Whoo Hoo!

Finally found a build tutorial: Building the FAL at Home, Assembly

The FAL Files Forums - Building Documentation *COMPLETE*

And

The FAL Files Forums - Gunsmithing & Build It Yourself

Yup, I've seen that thread on TFF. I think it's so old, the OP deleted the photos.

I've found a source for a receiver wrench and barrel vise. Any ideas where one can find a set of locking shoulder gauges?

This is mine:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1303753899.jpg

When I bought it I thought it was the coolest thing since Justin Bieber got his period.

Now, I am actually thinking of selling it to fund the build of a couple G1's.

(I won't actually sell it. That goes against my firearms ownership philosophy.)

The older I get the more I appreciate the original FN design. I never shoot that Para because it's awkward and heavy but my little brother has an Israeli musket that makes me very jealous.

The gauges are pins, similar to gap/feeler gauges for working on spark plugs, etc.


Ditch the rails, VFG, etc. on that para and it should be nice...

Peter, Thanks for all the great input and first hand dialogue. Was the rifle you were issued a regular barrel or heavy barrel?

Cheers, James

CHEESE UND RICE another one with the SICKNESS(FEVER)!. LOL!


ok 1st to address the cost from DSA. a STG-58 austrian on their site is $1150. thats the long barrel. read their site for particulars.


i want a long barrel and the possibility of getting a folding stock. a bipod and a evil black full automatic sling. thats it. and i want black evil plastic with tac-ti-kool vents.



now what the hell model do i want? what model do i steer clear of? what will always have a good parts source for crap that breaks some day?


i just want to get a case of beer, my amigos, my pick em up, ma dawg, drop the tailgate and blast the hell out of it, at cans and come home and q-tip clean it within an inch of its life and throw in the safe with all the others.

I DO NOT WANT TO MODIFY IT! I DONT WANT RAILS OR LAZER BEAM DEATH RAYS! I DONT WANNA BE A MALL NINJA! i just want a shooter that with some federal 168gr BTHP MATCH will shoot some decent groups and hit the broadside of a barn.


i like flavors 1-2-9-10 going left to right. what the hells the difference? thanks.

Number 2 is an early British L1A1 built on an inch receiver

Number 3 is a G1

Number 4 is an Australian built on an inch receiver

Number 5 is an STG-58

Number 8 is an Israeli Light Barrel

The one on the floor is an Israeli Heavy Barrel

All are ready to rock-n-roll when the zombie apocalypse starts

Oddjob - check the SA58 - they are Imbel kits/parts, has the config you want except for the silly long break/fh. The Imbel muzzle device is more like the ones on either end.

BTW - I don't think you'll need to worry much about breakage - Ol' Dirty is at 19k+ rounds w/o cleaning (except a mud puddle visit around the 4k mark) and no breakage. The FAL Files Forums - The Tale of Ol' Dirty. A Texas Legend. (Update: over 15,000 rnds fired w/o cleaning)

coming from over 30 years of ownership of a very bad azz UBERIZED TO ALL HELL, HK-91 by ralph smith at RDTS w/1200 meter iron sights and (3) very uberized M1A's. (1) being a super duper match mcmillian/arrington from hell another a socom from hell and the last a "loaded", both done up by phil arrington to beat the band.

i'm just looking for a shooter. deer/elk/antelopezzz/bear/zombeez. at a good damn distance. no fuss no muss no mall ninja crap.


from what everyone said that i had talked to, this damn canadian L1A1 that i found and lost, was quite the model to own. dont know if thats true by your standards as you know FN's like i know M1A's and HK's.


do i want INCH?

do i want metric?

does it matter?


havent a clue.


i like the price point on the STG-58. is that a nice one for decent distance and reliability? w/ninja bipod/folding stock/black evil sling.


i love spoons that can get clobbered with mud dirt dust rain snow sleet puke. having nice spoons is real cool, but when ya feek 'em up, your heart just sinks and yer wallet gets lighter.

i did not get drawn for elk here this year. my buddy DID and its a LATE HUNT! and LATE HUNTS = MUD / SNOW/WET. and with that carrying a nice spoon in a case is fine and dandy, but yer pooing yerself if ya think yer gonna get that pup out of its case when ya see any kritters. on the bars front or back doesnt matter in a late hunt just plan on buying some rubbers for yer barrel and bringing some towels to wipe all the crap off. they just get wasted dirty. hell one late deer hunt here i may as well have thrown my damn m-1 carbine down in the mud and dragged it behind me..................for miles it was so covered in crap.


so thats what i am looking for in a fn. after watching britain kick the arggies azz all to hell in the falklands in just downright crap weather conditions, i know a fn is a great rifle. i am willing to spend whatever it takes to get one that just SHOOTS over and over and over with MINIMUM BABYSITTING!


to throw the other side of the coin in there, summers here are just as bad with all the dust. talk about learning HOW TO LUBE A SPOON and NOT LUBE A SPOON! may as well drag yer spoon behind ya in all the dust here. front or back of quad they just get filled with dust. the only way they DONT get filled with dust is going by yerself or being 3 miles in front of yer buddies quad.


so ya think a austrian STG-58 is the answer to my quest for a straight shooting all around spoon?

o thats what i am looking for in a fn. after watching britain kick the arggies azz all to hell in the falklands in just downright crap weather conditions, i know a fn is a great rifle. i am willing to spend whatever it takes to get one that just SHOOTS over and over and over with MINIMUM BABYSITTING!

