You would also want checks on headspace, muzzle wear, and throat erosion, esp. Other things to check would be that the bolt lugs fit the reciever, the op rod fits in op rod rail properly, op rod does not fall away from bolt roller, rear sight reciever serrations are good, and the rear sight is square on the reciever, receiver hardness is acceptable and not brittle, etc. If not, it is possible for it to fire out of battery, which would be a Bad Thing. Items checked would include the firing pin retraction helix on the safety bridge (which is sometimes out-of-spec) - it should retract and capture the firing pin tail until the bolt lugs are at least partially engaged in the receiver. The receiver geometry and hardness is a key issue, and there was enough variability in their receivers that a dimensional inspection and hardness test would be appropriate. Ron Smith is one of the few who is willing work on FedOrds, and he has probably worked on more of them than anyone, so I would trust his advice, but few others. Either way, you would need competent armorer who knows just what to look for to check it out - most will not know, and many won't touch Fed Ords at all. I wouldn't touch one unless very, very cheap our under s/n 8500 or so.
These are clearly "buyer beware" rifles, and may be expensive to upgrade and/or hard to unload if you change your mind. (BTW, these are NOT Chinese receivers, which are excellent receivers, but other Chinese parts, some of which are okay and others - like the bolts - are not.) Anyway, Fed Ord went out of business (they were dishonest), so you have no recourse for any warranty work and the resale value is very low. Most commonly people are trying to unload the ones with bad receivers and Chinese parts to people who don't know the difference. Someone posted that the early ones are marked M14A and later rifles marked CM-14SA. Fed Ord made a LOT of M14-type rifles (60,000?) and apparently the first ~8500 were made with GI parts, and some of these may be okay. Some of the guys who have very early examples seem very happy with them, but most of the later ones are dangerous due to bad (defective) receiver geometry and hardness issues. $350 to 700 would be about right, depending on if it is an early or later version.
Fed Ords have the lowest resale value of all M-14 types, for good reason, and $1400 is an insane price. I posted some of this information on Fed Ords long ago and needed asbestos underware afterwards, but it should answer your questions.
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