Good rifle, but needs some attention sometimes
A friend scored one in West Texas in a garage sale of all places. Learned a few things about the rifle during that time. Shot it extensively and worked on it some. A number of shooters that come to understand these rifles really enjoy them. They quickly become "keepers" - one of the ones you dont part with because it is so handy to have on hand. The one we found was chambered .308 Winchester / 7.62x51 Nato. I think all or most of them we find in USA most probably are.
This is a very solid rifle. Almost as solid as an M14. Just almost. Certainly shorter and a little bit lighter. These are fairly good steel. Pretty good wood. Built solid. One of the best West Texas truck guns you are ever going to find. Good for coyote or deer. Probably has some other possibilities as well. 7.62 Nato (.308 Winch) is one of the greatest cartridges the world will ever see. It shoulders quickly, targets quickly and spits out some high powered rounds very quickly. Comfortable to shoot, and easy to keep on a target while firing the rifle. You wont be shooting "sniper" grade groups at 250 yards with it, but I think you will be happy with the groups you do get from it. It is accurate enough for iron-sight hunting.
Here is where some minor problems arise with this rifle. The chambers, when you find them, tend to have some striations in them, possibly left over from machine tools at the initial manufacturing. You have to send it to the gunsmith to have the chamber polished out and cleaned up. Some of them, the chambers I am told, are often found slightly undersized. I dont know why. Keep in mind it doesnt cost much to tune up one of these rifles. Cases stick in them like crazy, until you tune up the chamber and polish up the chamber mouth as well. Sometimes it takes a gunsmith to do this, because it is more than just scrubbing the chamber clean.
Once they are tuned up a little bit, they shoot well enough to hunt with or to plink with. Will feed milspec ammo very reliably, really kicks out the empties. Will feed remington factory loads just as well.
These are not the easiest guns to find lately. There seemed to more of them out there a few years ago. There were many from individuals who wanted to dump them because they didnt understand the rifle needed a only little bit of attention to make it a very reliable shooter.
If you can find one, keep it. Hang on to it. Plenty of 7.62x51 out there. If you had to have a moderately priced semi-auto rack-grade military rifle in a popular American military caliber, this is rifle will fit the need well enough.