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  1. #1
    I am a Forum User
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    School Me on FALs

    I've wanted a FAL for a while now, but haven't pulled the trigger, pun intended.

    A true FN is way more than I want to pay, so that leaves me with clones or other licensed productions.

    So what manufacturers should I be looking at and what else do I need to know? I've seen the IMBELs and DSA Arms which look decent. I sort of understand L1A1 clones are the ones to look for and to stay away from metric.

    Any other info a FAL expert can share would be appreciated.

  2. #2
    I am a Forum User
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    FALs have gone through the roof. As you said you want to look to see what reciever it has. DSA and imbel tend to be the best but manufactures to find but you need tok see if the feed ramp is a double feed ramp or if it is a one piece cut known as the unibrow. The unibrow rifles are much less desirable as they tend to hang up on feeding. I have one that works fantastic so it is more up to each individual gun if you ask me. Century made quite a few from parts kits. Some imbel receivers made it in the mix and they are still less desirable as they are century builds. I have a few and my century r1a1 runs just fine.

    The L1a1 is known to be the best but get your checkbook ready as most don't have that much cash on them.

    The metric guns use different magazines and they are really hard to find and usually expensive. I have all metric guns and mags and even those have gotten more scarce and expensive.

    Main thing you picked a bad time to get into them. Lol. They are a lot of fun and were at one time the leading battle rifle of the entire east side of the world west of russia and china.

  3. #3
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    If you find a heavy barrel fal with wood furniture known as a falo then buy it. The value just continues to rise. They are not cheap but they are fantastic shooters made for full auto fire off a bipod. With a 30 rd mag they can dump all on a nice tight group quick. I love mine more than my L1A1 and others.

  4. #4
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    Also if you find a "baby poop" green with really bad paint then buy it or tell me. Those are rhodesian gold

  5. #5
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    Also 308 is life.

  6. #6
    MGO Member Fuel Fire Desire's Avatar
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    DSA FAL’s are all metric. From my experience there’s more support for metric guns out there, but that’s probably just because DSA is the big producer right now. Quality is superb on my 2010’s vintage DSA. Excellent machining. The most solid feeling semi auto I own. Accuracy is just ok, but that’s a result of how the FAL operates. 2” at 100 with decent ammo. They are pigs though. The receiver must be steel because of how recoil is handed off through the bolt, into the receiver, and back into the barrel. I have the “lightweight” version. Upper receiver is aluminum, the gas system is shortened to reduce the length of the piston and length of the heavy section of barrel under the hand guard, and the barrel is fluted. Naked from the factory it was 8.5 pounds. With all the tacticool crap I’ve added it’s in the 10-11 pound range now. The trigger is crisp with a well defined wall and a positive reset, but very heavy…around 9 pounds. The short crisp break is still good enough to be accurate or rip off fast strings even with the weight.

    If I were to do it again, I would not get the carbine. One thing I didn’t think about is where the gas system vents. It ports gas’s off vertically right behind the front sight. I’m not one to C-clamp grip, but if you do, your thumb is right on the vent. It would not be a good day if you covered it and fired. A 1/8” jet of 60,000 psi gas would probably burn a hole in your thumb. The regulator shoots a 12” vertical flame on the carbine with a hot load.

    That said, it’s very smooth and light shooting. With the big dumb brake I have it recoils like an AR. I can very easily get double taps on steel at 100 yards. Although it’s not my “go to” rifle, it is my favorite rifle, and one that I will never sell.



  7. #7
    In Memoriam postban's Avatar
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    Had the FAL phase 20yrs ago, meh. Pig heavy, spotty accuracy and garbage trigger, just slightly better than HK91's.

    AR10 is the way and the light.

    This is friendly RAIN on your parade.
    "The path to true knowledge is paved with wasted money" copyright postban forever!
    NRA Endowment Member, 2AF Life Member, GOA Patriot Member

  8. #8
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    .." AR10 is the way and the light."
    Reading this thread & the above was my thought too ..with the AR 10, why would anyone want a FAL ? just to be different ?

    Before I bought my M1A Scout Squad, I looked @ FN FAL's and some clones. Decided I'd prefer the support and history of the Springfield M1A.
    A Scout Squad is the model I found & purchased, it was previously owned but unfired. Believed it was the best rifle I'd owned.
    It became my favorite rifle to shoot..until I decided I needed to change some things. I wanted a bipod, & a brass catcher.
    An improved trigger would be nice too. Discovered how challenging it was to find accessories in stock that I wanted (& expensive.
    Mounting anything other than a LER scope was challenging, (requiring a different mount than that already on the rifle)
    Couldn't find a brass catcher for an M1A anywhere, always "out of stock", and needed to carve up the stock for a solid bipod mount..
    which I didn't want to do..so I bought an AR-10.. so accurate, & easy to find parts & modify to my liking.

