~ Aussie Inch L1A1 w/ Century Receiver ~ I think that I'm Confused?

[Capt Quahog]

~ Aussie Inch L1A1 w/ Century Receiver ~ I think that I'm Confused?

Have been offered what the prospective seller describes as an Aussie L1A1 Inch rifle with Century receiver. Rifle has wood furniture and carry handle along with some other Commonwealth components.

Question is . . . Are these Century L1A1s actually "Inch" rifles, or just a hodge podge with mixed metric parts? Though the rifle looks quite good, would a Century FN FAL type rifle be worthy of consideration? There is so much conflicting information, back and forth about Century Arms products that it's hard to figure it out.

What's something like this worth in the current market? I've had the itch for a FAL for a long time now.

A picture of the rifle in consideration is posted below. . . .

Thanks . . . .

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Amatikulu]

There's a lot of misinformation about Century in my experience. First, they sold a lot of receivers for people to build their own rifles from - these are often called Century FAL's because the receiver has their name as the importer on them, but they had nothing to do with putting them together. The USA made receivers that were bought for parts kits, are often blamed and some needed more than a little hand fitting to make them function.

Secondly, their are FAL's that they put together on receivers that they imported from IMBEL in Brazil (regarded as being one of the best) or had made in the USA. The Century FAL's put together by Century on the USA receivers are not regarded highly but in my experience can work perfectly and may need a little fine tuning. If you bought one from Century and it had problems, they would stand behind it and fix or replace it.

I'm not sure on the Aussie kits othe rthan to say I believe they accept inch and metric magazines.

[Capt Quahog]

Thanks!!!

[Capt Quahog]

Heard someplace that Century's type III "widows peak" L1A1 receivers are actually made by Imbel.

According to the story, some of the receivers are marked with the Imbel name while others are not. Question is . . . is that story true?

[NuJudge]

The Century guns are wildly varying. Some guns marked only as made by Century actually have (South American) Imbel receivers, for which Century reportedly got in trouble with BATFE. Many Century guns marked "L1A1" actually have mostly metric parts. Some Century guns marked "R1A1" actually have mostly Inch parts. I've extensively shot a rifle with a Imbel-made receiver, but only marked "Century", that came from Century with all foreign Inch parts except for a thumbhole butt/pistolgrip, crudely painted black, but took Metric magazines. Thoroughly reliable, and sort of accurate.

Inch magazines have a big lip at the top, front of the magazine that appears to be silver soldered on. Metric magazines have this little square-bottomed protuberance stamped outwards at the top front of the magazine. Sometimes a Metric magazine will reportedly work in a receiver cut for Inch magazines, but not in my experience. The big lip on an Inch magazine will not fit into the tiny recess cut in a receiver cut for Metric mags.

As noted above, lots of rifles were built up on Century receivers, by pro's as well as Bubba's. There also is worry over compliance with Federal 922r requirements, and perhaps State law requirements. Many rifles that were brought in by Century with Thumbhole ("butthole") buttstocks and otherwise all foreign parts were changed to original buttstocks and pistolgrips, but without complying with Federal 922r domestic content requirements. Century's QC was occasionally bad, as frequently was the home builder's.

The pictured rifle seems to have all original Inch wood, an Inch lower reciever and selector, and an active Inch flash suppressor, which I've never seen on a rifle as it came from Century. The magazine bottom appears to be Inch type, but the crazy South Africans made some Metric magazines with Inch-type bottoms. All the Century assembled rifles I've seen have the original flash suppressor removed, and most had the threads for it cut off. Some Century rifles had a US made compensator (not flash hider) welded on. Few Century Rifles look as good as the one you show.

You can find pictures of every part and marking that should be on Australian parts at FAL files. You can also find threads on all the Century peculiarities.
http://www.falfiles.com/forums/index.php?s=

CDD