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enfield
07-05-2002, 11:24 AM
I bought a FAL parts kit, new receiver and US parts kit in the group purchases last spring. I was promised that I'd receive the necessary help to separate the barrel from the old receiver, attach and time it to the new receiver, headspace gage it and permanently attach the muzzle brake. There was a build party scheduled by Lance Ward on short notice in May, but I was out of town. Since then I've had no luck in contacting him. I'm retiring and leaving the state (temporarily or permanently - who knows yet!) in September and would like to get the barrel and muzzle brake attached beforehand. I can probably handle the rest of the assembly myself. Can anyone help me out?

Rob
07-05-2002, 12:13 PM
Enfield,

Lance is on vacation, thats why you haven't heard back from him,

He should be back in touch with you next week when he gets back, good luck building your FAL they are fun to shoot :D

Batman
07-05-2002, 09:32 PM
Well you can get a start on the process yourself before tools; gauges and other such items are necessary.

For example: separating the barrel from the old receiver is accomplished in one of two ways. By far the easiest is to use a Dermel with a cut off wheel. The second is to use a hacksaw. I've done it both ways. To do this I would put the barreled receiver into a vice by clamping the receiver in the vice. Make sure the left side of the receiver stub is up. Using either method your going to want to cut the front of the old receiver where it threads on to the barrel. Your going to want to do this in the slot where the cocking handle is. This spot on the old receiver between the two rails is the thinnest area of the receiver. Be careful not to cut the barrel shoulder. You’re going to have to cut down about an 3/16” or so. Once finished, I like to take a big cold chisel and insert it into the rail gap where the cocking handle once slid. By pounding the chisel toward the front of the receiver pressure will cause the old receiver to split where you did your cutting. Once split the old stub will unscrew.

Other things you can do. Strip, clean and install your U.S. parts into the lower receiver. I’m assuming your putting in a new hammer, trigger and sear, and maybe a new pistol grip. That’s four of the necessary six needed. If you bought a US receiver that is five as you likely know.

The two tricky parts to building FALs are timing the barrel and doing the head spacing. You will note that once you get your old stub receiver off your going to try to screw on the new receiver. Well it won’t go all the way. Due to manufacturing variability some new receivers time to 9:30 and some to 10:30. I have never had one time to 11:00 where you need it. So some adjustments are required. Most folks sand or mill or file the barrel shoulder to get it to time. This is a process of trial and error. Be careful to limit the amount of material you take off. You can take to much off!

Once your barrel hand times to 11:00 your ready to install it. To do that and the head spacing will require special tools. If you’re only going to build one FAL (no one builds just one FAL!!!) buying the tools is not cost effective. There is a guy in Mt. Clemens who has the tools and has built FALs. I think he is fairly cheap. You can also check the FALfiles web site as there are smiths who do rough builds for about $100. Or you can asked to barrow or rent the tools.

If you want to get a really good tape on building the FAL rifle, buy one of Mark Granholm’s tapes. He is owner of Arizona Response system. He is a top notch FAL smith.

I would love to help you but my shop is being rebuilt and my builds will occur late next month.


http://www.arizonaresponsesystems.com/

Knimrod
07-08-2002, 05:51 PM
Enfield,

Check your private messages.

enfield
08-28-2002, 05:15 PM
Knimrod - thanks a load for all of the help and expertise. I've got it all cleaned up and lubed (the gas nut now seats all of the way) and will take it out for a shoot in a day or two. Looks great!!

HvGlock-WillTrvl
08-28-2002, 10:20 PM
Good luck with your new FAL. I'm working on a first build myself. I got a ton of information from http://www.falfiles.com/forums/index.php.
Also, I got the Gunplumbers video. It's very entertaining and informative. The stuff you described requires the right method and more than a few quality tools. I'm going to stop short of getting a lathe. But I did get go, no-go gages, a good quality digital caliper - that sort of thing.

The first one isn't complete. But I'm already working on design ideas for FAL #2 :D

Knimrod
08-28-2002, 10:32 PM
If you want to get a really good tape on building the FAL rifle, buy one of Mark Granholm’s tapes. He is owner of Arizona Response system. He is a top notch FAL smith.

:lolup: I think you mean T. Mark Graham. Somehow, "Granholm" and guns just don't go together. :fal:

enfield
08-29-2002, 08:22 AM
Good luck with your new FAL. I'm working on a first build myself. I got a ton of information from http://www.falfiles.com/forums/index.php.
Also, I got the Gunplumbers video. It's very entertaining and informative. The stuff you described requires the right method and more than a few quality tools. I'm going to stop short of getting a lathe. But I did get go, no-go gages, a good quality digital caliper - that sort of thing.

The first one isn't complete. But I'm already working on design ideas for FAL #2 :D

We had the most trouble with the barrel wrench and the vise. Both of them flexed, and the work bench did also. I think the ideal wrench would be a very heavy open end or, better, a two-piece wrench made similar to the receiver wrench. I would not have believed that it was possible to deflect a heavy vise that far -- I saw the jaws move relative to each other! Before you ask, yes, the barrel timed to about 11:00 before we wrenched it. Now if you had a Wilton vise, with square ground hard steel jaws, anchored to a concrete block or floor, and the right barrel wrench, you could go into production!

