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Posted: 10/18/2010 2:29:43 PM EDT
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Noticing some parts kits around and thinking it would be nice to have a mag fed battle rifle in the stable. How difficult are we talking here? Plug n play like an AR or are we talking more intensive like building an AK? |
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The assembly is not that hard. But you do need some special tools.
Receiver wrench, barrel vice, head space guages, pin guages and barrel timing tools. The tools can run several hundred dollars. The hardest parst is the head spacing. However, you can't do the head spacing until you have the barrel timed right. For a one time build, it's cheaper to buy a completed rifle. The tools buy for them selves if you build several rifles. If you post your location, someone may have the tools you can use. |
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I don't have any experience with building a FAL, but I plan to buy the tools and do it in the future. I'm getting tired of the AR's and the Glocks. I want something more challenging, and I want to know how to repair all of my own weapons. It may come to a point in the future that you may not be able to have someone else do it.
[tin foil hat]I hope it never comes to that, but if it does, I don't want to have a useless firearm if it has a problem.[tin foil hat] Edit: I've always said if it was built by a man, I can do it too. Money is the only thing that has stopped me. 
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I built mine on the cheap and is was not that difficult. Only items I bought were the pin gauges and go/no-go gauges. Everything else can be done with some ingenuity.
I built my barrel vise out of a couple of slabs of oak, routed a barrel channel out and bedded the channel with acraglass (shims used between the halves). Both halves bolted together with big bolts/nuts. Receiver wrench was built out of scrap aluminum I had laying around. Traced the receiver outline on the Al, dremmeled and jig-saw cut out the shape, finished with a file. Cut the 1/2" drive square with drill and jig-saw. It was a one time use item as it was bent to hell after torquing the barrel. My barrel was tight so I used some valve lapping compound on the threads and "chased" them until it would screw in. Tap would also work but expensive. My barrel timed early so i had to take some meat off the barrel shoulder. I used a sharpie marker and small file to remove metal until it timed right and made full contact. Finding headspace is as easy as getting about 2 fingers pressure to close on the go-gauge, while trying different sized pins. Get the right one and add .001" (I think) for the barrel/receiver to set. My locking shoulder was large so I stoned it down to the size I needed. Make sure to maintain the correct angle. I would be doing more of them if the parts kits wern't so expensive now. |
Building a FAL was my first real gun project, unless you consider an AR I put together in ~1985. It is easy to put an FAL together with a good reciever. I used an Imbel for the first, DSA  for the second.
My first build was similar to Myfakename's, in that I had file back the barrel shoulder to get my STG kit barrel to index up. I bought a hell-for-stout barrel vice with replaceable inserts I've used many times over. That was my only real tool, costing less than $100. My headspace gages were a box of factory new match ammo, pin gages were a drill index I already had. I had three locking shoulders to choose from, and one of them matched up well. I've shot ~1000 rounds through the Imbel. |
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