Is the cetme a decent gun for the $$$?  Aren't they pretty well fal rifles?  Parts interchangeability? Don't they take the cheap G3 mags as well? Thanks for the input!

They are not FAL type rifles.  They are kin to the H&K G3 main battle rifle.


Vulcan94

the CETME is the grandfather of the HK91. after the war some german  rifle designers made the rifle for the Spanish army. HK later bought the rights to make their own version (HK91/G3). though similar, parts are not interchangeable.

you might be thinking of the G1, that is a FAL rifle



the only thing I don't particular like about the CETME is the windage adjustment. it's a "cammed" front sight. it doesn't give you a lot of wiggle room. the trunion has to be welded in the receiver perfectly straight, if it's off you'll run out of adjustment and still not be any closer to the POA .

I had that happen when I bought a CENTURY CETME back in  1999/2000, sent it back and got a replacement that shot POI to POA without touching the sight.

as for using G3 mags in the CETME, on mine I can use the G3 mags without any issues with jams, misfeeds etc... don't know about the newer ones on the market.

when I bought mine, G3 mags were like 45 or 50 bucks a pop compared to 7 dollars or so for a CETME MAG. much later the market was flooded with cheap G3 mags for a couple of dollars.  that is what pissed the HK guys off to no end, they were buying expensive  G3 mags.   then all of a sudden, overnight,  those mags were worthless and they couldn't  even sell them for 10 bucks a pop.  that is when I stocked up on G3 mags, they were even cheaper then the CETME mags

Trivia time:   FN made an experimental magazine that had no base plate- FAL feed lips on one end, CETME on the other.   No kidding.

Also, the CETME mag loader will also work with FN mags.

Woah, how would that work? And why?

wow, that is neat. as soon as I saw that, it reminded me of a commercial I saw as a kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8zwnXjIjPM

on the plus side, having one mag to fit 2 different rifles will certainly alleviate any space issues.

Wow! Never heard of this thing before thanks for sharing!
A real nightmare to keep dirt/sand out of it

There's a reason these never made into production.

Or possibly even prototype? Haven't found any pictures.

My initial thought was that it would be able to feed either rifle at any time, not that one follower would turn into the "baseplate" for the other.. that was really baking my noodle for a bit

I, too, doubt it made that far. Germany got rid of the G1 pretty quickly after the G3 came into service, so the need for such a device was quickly diminished.

I have both, get the FAL. Cetme has a harsh recoil impulse and gets dirty as sin because of the delayed blowback and is harder to clean.

Can a cetme even be suppressed? I would think the extra backpressure would be damaging to the action.

Well, perhaps that mag didn't make it into production, but I remember Mini-14/AR mags being advertised back in the 1980's.  AR on one end, Mini-14 on the other.  As close as the Mini-14 ever came to using AR mags.

http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=3&f=17&t=329165

I know that the G3 can be suppressed and run reliably with different bolt rollers. I would imagine the CETME would be capable of the same.

Wow!  Very cool!