HvGlock-WillTrvl
08-29-2002, 08:17 PM
Enfield, as a newbie, I'm just going by what I saw on video. In M. Graham's Gunplumber video he says you should start out with either a 1 1/16" or 27mm open end wrench... then slightly file it to fit the rifle barrel flats. He cuts off the end and then uses a breaker bar. Before the heavy cranking to time the barrel, he had (another very expensive item !) a lathe to take a slight amount off the shoulder. Of course, he also had a very high quality vise with aluminum facing. It should be an adventure with something less than the best in shop tools :roll: By the way, the receiver and receiver wrench should be clamped in the vise not the barrel. All the torque is applied to the barrel. You didn't try turning the receiver wrench did you? That would create a lot of twisting because of the off-center application of force.

I would kind of like to have one of those Wilton vises you mentioned. Those little guys are in the $300 + range though.

Knimrod
08-29-2002, 08:51 PM
Enfield, as a newbie, I'm just going by what I saw on video. In M. Graham's Gunplumber video he says you should start out with either a 1 1/16" or 27mm open end wrench... then slightly file it to fit the rifle barrel flats. He cuts off the end and then uses a breaker bar. Before the heavy cranking to time the barrel, he had (another very expensive item !) a lathe to take a slight amount off the shoulder. Of course, he also had a very high quality vise with aluminum facing. It should be an adventure with something less than the best in shop tools :roll: By the way, the receiver and receiver wrench should be clamped in the vise not the barrel. All the torque is applied to the barrel. You didn't try turning the receiver wrench did you? That would create a lot of twisting because of the off-center application of force.

I would kind of like to have one of those Wilton vises you mentioned. Those little guys are in the $300 + range though.

As someone who has done it before, I'll tell you how we did it. The barrel shoulder was trimmed so it timed to the 11:00 position. It was done with a special tool made specifically for the job. I prefer my lathe but it was at home. The receiver was clamped in a commercially made FAL receiver wrench and then the wrench was clamped into a Craftsman 8" vise. The barrel threads were lubricated with anti-sieze compound (I prefer moly-paste but we were out). A 1-1/16" wrench was used as a barrel wrench and a 3' long rectangular steel tube was used for leverage. The problem we had was probably due to the wrench just being worn out. I have flats ground on the outside of the jaws of the wrench so I can clamp them in a large pair of vice-grips. The wrench still wanted to slip. This caused the barrel flats to start rounding. Looking at the inside face of the jaws, they were notably disfigured (note to self: an open end wrench is probably only good for 8-10 barrel installs). To get the last 2-3 degrees of rotation, we had to resort to clamping the barrel in the bench vise and twisting the receiver wrench. This is where most of the vice flex was noted. Unfortunately between the worn out jaws of the open end wrench and the vice flex, the barrel flats were somewhat scarred. It's not a major concern as the barrel flats are covered by the handguard retaining ring after assembly. As to the idea of turning the barrel vs. turning the reciever, it makes absolutely no difference. The same forces are at work. I will let Sir Issac Newton's third law explain: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object. The direction of the force on the first object is opposite to the direction of the force on the second object. Forces always come in pairs - equal and opposite action-reaction force pairs.


I may have been born yesterday but I was up all night. 8) :fal:

HvGlock-WillTrvl
08-29-2002, 11:05 PM
Knimrod, that sounds like a lot of fun :wink: :wink: I wish I could have been there. I read in one of Gunplumber's posts that he tries to get the 1 1/16" wrench fit so tight that it has to be tapped onto the barrel flats. Also, he uses red locktite for the final fitting. Maybe that helps the barrel turn easier.

enfield
08-31-2002, 09:50 AM
What is the technique used to adjust the sights? That is, which direction, CW or CCW (that's clockerwise or contrary clockerwise for you Festus Hagen fans) do you turn the front sight to raise it, and, for the rear sight, which screw do you turn to move the sight to the left?

enfield
09-02-2002, 08:39 PM
I put about 30 rounds thru the FAL today - boy is that one sweet rifle! It took about 5 rounds to get the gas dialed in. Had one failure to feed with a new magazine, will have to give them all some exercise. Love the sights, but the trigger will take some getting used to - I'm used to my Mauser and the FAL trigger is creepy by comparison. Thanks for all the help, guys! :D

Who does trigger jobs :?:

ws6transam
09-28-2002, 10:09 PM
enfield, I did my own trigger on my FAL (one of the spring group purchase rifles).

I have lots of polishing devices here at the house along with the requisite stones. I'm no expert, but my trigger action went from scratchy to buttery smooth. Of course, I do not have any other professionally worked trigger actions to judge against.

If you want to meet me some Tuesday morning at Capitol City Rifle Club in Williamstion, you could give mine a try and see what you think. If you like it, I'll work your trigger in the same fashion.

--Dan

ws6transam
09-28-2002, 10:15 PM
Yep, I'll be using it up near Oscoda. I created a custom 4-round magazine for it, and I've tried shooting some Winchester silver-tip 150 grain rounds through it. At 100 yards, they group to within six or eight inches with a 25 dollar red-dot 1X BSA cheap-o-scope.

I think the rifle is much more accurate than that, I just keep changing my sight picture. The BSA does have some issues with parallax error.

Ahh, practice, practice, practice.

BTW, I've managed to use up two of my four 140-round battle packs already. I might need to buy some of that stuff from www.southernammo.com at the beginning of the year.

HvGlock-WillTrvl
09-28-2002, 11:09 PM
Enfield -

There is a guy on fal files that does very good trigger jobs. His name is Moses. He has a good reputation, and can tune a fal to about a 5 lb. pull. To do it right takes more than just polishing the h, s , t mating parts and reducing the trigger spring return force.