Went to the range today with 300 rounds of .308, 100 rds of romanian 8mm, 100 rds of
yugo 8mm 70's vintage and 100 rounds of yugo 50's vintage. I had a new striker that
needed to be trimmed and to test some improvements to the grip stick. I relocated the
hammer spring tube to give it a better angle and added a proper trigger stop. I also had
a new hammer.
I started off with .308 and was getting light strikes, so I shortened the striker and ran a
100 rd belt non stop, rapid fire. all went perfectly. I inspected all the primers and all looked
good. ran a second 100 rd belt and it went as good as the first. I then switched to 8mm
and started witnh the romanian ammo, had 7 rounds with deep dimples that failed to fire.
this seems like an awfull high percentage of misfires. Then I switched to the yugo ammo
70's vintage, I fired about 10 rounds and the belt came apart. there were 2 short sections
that looked like some sort of connector links, I reloaded and after a few rounds had smoke
billowing out of the gun from the bbl jacket to the back of the receiver.
I tore down the gun and didn't see anything wrong. Reloaded and after about 15 rounds the
belt broke. reloaded again and after a few more rounds had another "smoker" this time the
case didn't eject, inspection didn't show anything abnormal. I fired about 70 rounds of the yugo,
and had3 misfires and several of the " smoker" rounds. I then switched to the 50" yugo 8mm
and after about 15 rounds the bolt extension welds broke ending the testing.
All in all the fal fcg has proven itself, the hammer holes in the gripstick have stretched
and for that and a few oother reasons I think that adding thicker sideplates to the
gripstick is necessary. It should be possible to add them without increasing the width of
the grip stick. I have some metal coming and will start on re doing the fcg this week.
I have made some drawings of the parts needed to convert the gripstick to the fal fcg
and will be getting some made for anyone who is interested. The set will run about $25.00
I am also looking at a complete weld in lock frame too to make the conversion as easy
as possible, as the placement of the holes is critical for proper / reliable operation.
