Desert Tan Century C308

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:07][music] >> Hello there people of the internet. I have tried to make this video a bunch of times now and things just keep going wrong. You ever have one of those instances where you try to do something and just nothing's working out and at this point it's been multiple days that I've been sitting in front of this camera trying to film this.

[00:00:37]New cut by the way, link link below in the merch stuff.

[00:00:43]Fantastic for telling people to get away from you in the mornings.

[00:00:48]So you know how sometimes you're just well, you make decisions. I wouldn't call them bad decisions cuz I'm kind of happy with the decision that I made but sometimes you just make decisions that you don't necessarily need to have made but you made them anyway and this is one of those decisions where I made it anyway.

[00:01:12]>> [clears throat] >> So this is a Century C308 saying I'm sure I'm going to have a lot of people going to the comments down below and tell me how these rifles are absolute trash.

[00:01:23]I'm going to make a video that talks about the good Century rifles in terms of their G3 status, their CETME C308 series.

[00:01:33]Um I'm going to cover their good rifles and their bad rifles and why the good rifles are good and why the bad rifles are bad. And this is a good example of something to look for when you are identifying a quote unquote bad C308 rifle. So this is a Gen 2 C308 and you can tell that because it's got the Picatinny rail welded on top of it. So the receivers and the barrels for these Gen 2s are actually made by PTR and they are made to a pretty gosh darn good standard especially for the cost of these rifles.

[00:02:10]So the barrel and the receiver made by PTR. PTR obviously knows what they're doing because they make the PTR 91 which is an incredibly popular G3 model here in the US.

[00:02:22]So in my other video I'll discuss some other things that that are going on with these rifles and what to look out for and what to not really bother with.

[00:02:31]So the the main reason why I picked up this particular CETME C308 is just because I saw it and it looked cool and I liked it. I'm not sure how well this guy is going to show up on camera but this is a desert tan rifle and this is a Cerakote and this is a factory option that was offered from Century Arms whenever these rifles were being sold off as parts kit builds.

[00:03:01]So there's not a whole lot of these floating out there. They were a limited edition run but it is really cool that I was able to find one and I'm not going to lie I actually really like it. Now it's just my own personal bias because I wanted a second C308 but just holding it and messing around with it I do really like it.

[00:03:24]So obviously we have the Picatinny rail on top. I can mount whatever optics it is that I want on this thing but that's pretty much the only mounting options that are on this thing. The handguard, those are not mounting options. Those are not M-LOK rails. There's no other Picatinny systems on this anywhere.

[00:03:39]Nothing like that. Looks like the sights are well, they exist. They are there.

[00:03:47]Rear sight looks like it's intact. Uh it looks like it's going to be quote unquote functional. It's a little bit on the stiff side in comparison to some other C308s that I've messed with. The welding on the rear sight is always crude. That's because the rear sights were done by Century. It was just the receivers and the barrels that were done by PTR.

[00:04:07]So the rear sight's always kind of crude but as long as they work that's realistically all that I care about. The one thing with this rifle that gives me pause and makes me think that I'm probably going to have to do some work with this rifle and I know exactly the work I'm going to have to do is whenever you go to pull the charging handle back on this particular rifle it is exceptionally stiff and I know exactly why that is the case.

[00:04:36]And whenever I say exceptionally stiff, here let me grab my other rifle real quick. The G3 style of rifle in general, these are these are always stiff. The the charging handles are always stiff and that's because you got to break through the roller delayed locking system in order to actually open up your rifle and pull your bolt carrier group back and whatnot. So this is what it's supposed to look like. That is not bad at all but with my new tan C308 whenever I try pulling this one back it is really challenging to pull back and if you have yourself a C308 that is like that I'm going to tell you exactly how to fix that right now.

[00:05:19]So the C308 rifles are based on the CETME C system and that is the Spanish style of roller delayed blowback systems.

[00:05:31]The C308 locking system has a very slight difference in comparison to the PTR locking systems and even though the receivers and the barrels on these rifles were made by PTR the trunnions on these things are still CETME C trunnions.

[00:05:52]And the locking systems for those are slightly different by a couple of degrees. I think that PTR's a 50° locking system and the CETME C's are a 45. If memory serves me correctly I could have those reversed.

[00:06:07]But long story short, if you have a PTR bolt or PTR rollers inside of your CETME bolts they're going to be slightly off and slightly different from the C308 bolt that the trunnion and whatnot is actually designed for. And so as a result of that while you're trying to fight through it it can be a little bit on the challenging side.

[00:06:31]So in order to get rid of that I got to go out and source myself some proper dimension CETME C rolling or rollers that I can pop into this bolt and that should get rid of this horrendous stiffness that I have pulling this back.

