FAL Questions

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Bassin'ForLife

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Couple of quick questions for any FAL guru's out there.

Backstory: Purchased an FAL from a friend a while back, knowing it would probably need a bit of work. It consistently will not eject, regardless of ammo or gas setting. I changed out the springs in both the upper and lower, no help. As far as I can tell, the bolt is only moving about halfway back at the most. So, my next project has been making sure that the gas system isn't malfunctioning at some point, which is where the questions come in:

The tuning adjustment- how tight should the slider be? This one moves fairly easily, but I've handled FAL's where it was difficult to move and some that seemed like there was no spring tension at all.

Gas tube- there is a gap where the gas tube meets the block around the chamber, probably 1/16-18th of an inch. I couldn't find anywhere in the field manual or online whether there was some sort of tolerance for this or if it was even supposed to be there.

Any help would be appreciated, I'm having trouble finding any info on those two items specifically.
 

HiredHand

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Do you have any idea of who built this FAL? Is your gas plug oriented in the correct direction? Is the barrel correctly timed to the receiver? Also, a few pictures might help us out if you don't mind posting them.
 

Bassin'ForLife

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Yeah, I'll see if I can find the digital camera and post some pics. Its a Century build. Gas plug was originally on the grenade setting, thought the fix would be that easy but it definitely wasn't.
 

sumoj275

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There is so many possibilities that you will need to attack it in parts: gas system, lower receiver, and return spring. PM coming your way.
 

peanut

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Sounds like the gas port needs to be opened up a bit.
Pop the pins out of the front sight block and with a set of # drill bits find out what size your gas port in the barrel is.
Then go to the FALFILES and have them help figure which port size would be optimal.
 

sumoj275

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Drilling the gas port is the last thing that you should do, it could be the a solution that masks another problem. If the gas port needs to be drilled out (sometimes carbon is built up in there and causes problems) I recommend that you leave the gas block on if all possible--just like a car if you take old parts off other problems can arise. Just let me know when you get time and we can get that sucker running.
 

Bassin'ForLife

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Had an hour or so before work today, so my buddy grabbed his FAL and we did a quick comparison. It appears as though I have an inch pattern upper on a metric lower. In addition to that, I disassembled the upper and lower to see how it was all functioning manually. The action itself works very smoothly, the bolt and carrier move uninhibited and it locks back on an empty magazine like it should. However, I noticed a few things with the gas system:

The piston, when the spring is taken off, does not slide down into the receiver freely. It binds for the first inch to inch and a half of travel in the gas tube. I am resonably certain the gas tube and possibly the piston are tweaked in some fashion, so I'm going to order a new one of each. Its not a very tough bind, with some wiggling of the piston it will move, but its enough to make me question it. The gas tube also has a small gap, 1/32 or 1/64 of an inch between the receiver and the end of the tube. I'm not sure if there would be an issue with gas escaping, since the tube itself has the ports at 4 and 8 o'clock positions.

The gas key moves clockwise and counter clockwise very loosely for about 5 degrees in either direction.

Sumo, as soon as I get some free time one weekend I will give you a shout. I'm eager to get this running!
 

peanut

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Piston should not be binding when the spring is removed and should drop freely through the gas tube and through the receiver. Turn the piston around and insert piston head first through the gas tube and see if it drops freely through the gas tube. It should. That should narrow your binding to the receiver. Or not!

Is the gas tube Solid in the gas block? It should be.
 

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