Accurizing an L1A1/FAL?

[Lee Enfield]

My buddy who was in the British Army in the late 60s-early 70s and on his units rifle team says they did not break the action and cleaned thru the ejection port. If they did break the action, they resighted the rifle immediately.

Locally and post service, the safety sear was removed and replaced with a washer slightly thicker than the removed safety sear to spread the tmh...

[jmoore]

Because then you would bind/pinch the safety sear. This is an IMPORTANT Safety feature that prevents the Rifle from firing until it is safely locked & can handle the firing pressure from a 7.62mm Round

HA! Deemed "evil" in the US. Can't even have provision for the safety sear in commercial receivers. I always thought it was madness to eliminate it, but our govn't insists...

[Peter Laidler]

I always asked myself just WHY the 'safety sear' was ever called a 'safety sear'. It was the 'automatic' sear and nothing to do with safety because when you have the trigger pressed RIGHT to the rear, against the automatic bent of the change lever, the hammer sear...... anyway....., it is the breech block carrier that can only trip the automatic sear when the breech block is fully locked down and the carrier is forwards. THIS gives automatic fire

For those who say, YES, that's exactly it........ The safety sear ensures that the rifle can only fire when the breech block is fully locked down, then think again. This is flawed because even if you were quick enough to release and squeeze the trigger again during the backwards and forwards movement of the breech block and carrier, you'd get one of two scenarios
1) the hammer would simply roll forwards onto the breech block carrier and then the striker causing a diminished force of blow on the firing pin head or
2) if you did release and fire the hammer which did strike forwards before the breech block were locked, then due to its shape and position of the underside of the rear of the breech block carrier, the hammer would hit the underside of the carrier or if you were a millisecond later, it might strike the rear of the head of the firing pin with another diminished blow but, see below..........

Due to the geometry of the shape of the hammer, striker and carrier, it can only strike the rear of the firing pin when the breech block is locked OR fully locked - not quite the same thing. But this is a mechanical safety feature. Try it with a blank.

The safety sear is not a safety feature or part of the safety system, it is an AUTOMATIC SEAR.

Why do they a) leave it on the L1 rifles - Because it was a design feature and to go outside the design features, we had to pay huge costs to FN. That is also why we left the 'A' mark on the TMH too and b) why do we call it a safety sear. That's because we didn't want any features or mention of the fact that this was/is/or could ever be an automatic rifle

Many L1A1 rifle deactivators, those with absolutely no idea of the inner workings of the rifle, would grind off the auto sear bent from the carrier or even the top of the auto sear and wonder why the rifle would not fire. Because it auto sear won't disengage the hammer from the........ anyway

[browningautorifle]

Anyway...I carried them for many years and our rifle team simply hand selected rifles by merit. Tight, excellent barrels, top condition and so on. They shot them until the barrel was BLR and then turned them in. Roughly one shooting season...

[Peter Laidler]

I'll let you into a little secret about the only real, true way to tighten up the rear end of the TMH to the body. Only Armourers can do this..... Take the TMH apart and measure the distance across the rear locking lug of the body. Let's say it is .4". Now measure across the inside of the TMH at the point where the body locking lug enters and say that this is, say .7". Deduct one measurement from the other - .3" and divide the answer by 2 and we now get to .15". Now machine/make two pieces of steel .15" wide x (from a guestimate or so) .6 long x .45" tall. Now soft solder these, one each side, inside the rearmost well of the TMH. If you've done yoiur sums right, the body locking lug of the body will JUST slide down tightly between these two steel panels. These steel panels will stop the body locking lug moving to the left and right.

If you don't mind lads.......... in the nicest possible way.......... I don't want to hear any more bubba methods of bending or opening or crushing. It don't work like that. Now for part 2, to elaborate on why it don't not work like that.

Oh, and another thing........ As you are aware, the body locking CATCH in the TMH cams the body locking lug and therefore the body down into the locked position on the TMH. (Inciidentally, it is one of the mechanical safety systems built-in that ensure that the angles are such that it is IMPOSSIBLE to blow or otherwise force the two apart without dstroying the housing). Back to where we were......... It is NOT the rear of the body locking against the front of the beating face of the TMH OR the underside of the body bearing down against the top surface of the TMH that lock the body to the TMH. It is the UNDERSIDE OF THE BODY LOCKING LUG that bears down hard against the MATING INNER SURFACE of the TMH and nothing else. Just try it for yourself with some engineers blue!

Sorry if I've gone off at a tangent. If you knew all this, just ignore the bits that don't concern you!

[jmoore]

I always asked myself just WHY the 'safety sear' was ever called a 'safety sear'. It was the 'automatic' sear and nothing to do with safety...

Thanks for the explaination! What few select fire FNs I've had access to were at the range, and not the bench. So no real opportunity to get hands-on with the internal bits.

[Peter Laidler]

Just been asked to elaborate on one part of the safety in relation to the so called 'safety sear' (those words are a figment of someones imagination. It's an automatic sear..........). The breech block will be POSITVELY but maybe not FULLY locked before the striker is even partially exposed to the hammer. The hammer CANNOT hit the striker prior to lock-up as the rear of the striker is shielded by the breech block carrier and as I stated earlier, if by some fluke accident it did strike it, the blow would be so diminished as to be ineffective in any case.

BUT the breech block will be FULLY locked down before the step on the rear can trip the automatic sear. This is mechanical safety

Hope that's cleared it up a bit!

[enbloc8]

Thanks for all your comments, Peter! This is great!!!

[DOD 7.62]

Hi Peter, Lithgow produced the L1A1A for the US market in limited numbers the receivers of which had no provision to accept the Auto sear (safety sear), likewise as I understand current US manufactured inch receivers have no safety sear ( auto sear, whatever we want to call it). I know Lithgow used to also shorten the trip on the bolt carrier for the L1A1A, my question is is / was there any other changes required to the trigger group in the complete absence of the sear? anyone?

Daniel

[Peter Laidler]

I have never seen an Australian L1A1 MADE as a single shot self loading rifle. I never thought beyond the fact that they didn't have the auto sear but without that and the auto sear tripping bent on the breech block carrier and thinking/picturing the trigger mech on my feet so to speak, I would imagine that the hammer would be held back by the sear against the step in the trigger. Release the trigger, sear goes to rear on elongated hole/sleeve/axis pin. The only way the rifle can fire again is press trigger, raises rear of sear, depresses nose etc etc etc

Butas there's no auto sear or even a provision for one, nor the auto sear bent on the breech block carrier............. Yep, that's how it was done.

That way, even if you put an auto change lever in and shortened the plunger, trigger and fixed your false teeth in with industrial adhesive in anticipation, it couldn't rock and roll. We would occasionally put an L2 TMH onto an L1A1 just for a jolly but they were a real handful and within a few rounds (watching the 'triple figure 11's' through your binos), the rifle was way out of control. But when you're just 20, do you even care where the bullets go? Heading off into the jungle or out into the outback of beyond, who cares!