I should know better.
Bought a CAI FAL from a guy off a local gun board. Even after reading all sorts of horror stories about CAI FAL's. It wasn't in great shape but no worse than many CAI guns that need a little TLC. Asked the guy how it functioned, he said he never had an issue with it. Not FTF's no FTE's, he must of also been a French model...
. My first clue should have been the gas setting was set at 1.
Oh well, guess I'm not a smart person so I went ahead and bought it. Took it out to the range for a function check. It's not the worst CAI gun I have ever bought but it's going to need some work. It spits brass all over the place and won't function reliably with Winchester White Box 7.62x51 to Magtech M80 7.62x51. I get get brass spitting out 10 yards to my one o'clock, then brass that barely dumps out, then brass that kicks out to my three o' clock two or three yards, and usually one failure randomly every 10 rounds or so. This is with the gas setting at 1. Tried moving it to 6 because I thought it might be getting over gassed and it FTE's every round, then tried moving it down on setting and it wouldn't cycle more than three or four rounds before another FTE until I get to the one setting.
I did Switch to SA battle packs and switched to a different mag, I made it through a couple mags with no issues except it is not consistent in where it throws brass.
I got home and started a thorough cleaning. It was filthy to put it lightly. Still lots of cosmiline and carbon build up. I'm really hoping this might be part of the problem.
Any help addressing the gas system issue would be helpful.