Martin Baxter wrote:

Nav wrote:


That being said the weapon is ridiculously expensive, complicated,
heavy and far too powerful to make a good assault rifle.


Yes, I agree the recoil is (was) not well enough controlled to make it
a great automatic weapon. It was also not that accurate I(MHO) as
compared to the .303 I shot in competition. However I often ended the
day with a sore shoulder from firing .303 in a shirt and never had
such a problem with the FN SLR. People still use .303 for hunting here
-how about in Canada?


Indeed the gas operation takes up a lot of the recoil, and for a lot of
people this
makes the FN, or any other gas operated semi-auto more accurate for that
person, (less afraid of
a sore shoulder), even though the weapon is in fact inherenltly less
accurate. Yes we still use .303, quite a few
"sporterized" Lee Enfields out there.



I'm still not able to get out of Doug exactly what this FN FAL weapon
was that fired an (accurate?) automatic 3 round burst. From my
recollection of the firing meachnaism I don't see how it could be
accomplished without a major rework of the trigger and selector
mechanisms.


Indeed, I think it was slip on Dougs' part, I can't recall seeing any
version of the FAL in Janes
that has selective 3 round burst, he must have been thinking of another
weapon.


Yes, I thought Doug was wrong too -from my limited recollection of the
mechanism (although I used to be able to strip and reassenble the FN SLR
blindfold a long time ago!). That aside, I can't imagine why he would
want to claim to have fired an accurate group from the shoulder in a 3
round burst. Even with a bipod (which was not an option on the FN-SLR's
I used either) it's hard to be accurate during automatic weapons fire
-although I once managed to saw a target in half with a GPMG (that
barrel got damn hot before I switched barrels) and afterward I was
worried an RSM would give me hell for it!

Cheers