FAL Problem

[Seven High]

I own a kit built FAL. It suffers from light firing pin strikes approximately 10% of the time. I tried three different brands of ammo but all three suffered some light strikes. Any suggestions of what to look for?

 

[dave5339]

Not sure as to what is causing the light strikes.

I would suggest though taking a trip over to falfiles.com. A fount of knowledge for all things FAL.

Semper Fi

 

[FALna45]

try a new set of springs, they're cheap. check gunpartsguy.com
could be hammer or firing pin spring.
-pull the pin & inspect it for breakage or chipping.
-make sure the FP's channel in the bolt is burr & gunk free.
-make sure the hammer's movement isn't hampered on the forward throw.
-make sure the hammer's not dragging on the bolt carrier's 'rat tail'.
something may be stopping you just short of locking up
-look for wear from dustcover interference
-make sure the BC rails and their corresponding rails inside the receiver are burr free & not binding
have you checked headspace? does the brass look ok?
what kind of parts?

 

[JohnKSa]

Other than what's been mentioned.

This could be a result of the round not fully chambering which could be caused by a dirty chamber, fouling around the bolt/chamber interface, or from a weak recoil spring.

Also check the hammer spring.

 

[Plink]

If it's not a weak spring, it's likely to be excess headspace. You might check firing pin protrusion also.

 

[spartacus2002]

I had the EXACT same problem, except 20% I did all the stuff in post #3 above and more, but nothing worked.

Finally, I discovered that the problem was the aftermarket hammer. It was an early generation FSE one. In comparing the hammer to the original hammer by putting them both on a pin and lining them up side by side, I discovered that the face of the FSE hammer was about 1/2 a mm further to the rear than the original hammer -- thus it was not sending the firing pin as far forward as it should.

Replacing the FSE hammer with an original hammer fixed the problem.

 

[JohnKSa]

spartacus2002,

Not that anyone's likely to check, but I believe that installing an original hammer in your FAL probably violates 922(r)...

[edit]Ooops--nevermind--misread your post count and posted something you're almost certainly aware of.[/edit]

 

[spartacus2002]

you just have to replace 7 of the specified parts with US-made parts, and I have replaced 8 of the specified parts with US-made parts, so I'm compliant.