Ever since I bought my Armalite AR-10B over a decade ago, there has been a couple of things that really bugged me about the rifle,
the carry handle, and AR style charging set-up.
Took care of the carry handle recently, as documented in the thread
Loosing-the-carry-handle-on-my-AR-10B .
I know, should have just bought a flat top upper, trouble was that Armalite has had them listed as 'Out of Stock' for years,
or just sold the weapon, and bought some other brand with what I wanted, but I have another complete long range upper for this rifle, with nearly 2 dozen mags, and didn't want to start all over.
After trying to find who had made a side charge conversions for other ARs, so I could just buy the pieces, over in the AR Variant section (
Loosing-the-carry-handle-on-my-AR-10B ),
and since I had my upper stripped to do the flat top conversion any way, bought some steel, and started making shavings.
Here is one of the ARs I found under Google images where someone else had adapted a FAL charge handle to an AR:
Note, on this example, the charge handle will reciprocate with the bolt carrier.
Mine will not, and will stay in the closed position when the BC cycles.
Found a T-slot cutter on eBay that wasn't made in pandemic china, that fit the bill.
Using a piece of W1 tool steel, cut the initial slot to depth.
Then using T-slot cutter, cut the side groves to accept the FAL charge handle.
Machined a slightest flat on the side of the receiver, so not to loose too much wall thickness,
then drilled the slide base with 3 attachment holes, and 2 holes at the end of where the slot would go.
The mount holes were then countersunk to accept M4 FHCS, and the receiver drilled & tapped to mount the base.
Then the slot was cut.
Still a long way to go.
A lot of deburring, need to get in the correct length cap screws,
have to make a new pin to fit the FAL charge handle, long enough to engage the AR bolt carrier,
and modify the bolt carrier to mate up with the pin.
More to come....