Both the brits and the Arggies used the FAL as their main battle rifle in the sheeplands war.

I remember reading about accuracy problems with the FAL? Something about successive shots stringing vertically, this is aimed single fire. Regardless, I think it is the most beauteous modern battle rifle ever. I will be very happy to see a FAL build thread. I guess the first decision is, metric or inch?

The rifles we carried were semi auto with regular barrels. The heavier full auto rifle was in service but they were rare.

oddjob - inch vs metric basically comes down to ergonomics - the pistol grip on each is different. I prefer the metric. Inch guns can use metric mags mostly but they will be wobbly. Metric guns can only use metric mags. A lot of the parts will interchange. Inch guns do not have a last shot bolt hold open - metric do. But you can add the metric part to an inch gun. I think w/ my small hands the "extended" style selector switch from the inch guns is easier to operate - and I can put one on my metric gun. And I think the Indian (dot not feather) mag release (a long horizontal bar) is better as well, and again I can put one on my metric gun. Butt stocks attach differently between inch and metric.

As to which FAL will give you a straight good shooter, I'd say just about anything built by someone who knows the platform and avoid Century and Hesse like the plague. Yes, you can get good guns from either (I had a great Century) but it is really a crap shoot, and they have no resale value. Bargain bin is DCI (Dan Coonan) receiver, better but not much is Entreprise, then DSA, and then a licensed manufacturer (Imbel, etc).

If you think you will want to convert to Para at some point, go metric and remember that you have to do more machining on the upper, get a new lower, get a new bolt carrier, etc. to do the conversion.

Still think your best bet is to handle an inch and a metric, see which you like the feel of better, and then spend some time watching the marketplace forum on the fal files site.

hey thank you for the info. theres another one in local paper i will check out. i will start checking into ergonomics of inch vs. metric. here for hunting and about everywhere else i know of you CANNOT have/use/possess a mag bigger than 5 rds. PERIOD! get caught hunting w/a 20/25/30 rd mag and its BAD JU JU and rightfully so. i have noticed some of the para models at 8.2#'s up to above 10#'s for some of the other models w/full stocks and heavy barrels.


i looked at gunbroker and about keeled over on the belgian made fn's. HOLY NED THEY ARE PROUD OF THOSE! and from looking i have noticed arggie models/indian models/brazil made models and damn near 1/2 the world mfg'd them on license from FN.


one of the smartest things i did was ROGUARD my HK-91. that stuff is the katz azz as far as bad yucky weather be it rain sleet snow mud dust and your ability to clean weapon and weapon to function in the worst of conditions. it doesnt matter here what mode of transpo you use unless spoon is cased all the time. and reality is a cased spoon is a WORTHLESS SPOON when it comes to kritter time. yeah i have had picture perfect hunting days, but usually they are few and far btwn as we always try and put in for late hunts which include bad weather historically.

gonna have to go shoot my buddies fn and play with it as far as taking apart and putting back together again to get familiar with them again.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1303819094.jpg

here we are in a typical deer hunt. me w/my hk and my peudner with his fn. ya just GOTTA LOVE THE WEATHER HERE IN AZ! everyone thinks its a DEZERT and LOOKS LIKE THE SAHARA!

You can get a 5 round mag from DSA, or put a block of some sort in a 20.

yes thats what my buddy did was snag a bunch of 5 rd mags. they draw a premium from us. i snagged a bunch of 5 rds for my hk when they were cheap. we love the military spoons for obvious reasons aka weather mud snow sleet yuckiness.

try finding 5 rd mags for a m-1 carbine. oh boy! you will spend some time there. anyway as you can see the later the hunts here in the west, the worse the weather gets. depending on the hunt unit you get drawn for , your ability to get away from other hunters can be different. some units we DONT SEE ANYONE! others hunters are stacked up like cordwood on top of each other. and when the weather hits..............well thats when the hunting GITS GOOD! kritters move around alot as a low pressure system moves in. either looking for grub or looking for a place to bed down for the storm. for us alaskan cold fronts sweeping down generally have about 3-4 days of crap weather associated. then it clears up, sun comes out and snow starts to melt and the damn place turns into a MUDBOG! and you and everything else get covered in it. and if YOU havent had the FUN of cleaning a weapon covered in mud...............well YOU JUST HAVENT LIVED!


when the weather is nice thats when the really spendy nice spoons come out and get used. the above pic was when we were young and STOO-PID! and HARDCORE HUNTERS! you would need a crowbar to pry us out of a hunt unit if the weather got bad. now we have gracefully aged, become wiser, AND BOUGHT A FREEKING 18FT DUAL AXLE TRAILER WITH MR. HEAT and PROPANE, a HONDA GENERATOR WITH BIG AZZD COTS!


yeah after a 10 day-2 week hunt sleeping in a tent, freezing yer azz off, having to deal with smoked oyster farts and slim jim farts, you tend to start thinking of CREATURE COMFORTS !

Carried an L1A1 for 13 years - and it had bolt hold open on the last shot as far as I can remember.

You guys have reopened the desire to get my paws on one again. Still have all my wood furniture for it from when I was in. I'll have to dig that out.

The bolt open devise is built into all versions of the rifle but it's disabled by removing one part. (from memory)
It's a very simple device that is engaged by the floor of the bullet shelf of the magazine when the last round is fired.

What we did is load a tracer round second to last so we knew when the last round was in the chamber.
Worked beautifully. It was a standard thing in Vietnam.