Recently picked up some more South African parts. I finally have a SA bolt carrier and have picked up what I think is another SA top cover. So, on to the pics:
Bolt Carrier: Most pictures of the R-4/5/6 show a bolt carrier that’s cocking handle is machined in the upward position opposed to some (early?) Galils that have their cocking handles bent upward. There appear to be two different types of these machined handles and one type is almost exclusively on the South African made rifles. I have seen a few early pictures with more Galil like carriers in early rifles. For supporting evidence the font the casting number (batch number?) on the right side of the bolt is in a different font than my other Israeli carriers. The main difference in the carriers is in the profile of the rear of the cocking knob/stem, the Israeli versions have the edge broken the SA one does not. The SA carrier also came with an SA gas piston.
South African carrier is on the left and has not been refinished.
Other side, note the font differences (SA carrier on the top, Israeli on the bottom):
The next item is another South African top cover. This one is slightly different than my previous one, the spot welds are bigger (more like Israeli) but the both top covers share a “sharper” stamping than the Israeli. What I mean by that is if you look at the edges of the South African cover they are much sharper than the Israeli cover, especially at the rear of the cover.
Israeli cover on the left, South African on the right:
Both South African covers, one with small spot welds one with larger, compare with the Israeli cover above:
One of my South African top covers is serial numbered (the other is not) and here it is compared to the style of the Israeli S/Ns. If you look closely you can also see some luminous paint on the bottom of the night sight on the South African cover, I have no idea why. I have a SA front night sight also covered in luminous paint. SA cover on the bottom:
Last difference for today, the rear sights. On this cover the numbers on the rear sights are recessed like the Israeli sights (and not like MColeman’s that are raised, maybe a later sight?) but the “3” is a different type, not flat on the top but curved. SA sight on the left:
Recently had my R-5 back to tenngalil for some things and he installed the correct style gas block on the rifle. Note that compared to the old type (an early SAR block) this one is rounded on the bottom and not nearly as long as an AR block.
Front view:
Rifle is placed on top of a SA SF niemoller rifle case.
And for Tomovich, your just going to keep looking. I lucked into most of my parts. I got a few from the forum, a few from gunbroker, a few from Ontario gun up in canada (who is long since out, I bought his last ones) and a few from other boards. It took me about three years to find all the parts and that was mostly by luck. Getting them from South Africa is also a losing proposition, they stopped making R series weapons in the mid 1990s and parts are hard to find for SA gunowners and the Army!
RM308- Nice rifles!
mrf2
