After three days scouting SHOT for AR/tactical rifles, they all started to look the same. So when I passed by the DSArms booth my eyes immediately fixated on the wall . . . o’ . . . guns . . .
DSA Arms recently released their SA58 FAL Pistol with a folding SB Tactical brace. The piston powered legend features an 11″ barrel, folding and non-reciprocating charging handle, an M-LOK or standard FAL handguard, along with ambidextrous controls. MSRP $1895.
DSA Arms also offers full length FAL rifles as well as complete custom Cerakote.
Oh yeah. I want to hold a heavy, .308 FAL at arms length and do a mag dump – my idea of a good time. Well, not so much…. And I’m a big fan of the FAL, too! Have built and own several.
Have you guys been past the Barrett booth yet? Are they coming out with a .50 BMG pistol yet?
Well, the fireball coming out of that comically short barrel (for a 7.62 NATO) will be pretty awesome!
Hasn’t been a good old fashioned battle rifle war around here lately. I owned a FAL awhile back, but sold it. It was one of those century arms ones, so it wasn’t that great. Same with the G3 century arms clone. I owned both and got rid of them both. I think I’m going to eventually get a PTR-91 to satisfy my battle rifle urges.
I went with a PTR91 and was quite satisfied although I did end up selling to a buddy and buying a Scar 17. It’s definitely a step up although I’m not sure it’s 3X as good considering it’s 3X the price but to each their own. The PTR did beat the hell out of my brass though so if you reload that’s something to be aware of.
I’ve been through the battle rifle landscape a few times. Currently own a NM M1A and a FAL that I build from Austrian parts kit on a DSA upper. Both nice rifles, but I don’t shoot them that much.
I owned an actual, for real HK91 – I found that the SWAN mount for the scope would basically bend in the top of the dust cover if you tightened it down. Accuracy with a scope was worse than with open sights. I sold it for a considerable profit and never looked back. They LOOK classic, the shooting, meh…
I built several FALs in various flavors, and eventually got rid of all of them. Cool, old school rifle, but I eventually realized that a collection of them was sort of dumb. The building was more fun than the owning and shooting. I also had one of the early Springfield Izzy HB models, which wasn’t all that accurate and weighed a ton.
Had an original-import AUG. Another cool little space rifle, but the manual of arms sucked, malfunction clearance drills sucked, and the offer I got on it was too much to pass up (enough to buy a nice .50 cal at the time).
AKs are fun little rattle-traps, and I’ve built up a few. Everybody needs one or two, just to have something that will shoot the 7.62×39 ammo. But a lightly used Yugo SKS is more accurate and better-built.
Romanian PSL = P.O.S. That offset scope mount sucked beyond belief on a supposed sniper rifle. That one hit the road during the Newtown scare, too.
In short – most of these classic old battle rifles are pretty cool to own in their fairly-original furniture, etc. Once you start to hang rails and such off them, and try to employ them like current technology, they end up heavy, rattly, and not that accurate. You’re far better off to just buy your preference of an AR .308 pattern and customize as desired. For example, my Recon GII is a far better rifle than any of the historical .308 battle rifles I’ve owned, particularly after I swapped out the handguard, buttstock, trigger, and gas block.
Great post!
Looks similar to my Sig 556 SWAT Patrol.
Who are we kidding calling this a pistol? Or calling a Buttstock, a arm brace?
Oh, wait until a braced pistol gets used in a massacre, the antis will use it come after all pistols and with luck, they will only pass a law banning any handgun that uses “rifle” ammo or is longer than 10 inches.
Is shooting bullets just not cool enough for you? Buy a Maliwan and light some people on fire!”
+1 for the Borderlands reference, definitely heard that in his voice
I owned an original FN/FAL that I carried into some bad places, got in and out OK so I developed an affinity for it but eventually sold it when I stopped going in harm’s way. Later purchased a LaRue Tactical PredatAR 7.62 which I have to admit is a more accurate and technological improved rifle.
A non-reciprocating charging handle is not an improvement.
Because you can!!!!