I see supposed good deals on these all the time over at Gunbroker & AuctionArms. Do these have a reliable history and are they useful? Are mags readily available? How do these rifles stack up against FALs and HKs? Thanks in advance.

Whiskey

Here's a snip of the comments I posted about the current crop of $299 CETMEs.

I stopped by a local gunshop that had 10 of the $299 CETME rifles on display. I have one from the original "unissued parts, cast stainless steel receiver" lot, and I've been very happy with it. I was planning on buying one of these $299 guns simply to use as a shooter, and truck gun. After examining all 10, I was severely disappointed, for a number of reasons: 1. It might have been possible to put together a decent set of wood by picking and choosing between the furniture on all 10 guns, but I doubt it. Some of the wood was so bad it looked like it had been shaped from a warped 2x4 with a dremel tool. Others had decent wood and the metal looked like it had been beaten by a ball pein hammer. 2. Those holes in the receiver look like a bad idea. The new stamped receivers (not the old Hesse ones) have openings in either side of the receiver that are just behind where the bolt is seated in the chamber. This apparently doesn't matter for function, but implies that the design of the stamping is incorrect since these openings shouldn't be there. 3. The ejection port is slightly further forward than on the previous receivers and the edge of the bolt carrier could be seen with the action completely closed. This really surprised me, but all of the guns had this issue. Once again, not a function problem, but seemed indicitive of lazy design. 4. Bores were all black holes; they might have cleaned up well, but even with bore light in hand it was difficult to get any idea what the bores looked like. 5. Sights look like they were tack welded to the top of the stamping. Standard CETME rear sight is bad enough, but to just mount the sight on a little tab that's tack welded to the stamped receiver seems like a really bad idea.

YMMV

Well if that's true I guess that says it all. I knew that the Cetme would rank 3rd in quality when compared to the HK/FAL, but I didn't know their quality would be this poor.

Thanks for the info DavidC, I was just about to order one. I didn't realize quality had diminished from earlier Cetme's.

Byron

Whiskey you might want to go to http://www.gunboards.com   and check out their forum on the cetme.
I did and i just bought a cetme from SOG this past weekend. I'm happy with what i got for 299, but be for warned you are not buying a brand new weapon, these are all assembled from parts kits.

The earliest Cetmes (S/N 4000 and below)were from new unissued kits.I have a low 2000 S/N and everything looked brand new--wood,barrel,bolt etc.The ones they are selling now are from used kits,sometimes very used kits.

I personally would not buy one sight unseen now.With the current ones you definately want to check it out in person.On the other hand how much can you expect for $299.Mags are available from Tapco for $6.99.The ones I got 6mths ago were brand new.

Even though the current Cetmes are kinda rough I guess they are worth $299.I'm just glad I got my like new one last year even though they were $419 then.

Side note......L1A1`s from s.o.g.....389.95........Can`t see any reason whatsoever not to own one....judging from the one I got.....good wokmanship....great shooter.....I`m not a fal expert.....and down the road...who knows......a lot of people say century is hit and miss....I believe it...but this one is GREAT.......century has been around a long-long time...sold thousands of products....doubt if this would be if they were absolute junk and didn`t take decent care of thier customers......hey.....personally...I won`t buy winchester.....bet ALL of you can say that about one mfg or another.......I think the rifle they sell is a end result of the quality of the parts they get....added to the reciever of-course.....the L1a1 is good