FAL problems

[Nightcrawler]

I took my FAL carbine out this weekend. It went from being as close to 100% reliable as I could hope for to being non-functional. The difference is that now it's got the carbine barrel on it.

Multiple failures to eject and stovepipes. Ejection was limp, with the brass falling out of the rifle, even with the gas system set on one.

Gunplumber thinks the gas port might be the culprit. The barrel is a DSA/Badger 16.25" I purchased back in November or December.

EDIT: Did some research. It would seem my gas port it likely too small. I don't have any drill bits between the 7/64 size and the 1/8 size (the optimum for a carbine is usually 0.120", which is in between those bit sizes), but that's the best guess.

Fairly easy fix, at least.

 

[Bwana John]

the optimum for a carbine is usually 0.120"

I would say .120" is the maximum, not the optimum for a FAL carbine with a regular length gas system.

 

[ny32182]

Who did the barrel install?

And, why not just get a dedicated, factory built upper? Also, I would think that a DSA barrel would have the gas port correctly sized for length prior to shipping?

I'd be curious to know whether DSA expands the gas port on their STG58C carbines. It was one of the questions I never actually got answered.

Only problem I've had with my carbine is a (still unexplained) curious sticking of the bolt/carrier to the rear during manual charging, but it hasn't actually caused a malfunction yet. I don't think it would have anything to do with the barrel length.