Would You Actually Trade Your M14 For An FAL?

The FN:canadaFlag: was ours for sure. I'll agree with that, and we should have been able to own the GD things after they were retired,..... but to surrender my M-14 for one for general range use or service rifle matches, I don't think so.

Now here's the nostalgia as I see it,...not just the hype of the "forbidden fruit' if I had a C1 again.......

...........the two old Cold War warriors would stand shoulder to shoulder my safe and quietly rendition each other with stories of the young men(Canadian, American, British etc) who carried them on the front lines of freedom in Western Europe, constantly in Exercise, and who might be called in the dead of night from their beds with a code word if the Warsaw Pact Juggernaut rolled that stood ready to Steam roller NATO and God help the men who were posted to West Germany on that faithful night and would be the ones destined to absorb the first blows, knowing they would be decimated trying to buy precious time. My brother served there '84-'88.

In the movie "Lawrence of Arabia",.... while observing a British night artillery bombardment against Turkish positions, the character Al played by Omar Sharif, turns to Lawrence(Peter O' Toole) and says of his enemy,.. "God help the man who lays under that". So would go the FN and the M-14 soldier in West germany.
 
#1bcshooter said:
LOL
How can you compare a Mosin Nagant & AG42b to a USGI M14 .
Used AR sp1's went for $400 . M1 carbines were $200 , 1911A1 ww2 surplus were $250 to $300
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Exactly, and that's what makes a $350 used M14 in that era a fairly expensive milsurp. In today's dollars, that the equivalent of paying over a grand for the used M14. The reason I mentioned the $40 Mosin Nagants and $69 AG42b's is because back in the early 80's that's what they went for, and today they go for 3-4x as much. That would make the $350 M14 no bargain basement milsurp. Relative to the times, that would have been fairly expensive for a milsurp, and that was my point. Minimum wage was around $2.90 an hour back and now its close to $10.00. Just puting the $350 price in perspective by mentioning the price of other firearms of that time to compare them to today.
 
I would love to own both, as well. It's not that I don't like the FAL, I think its a great gun, its just that for me, I prefer the M14, and if it came down to owning only one of the two, I'd pick the m14.
 
Breda M1 (7.62 armoury conversion)
LRB M25 short
LRB M25 rear-lugged precision
FN-FAL Belgian
FN-G1 German Border Police

Hard to pick because there is emotion involved. I jumped out of planes into the arctic with C1's, humped all over hell's half-acre with them and shot, and shot them. While they hold a special place in my small black heart, if I'm honest, I'll admit that they are not the be all and end all of Main Battle Rifles.

c27bec40-e222-4e57-9916-a3b2f24615be_zps1d9a7fdf.jpg
 
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I would trade my Norinco 305 for a Fal, not sure about a real m14 tho. They both have their good and bad points. It's still stupid that they are on a prohib list.
 
I had an Indian FN FAL ...then went through a tin foil hat phase and sold it to a dude to dewat it. Lost my prohib status...wtf was I thinking? Every morning now I wake up and bang my head on the wall.
I have a M1 Garand so M14 is not on the radar.
 
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I had a TRW M-14 back in the 80's( ex Isreali, semi only) it shot well enough, I even managed to take a couple of white-tails with it. I still have an L1A1 that I take out and look at every now and then, unfortunately thats the only thing I can do with it. Back when I could legally shoot it, it shot about the same as my M-14. To be honest, I'd be hard pressed to pick between them. It's probably a case of since I can't have it, I really want it. In short the prohib legislation is bullsh!t, they're both semi auto 7.62's.
A2
 
Wow, nice M1. Is the muzzle comp factory?
Sober second thought, I'd rather a 7.62 M1 to an FN. (but still prefer an FN or SAFN to a norc M14).

The Lorax said:
Breda M1 (7.62 armoury conversion)
LRB M25 short
LRB M25 rear-lugged precision
FN-FAL Belgian
FN-G1 German Border Police

Hard to pick because there is emotion involved. I jumped out of planes into the arctic with C1's, humped all over hell's half-acre with them and shot, and shot them. While they hold a special place in my small black heart, if I'm honest, I'll admit that they are not the be all and end all of Main Battle Rifles.

c27bec40-e222-4e57-9916-a3b2f24615be_zps1d9a7fdf.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Been there, done both, owned both, got the t-shirts. M-14 all the way! The only time I preferred the C1A1 was on parade; it felt and handled a lot nicer than the C7, and a feu de joie with a 5.56 sounds like a starter pistol at your high school track meet. But I never cared for the C1A1 on the range or in the field. A few years later, when I first shot the M-14, it was like God himself smiled down on me and said: "Son, this is what 7.62NATO really feels like when the rifle wasn't designed by someone who hates you!" Over the years I keep meeting people who wear their nostalgia for the C1A1 on their sleeve, so I point out that the overall CFSAC scores nearly doubled in the late 80s/early 90s when the field switched from the C1A1 to the C7 (iron sights). Translation: better to hit someone with a 5.56 than miss them with a 7.62! Some said "not a fair comparison, the FN was pretty tired by that time", but to my dying day I'll say that recoil was the biggest culprit with the C1A1. Despite its weight, the iffy ergonomics and all the iron in the bolt, bolt carrier and piston flying back at you with every shot eventually made even good shooters flinch pretty often and getting back on target during snaps and rapids was a chore.

And for some magical reason, the M-14 is just a LOT easier on the shooter.

M-14, hands down! My $0.05, of course!
 
I tried to explain to some of the guys to buy the cheapest guns to stay in the upcoming unknown categories.
I thought I had them all covered but missed 12-4.
By keeping a $99.00 1A1, I am in the 12-5 class and fortunate to obtain a friends G series FN FAL from his estate.

P2180373.jpg
 
I shot my share of the FAL in the 1990's and I would give up every commie gun in my locker just so as not to offend one if I got the chance to own a FAL
 
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