[00:06:50]It's not really an issue if you're going to be taking it out and firing it. That's not really going to be that much of a problem because the locking systems are so gosh darn similar that unless you are running some extremely high pressure ammunition which you should not be doing in these rifles anyway then it's not going to be enough of a difference to make a difference.

[00:07:10]But I have not shot this thing yet. The barrel on it looks extremely good. It's definitely been shot before because whenever I dug my finger around inside of our ejection port here it got all black and cruddy and you may just think that this is sticky from you know, needing a good cleaning but that's not the case. This is definitely not just fighting through stickiness levels of having to force this bolt carrier group open. Luckily it's a pretty gosh darn easy fix. Just get the proper rollers, toss them into the bolt and you're good to go.

[00:07:44]So I have not shot this thing yet. I probably am going to shoot it before I bother changing out those rollers just because I'm you know, not overly I don't have a whole lot of spare income. [laughter] So this is probably going to sit on the back burner for a little while and this is very clearly been shot considerable amounts because just the the wear on the inside of this rifle. This rifle has clearly been shot considerable amounts in its lifespan as a C308 not including its lifespan as a CETME C rifle.

[00:08:19]So I'm willing to bet that it is probably safe to fire.

[00:08:23]Now I haven't even disassembled this, haven't taken it apart, haven't looked at the internals uh in terms of uh uh like fully disassembled but I'm willing to bet that they're probably good to go. Typically whenever you're buying a used rifle and it looks like the rifle has been shot a lot >> [laughter] >> that's a pretty gosh darn good sign cuz most people don't take out crappy rifles and shoot them a lot and this one right here has some pretty significant wear on the Cerakote on the inside of the receiver.

[00:08:59]And whenever I look at it and just look at the amount of soot that's kind of piled up in there just from use and not cleaning it really indicates to me that somebody has been using this rifle quite a bit.

[00:09:12]There's one thing I do want to look at here.

[00:09:15]Yep. Those are identical.

[00:09:20]Fantastic. Okay, cool. This black C308 I've already done a bunch of work on and she is up and running exceptionally nice. I'm very happy with that one.

[00:09:31]So I'm going to be showing you guys in a later video what to look for with these rifles to make sure that you're getting a pretty gosh darn decent one and this one I think is going to be a pretty gosh darn decent one. From what I've been able to gather the limited run tan ones seem to be pretty good.

[00:09:50]Uh I have not managed to find any poor reviews on them but until I take this thing out to the range to actually run it I'm not going to know that myself.

[00:09:57]You got a couple of things that I want to do with this rifle. I'm probably going to set this one up with like an LPVO or something like that just because I can't see really at all.

[00:10:08]Basically, anything beyond like 50 yards is just a complete blur to me. So, I need that magnification and to be able to utilize that 7.62 by 51 cartridge that I'm going to be lobbing down range.

[00:10:22]Well, I need some magnification for it.

[00:10:23]This one right here I just kind of got a red dot on it and it absolutely is a range toy. I got maybe a thousand rounds or so of.308 through that and yes, I am saying.308 because I load my own ammo. My ammo is not always loaded to the same specification, but that's a whole argument. Actually, that's a good idea for a video. That's a really good idea for a video.

[00:10:47]But anyway, I like this thing. I'm quite impressed by it. The trigger on it is pretty gosh darn decent in comparison to some other C308s that I've messed with.

[00:10:56]I'm not sure if the trigger was done differently just because this is a limited run rifle.

[00:11:04]Um but the trigger definitely feels better than other uh C308s that I've messed with.

[00:11:11]It came with one magazine. The magazine is like an aluminum magazine. Do I have it kicking around here? I do. It's an aluminum magazine. All my other mags are steel.

[00:11:20]I'm not sure how reliable the aluminum one's going to be, but boy, it is significantly lighter weight. I might have to get more of these if that ends up working out well for me. Furniture on this thing is plastic uh as to be expected. There's no real significant bells or whistles going on with this other than the Picatinny rail that is welded on the top.

[00:11:43]So, now I guess I'm going to see if I can get myself a range day going which is a whole ordeal in itself. Oh boy.

[00:11:54]The adventures of my life. Thanks for watching, folks. I appreciate your time. Like, subscribe, share. Description below has a link to all sorts of stuff. Go check it out. You guys go off. Have yourself a fantastic day. I'll see you on the next episode.

[00:13:04]Been a little while since I've done this.

[00:13:15]Body and Clyde be damned.

[00:13:23]Poor man's Garand.

[00:13:38]It's a shame that bolt action shotguns aren't uh more mainstream.