Saturday, July 16, 2016

My new favorite rifle

Today I had to get out of New Orleans for a bit and go reconnect with America.

I headed out I-10 past Slidell until I reached the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area and the Honey Island Shooting Range. It was here that I gave the new FAL a try.

I came out skeptical, but came home seriously impressed.

The sights needed a bit of tweaking but she consistently hits a six inch steel gong at 100 yards and the function is flawless. 80 rounds fired today (and twenty kept loaded in a mag in reserve for the trip home) and no defects, failures or surprises.

I LOVE this rifle!

And a FAL with brass marks below the ejection port is a happy FAL indeed. Don't ask me why they all do this. They just do.

And here's a father and daughter shooting an AR-15 together. Because America.
Almost everyone on the rifle line seemed to be shooting some type of AR today. I remember not too many years ago when I was often the only AR shooter on the range and was even mocked by other shooters for having one.

Great range at Honey Island. Just a 100 yard rifle line and a 25 yard pistol line, and a bit more restrictive than I like, but the Range Officers were all polite, professional and non-asinine. Two of them came over to see the FAL, asking what it was and admitting to having never seen one before. It sure beats dealing with "know-it-all" types, most of whm really don't know jack. And the mix of stands for paper targets and steel gongs available to most shooters makes for a good shoot spot for just $6. I'll definitely be back out here.

8 comments:

  1. The brass marks are when the cases are ejected they spin as they go out the port. Go look at the case mouths and see if they caved in (or the rims dented on one side.)

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    1. Now before you go shoot next time with your FAL, put some duct tape right over that area. That will take care of the brass marks. Oh,and I always wanted a FN-FAL 'Para'.

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  2. Outstanding! One that actually worked at the range the FIRST time out!!! :-)

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    1. I know. I've built four of them from parts kits and only one of them really worked well. But this one was put together at DS Arms, and it's great. The other FAL I have was a part-kit build too, but whoever did that one knew what they were doing as it ran like a champ first day I took it out, too. Now I have two .308 fighting rifles come the day...and an M-1A that has never failed me.

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  3. Never had an opportunity to own one. Wanted to.
    Thanks for the photo of the father and daughter shooting.
    Brought back memories. :-)

    gfa

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  4. Anonymous2:30 PM

    I also have a DSA para FAL I like a lot. Any ideas for a buttpad? Especially in prone shooting the corner of the aluminum stock really digs in to the shoulder.

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  5. Anonymous9:37 PM

    Sweet

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