Just out of curiosity, why did the rifle not prove to be popular with Israel?
The rifle is very closesly based on one of the finest Kalashnikov clones (the first Galils were produced on the machinery of the Finnish Valmet). There were no complaints that I know of concerning the Valmet, so whats wrong with the Galil? It has large 35 round magazines, must be reliable, uses 5.56mm... etc
More to the point, South Africa used it for a fair while (still does?) under the guise of the R4, with success. The only account I have read of its use with South Africa, questioned its reliability a bit, but that was all (and I can't imagine M16A1's to be any more reliable).
Was it just a matter of the small stature of the Israeli soldiers compared to South Africans?
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