My shooting buddy and myself went out to shoot the Pacific Armament Corp. (PAC) FAL rifle I traded with another member here. Here is what went down:
After firing the first shot I noticed that the bolt carrier was not driven rearward to extract. Couple more rounds and each had the exact same occurrence. Disasembled the gas cap and removed the op-rod for examination. The one piece stainless steel operating rod was bent. Obvious solution, order one from DSA (which I have now done).
What the heck, we went ahead and put the gas system back and shot it single shot. The recoil was, for me, about the same as .223 with just a hint of some powerful pushing against the shoulder. Nothing at all painful or uncomfortable. I can only imagine that the recoil will be taimed considerable once the gas system is up and running.
As far as accuracy, well... that's going to take some adjusting work. The front sight is way to low causing it to shoot about 8 inches high. For the life of me, why is the rear sight so close to my face that I have to wiggle around it to obtain a clear sight picture?? Couldn't the rear stock be longer?? Why the tiny little rear stock??
Anyway, the FAL is pretty nice, it just needs "tweaking". Oh, by-the-way, the bolt hold open device does not work as intended. I guess someone at PAC felt the need to shave metal off the hold open so that, after last round if fired, it doesn't hold the bolt open. No big dead though. I don't particularly care for that (holding bolt open on last round) anyway. It could allow dirt, mud or other contamination in the mechanism while reloading.
After I get the new op-rod, we'll take it out again. Hopefully get the gas adjusted and work on those sights. I am optimistic that we'll get it running good.
Lawdog