Took my FAL shooting today, mostly just for function and mag testing.  The rifle is a well worn Imbel parts kit I built onto a Century receiver.



I have a total of 10 mags and fired about 80 rounds today, mostly loading 4 per mag/string to get equal left and right position loads.

3 mags functioned 100% and each of these got about 13 rounds total through without a failure.
4 had consistent failures from the LEFT position only.  The bolt was missing the case base and instead hitting the round up near the shoulder and jamming.
1 wouldn't lock into the rifle
1 had a sticky follower and may need to be disassembled, cleaned and reassembled, then tested again.
1 failed to present the rounds high enough for the bolt to strip them.

I've seen info about modifying the upper receiver to make the lower opening more closely match the shape of the mags to smooth feeding.  But since 3 functioned perfectly, I don't know that this is warranted.  I'm hoping that by comparing the functioning mags to the others that I will be able to tweek the 4 to work correctly.

The one that wouldn't lock in and the one the wrong height both need to be checked for dimensions and hopefully can be tuned.

Any thoughts on these mags?  They are all surplus.  Some have Falcon base plates and followers (two of the 3 good ones).  Some have been refinished IIRC (4 four left-feed failures).

Rob

I did this on my DSA that I had problems with. Mine was so bad it was gouging the brass however and actually stopping feeding.

I found mine like styer mags and I got 6 of them and theyre all I use now. Gun runs 100%

Don't worry...a proper locking shoulder is installed.

My DSA SA 58 std model works well with all metric mil spec magazines.  The gas setting is adjusted properly and a feed problem was never an issue. With a 3 X Nikon scope the best accuracy that I can achieve is a 2" group at 100 yds. Fun rifle to shoot.

Since starting this thread, I have purchased an older Century-build (in Canada) L1A1 with a nice British parts kit and Parker Hale barrel (but cut for only metric mags).  Anyway...took the L1A1 shooting today and used several of the mags that gave left-side feeding problems in this rifle.  The L1A1 ate them right up, so it does appear to be a rifle (or more properly a rifle & mag combo) problem.  I intend to soften the corners in the feed area of the receiver and contour to more closely match the magazine feed lips to try to get this rifle to accept any metric mags.

Rob

It sounds like you are having "bolt over base"or BOB issues where the bolt rides over the base of the cartridge.  You can search this problem on the FALfiles forums.  The bolts are chamfered at their base and if your mags don't present the rounds high enough the chamfer will allow the bolt to ride over the rounds.  Sometimes its poor machining of the semi receiver or loose fit of the mags and some have improved the situation by pinching used mags in a vice to somehow present the rounds higher so the bolt catches them on the flat part of the bolt.

I assembled two kits on 2003 Imbel receivers.  One with a g1 lower feeds fine with all my mags.  The other Imbel kit has had the bolt over base issues(same metric bolt chamfers on each so BOB with either bolt). There was about 50 thousandths of an inch play that my mags could be raised up to meet the bolt.   I have added length to the top of my mag catch to present the rounds high enough to feed but this could have been fixing something that was not broken.  My receiver may be off somewhere else.  Now I am having my bolt hold open not working with all the mags(my mags all have replacement US made followers).  I will be trying the original followers back in my mags eventually and I can file down my weld on the mag catch to return to original if needed but now I have it feeding through the full mags.