Gunco Forums banner

anyone tried diy FAL upper?

2K views 12 replies 7 participants last post by  bulletboy 
#1 ·
With the shortage of FAL receivers stretching on, I'm sort of surprised I haven't heard of anyone machining their own. I have a complete blueprint, but I dont have the tools or skills. There's a lot of talent here on Gunco, anyone thought about this? (of course I'm not talking about selling or anything constituting manufacturing, thats a given.)
 
#3 ·
I have a buddy who built up one of the "80%" receivers....he's a master machinist and he told me it was closer to being a 40% receiver.

He actually built it up into a .358 Winchester....basically a .308 Win. blown out to 9mm....so it's a 9x51mm.

Takes standard FAL 20 round mags too.

He had the "Model" engraved on it as "Mjollnir". That's Thor's Hammer. :viking:

Very cool.......but he cationed me that it was a VERY serious undertaking, not for the faint of heart.
 
#4 ·
I bought several of the raw castings from Tapco back when they were on sale for about $14. Plan was to machine them out for pistol caliber conversions. Lots of machine time involved in these, the heat treat will be critical. Several people have documented their progress (or lack thereof) on the FALFiles. Bottom line, unless you have a milling machine and the knowledge to use it this project is not for you.
 
#5 ·
True, all true.. my thinking on this was that surely theres some accomplished machinists here, and that the companies that make (made) the receivers arent doing any magic, so I kind of figured it should be doable by somebody comptent in the machine shop. Mainly, I've had my FAL parts under the foot of the bed for about a year and a half (at least) and wishing I had picked up one of the Imbel receivers back when I could have. Now I'm scouring the gun shows, and waiting for Coonan. I'm curious to see what kind of pricing he'll have compared to DSA.
 
#6 ·
They are definitely do-able, but one of the major problems is a lack of a complete and correct blueprint. There are several "reverse engineered" prints out there, but so far all are missing critical info or are just incorrect.

The manufacturers also use CNC machining centers, it's a lot cheaper and faster to just clamp a chunk of metal in the machine and remove a completed receiver 5 minutes later. Takes a little longer on a manual mill when you have to setup for each cut individually. Unless you batch operations and crank them out in the 100s, economy of scale will always favor the manufacturer and price a small scale machinist right out of the game. Doing one for yourself is one thing.....
 
#10 ·
yeah apparently they should be heat treated to 40 rockwell C. Although since I'm not knowledgeable or otherwise trained in the metalurgical arts, I wouldnt know how to do that..
 
#13 ·
An email from Dan Coonan, as posted on falfiles -->

We have done a fair amount of hardness testing of various FAL type receivers. The only receivers that should be used as a benchmark or standard are the Imbel commercial and contract (military) receivers and the various receiver remnants
found on rifle kits. The most common of these receiver remnants is the front end section; still attached to the barrel. We have just recently
seen center sections and back end sections from L1A1 and G1 rifles. Here is the scoop in a nutshell: All Imbels and contract (military)
receivers are SOFT!!!!!! LESS THAN 20 (TWENTY!) Rockwell 'C' Scale, with the EXCEPTION of the UNDERLUG/LOCKING LUG AREA. The Underlug/Locking Lug area has been spot treated by either induction or resistance heating to the critical or transformation temperature and quenched ; no tempering. The result is a hard spot, about 57 Rc, blending to 18 -20 Rc within 1/2 inch radius. Our best engineering analyses of this spot treatment (and we sent our head engineer on an all
Ireland Pub Crawl BEFORE he kissed the Blarney Stone!) is this: They wanted the locking lug something better than dead soft - around 25-30
Rc. So they spot hardened and quenched. By eliminating a Draw or Tempering operation, they saved BIG BUCKS! - and that's the only reason
it's 57 Rc and not 25 Rc.
Our parts are Normalized, Hardened, Drawn - three different heat-treat operations - to 25 to 30 Rc and then fully machined in this hardened condition. We have tried other methods. This is the most predictable. DSA receivers measure 25 -30 Rc anywhere and everywhere. Some people
claim their receivers are 'rock hard' - they fail to claim they have rocks in their head!
As an added note, this is an extremely hard part to check accurately. We have been forced to SECTION parts and prepare them for hardness
evaluation. The inclination is that the parts measure softer than they are due to part movement while testing, and the heat-treater making them
harder because of the lower readings, This can be SO MUCH FUN!!!!
I have more to say, but I think I'll have a pint of Guinness before the Blarney wears off!
Thanks for giving me this opportunity!
Dan Coonan
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top