I voted for the DSA FAL, but actually before I sent them all that $$$, I'd either roll my own, or place an order with ORF... I'm currently building an FAL carbine, based on an Imbel kit, and a Coonan receiver - awaiting the barrel's return after being sent out for cut, crown, thread and gas port opening - should be in this week, as a matter of fact(OH, YEAH!!!)
After much research, and asking around at the FALfiles(I'd HIGHLY recommend looking around over there), I decided to have my barrel shortened to 16.75"... My reasoning for this is such: as others have mentioned, shorter than 18" causes the 7.62x51 to lose alot of it's ballistic advantages - so I was shooting for 18" OAL for my barrel - including the muzzle device... The extra .75" past 16" is because I figured that should disaster strike, and my threads get destroyed, I'd still be able to do a cut and crown, yet be barely over the 16" minimum... A typical threaded FAL barrel has approx. 5/8" of thread/shoulder before reverting back to full OD - so at an extra 3/4" over 16", I still have a little breathing room... OAL including a typical Imbel combo device will be 18 and 1/8" - which should STILL be plenty handy, without giving up too must ballistically, IMO...
I'll let you know how it turns out - but basically, it'll look pretty close to a DSA SA-58 Carbine - while costing under $500 - not bad, if you ask me...
- georgestrings