I am recalling the first complaints about the M16 from our boys in Viet Nam - that is when they started to chrome the chambers. Why dont we have an american version of the FN?
Accurate and mud proof.
1. Who wants to put the money in developing something they can't sell to the public.
2.We don't have an industrial infrastructure anymore.
Accurate and mud proof.
Reasonably accurate for a service rifle, but heavy, almost 12 pounds loaded. And though reasonably reliable in mud, not as happy with sandyb conditions, as the Israeli troops who used the things from the 1950s until the mid-1970s found out. They called besom the broom, and though the Israelis adopted the *sand cuts* on the bolt and bolt carrier as used by the British on their L1A1 version, there was a lot more sand in their area of operations than those sand cuts could digest.
I like the FAL, don't misunderstand me. But I'd far rather carry the Rhodesiam R1 version than the T48.