Today’s Firearm of the Day is brought to you by our very own Charlie!
Chinese NDM-86:
The Chinese NDM-86 is manufactured at the Jing-An arsenal number 26 (a P.R.C. Ministry of Public Security manufacturer) and has a military designation of Type-79 (adopted in 1979) or Type-85 depending on which optical sight is used. The rifle is distributed by Norinco Equipment and is sold as both the NDM-86 and EM-351 and is chambered in either the 7.62x54R rimmed cartridge or 7.62x51 NATO caliber. Though the Type-79/85 is still in use in the PRC by special police and military units, it has been replaced by the QBU-88 for general military DMR use.
The rifles first appeared in the US around 1985 and were imported by Navy Arms. These early examples came in a green plywood transit chest which contained the rifle and the metal scope case. There were a very small number of sample rifles imported in the early 1980's that were chambered in .308 Winchester and designated as EM-352. These are not to be mistaken with the the NDM-86 in .308. The difference being that the EM-352 used standard curved magazines but with a modified follower to allow proper feeding of the rimless .308 Win cartridge.
Other importers of NDM-86 rifles were CSI (China Sports Int'l) in Ontario, California; CJA (China Jing-An) in Springfield, Montana; KFS (Kengs Firearms Specialty) in Atlanta, GA; GBE of Los Angeles, CA; and KSI/JPE (King Sport / Jay's Precision Enterprises) in Pomona, California. KSI alone imported 500 NDM-86s (in 7.62x54R) but the total number of NDM-86s in 7.62x54R from all five importers is not known. From data in the NDM-86 registry here there is so far an almost equal number of .308 (7.62x51) caliber versions submitted from owners as the 7.62x54r version. Since it is known there were 1500 NDM-86s in .308 imported it would not be far fetched to say a similar number of 7.62x54r versions came to the US as well.
The metal surface texture is not as "clean" as what you might see on the Russian SVDs but these Chinese rifles will shoot and function as well as their Russian counterpart. It has been said that the Chinese government examined several samples of the Russian SVD and "reverse-engineered" their Type-79 (military version of the NDM-86) with some improvements over the original Russian rifle.
So some of you may be asking why is this FOTD post about the Chinese NDM-86 and not the original Russian SVD? Well the simple answer is that I have an NDM-86 and can post pics of mine and COTEP members shooting it at the range. I don’t have an SVD to take pics of, so this is about the NDM-86!
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