FN FAL questions

[TehK1w1]

I'm considering getting a FN FAL or clone, and I was wondering what I need to look for in an imported FAL. Are there certain countries that made exceptional or horrible FALs, certain parts that need to be inspected carefully(other than the standard used gun checkout), or other suggestions? Availability of original or aftermarket wooden furniture? Lastly, what is the general price range for milsurp FALs? All constructive input welcome.

 

[Kharn]

Century FALs are to be avoided, IMBEL recievers are considered the best.

Kharn

 

[nalioth]

Century FALs are to be avoided, IMBEL recievers are considered the best.

... the problem with that is that Imbel made quite a few receivers for Century. These are Century marked and Century sold.

The non-Imbel Century receivers (the ones w/o a widows peak feed ramp) should be avoided.

 

[Josh M.]

Century FALs (CAI imports) are the least desiarable, but they may or may not shoot and function well. If you can test fire it before commiting, give it a try...otherwise, I'd hold off on buying a CAI gun until you are better aquainted with FALs and their workings.

DSA built guns are the top-o'-da-heap. Best of the best. If it is DSA built and in your price range...buy it.

Having said that, I have one of each...I have 4-500% as much invested in the DSA, and it is nicer to look at, but no more reliable.

You should be looking here: http://www.falfiles.com/forums/index.php

And shopping here: http://www.falfiles.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=11

 

[W.E.G.]

Your question seems to assume that you will be buying a foreign-made FAL.

While there are some very good foreign made FAL's floating around, you will pay double for one those, and then people will scold you if you actually fire a "collector's piece."

Many of the FAL's in circulation in the US, and at affordable prices, are rifles built by hobbyists from kits (imported parts) on US or Brazilian (IMBEL) receivers.

Its almost impossible to describe a generic FAL, and cover the landscape of what's out there. FAL's come in more flavors than AR15's. Bet you hadn't thought about that.

Yes, DSA complete guns are very good.

If you have a specific rifle you are looking at, folks will be able to give you more specific advice.

 

[kfranz]

Availability of original wood furniture for metric pattern rifles is slim, as is aftermarket at this time. Commonwealth pattern original furniture is more readily available, aftermarket less so. No country made exceptionally poor FALs, some just used them harder before selling them to Century to be transformed into the current crop of "sporting" rifles.

Hesse, Century, and Entreprise receivers are worthy of suspicion, but many of them run fine. Imbel (regardless of importer) and DSA receivers are generally not suspect, but some of them still have issues. Nothing on the FAL is all that difficult to fix.

 

[TehK1w1]

Its almost impossible to describe a generic FAL, and cover the landscape of what's out there. FAL's come in more flavors than AR15's.

Great, I guess I have some more research to do...

 

[dawgtraxx]

i have an aussie kit on a century receiver, the rifle has never missed a beat..i would say it depends on the individual rifle...shoot it before you buy it....just dont write it off because it is a century...you may be missing out

 

[modifiedbrowning]

I have a Century build with an Imbel receiver and have never had a problem. I did buy it used though, so I have no idea what problems, if any the original owner had. I paid $425 three years ago.

 

[Trebor]

Go to the www.falfiles.com and spend a few hours reading through the forums. Check out the For Sale forum as well. You'll learn a lot and know what questions to ask.

 

[dawgtraxx]

+1 on trebor's post

 

[cameron.personal]

Save your money, mow lawns if that's what it takes... endure the 12 or 13 or 20 week wait whatever it takes and GET A DSA!!!

Buy American, and you get the best FAL rifle EVER made, better than the best Belgium FAL that was ever produced!





Although mine looks all modern and not very FAL like... yours can look like these if you would prefer.

 

[iamkris]

+1 on what cameron.personal says. DSA all the way. Best quality...high price but worth every penny.

 

[Nightcrawler]

DSA rifles run about the same as an AR-10 from Armalite or an M1A from Springfield, honestly. Folks just think they're high priced because they're used to getting parts-gun FALs for five hundred or so. Any rifle is cheap when you make it out of surplus parts (and don't actually have to do much manufacturing).

