School me on FAL

[Backcountryrenegade]

Looking to buy an FAL. School me on good/bad brands, things to look for, etc- thx!

[USMC88-93]

Not to steer you elsewhere as there are more than a few knowledgeable individuals here but I would say you should also seek info and do some reading over at the Fal files. Here is a link.

http://www.falfiles.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150

I would personally look at the offerings from DSA

http://www.dsarms.com/FAL-SA58%20Rifles/products/8/

[jerrymrc]

I moved it here. It would take a few books to do that and they are out there. That said you might start here. http://www.ar-15.co/threads/78809-FAL-for-the-win

One other thing that has come to my attention is that normal mags that I have all over the place and do not use since I paid like $2 each for have now shot up to $20-$30 each.

Heaven help ya if you want the aluminum mags that used to be $5 and are now $40+

So one can buy from DSA but that is no guarantee of how it shoots but it does come with a warranty. In this day and age Fal's are not an AR. Once running right they will do so forever but many that are used to out of the box perfection will be disappointed.

Just some thoughts.

[jerrymrc]

Not to steer you elsewhere as there are more than a few knowledgeable individuals here but I would say you should also seek info and do some reading over at the Fal files. Here is a link.

http://www.falfiles.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150

I would personally look at the offerings from DSA

http://www.dsarms.com/FAL-SA58%20Rifles/products/8/

[USMC88-93]

So tell me a story about the one on the left...........................

Just some thoughts.

[jerrymrc]

So tell me a story about the one on the left...........................

The gun that is famous? I had a solider that came in 6 months ago and saw the pic and stated that He saw that on some forum and "Like, yea right." I explained that the pictures of the worlds lightest Fal are all over the place.

The story. Back in 2001 or so I wanted to build a Fal that was different and came up with an idea. I wanted a stainless look and started on it. About 2003 DSA comes up with a gun that is stainless and looks like what I wanted to create. So now I am livid and look to do something "out there".

Fal's were being built in almost any caliber between 9mm pistol to 8mm rifle and everything in between. Meeper was making them in everything. Rhinelander had kits in 45acp and a couple of others.

So I buy all these parts and a Falfiles member (FWRA,RIP) has part of a Meeper kit he wants to sell. So I buy it along with a WAC and a DSA alloy lower and the rest is history kind of. I have $800 into a gun when you could still build them for $350 and everyone is asking why? Because I can.

I fought the PPS43 mags for 3-5 years and then saw a post about the PPS41 mags in the AR15 for 7.62X25. Understand that the toy was Bang, bang, click, Bang,click, click, Bang, bang, click for years. About 2009 I modded PPS41 mags and the bolt and it has been a happy camper since.

It still has it's issues sometimes but I now can play for 300+rds before that becomes an issue. Blowback guns make a big mess but the bottom line is that it is a Fal and it shoots 7.62X25 and weighs 5.8lbs.

[splogan]

Sadly the soldier that saw the gun saw it on a car site because of me Jerry knows more about FAL's than most here could dream of, take his words as sage advise. Hell I am married because of a FAL he built. As for DSA being hit of miss, I had one of their 16 inch guns somebody was storing with me. It was less that stellar in the reliability department. My full size kit gun ran much better.

Similar to the lightweight gun Jerry has I have a .45ACP FAL that feeds from tommy gun mags. Assembly has had a few snags but it promises to be fairly light and loads of fun if the kinks ever get worked out.

[JohnTRourke]

I had a couple FAL's for a while. (just decided to go in a different direction, you know how that goes). They ran, they were heavy (but honestly in .308 you want some heft), repeatable, slightly more complex to take apart and clean than a AR15, but really not a big deal once you do it. The sights are ok (4MOA I'd bet) and it's hard to put a optic on them, but it runs and runs all the time. And accurate enough to be banging down the irons plates (rams, pigs, etc) out to 500 yards down at whittington one day. (some dude came up and yells at me "hey, you can't do that" and I"m like why not? it's not .223 and I spent an hour putting them all up I can definitely spend a few hours knocking them all down. (and I did). And these were just IMBEL receivers that had been built up at some point. Used to be (3 weeks ago) you could get a nice running FAL (which is a serious MBR) for $800 and mags were dirt cheap. Today, I dunno, but I bet it's still easier to get a FAL than an AR right now.

[davsel]

Attachment 25085
Attachment 25087

Mounting sights is not a problem if you go with one of the railed dust-covers.

I have two FALs - one built by DSA, trigger overworked by previous owner (light, but doubles if you are not deliberate on pull), second owner. Previous owner did not think 2 MOA was good enough for his intended application - I gladly took it off his hands.
The other is mostly an early Israeli built on DSA receiver.

As posted previously, check out the FALFiles site for consolidated FAL information.
I am sure you will enjoy these great rifles.

[Colorobo]

Your best bet would try to pick one out of the Fal Files Marketplace. That site is great it is where I learned what I wanted. Ammo is expensive righr now. Good Luck