FAL Sight Question

[fissionproducts]

I am the proud owner of a DSA SA58 T-48 replica. I believe this rifle is equipped with a belgian style front sight. The front post is very small. A seasoned shooter I know joked about my front sight post being missing when he shouldered the rifle.

I am concerned that this may be the reason why my shooting is inaccurate past 70 yards. Do any of you have recommendations on either replacing the front sight post or a technique I could employ as a shooter that would help me utilize this sight better?

Keep in my mind I would like to keep this rifle as close to an original FN FAL as possible.

 

[john l]

Let me try to help.
First, you say that you are inaccurate past 70 yards. You need to define "inaccurate" a little bit better. This could be as simple as trying new loads.

I would shoot your rifle at 25 yards to get elev. and windage, and take the target out to 50 yards and re-adjust. Your FAL's lowest setting should be at 200 meters. If you look at 308 bullet drop charts, if your bullet is 1/2 an inch high at 50 yards then you should be real close to dead on at 200 yards.
Your DSA is probably metric, so you can adjust the yards to meters just to be sure. Out to 200 yards/meters is not tooooo much different.

Keep in mind that a new rifle is a new rifle, with some getting used to, so be patient.

If you think that your front sight is too far down and it shoots just fine, then so be it, leave it alone. Otherwise, I would contact DSA and get with them and let them figure out a solution to one of their products.
One thing nice about FALs is that you can configure them in many different ways, and some inch parts will fit on metric recievers and so on.

keep us posted, and make sure that you give very detailed information, so that we can help.
john l

 

[NoHarmNoFAL]

I am assuming that you are just having trouble aquiring the post. Try putting a "dab" of paint or something that would catch your eye. My Imbel has a rather low post (Belgian type also) and I used a little silver paint for the post. What kind of groups are you looking at?

 

[shoobe01]

I refuse to believe its too small. I decided mine was too /big/ for accurate fire, so buzzed it off and embedded a much smaller pin in the sight plate. Screwed it in and it worked great.

Also, its as black as can be to avoid odd lighting, and hence inaccuracy, from the round post. With that sight shape, any other colors can be a problem.

My first thought it to practice. Make sure you have a good cheeckweld and look right thru the rear sight. The ears in front should help a lot with generally pointing in the rifle, then the small post can be picked up for real aiming. And I agree, what sort of group size are we talking about here?

 

[Dollar Bill]

One option you have is to replace the issue front post with a "KNS" cross hair type front sight. Several people have commented they like them. DSA at www.dsarms.com and Brownells both sell them at about $25 each.

Another thing to consider is the standard metric FAL is issued with 4 different front sight heights, 1 dot, 2-dot,3-dot and 4-dot with the 1 dot being the shortest, and 2 dot the "standard". I had a rifle which came with a 1-dot front sight which had been filed down so it was indeed short and hard to see. I replaced it with a standard 2 dot. Look on the disk with the numbers on it which surronds the post. The dots are the "dimples" located on one side or both sides of the post.

I don't see the T-48 replica listed on the DSA web site anymore so I don't remember what they look like. I am thinking the T-48 was built like and "inch" rifle, based a lot on the Canadian C-1, so....there is the possibility your rifle has an inch type front sight post.

Helped or confused?

 

[Ship A'Hoy]

The front sights are measured in height by dots that are on the sight along with the numbers you see on there. There are 5 different sight heights from zero dots, the shortest, to 4 dots being the tallest. You will need to see what it takes to sight your rifle in with, and all rifles can be different in regards to what height front sight is necessary for sighting in.

http://www.dsarms.com/item-detail.cfm?ID=012&storeid=1&image=frntsitfalb.gif