The best bargain you can find is a DSA STG-58. DSA receiver, build quality on the last of the surplus Austrian parts kits. Snag one if you can find it. I paid nine-fifty or so for mine in early 2002.

 

[TehK1w1]

DSA looks really nice, but I am a college student, with all the expenses that implies, and cannot possibly afford to spend $1200-1800 on ANY gun.

 

[sectional_density]

cannot possibly afford to spend $1200-1800 on ANY gun.

Saiga, perhaps, if you're longing for that .308 auto-loading experience and don't want to spend so much.

 

[AndyC]

Another alternative - if you want to spread the purchase out over a few months - buy a kit over at falfiles.com for about $200 - order an upper receiver from DSA at the same time (they'll only bill you once it's ready to ship, which will take about 5-6 months anyway) and in the meantime do some reading and find someone near you (again on falfiles) who has a barrel- and receiver-vice, headspacing gauges, etc.

Nice supportive FAL community out there

 

[silverlance]

I own:

1 entreprise 2007 build by entreprise arms off an IMBEL kit
1 entreprise 2002 build by entreprise arms off an STG-58 kit
1 entreprise 1999 build by 3rd party gunsmith, STG-58 carbine model
1 imbel receiver build by 3rd party gunsmith, on an imbel kit w/ matching #s
1 dsa STG-58

accuracy is best on the imbel build by 3rd party gunsmith. 2nd best is dsa. reliability is equal on all five. im working on a report.

ive said this many times before, and ill say it again.

entreprise fals are not bad fals. they are just not as easy to build on as DSAs. i have never heard of a kaboom on an entreprise rec, like there is with Hesse, Vulcan, Century recs. also, look on gunbroker. how many dsa fals are there used? lots. how many entreprise do you see used? none or seldom. people who actually get entreprise fals are usually quite happy with them.

dsa rifles ARE much nicer, but are they worth the extra 1200? only you can answer that question for yourself.

ps: any gunsmith will agree that Imbel receivers are just as good if not better than DSA receivers.

 

[Slamfire]

DSA looks really nice, but I am a college student, with all the expenses that implies, and cannot possibly afford to spend $1200-1800 on ANY gun

.

Let this be an incentive to put that nose to the grind stone and get "A's".

And if you graduate with an outstanding GPA, and your degree is not Art History, English Lit, or some other worthless liberal arts degree, you will get a well paying job.

And then you can buy toys.

 

[Father Knows Best]

Silverlance, you've indeed said this before:

look on gunbroker. how many dsa fals are there used? lots. how many entreprise do you see used? none or seldom. people who actually get entreprise fals are usually quite happy with them.

And I'll say what I said the last time -- that's specious reasoning. The number of listings for a particular gun is no indication of how satisfied the typical owner is with that gun. There are lots of really crappy guns that no one has ever been happy with, and yet you'll never see them listed on Gunbroker. Why? Because there is no point listing a gun for sale that no one wants to buy. On the other hand, if you have a fine firearm that is in high demand and worth lots of money, you're very likely to list it for sale, because there is a good chance someone will want to buy it and pay you good money for it.

Here's another example for you -- go see how many 81-86 Chevettes are listed for sale on Autotrader right now, and then see how many 81-86 Corvettes are listed (I picked those years because Autotrader only goes back to 1981, and 81-86 are the years both cars were manufactured). Actually, I'll save you the work. There are 372 Corvettes listed for sale, and one Chevette. Should we conclude that Corvette owners are not happy with the cars and are trying to unload them, whereas Chevette owners love theirs and won't part with them? Hardly.

DSA products can be easily found in the used marketplace specifically because there is a strong market for them. Frankly, that's one more reason to buy a DSA. If you ever need to sell it, you will have no trouble finding a buyer, and have a good chance of selling it for what you paid for it, or even more.

 

[W.E.G.]

We can cut straight to the chase on the Entreprise thing.

