Hi guys! Thanks for tuning in to ForgottenWeapons.com
I'm Ian McCollum and I'm here today, up in Canada taking a look at some of the guns that Canadians have access to
that we in the United States maybe don't.
Specifically, today, a Norinco M14 copy.
Now, Norinco sells this as the M305.
And, uh, they've been selling them up here for a little while
Due to some quirks in Canadian gun law
M14 pattern rifles are unrestricted.
They're - you have to have a license, a firearms owners license.
Once you have that you can buy these, you can carry them
you can hunt with them
You can do pretty much what you want
Uh,
However, virtually all of the other similar .308 self-loading rifles
are specifically prohibited by law.
So up here in Canada They don't have FAL's. They don't have G3's.
They don't have access to, really, any of the other common, commercially available types of
.308 semi-autos.
And that makes these, very popular.
Couple that with their price, which being a Norinco product is quite low
They're like five or six hundred dollars retail, Canadian.
And that right there, you have the makings for a very popular rifle.
So, they've been selling these for awhile.
This is the 18 1/2 inch version. Equivalent to what the commercial Springfield Armory company in the US marketed as the Squad Scout.
Although without the scope rail, up here.
Pretty cool, you know?
It's a Norinco made rifle. The fit and finish is kinda rough. The Parkerizing is kinda rough.
But, for the price, it's kinda hard to go wrong.
Now what's really interesting to me
is a version of the rifle we don't have at all in the US.
And that is Norinco's 305 A.
Which has just recently come on the market up here.
And that, is an M14 in 7.62x39.
using AK magazines.
Now, some of you are going to probably come up with some stupid questions like,
Why on Earth would you want that? Isn't it just, like, a heavy SKS?
And the answer is, well
Yes.
Shut up.
No, there are a couple good reasons - There's one good reason to have this
That is, uh, the ammo's a lot cheaper than .308
There's another good reason namely, its cool and different
Um. if you're up here in Canada and you want a neat M14 looking rifle
well, this is just kinda, I think, looks pretty cool.
Different. Interesting.
If you're in the US, of course the obvious answer is
If someone else can get it, but we can't get it it must be awesome
Therefore, we must be able to have it.
So, for that reason, I wanted to take a look at this one while I was up here.
So, lemme show you what they did to convert this to AK mags
Cause, it's actually pretty simple.
Externally, there's really not that much difference going on here.
If you don't look up inside the magazine well, there are only a couple of telltale signs
that this isn't a standard M14 sort of rifle.
One of them is that the stripper-clip guide has been left off.
That's because the stripper-clip guides are, of course, set up for M14 magazines.
and they don't hit the right location to use stripper-clips on AK mags.
Now, if they wanted to, at some point, there's no reason they couldn't design a slightly longer
stripper clip guide that would work
and certainly, there are stripper-clips for AK magazines.
So maybe they'll add that at some point in the future
Norinco has decided to sell these with a little shortened version of an M14 type flash hider
They did put a bayonet lug on it which is kinda goofy because
like, the whole reason that the M14 flash hider was so long was so that you actually had enough space
between the hook on the bayonet lug and the ring that went over the flash hider
On this, you can never actually mount the bayonet but
they put it on there, so... Ok. Uh.
And then of course the markings are also kind of a give away
It's an M305 A
Which is their designation for this gun in 7.62x39 and its pretty clearly marked.
7.62x39.
If you're used to looking at a regular M14 you would probably look the heel of the receiver for markings
but, on Norinco's production, there's nothing up there.
So the receivers of the two guns are identical
what they did was just convert the magazine well
and then a few bits, presumable, in the fire control group and probably the size of the gas port
But, if we look in here
This is the .308 gun and we have the hook in front that the magazine catches on
and, that's pretty much it, it's a normal mag well.
On the 7.62x39 version
They've added this support on the front and that
Is what the lip of the AK magazine
Right there.
That's what that's going to hook onto and then they've extended the magazine catch a little bit
What's interesting, is if you look at the two magazines
These are both, basically nose-in, rock-back magazines
and while the AK mag is shorter it has a much longer rear catch on it than the M14 magazine does
So,
If we put these side-by-side
and line then up, like so
you'll notice that, in practical terms, the M14 mag is actually not that much longer
than the AK mag.
So here's what an M14 magazine looks like in the receiver
Obviously it's going to fill the entire magazine well, front to back, 'cause that's what it's designed for
The AK mag actually kind of sits nicely right in the middle.
They've added a support here in the front, to hold the front of the magazine
and then you can see a bit of a gap at the back here,
and that's there because of that kind of long extended catch on the back of the magazine.
On the AK, the magazine doesn't go into the magazine well and receiver
nearly as deeply as it would on, or does, on this M14.
So that's why there's a little bit of a gap in the back there, where it's being held.
But, you know what? It actually fits in there remarkably well.
You will also notice that we have an ejector
right here that has been lengthened so that it reaches far enough back
to effectively kick out a shorter 7.62x39mm cartridge.
You can get a little bit better view of this front magazine support
with the stock off like this.
The receiver really isn't modified very much at all,
It's just this magazine well support that's been changed.
There's the receiver...
And here's the thing pulled apart into it's major assembly
So, pretty simple, tears apart just like an M14,
One kind of weird thing about these Norinco M14 copies, the 305's
is that they all have this strangely tall front sight.
Not entirely sure why that's there, it's on the .308 and the 7.62x39mm
and it's on both the 18'' 1/2 and the 22'' barrelled versions.
So the rear sight appears to be normal,
so I'm really not sure what the rationale is behind that tall post.
It looks kinda goofy, but presumably it works okay.
I think what I'd really like to do at this point is go out and do some shooting with it!
So we should be able to use basically any AK mag in here...
Here we go...
Alright, this magazine's sitting a little bit low.
So I'm using a Yugoslav mag here, which has some pros and some cons.
The pro is that because the Yugo mag has this bolt-hold-open follower
It actually locks open even in a gun like this M14 when it's empty.
The downside is the dimensions on the nose of the magazine are slightly different,
and I kind of had to hold it pulling backwards on the mag
or else I would get the occasional feed failure.
Norinco ships these with their own standard magazines
that have different pros and cons.
They fit and feed fine, but they don't lock the bolt open like this one does.
Well that's a really neat little rifle!
It's obviously extremely comfortable to shoot because
it's a pretty heavy gun, I didn't look it up actually.
I probably should've. It's 9 or 10 pounds but
shooting the nice little 7.62x39mm cartridge
So, makes for a very fun little plinker. Little bit less fun in Canada when you're restricted to
five-round magazines, but you know what? It's just neat and cool.
Yes it's basically a heavy SKS, but
It's cool!
Well there's the wonders of communism turing into capitalism.
We have M14 clones in 7.62x39mm.
And you know what, it's actually a pretty cool rifle.
I think they're neat.
If you also think they're neat and you're up in Canada,
check out Marstar if you'd like to pick one up because they have them available and they're pretty cheap actually.
Certainly by U.S. standards.
If you're not in Canada, well, I don't know. I can't help you specifically.
But thanks to Marstar for letting me play around with this one.
Thanks to you guys for making the videos possible, and stay tuned for more interesting forgotten weapons.