On living down under and chasing shadows.

[Roo]

Members of Highroad,

I'd like to do two things in this thread, and the first is to introduce myself, Hi I'm new to Highroad. Figured Roo was an appropriate name given that I live in Australia and the animals are just so damned delicious they need mentioning where ever possible. I like to think I'm a down to earth and agreeable type of bloke and I'd love to be a part of the highroad community. I'm all for the growth of shooting sports over here. I'm always down for listening to a grandmaster of the shooting arts or learning this or that, it's just the way I work. I suppose you could say I enjoy shooting on a recreational and collecting level.

Enough about me, to the real point of my first post. As some of you may know, we don't enjoy the liberties of any type of second amendment policy here in Australia, which creates the conflict that I will talk about in a second. As an Australian, I feel a sense of pride in the soldiers of my country and the tools they had to hand in past wars and conflicts. So I naturally I admire the FN FAL, or as we called it when it was issued to our troops, the L1A1 SLR. Gorgeous thing. Only I can't own one since they are restricted on account of being self loading. Case in point; I have heard in the uncited voices of my acquaintances that there is a manual action variant of the FAL/SLR, but am stumped in finding one. I was hoping the fine folks of highroad could point me in the correct direction, if indeed there is one?

 

[John Parker]

Welcome to THR, Roo! Glad to have you aboard and I'm hopeful that someone here can help you get your manually-operated SLR.

 

[content]

Hello friends and neighbors / Welcome Roo

I lurked here for a long time getting info before I joined.
There are indeed many knowledgeable folks posting and many regular Joes like myself that have info in certain areas.

Sadly I do not have the onfo you desire. Hopefully someone will put you on the right track soon.
Enjoy your day and this site....content

 

[NukemJim]

Hello, welcome to THR. You might want to check out calguns at http://www.calguns.net/ they specialize in firearm subjects relevant to California residents. California has many Anti Gun Lawsand there is a small but viable market for firarms that are legal under California laws which bans many centerfire firearms. I have seen such items as a AR-15 that loads from the top, a stock for an AR-15 that is not a pistol grip stock, and a magazine release that requires a "tool" to activate (the tool is a round of ammo).

I do not recall seeing what you are refering to but I was not looking for such.

Good luck with your search.

NukemJim

 

[sidibear]

Here in the UK there is the Southern Gun Co which specialise in straight pull single action assault type rifles.

http://www.southern-gun.co.uk/?page=items&cat_id=1

They may know someone down under who does the same kinda thing.

 

[Just One Shot]

Welcome from Ohio.

Sorry, I can't answer your question.













P.S.
You're more than welcome to move to America. We can always use another gun loving individual supporting our cause.

In fact, I'd be willing to trade a certain politician to your country to make up for the negative body count of your departure!

 

[inclinebench]

Hey JOS...we have one politician to trade? Man I think we have a few thousand we could trade for one quality individual.

 

[elrod]

Welcome to THL. I don't know about a bolt FAL, but there are plenty of viable substutes such as the Winchester M-70 or a Remington M-700. If you heve not fired either, then you may be pleasently surprised.

 

[Ian]

Does it have to be commercially produced? You could make a FAL single shot only by closing the gas port and removing the gas piston. I don't know what the legal details are there, but with some judicious welding you could make it a pretty dang permanent conversion.

 

[Just One Shot]

Hey JOS...we have one politician to trade? Man I think we have a few thousand we could trade for one quality individual.
Today 08:24 AM

I'm with you, when do we trade?

 

[Roo]

You're more than welcome to move to America.

I've considered this more than once, actually.

Thanks all for your interesting replies.

I don't know what the legal details are there

I believe any modifications would have to be done overseas, produced along with some kind of legal document explicitly stating that the rifle is no longer self loading, because one cannot import self loading firearms, even if they were to go straight to a gunsmith for alteration the second they arrived. Would a 'judicious' welding, in anyones opinion, cause this hypothetical SLR to be ass ugly?

 

[rfurtkamp]

Permanently welding an adjustable gas plug in the 'grenade' position using a STG-58 plug would render it a single pull for life, as would some other disabling of the gas system.

Not saying I want to own one like that but the FAL is pretty easy to get to single shot mode.

 

[loadedround]

Welcome Roo. I have a lot of respect of respect for you Aussies having served with your army types a few years ago. I have also painfully learned never to try to outdrink an Aussie drinking thier beer. G'Day to you Roo!

 

[Hold My Own]

Hey, how's it going Roo? Welcome to THR.

I'm not sure if it'd be legal where you live, but I got the idea from an AR. Maybe you could disable the gas system so you'd have to manually load a new round after every shot? I'm not really familiar with the platform.

 

[CooperThunder]

Hi Roo....a fellow Aussie. I am a Melbournian...personally I live here in the US most of the time because I can own guns here...

Welcome to this forum. I do not know you can own any type of guns over there and whenever I go for a visit (at least twice a year I go home...) I feel naked without my conceal/carries. A while ago, I was talking to my husband about my Glock, easy to assemble and all that. Then I thought...if I can bring parts over to Oz on each of my visits, I will be able to have a gun...but what will I do for ammo? the subject was immediately dropped. No point. Can't own, can't shoot. Can't even practice. :banghead::banghead::banghead:

 

[MachIVshooter]

Here in the UK there is the Southern Gun Co which specialise in straight pull single action assault type rifles.

Not to nitpick, but virtually all long guns are single action, in that the hammer is either manually cocked by a thumb/finger, or is cocked by the bolt when it travels rearward. Manually operated action is the term you're after

Roo-
Welcome to THR. As per your query, sounds like you'd have to have a firearm modified here in the US, Switzerland, Italy or one of the few other countries that don't restrict them and then imported. On that note, however, importing can be a ropyal pain-especially with weapons. Here in the US, it takes a bit of paperwork, some fees and a fair amount of time, and we can't bring in just anything we want, as some provisions in our laws don't allow the importation of firearms that fail to meet certain "sporting" requirements, or that come from particular countries. I can only imagine it'd be that much more difficult in AU.

If you do find out that you can, I imagine the US would be easiest to deal with, due to the fact that the FAL is readily available (Belgian and US made) without loads of red tape and at a decent price. I think our exchange rate with you is right about $0.85 USD = $1 AUD, BTW (The Girlfriend recently moved back across the pond after six years, and is still playing with money transfers).

 

[Radagast]

Roo, I'm an Aussie and I am going to have to disappoint you. Importation of guns that are bolt action but otherwise appear similar to a military rifle is illegal as of earlier this year, when the customs regulations were amended to prevent importation of rifles such as the HK R8.
A few years ago a couple of acquaintances imported a pair of straight pull AR15 rifles to shoot High-Power matches with, when they arrived in the country their import permits were canceled and they had to send them back - customs deemed them too evil.
Going back a few years before that, a dealer in the ACT imported a large number of pump action rifles that were a modified AK47 action in a Druganov stock. Again his import permit was cancelled and the guns seized after they arrived.

So importation is out.

Beyond that, several states have regulations that have the same prohibition so if you were to have a gun custom made you would have to check with your states regulations first.

There were a handful of single shot rifles built on the SLR pattern back in the 1960s for evaluation by Fullbore shooters after the SLR was found to be inaccurate compared to the old heavy barrel .303s. These were not successful and Fullbore went to the Omark rifle instead. There was an article on one in Guns Australia a few years back.

The only way to get your hands on an SLR is to become a dealer or get a collectors license and purchase a fully welded up deactivated one. Neither option is cheap.