Armory Sponsor
Posted: 1/2/2004 6:11:42 PM EDT
| I am looking to by a FAL from DSA and was wondering what you all out there have for barrels 16 or 20 inch. Why do you have what you have and what kind of range and accuracy does it produce? |
|
Accuracy is generally more a function of sight radius. The FAL barrel lengths all use the same sight radius, the shortening of the barrels take place in front of the front sight base. Now shorter barrels may have gas problems, may have greater flash and blast, may not balance right for you, and some loads may not like a shorter barrel. All of those will have an impact on accuracy. If you bolted a 20" FAL, an 18" FAL, and a 16" FAL to the shooting bench and shot them, you would not find a great deal of difference. As range increased, the velocity differences would start to affect things, but over the normal 500meter and under it's not going to matter much. In the real world, there isn't much difference in performance between a 16, 18 or 20 inch barrel over normal ranges you'd shoot. Things like how well a muzzle device is mounted and it's quality, how well a person shoots that particular barrel length, how well that particular barrel was made, even things like how the handguards fit will make more of a difference in accuracy than the length of the barrel in the FAL. In the practical world, it's not going to matter for accuracy. Now muzzle blast, etc is a different story. Ross |
|
Yes as far as accuracy goes, going shorter won't hurt in real world use. but FAL's burn their rifle powder in about 17" of barrel lenght. Thus going to a 16" barrel WILL have greater muzzle flash. and report. But you will have a better handling carbine. As for me I split the two and went with 18" barrles on my STG and my Imbel/R1/ Izzy clone. Keep in mind your mileage may vary.And void where prohibitated(sp)by law. 
|
| That is a question you can ask 20 people and get 20 different answers. To make it even better you might want to think about getting a short gas system or a long one (this does change the sight radius). I never could decide, I wound up with a 18" medium contour no brake. For me (this week) this works best. |
Armory Sponsor