My experience so far with my Century L1A1 FAL. I have a G3 sporter from Century International Arms, and its serial number is G27266. The rifle shoots fine, no.

To me, they keep popping up all over the place with people acquiring them from pawn shops, gun stores, etc. I'm a newbie in this respect, so help me out here. Does anyone have any idea how many of these things are out there? Every week or so, a proud new owner comes onboard here to tell us all about their new baby, so I'm wondering if the same few hundred rifles are just being continuously bought and sold, or if there are warehouses full of these things. I know very little about the history of the ban era FAL other than I understand Century and a few others took various parts and screwed them together on various uppers. I also understand how the quality is a crapshoot with these. I'd love to be able to tell people something intelligent about these when I'm asked at my local range about them.

Wow, that's a good question, Ex. Seems like they long ago became the red headed stepchild of the firearms industry and for good reason. The fact is that there are a lot of firearms out there with CAI on the side that work well. As far as numbers or years of manufacture?

I have no idea on any of the models. There are a lot of models that CAI didn't build that are nice and probably would not have made it in the country without CAI getting the ball rolling and I can't even begin to list them. Seeing their import stamp on a firearm is about as common as seeing ugly people at walmart. More than the gun grabbers can get their arms around--- It seems, as they are STILL pumping em out, that there are MANY centuries out there, of many stripes. The Fals they have produced have,I believe, been mostly reworked by those of us who love em, to a functioning rifle. The dogs will either get busted up for the parts and the receiver either 'helped' or put back for a rainy day.

Seems those who gravitate towards Fals won't pass bad stuff on- save for a few like lear70. I don't have experience buying -NEW from them, so mabey I've either been real lucky-or the shop where I've got mine, had the previous owners hand picked Century toys put back and trickeled them out to me. [ which is what I suspect] New owner doesn't know battle rifles and I help him out a bunch.

Run some of apps in trial mode to enable features, then just Exit 7.

Anyhow-even though we have all seen the negitive results from the angry beavers-and helped others fix their dogs, I must salute Century for almost single handedly refurbishing and spreading alot of battle rifles among the population here, for a reasonable price, that otherwise might have been tossed in the crusher. I assume you're talking about the thumbhole sporters? These are the ugly good ones. Quicken family lawyer program. The thumbhole stocks are abominations and many people shy away from them, but there's a trick to understanding their desirability.other than the throwaway stock, there are no US parts.

Shortly after the AWB began in 1994 it was interpreted that doing away with the pistol grip took the rifle away from the AW restrictions. Since all the functional parts of the rifle were good quality surplus the rifles ran just fine. Since they're ugly, they didn't sell for much money. Once the rules were reinterpreted and the guns started to be built with cheap-as-humanly-possible US parts, Century rifles got their reputation for unreliable.

Also, during the thumbhole era all rifles were built on Imbel or unmarked Argy receivers. The later pistol grip rifles with the US parts were made on Century's own receiver. The thumbhole guns are overall MUCH better rifles. There aren't any warehouses full of them.

In fact I'm pretty sure there isn't a warehouse left that stores a single one of them. They were all sold off more than 15yrs ago, but a lot of them were sold, and people being people lots of owners mistakenly upgrade from their reliable, ugly thumbhole sporter to something that they think 'looks' better. The smart move is to replace the thumbhole and press on with a decent shooter.

Several of the guys here make a habit of picking up the thumbholers and stripping them down.selling off the Imbel or Argy receiver for a profit and parting out or kitting up the rest. If you buy right you can double your money pretty easily. Any knowlege of the park color on those unmarked Imbels?

My first FAL was a century aussie kit on a unmarked greenish parked type three with a inch ch cut and mmag well cut. Matches up pretty well with my other Imbels. It supposedly was assembled in 2001 or so.

It only said made by Century st albans VT R1A1 sporter. I have never nailed down the receiver maker.