Florida Shooters Network

After procrastinating for what seemed like forever, I cleaned up my pretty new-to-me FAL and took her to the range last week. While dialing in the gas system via the regulator, I noticed that all of my brass is bulged slightly at the rim. Is this normal for FALs? I know that some guns (Glocks come to mind), as well as open-bolt subguns will do this.

The ammo in question was brand new WWB .308, so I can rule out reloads or surplus ammo.

Bulged or dinged? Most FAL's are rough on brass, and leave "brass kisses" on the receiver or dust cover when ejecting. You can tweak the ejector to prevent this from happening, it will change the angle of ejection and prevent brass damage. If it's bulging at the rim, inspect your chamber and check your headspace.
Out of curiosity, is this a DSA/IMBEL/Century receiver, what kind of parts? Home built or built in a factory or by a smith?

If you're in S Florida, a few of us have headspace and locking shoulder gauges.

Good luck.

The brass is not dinged whatsoever, it's just bulged at the rim after firing the round. I don't see anything out of the ordinary on the chamber, but I don't have any headspace tools to thoroughly test it. Perhaps I should pick up a set. ;-)

I assumed that FALs had a little "loose" chamber, like a 1919 would be.

It's an Argentine FMAP LSR that I picked up a year ago and hardly shot it (I'm not very into .308). I took it apart to thoroughly clean and inspect the parts, which were in good working order.

I'm in Brevard County, but thank you for the offer!

Pic of a casing?

The bulge is hard to see... it's not like it's ungodly bulged. I'll try posting a pic with a piece of brass inside of a .308 case gauge.

I know it's been awhile, but I finally got ahold of some .308 go/no-go gauges... and the bolt carrier closes on the no-go gauge. I guess this explains why the brass is bulging. Everything else seemed fine, so I'm hoping that I can adjust the headspace (when time permits) and go from there.