HELP- my new FN-FAL won't cycle

[General Disarray]

As the title indicates, my newly built Israeli HB on an Imbel won't cycle rounds. I started with the gas adjuster on 7 and one round in the mag, and proceeded to fire, adjust down, etc until I got all the way to .5 on the dial. So now even dialed all the way down I can't get it to throw the bolt back and lock open on the mag. I was shooting 168gr. PMC's.

I bought this through the paper in another town far away, so before I drive 3 hours one way to have the guy who built it start messing with it I figured I'd ask the experts here. What can I do?

 

[onebigelf]

First thing I'd do is make sure the gas plug is set to "A", not "G". Next, pull the bolt and carrier, remove the gas plug, piston, and spring. Clean the gas tube and reinstall the piston sans spring. The end of the piston should slide through into the upper receiver without binding. If not the tube is misaligned. See if you can get that far without going, "Aha!". Also, somebody check me on this, doesn't the Israeli HB use a different length piston? Seems I saw that somewhere. Any chance the builder used a US piston to get the 922r parts count and used the wrong one?

John

 

[BBBBill]

onebigelf gave good advice to start you out. I've seen lots of builds where the barrel was torqued up a little off leading to piston bind.
Inch/Metric gas pistons came in two lengths. Early was about 11-5/8"and late about 11-9/16". Izzie gas pistons are a little longer at about 11-3/4". If yours is not correct, DSA makes one - http://www.dsarms.com/prodinfo.asp?number=US019IS .
Also, with the recoil spring out, does your bolt move in and out of lockup smoothly? Do the locking surfaces of the bolt and locking shoulder look unmolested by ham fisted filing? A locking shoulder can be adjusted to fit if you can't get the proper dimension one, but it must be done by someone who understands the requirement for precision. Best fit in a purpose made fixture that holds it at the proper angle in on a surface grinder. I've seen many that were hacked by "bubba."
Hope this helps. Good luck with your fix. FALS are great.

 

[Jim K]

Check the ammo. My FAL would not extract with South African ammo until I polished the chamber, but it worked fine with other ammo. The SA stuff apparently has soft brass.

Jim