to ifre?

  2. Of 100 shots of .mil ball, it did not malfunction at all.

  3. The receiver has a tight fit with the mags, and the mags must be smashed into place with a fist to latch.

  4. For comparison, I had an M1A on hand. Everyone was waaaaaay more accurate with the M1A on a steel disk at 100 yards.

  5. The CETME rear sight sucks. It gets bumped and rotates on its own. It is not like an HK drum sight.

So how crappy are these guns? If I keep it, is it going to fall apart by 500 rounds? 1000?

2

Will the gun fall apart? Probably not.

Will it malfunction at a higher rate than it should? Probably.

There were several different “generations” of CETME builds using different receivers and different parts.

Some of them had the bolt heads ground by the monkeys at Century because they couldn’t figure out how to head space them properly.

3

[QUOTE=Templar;911082Some of them had the bolt heads ground by the monkeys at Century because they couldn’t figure out how to head space them properly.[/QUOTE]

Holy cow!!! Those guys just might be dumb enough to work at … tsa. :D:D

4

IMHO, I would get rid of this on gunbroker ASAP and get your money before it gets broken or starts jamming, because it will.

5

That monkey is having a bad day. He doesn’t have his 4# hammer.

My take is that if Century can’t put out a decent AK then there isn’t much hope for anything that is more complex.

6

A Cetme usually sucks, but a crappy Cetme for an AR lower is still a good trade, assuming it wasnt a high dollar lower.

I’d sell the Cetme for like $400 bucks, make a quick profit.

7

Thanks for the input. The lower was worth $130. Works for me.

8

Keep in mind this isn’t a real CETME, it is a parts kit cobbled together at Century using Special Weapons parts.

A real CETME (MARS import) will cost more than a HK 91 but is completely reliable.

9

I totally agree with you because we had been using the CETME C for more than 20 years and it has a very good reputation.