Buying an FAL?
I'm more of a function over form guy. Although I love antique firearms, I have other expensive hobbies. As such, I only have a few guns, and each serves a specific purpose. However, I have been getting an itch to buy an FAL. If I'm going to be spending money on a "fun" gun, I would like it to be of high quality and perform well. I have found a few forum posts about FALs and all the subsequent variants, but a lot of the posts are super old. What are y'all's 2 cents on getting a high quality FAL? You guys are probably far more knowledgeable than I about machining, production quality, and functionality, so please impart any knowledge you guys might have.
From what I've gathered, pre ban FALs are good quality, however now they're so old I'm curious on if they're actually worth the money or not. Was also looking at SAR-48s, as they are just licensed copies? I known DSA makes a clone, and the old ones are supposed to be good, but apparently newer ones are iffy quality? I'm not entirely sure if the conclusions I have reached are correct. What do you guys recommend? I don't have a hard budget, I just want my money to be well spent. What do you guys recommend?