For the first time in maybe 1000 rounds since I bought it, I had to motar eject a fired cartrigde out of my FAL, DS Arms, circa 2004.

Was firing some German surplus rounds, and they were not locking the bolt back on the mag.

So I turned the gas setting - I could not remember which way was more gas, so I went from 4 to 5 - 50/50 chance.

Fired a round, the bolt had moved back a bit and would not come out, with the carrier back a bit more.  Just could not get the assembly to unlock.

Finally I held the charging handled down with pressure, and banged the buttstock onto my shooting case on the bench.  Worked fine and sent the brass case flying out.

No other problems after that.

Anyone else every had stuck fired cartridges in their FAL?

Not sure what a mo-tar is....

Mortaring -
Yep sure have, usually when I changed to new ammo or when just doing initial firing after a build and trying to get the gas system adjusted. Not enough gas, bolt will partially extract the case then run out of energy, the bolt will not go back far enough to pick up another round from the magazine and the recoil spring will drive the bolt back home jamming the fired casing tightly into the chamber. One of the beauties of the FAL with the easily accessed and sturdy side mounted charging handle.

I did because  the problem was that dsa scope mount the screws on it backed out during  recoil on FAL. This slowed down the bolt to point it did not move. I found out when I couldn't  pull the bolt out of the receiver.  I double  checked  the bolt movement  with the original  dust cover on it and it moved normally.  So put on the scope mount  screws with lactate and solved that  problem.

At that time, thought it was a gas system  problem too, I took apart  gas piston system  apart  and cleaned  all the parts and the gas block area and gas port.

Fal is running normally.

Thanks for the info.  I have the FAL manual, but since I'm online now, let me ask about gas port setting and the numbers.

Do lower numbers mean less gas, or more?

Have been running it at 4 - which I arrived at after doing the whole turn it way shut, fire a round, open it up, fire a round, till the mag lock it open, then another click.  But was many moons ago so I don't remember what the numbers correspond to for more / less gas.

The higher the number, the more gas that is VENTED. If your look at the gas regulator, the front edge is tapered as it passes over the vent hole. As the regulator is turned more or less of the vent hole visible. Less vent hole visible, more gas being kept behind the piston.

Makes sense.  I was having mag hold open issues at 4, moved it to 5, had a stuck case, moved it to 3, hunky dory.

Just for comparison, what gas settings are other people using?  I'd not had any issues before on 4 till the German stuff, which cycles my M1 Garand fine, while ZQI ammo doesn't.  Though ZQI was locking the mag back without issues.

Don't ask what settings others are using. It's useless info, and poor taste to ask that.

3.5 or 4 is usually  the general gas  setting.  I am running 3 setting.