Just bought a FAL... WTF do I have?

[Miami_JBT]

I just purchased this Century Arms FAL for $800. Came with six 20rd magazines, Condor "Tactical" sling, forend rail, and twenty five rounds of Lake City 7.62x51mm NATO. I haven't shot it. Everything is nice and tight on this rifle and the finish is excellent. Just a few dings in the stock and a little parkerization is worn from where the charging handle is.

Anyways... some pics and explanations.





The receiver has the following on it. The IMBEL Gear logo followed by...

FAL
RECEIVER MADE BY IMBEL - ITAJUBA - BRAZIL
C.A.I. GEORGIA, VT

On the upper rear (just below the rear sight) of the lower it has a serial number of 226527



The serial number on the IMBEL receiver is FAL14XXX. What's interesting is that "FAL" is done by electric dot and the numbers are not and "FAL" is just off line and is not aligned with the numbers. It appears that the "FAL" part of the serial number might have been added after the receiver was made and the numbers were struck. The numbers are in the same font as the information stamped on the receiver.



Inside of the magwell it's stamped "2004".



The IMBEL receiver is marked "Cal. 7,62mm (.308)". The lower has the following selector markings. "S", "R", "A". No other marking are on the lower. The selector switch will not move past the "R" but I am not sure if this is due to the selector switch itself or simply the pistol grip.



The rear sight is graduated from 200mm to 600mm.



The front sight post has "0", "4", "8", "12" stamped on it. The gas selector has no markings on it.



There is an "A" stamped on the gas plug.



There are no other marking on the rifle. I took the forend off and there are no markings on the barrel. The bolt carrier is stamped with a number that does not match anything else.

[SteyrAUG]

FAL "parts kit" gun built using a Imbel receiver and possibly even an Imbel parts kit (hard to tell).

The receiver of course is great.

Assuming the parts kit didn't have a "cooked barrel" (CAI is famous for bottom barrel poor quality part kits used) you might be in really good shape.

The real danger when it comes to CAI is the use of very substandard 922r compliance parts and excessively poor builds.

Substandard parts issues can be fixed by substituting higher quality DSA or original Imbel parts, if you use Imbel you have to maintain compliance with 922r.

Thankfully FALs are pretty user friendly when it comes to builds so it can require effort to screw them up. CAI is still capable.

Basically run the rifle, make sure is shoots straight and cycles and does everything a rifle should do. If it does that and it has an original military barrel (probably) that is not at or near the end of it's life then you have something worth putting more money into if desired.

You can get a complete Imbel parts kit with an original military barrel for around $400 or so. Might be wise as a source of spare / replacement parts.

If you got really lucky and it's built right and runs right you might only need to replace a handful of cheap pot metal grade compliance parts with new DSA parts and end up with an excellent rifle for not a lot of money. And if that is the case then you will probably just want to get it refinished as the CAI finish is usually pretty sub par.

I had an Imbel on Imbel build done for me and then finished in black parkote and it is easily one of my favorite FALs.

[bm176]

nice, does yours have double feed ramps? had one also with the imbel geared receiver, built using steyr parts kit lower/barrel all matching numbers.

[Miami_JBT]

Originally Posted by bm176

nice, does yours have double feed ramps? had one also with the imbel geared receiver, built using steyr parts kit lower/barrel all matching numbers.

Yes, it has the double feed ramps.

[Kain]

A friend of mine had one a couple years back, paid $700 for it with only one mag so I would say you did pretty good. My only issue with his is the it grouped consistently to the left even running the sites trying to center groups, didn't run a whole hell of a lot through it though, it did always groups tight with ball so if you can get it on target and centered it may very well be a tack driver. I will say this for his, it did not like soft point ammo at all and would not feed. He had it for about 8 months and then sold it for $900.

[shootist~]

It looks like the gas regulator is screwed completely shut. If it ejects into the next block you will want to back it out some. An operators manual would be a good addition - learn how to take it apart (and more importantly how to put it back together).

DSA used to sell a re-print of the original FN manual. This may be the same thing:
http://www.dsarms.com/FAL_SA58-DSA-O...ctinfo/601DSA/

[nabO]

That's a pretty good buy nowadays. Doesn't look like it was built by Century fortunately.

Now get rid of that horrendous rail and get a set of standard hand guards like it deserves.