I recently traded into a Cetme...reluctantly I might add...and it was not a happy experience from the start. I had a feeling there were some problems with the gun but as I was only allowing about 300 in actual cash for it I didn't think I could be hurt too bad.

I got it home and disassembled the beast. First thing that happened was the disconnector fell out of the trigger group as well as it's retaining pin. One look in there told me why the guy was willing to trade so low, there was no way this gun would fire the way the trigger group was put together. (He told me it shot great....yea, right)

The upside is I am an H&K school trained armorer and I do know my way around these rifles. I yanked out the guts of the trigger group and re-installed everything correctly. First however I did do a little parts polishing. Now I had a functioning trigger group with a fairly nice trigger. Moving onto the bolt...another no-go. This thing wouldn't take a .007 feeler gauge. I upped the rollers to +4's, got it up to .009. Well, crap...ordered a complete bolt assembly for $65.00...added +2 rollers to it. Now it fits a .013 feeler gauge nicely.

As I had the rollers on hand already I had under $400 in this so far. On the up side the gun was shooting very well, grouping surplus into 1 1/2 inches at 100 yards out of my lead sled. UTG scope mount (80 bucks) and a old 3X9X40 Telstar scope (old Japanese make...superb glass). If you ever run across one of these scopes grab it. The post and crosshair make for a fast and easy to acquire sight picture.

As I already had $480 bucks in this rifle I decided to add and 12 more bucks to it and bought a set of OD HK G-3 furniture for it. Found a few more mags for 5 bucks apiece (Cetme not HK) and now my total sits at $525.00. Functioning is flawless, accuracy is great. Now I just need a HK Stock extender and cheekpiece and it will be my scoped .308 semi-auto allowing me to keep my FN/FAL as my iron sight rifle.

With the price of parts for these hitting an all time low it is worth owning one. When you go shopping take a set of feeler gauges and check making sure it falls between .010 and .015. These are great rifles and you can often find one at a bargain price.

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I became insane with long periods of horrible sanity

Nice! Have you gotten a bayonet for it yet? I left the butt stock alone, but I swapped out the craptacular black plastic hand guard for a UTG rail setup. I have that same scope mount, I'm going to get a red dot setup and run that. BTW, I bought a ton of G3 mags dirt cheap, they work fine out of my CETME. Here's a pic:



Bipod is on solely to take the picture.

Jim

How many people tell you your bayonette is on upside down? Just teasing. Nice rifle.

Who made your receivers and who assembled them?

Mine is a CIA receiver but was built (had the barrel and trunnion pressed in) by a local gunsmith. I basically rebuilt the rest of it myself including a new bolt and carrier, some trigger parts, reworked the mag release, fitting the HK furniture all the time making sure it stay compliant. I am a school trained HK armorer so all this was very familiar to me. I just lack the necessary tools to set a barrel and trunnion myself

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I became insane with long periods of horrible sanity

I heard that about new barrels on these types of rifles. Did you use the button mag release or did you fit a lever like the original?

Jim

I will probably fit a paddle in the future but don't have the parts on hand right now. Problem when I got the rifle was convincing the mag release to let go of the magazines...just took some minor fitting to make it drop them clean.

Buy the way...I have found brand new CETME bolt heads for 30 bucks. This is the part that overzealous "gunsmiths" over grind, makes for a cheap way to get that too tightly gapped CETME back into action.

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I became insane with long periods of horrible sanity

The bolt head on my CETME was so worn even the new oversized rollers wouldn't give me the proper gap. I swapped out the bolt head with a new one and everything is working fine. I have a similar problem with the magazines not dropping, but I can see the problem, which is the mag well is not square. The left edge is bent slightly in, so none of the mags drop free. I'll fix that at some point. I just hate the stupid mag release button, as it's 1/2" out of reach for my finger.

Jim