Entreprise has a chronic problem with mis-location of the ejector block. How far off? Usually not far enough to prevent the rifle from working, except that there are often problems with the magazine follower picking up the bolt-hold-open device reliably to hold the bolt open on the last shot. To me, this is really not such a big deal. To some folks its everything.

I have two FAL's built on Entreprise receivers. The two receivers were manufactured several YEARS apart (roughly 2000 and 2004 IIRC). Both receivers have that same last-shot-hold-open issue.

A smaller percentage of Entreprise receivers have cosmetic issues worthy of complaint.

An even smaller percentage (very small) are so far out-of-spec that you need to be a very good machinist to get them to work - if it is even humanly possible to get them to work. Again, these are rare, and I would not fear Entreprise because of the unlikely chance that you will get one this bad.

Entreprise has very good warranty service - except that they won't reimiburse your shipping costs to them, and they are likely to even send you a BILL for the return shipping back to you after they repair the rifle. I never paid the bill they sent me when they repaired my STG58C many years ago. At least they DID fix the rifle (gas tube, and headspace issues).

DSA has better quality control on their receivers for sure. But, then there are things like the DSA para bolt carrier which has had people screaming about spec-issues. Nobody is perfect.

If you want to "build" a FAL yourself, be sure to take the time to enjoy the build, and don't expect to save any meaningful money. You may even end up spending a LOT more than if you had just bought a rifle ready-to-go.

There are some very nice FAL rifles that come up for sale on the FAL Files marketplace forum from time to time. That forum sees less traffic these days. But, if you keep your eyes posted for something built on a DSA or IMBEL receiver you might really make out on a good deal. Rifles built on other brands of receivers may be very good too. But there is a little more element of uncertainty with the other brands. When it comes to FAL rifles in America, show me exactly what you are looking at, and I may be able to offer some insight and guidance.

 

[TehK1w1]

I went to the gun shop today and they had a new CETME there for $687. Is this an FAL clone? Is it a decent gun?

 

[HorseSoldier]

CETME is unrelated to the FAL. The CETME is related to the HK G3 (it preceded the G3). Definitely not a bad design, but if the rifle in question was built by Century International (CIA or CAI depending on when they rollmarked the receiver) it is very definitely a case of buyer beware. You may get a solid shooter, or you may get serious headache. Century shipped a lot of headaches when they were building CETMEs.

 

[silverlance]

well, Father Knows, I agree that you do have a point as well. However, I woudl argue that people sell DSA rifles because they believe that they've spent too much money into a rifle that they no longer want to justify keeping it as a safe queen or infrequent shooter.

Folks who buy entreprise (provided it was built by entreprise or they had a good gunsmith build it) pay less than 800 each. given that, it may be that the reason why we dont' see entreprise fals often on gunbroker is that people feel that since they don't feel they have too much tied up in a particular gun they can justify keeping it even when the price of .308 goes through the roof.

in any event - two entreprise fals went on gunbroker recently, a 20" govt stg58 and an stg58 carbine. the govt was bid up to $705 and I bought it at that price. the $800 one had honest wear and was several years old. I bought that one, too.

now let's look at this. a new stg58 from entreprise runs 900$ . a carbine model runs about 950$. dsa rifles sell for 1600 to 1800. used they are usually bid up to about 1100.

my report is not done yet, but my conclusion is similar to WEG's. if you really want a perfect fal, you have to build it yourself. the best shooting fal i own is an imbel on an imbel kit that was built by three falfiles members working together in a senior member's workshop.


so.. if people

 

[Father Knows Best]

they had a new CETME there for $687. Is this an FAL clone?

As HorseSoldier stated, the CETME is not a FAL. Not even close, actually, except for the fact that both are 7.62x51 NATO caliber semiauto rifles. The CETME is a Spanish design that drew heavily from the work of German designers in WWII. The CETME design became the basis for the German G3, which in semiauto form is the H&K 91. It uses a retarded blowback system of operation. The FAL is the work of Fabrique Nationale, a Belgian company. It is gas operated.

They serve the same purpose, though, and the basic designs are both solid. Both the FAL and the CETME/G3 served well in military service for many decades.