Well, like I said, at one time in the not so distant past (Man, I'm starting to sound like the old farts at the gunshow that say- "I remember when them 03's were $17 shipped to your door from the DCM.....") you could buy/ build a Fal for very reasonable money. It was everymans battle rifle-the fact that that era ran concurrently with $130/1k ammo didn't hurt sales either!
When an M1a was $1000 or more, mags were $40 and spare parts high too....and you could buy/build a FAL with a complete set of spare parts, 40 mags and maybe a case of ammo for that money....it was kinda a no brainer. I was fortunate enough to have the money to make it happen at the right time. The guns I have, in reality, have paid for themselves. I bought the Imbel parts kits from Tapco to build pretty cheap and sold them pretty dearly though not as dearly as some. So, the Fals I have were pretty much self funding- the kits I sold off more than paid for the guns and spares-parts and mags I have kept. Hard to beat that deal.