DSA has never really shown us much love. They completely blew us off at last year’s SHOT Shot, and we’ve basically given up on getting one of their SA-58 FAL rifles for testing. But we don’t hold grudges, so we’ll pay it forward and show them a little love ourselves: they’ve still got lots of SA-58 rifles in stock, at price points that aren’t much higher than mid-level ARs.

More customized FALs with rails or folding stocks are facing a 3-month backlog of orders, but ordinary models like the one shown here are in stock and ready to ship as of Wednesday.

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22 COMMENTS

  2. I ordered a DSA mount for mine a few weeks ago. No word on it and they’re not answering their phone!!

    • I ordered the Extreme Duty Scope Mount, but I ordered it from AIM. It shipped, and should be here soon.

      But I also ordered the surplus Argentine handguards direct from DSA, and haven’t heard anything for ten days.

  3. Force Foghorn to give us the exact difference between AR15s, AK’s, and FALs. I’m an EBR noob and wikipedia isn’t helping.

    • The FAL is like NATO’s AK, but with a bigger cartridge. It’s reliable, durable, and pretty much every military in the free world (the United States included, as well as some non-free states) made some use of it.

      • Is it as lego-ish as ARs? Like can I slap on new stuff in a few minutes and change calibers? Or is it one caliber only?

        • The design of the FAL is not as “lego” like as the AR. Part of the reason why is that the FAL wasn’t used by Americans all that much. Americans are really the only people in the world with a cultural drive to make everything perfect. When you look at battle firearms from other nations, they have one or two configurations and that’s that. There’s no additional equipment, often times not even a scope. The weapon is handed to their military people and they’re told “Go do your job and quit whining.”

          Americans and guns are a whole different matter. We’re never satisfied with just what we’ve got. We, as a people, are obsessed with always making things better. We’ve had the M-16/M-4 for 40+ years in active service, and we started modifying the heck out of it in the 80’s. Today, we’ve gone into the realm of “WTF?!” with M-16 mods.

          We turn Springfield 1903’s into accuracy rifles. We turn Mausers into $8K sporting guns. We turn Garands into carbines that shoot .280 Remington rounds.

          That hasn’t happened with the FAL. The FAL has a much smaller following among Americans, mostly (IMO) because it isn’t as accurate as a M-1A or AR-15, or even a rack-grade Garand. The FAL that can group 2″ at 100 yards is rare. Most of them will be 3 to 4 inches at 100 yards. Right there, Americans start losing interest – fast. It’s a .308/7.62×51 rifle in stock configuration. You could, I guess, re-barrel it for 7mm08 or .260 Rem to use the .308 bolt and magazines.

          The FAL was used as the “right arm of democracy,” especially in really grim places like Africa, all through the 60’s to today. It’s a heavy, large rifle. It does what it was designed to do – shoot 7.62×51 rounds with the reliability of an AK-47.

        • Its more accurate than an AK, but less reliable.
          I would really like an FAL more than an AK, though they are very different (Battle-rifle vs Assault).

  4. The one in the photo does not have the African dust cover rail on it, which costs extra!

    I picked up the last one at my LGS – an SA58 Paratrooper Model for $3K with tax. I have been looking at them for about a year (yep, the price was the same last year as well), and the fact that my RRA AR10 takes the same metric FAL magazines was what interested me. Not the price however.

    After Newtown, I decided I better get one while I could. In CO, I had to wait a week to get it due to the state imposed mandatory waiting period. A year ago, they had about 10 on the rack, and they weren’t moving due to the price. When I went to start the paperwork on mine, there were 3, and when I went to pick it up, there wasn’t anymore.

    It is a shame that DSA is treating TTAG so poorly.

    • They weren’t dicks or anything, they just made it fairly clear they’re not interested in sending us T&E guns. We didn’t get butt-hurt about it, and I’d still love to order one of their AR uppers when they’re back in stock.

    • Ensitu,

      L1A1 SLR ran almost dead on nine pounds, and I think it’s slightly (an ounce or two maybe) lighter than a classic M14 or M1. It’s heavier than an AK, but then it reaches further and hits harder.

      As far as accuracy went, it shot better than most soldiers, though it wouldn’t do sub-MOA; I could group into 4″ at a hundred yards and I wasn’t a great shot, some could get 2″ groups but they were the guys who shot rifles for a hobby as well. (These were pretty old rifles by then, mind you)

      The great thing about it – long, heavy, semi-auto only or not – was that it was just about unbreakable, and you could rely on it to fire whenever you needed it to. (With live ammunition; our blank rounds were deliberately underpowered to give lots of stoppages, so we got plenty of practice clearing them under pressure)

      I’m sure there are technically better weapons – the LMT rifle we’ve adopted as the L129A1 looks excellent – but after a few years with the L1A1 I know I can make a FN-FAL work well for me.

    • With a medium contour barrel on the sa58, trigger work,and match ammo you can do moa with one. I’ve seen it done and outshoot an customized M1A. I’d be interested to see how LaRue and Pof 7.62s shot against everything. My gut tells me the Larue or Sig716 are the best. A Fal is a tank though.

  11. Since I do not yet have a .308 semi-auto rifle I would seriously consider one of these. However, since I do not have any mags for this rifle, I would have to find a bunch of FAL mags at pre-crazyness prices as well.

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