    About a year after getting a PSA PA-10...( PSA's version of an AR-10) I sold my M1A Scout Squad.
    I found I'd stopped shooting my M1A SS after I got my AR-10 because : AR was more accurate, easy to swap triggers,
    easy to mount brass catcher & bipod, mags easy to find , hi quality, & inexpensive. Even has mild recoil, for a .308
    Easy to modify and find parts.. so again, why would anyone want a FAL ?
    Last edited by joepistol; 07-09-2022 at 05:35 PM.

  9. #9
    MGO Member westcliffe01's Avatar
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    If you served with a FAL, one has a connection with it. My conscription in 1986-87 came just too late to be issued a FAL, I had the ZA version of the 223 Galil, the R4. I personally only liked 1 feature about the Galil and that was the folding stock. The rest of the weapon was very angular and there were a lot of pointy bits that would work on you if you carried it on your back on a sling. I was a combat engineer and walked with a metal detector for nearly 4000km in 87 doing mine clearance with my rifle on my back and a chest webbing with 200 rounds of ammo in addition to the mine detector. Our clothes had particular wear patterns on them from all the pointy bits on the Galil.

    We did shoot the FAL during training and in semi auto mode it subjectively just seemed like a much more robust hard hitting rifle than the Galil. If it had been up to me I would rather have carried a PARA version of the FAL with the folding but stock than the Galil I was issued with. The thick thorn trees of Northern Namibia were so hard you couldnt drive a nail in it if you didnt drill a hole first. In that sort of cover, I felt a 223 was pretty much useless. If the enemy had a few trees between you and him you were never going to get through with the puny 55gr bullet. Under those circumstances I felt that a greater amount of ammo was of no consequence if you wern't killing the enemy.

    I got to be a gun owner after my green card process finally wrapped up in about 2011 and I got the letter from Homeland security saying "Welcome to America". Of course a very short time after that we had Sandy Hook and of course Barack was already in office thus I became a gun owner at a very bad point in history. Even so I bought a Galil parts kit and a FAL parts kit from Argentina (where they had never been full auto as I understand it). I think it took nearly a year to get receivers for the parts kits. I had heard and later experienced some of the quality problems from Century arms (from whom I bought a Golani sporter) so I made sure to stay away from them on receivers. Today it appears that CNC warrior no longer make FAL receivers, but they still make Galil receivers. Now I would buy a receiver or complete rifle from DS arms, they have forged receivers as one of their options. There is a chap in AZ called Gunplumber who is very opinionated and you may still find videos of his reviewing the different receivers and pointing out all their flaws and shortcomings. Since he would never give me a processing time to build my FAL, I had to pass.

    I had already discovered that getting simple things like match barrels for bolt guns in some cases had waiting times of up to a year or more and basically no spares whatsoever for ordinary savage or Remington bolt guns, just a very bad time to want to start this hobby. In the meantime I have a Savage 308 bolt gun that will shoot 1/4" groups at 100 yards if I am on form and I have built several other high accuracy bolt guns including 243AI, 223 Wylde, 6.5x284. So I have several weapons for the long range engagement scenario. In my view the FAL is not for that purpose, I would see it as a hard hitting medium distance weapon where greater firepower is needed. sub 0.5MOA accuracy is not needed. I wouldnt have a big old scope on it. A red dot with a magnifier or a lower magnification wider angle scope would do. 20 round magazines are fairly readily available and are short enough that you can still get close to the ground, unlike a 30 or 35 round 223 magazine. The adjustable gas system is a great feature if you are forced to deal with different grades of ammo. The muzzle brake can definitely be improved and I wonder if sometimes it may just be eliminated altogether and just go with a recessed crown instead.

    I certainly wont be getting rid of my 1 sample anytime soon...

  10. #10
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    Thanks all for the replies. Really enjoyed reading your background westcliffe01.

    I have an affinity for milsurp type weapons. I recently completed my quest of obtaining at least one long gun and one sidearm from all major countries involved in WWII. A FAL seems like the most reasonable next step, except for maybe a M16A1 or A2 clone. Main reason I became more interested in FALs is reading Jack Carr's Terminal List book series where one of the characters family was in the Selous Scouts so that took me down a rabbit hole reading about Rhodesia. I went to the Antique Arms show a few months ago and came across a IMBEL there, but not knowing what to look for I didn't bring it home.

    I've been perusing GunBroker and other sights. There's a few IMBELs and DSA Arms versions. A few other parts kit clones and original FNs for buku bucks. Not sure I'll even get one this year but I'll know more of what to look out for and keep an eye on.

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