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FAL wont feed

heckinohio

Aluminum
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Location
Ohio, USA
This is a Century rifle, came in as a machine gun, lost its receiver in customs. Century had semi auto version receivers made......somewhere. Material looks like cast stainless alloy to me. Pictures show what the problem is, bullet tip stops in two .040x.040 channels that may go all the way to the receiver front, parallel to the bores axis. I ground the ramps you see. Not practical to grind any farther, I am into the rear of the chamber now. If the little channel does go all the way to the receiver front, further grinding wouldnt help anyway.

Need to fill the little square holes........??? How.??

PJH

fyapV6Vl.jpg

First stoppage, in the field, nothing ground yet.

drBbfKll.jpg

jsldSUul.jpg

Bullet tip jammed in .040x.040 channel end.
o8tA1k5l.jpg

Same situation, other side.
 
mag.jpg

The magazine is not seated far enough up into the receiver?

bend the front tangs outward slightly to allow the bullet to align with the chamber?

have you tried a different magazine?
 
I have NO FAL experience

But I have had FtF due to mag edges catching on cartridge necks.

Something to check
 
I had one of the Century FAL builds, and it was extremely magazine sensitive. I must have went through 30+ mags trying to find a handful that would feed reliably---this was back when mags were $5 each. Even then, the rifle wasn't long in my care, FTF is a deal breaker.

Century was famous at the time for making rifles "hammered together by monkeys". AK's, FAL's, CETME's. The roller locked stuff was the worst, they were crudely grinding on the bolt to headspace it:nono:
 
STOP GRINDING. Especially on the original parts. You are into the chamber area with those feed ramps. I would start to be concerned about getting bulged cases because of them. Have you shot it and inspected the cases for bulges since you ground in the feed ramps? Also decent FAL barrels are going for pretty good money now.

More than likely your upper receiver is out of spec. That rifle also looks to have a mixture of Commonwealth (inch) and metric parts. The hand guard and bipod look to be from an Austrian STG58 or German G1 and the carry handle and cocking handle look to be of Commonwealth design. God only knows what other components are a trail mix. There is a reason that people in the FAL community called Century's guns FrankenFals.

Your best bet would be to find a gunsmith that is very familiar with the FAL.
 
cmmcull; Impossible for the magazine to go up any farther. The magazine well will allow no modification to the magazine. The magazine has it faults. There are two half moon clearance cuts in front of the bullet. These make the problem worse.

Calg; the tip of the bullet is the problem here.

Gewehr 98; I have a machine gun version of this rifle, Belgian made. I switched mags back and forth between the guns, FA gun worked normally with both. The feed ramp in the FA gun is not much different than the malfunctioning rifle........except it has no little square holes.

guncrank; I stopped grinding when I realized no amount of grinding was going to ease the problem. My Full Auto gun, mentioned above has almost as much relief in the back of the chamber as I ground into the errant gun. Usually not a problem where I stopped, but any more might be. More wont help anyway, the little square holes seem to be endless. I put the bipod/handguard on. Wasnt designed for it, but seems to work OK. Lookis to me like the only way out would be to remove the barrel & weld up the little square channels. This town is 3800 population. There are no "gunsmiths" anywhere near close. I do have a really good machine shop guy who is interested in this kind of stuff.

Manage attachments does not work....FA gun in action.

PJH
LExlk9Al.jpg
 
I have the same model rifle. Bought it for $300 and have spent probably another $500 working on it. It feeds "ok" with the magazine that came with it, but no soft points, but will not feed at all with any other that I have bought. At this point I'm convinced that the best use for these rifles is as a decorative wall hanger.
 
"Wall Hanger"... Interesting point, I bought that rifle when klinton was in. It has hung on the wall for that many years. Someone had one with a bipod on and I found a bipod in a parts box here. Soooo, I foolishly took the rifle off the wall, added the bipod. Then....quite naturally, I took it out to shoot. The rest, as they say, is History. It is back on the wall. I may not be done dinking with it, as I have always been able to get whatever I need done.

PJH
 
That reciever looks like is cut for inch mags. Your Belgian gun should use metric mags. They dont interchange very well some may work most don't. That may be some of your problem.
 
This is a Century rifle, came in as a machine gun, lost its receiver in customs. Century had semi auto version receivers made......somewhere. Material looks like cast stainless alloy to me. Pictures show what the problem is, bullet tip stops in two .040x.040 channels that may go all the way to the receiver front, parallel to the bores axis. I ground the ramps you see. Not practical to grind any farther, I am into the rear of the chamber now. If the little channel does go all the way to the receiver front, further grinding wouldnt help anyway.

Need to fill the little square holes........??? How.??

