What Is the Difference Between an L1A1 & R1A1?

The Fusil Automatique Leger (FAL) was NATO's most commonly issued automatic rifle during the Cold War era. It is the FAL, not the American M16, that can properly be considered the Free World counterpart to the Soviet Kalashnikov AK47. The 7.62 mm selective fire assault rifle was designed and initially produced by Fabrique Nationale of Belgium beginning in 1953. In the decades that followed, licensed variants of the FAL would be manufactured in 15 nations in Europe, South America and Asia, eventually totaling more than 2,000,000 units. FALs imported into the U.S. were converted into a civilian variant called the R1A1.

  1. L1A1

    • The FAL variant produced by British Commonwealth countries was designated L1A1. These rifles were manufactured in Great Britain, Canada and Australia. L1A1s, known as "Inch FALs," are distinguished principally by their design dimensions, which are in British Imperial Measure instead of metric like European FALs. A higher percentage of L1A1 FALs were produced as semi-automatic-only weapons. Most European FALs are selective fire. The differing dimension formats inevitably introduced idiosyncrasies among the variants: The L1A1 "Inch FAL" would accept both British and European metric magazines; European FALs, however, would not accept inch-based British magazines.

    R1A1

    • In the 1990s, Century Arms began importing surplus Inch FALs from Canada into the United States and converting them to comply with U.S. assault weapon laws. The Century Arms civilian FALs are designated R1A1. Because U.S. laws require these firearms to have a certain percentage of U.S.-made parts, the Century R1A1s are hybrids consisting of both Canadian L1A1 components and many U.S. aftermarket components. They also contain a mixture of Imperial and metric standard parts.

    Operation

    • There are no fully-automatic Century R1A1s. To comply with U.S. laws, these rifles are semi-automatic only. The selective-fire L1A1 has a heavier barrel and is capable of full-auto operation. These weapons were used by support units.

    Receiver

    • Receivers on the L1A1 FAL were Commonwealth-made and fabricated in British Imperial measurement. However, when the surplus Canadian L1A1 FALs were imported into the United States, Century Arms replaced the Inch-based British receivers with an American-made metric receiver.

    Stock

    • Another component switch performed by Century Arms is the replacement of the L1A1 humpback stock made of wood or synthetics. 1990s-vintage R1A1 FALs have a U.S.-made fixed, plastic "thumbhole" design stock. Later R1A1s have a folding plastic stock, while most Commonwealth L1A1s had fixed stocks.

    Sling

    • The Commonwealth L1A1s featured a side-mount sling swivel located on the buttstock. The R1A1 has no hardware for attaching a sling to the buttstock.