The StG58: The Teutonic FAL
By Will Dabbs, MD
The Germans rolled over Belgium in May 1940 and were not fully expelled until February 1945. This relatively small country endured nearly five years of persecution underneath the Nazi jackboot. Coming as this was on the heels of a previous similar performance in 1914, the Belgians were mighty keen to keep this from ever happening again.
The Germans during World War II, for all their moral depravity, were extraordinary engineers. The Nazis brought us the modern combat submarine, the main battle tank and the assault rifle. While World War II ultimately ended with Soviet troops in Berlin and Hitler dead by his own hand, the revolutionary nature of the German Sturmgewehr assault rifle was not lost on a world brutalized by war.
What a Difference a War Can Make
At the outset of World War II, every major combatant save the United States fielded bolt-action infantry rifles. These weapons were essentially upgraded versions of the weapons with which the world fought the First War to End All Wars. Slow to load and slow to run, these expensive guns could kill at a kilometer or more but were heavy and difficult to manufacture.
By the end of the war, the Germans were issuing large numbers of self-loading rifles, principal among them the revolutionary selective fire StG44. This stamped steel rifle still weighed around 11 pounds but fired an intermediate-sized 7.92x33mm round that offered minimal recoil and only a modest weight burden. Feeding from a 30-round box magazine, these rifles increased the intrinsic firepower of the infantry rifle squad in the assault by an order of magnitude.
While the StG44 rifle was indeed a revolutionary gas-operated design, its intermediate cartridge allowed its true brilliance to shine through. This stubby little round offered power up close where it counted, while consuming markedly fewer raw materials and exactly half the powder charge per round. Despite its diminutive dimensions, the 7.92x33mm Kurz cartridge still reached out effectively to 400 meters and beyond.
The Next Generation
By 1946 the Belgians had grown weary of serving as Germany’s gateway to the world, so they embarked on a mission to design an entirely new and revolutionary infantry rifle with which to secure their borders. Contrived by veteran gun designer Dieudonné Saive, the man who completed the design of the P35 Hi-Power pistol after the death of John Moses Browning, and Ernest Vervier, the resulting Fusil Automatique Léger ultimately armed most of the free world. The United States naturally had its own ideas about how a modern combat rifle should look and adopted the M14. The original FAL was chambered for the same German wartime 7.92x33mm Kurz cartridge that drove the StG44.
Here our tale gets fairly muddled. The British were enamored with the FAL, but they wanted it in their own proprietary intermediate .280 cartridge. In retrospect, this would have been a superb general-purpose infantry round. The Brits ultimately adopted the .280 cartridge and their own bullpup EM-2 rifle to fire it. However, soon thereafter, in 1951, the Labour Party lost the general election in Great Britain, and Winston Churchill once again took the helm as Prime Minister. In what was likely a quid pro quo between Churchill and American President Harry Truman, NATO ended up with the full-power 7.62x51mm round. The FAL was subsequently chambered for this NATO cartridge and adopted by more than 90 nations. The British built their own version of the 7.62x51mm FAL, calling it the L1A1 SLR or Self-Loading Rifle.
Morphology
The FAL operates via a short-stroke piston-driven action that drives a tilting breechblock. The action is itself intellectually similar to that of the Soviet wartime SVT-40. FAL rifles come equipped with a manual gas regulator underneath the front sight, and the line of recoil is essentially in line with the buttstock. FALs feed from detachable box magazines of between five- and 20-round capacities, though 30-round mags from 7.62x51mm British L4A4 Bren guns may be adapted to fit as well. (Magazines for the “Inch FAL” in the British family of FAL, will not interchange with the “Metric FAL” magazines from the Belgian family of FAL.)
The FAL was produced in both light and heavy barrel versions with both fixed and folding stocks. Stocks were produced in wood and synthetic variants. The side-folding stock of the FAL was later copied almost exactly on the Israeli Galil assault rifle. While most FAL rifles were offered in selective fire configuration, the British L1A1 was semi-auto only.
The Post-War World Makes for Strange Bedfellows
In the immediate aftermath of WW II, the Soviet Union emerged as the new threat to peace and stability on the world stage. As a result, West Germany and Austria moved from aggressor nations who had recently set Europe ablaze to allies in the burgeoning Cold War against communism. West Germany adopted a version of the Belgian FAL rifle to re-equip their border guards and subsequently the Bundeswehr.
The German FAL was titled the G1 and differed slightly from the Belgian and British versions. Most notably, the sights were lowered by 3mm, and the gun sported pressed steel handguards. The G1 also included an open-tipped prong flash suppressor that could be used as a wire cutter in a pinch. Germany eventually shelved their G1 rifles in favor of the Spanish CETME Modelo 58 in 1959 when the Belgians refused permission for licensed production of the FAL in Germany.