PJH

fyapV6Vl.jpg

First stoppage, in the field, nothing ground yet.

drBbfKll.jpg

jsldSUul.jpg

Bullet tip jammed in .040x.040 channel end.
o8tA1k5l.jpg

Same situation, other side.

MOTHER OF GOD!!!


Congratulations! You managed to "out-drunken-monkey" Century Arms. The receiver wasn't even the dreaded unibrow. The best and easiest fix for this now is replacing the receiver and barrel.

This is why I'm a proponent for background checks and waiting periods on Dremel tools. :wrong:
 
Just an aside, what type of cartridges are you using? The necks have some strange-looking rings. The FAL was designed for NATO 7.62x51 standard ammunition. Inch, and metric magazines are very different.
 

MOTHER OF GOD!!!


Congratulations! You managed to "out-drunken-monkey" Century Arms. The receiver wasn't even the dreaded unibrow. The best and easiest fix for this now is replacing the receiver and barrel.

This is why I'm a proponent for background checks and waiting periods on Dremel tools. :wrong:

The unibrow is what my particular rifle has. The amount of work it would take to make it into a decent rifle doesn't seem worth the cost/trouble.
 
These "cartridges" are dummies, just for bench testing. I was never too concerned about ruining the rifle to begin with. Whatever I screw up in experimenting can be fixed....the knowledge provided will hopefully save someone else grief. These "dummy" rounds feed perfectly now. I have yet to try firing the rifle. Saturday may provide opportunity for that....stay tuned.

PJH
 
Don.......does doing outside the box frighten you.??? Do you also want a waiting period for those who fail to grasp the entire problem.???

I fired the rifle today.....raining....so only 10 rnds. Worked flawlessly. No bulged cases either. This is one time I wasnt able to recover all the empties. Not familiar with FAL ejection pattern and we were in a pasture driveway rather than the shooting area.

Case pictures enclosed.......three of these had distinct creases at the mouth.....had to occur on ejection.???

PJH

MkR1tMul.jpg
 
Don.......does doing outside the box frighten you.??? Do you also want a waiting period for those who fail to grasp the entire problem.???

I fired the rifle today.....raining....so only 10 rnds. Worked flawlessly. No bulged cases either. This is one time I wasnt able to recover all the empties. Not familiar with FAL ejection pattern and we were in a pasture driveway rather than the shooting area.

Case pictures enclosed.......three of these had distinct creases at the mouth.....had to occur on ejection.???

PJH

MkR1tMul.jpg

No, I fear that you accept a position at Century and have free-reign to Dremel away as you please. Your "creativity" is, well, um...:confused: Attached is an example what I would consider out-of-the-box thinking. I made this circa 2008, long before DSA considered shorties. Everyone on the internets said it wouldn't work with the 9" barrel and cursed me for ruining it. It ran without a hitch, as proven by the kisses. I think I have a little bit of experience with troubleshooting the FAL. That qualifies me for judging other's capabilities, or lack thereof. Merry Christmas!:cheers:
falsbr1.jpg
fal14.jpg
 
Way to go....sounds an awfully lot like me.......only you were the nay sayer this time. This rifle does work now with seemingly no ill effects......

Lets move along. Sounds like you have had considerable hands on.....this is my first go around with a Century FAL. Neat enough rifle... How about a bit of help instead of criticism.??? Have you ever had one of these receivers.?? I dont under stand the mfgr. making the square grooves that appear to go all the way through to the front of the receiver. That aside...... Look again at my first picture. The bullet tip is in the square hole in the receiver threads, at least .020, basically under the barrel shoulder.

The magazine positions the bullet tip squarely in front of this little square hole. No way for the bullet tip to go any where else. To ramp a bullet into the chamber, it has to slide over this hole. No amount of ramping can remove this hole. It is still in the bullets path, the bench test bullets all showed tip damage.

The magazine seems to be too far forward.....the area ahead of it is almost vertical. Little or no way to make a logical ramp configuration. Most of the reason I ended up into the chamber. The FN-FAL in select fire SEEMS to have a more angled ramp.......I havnt measured, but seems the mag is a bit farther back from the barrel. Cant change that location.

PJH
 
I had thought about that....probably still worth a try. I suspect the bullet tips being driven into the end off that would soon chip it away. I will try it......nothing to lose.

PJH
 
I had thought about that....probably still worth a try. I suspect the bullet tips being driven into the end off that would soon chip it away. I will try it......nothing to lose.

PJH

Get some Loctite 9340 2 part epoxy. fill the low area, let it harden for a day shape it as desired with your dremel and you will be good to go. The stuff is surprisingly tough and should hold up fine.
 








 
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