personally, i have built ak's on hesse stamped akm receivers without any serios snags.

however, there are fal smiths that refuse to work on hesse fal receivers.

a friend of mine bought an early hesse fal that was nothing but problems. after two attempts to cure it, he disassembled it and rebuilt it on an imbel...end of problems.

i agree that hesse often gets some undeserved bashing by folks that are only repeating what they have heard as opposed to what they have expirienced. but, there are also plenty of documented horror stories about hesse to at least merit some caveats.

the problems of hesse's fal receivers have been well documented over the past two years on the web. perhaps they have improved their products of late.

for my money, the imbel is the way to go if it's a fal that is being built. if it's the ak we are talking about, the hesse is a viable alternative...although i still feel there are better choices here, also (itm/o.o.w., f.e.g.).

as far as the galil goes, the choices are limited to altering a bulgarian, the firingline, disassebling a valmet and hesse. the hesse is probably a viable choice here, also.

you got it phil. and for that, we must commend hesse.

the cost to bring a receiver to market is very high, and the headaches are numerous.