Austria adopted the German G1 as the StG58 in 1958 after it beat out the Spanish CETME and the American AR-10. While FN in Belgium built the first 20,000 rifles, Steyr-Daimler-Puch made the remainder of the production run. Various ancillary features shifted throughout production, but most StG58 rifles incorporated the distinctive pressed steel handguards along with a nifty folding steel bipod. The pistol grip and buttstock were of black polymer. Steyr-built StG58s also incorporated their superb hammer forged barrels. StG58 rifles featured a complicated combination flash suppressor-cum-grenade launcher attachment as well. Austrian StG58s were not configured to accept a bayonet.
Trigger Time
The StG58 is heavier than it appears. However, the gun’s lithe chassis and superb ergonomics fit nicely with the human form. Magazines must be rocked in place in the manner of the Kalashnikov, but this allows fully-loaded magazines to be seated against a closed bolt easily enough. The magazine release is easily operated by the left thumb when the rifle is fired right-handed.
The sights are of a classic post and peep design, with the front sight adjustable for elevation and heavily fenced. The fixed charging handle does not reciprocate with the bolt, and the bolt locks to the rear automatically on the last round fired. Snatching the charging handle to the rear will release the bolt over a fresh magazine.
The pressed steel forearm gets hot fairly quickly, particularly when firing full auto, and it was likely miserable in cold weather. The bipod sports fixed legs with no provision for command height adjustments, but it does pivot slightly on its apex. The bipod legs fold neatly into recesses in the handguard when not in use.
The safety selector is an easily-accessible lever underneath the right thumb. Up is safe, down is semi-auto and rotated away from the firer is rock and roll. With a little practice, running the gun becomes fast and intuitive, so long as you are right-handed. Apparently, there were no left-handed people before about 1970.
In semi-automatic mode, the StG58 performs like a fairly typical rack-grade battle rifle. My eyes have a half century on them nowadays, so distance shooting over open sights is not the precision exercise it once was. Recoil is spunky without being unpleasant, and this particular StG58 runs flawlessly provided it is fed decent ammo.
When the selector is rotated around to its happy place, the immutable dicta of physics come regrettably into play. While the StG58 is indeed a superb design, mass times velocity in one direction will always equal mass times velocity in the other direction. That’s not just a good idea; that’s the law. At 700 rounds per minute, the gun jumps around fairly vigorously no matter how you hold it.
If the weapon is tucked in tight and bursts are limited to about three rounds, an experienced operator can keep those three rounds on a standard silhouette out to perhaps 50 meters. Much past that and the full auto StG58 becomes an area weapon system. Torqueing down on the gun on its bipod yields better full auto performance, but you still have to work at it. While most 5.56mm weapons and some 7.62x39mm guns remain controllable on full auto, the full-power 7.62x51mm StG58 really does not—except at the closest of ranges and when fired in very short bursts.
To utilize the wire cutter feature, one captures the wire within the prongs of the muzzle attachment, twists the rifle to draw the wire tight and fires a round to cut the wire. HK roller-locked weapons accomplish this chore with a simple groove. In that case, you catch the wire in the groove, lean into the wire to take up the slack, and fire a round.
Cogitations
The Austrian StG58 was arguably the ultimate iteration of the superb FAL battle rifle. Though the weapon thankfully did not see combat in the nation that produced it, the rifle’s impeccable ergonomics and superb barrel made it an exceptional combat implement. That is was heavy and overly powerful spoke more to its era than to the nature of its design.
The StG77 superseded the StG58 in 1977, the same year George Lucas introduced the world to “Star Wars.” This radical polymer bullpup rifle is more commonly known as the Steyr AUG. Upgraded versions of this revolutionary assault rifle remain competitive on modern battlefields even today. StG58 rifles were demilled by the thousands and their parts sold to enterprising American gun nerds in the 80s and 90s. One of those kits ended up as a post-sample machinegun on a domestic receiver, and thus it came to me.
The StG58 is obsolete by today’s standards. However, several aspects of its design, such as its inspired folding bipod, really set it apart from its competition. Settling in behind this vintage warhorse offers a tiny glimpse into the wretched things that might have been, had the Cold War ever gone hot.
Technical Specifications
The Austrian StG58 Battle Rifle
Caliber: 7.62x51mm
Method of Operation: Gas-operated piston-driven, tilting breechblock
Barrel Length: 21in
Overall Length: 43in
Weight: 9.81lbs
Feed: 20-round detachable box
Maximum Effective Range: 800m
Rate of Fire 700rpm
This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V21N10 (December 2017) |
| SUBSCRIBER COMMENT AREA |
Comments have not been generated for this article.
