Someone digging through the warehouses an FN in Herstal found 400 FAL rifles turned in by the Belgian Gendarmerie when they upgraded to newer arms…and they decided to send them to the US as parts kits. So FN America has these 400 kits now, and they are selling them off via lottery (free entry for a chance to purchase a kit). This is done to prevent them all from being bought up by speculators to flip on GunBroker, and I am happy FN chose to do it…check out FN America’s web site for full details:
https://fnamerica.com/fal-campaign/
It has been a long time since actual Belgian military FAL kits were available here, and I think it’s pretty cool to get a shipment of Gendarmerie ones. The kits are complete less the upper receiver, barrel, muzzle device, gas piston, and magazine. The Gendarmerie used the same rifles as the Belgian Army – M1 and M2 pattern FALs (the M5 is a separate specialized rifle used by the Gendarmerie for launching tear gas, which we will cover later). These kits are from M2 pattern rifles, and have some cosmetic wear and little mechanical wear – they were carried a lot and fired rarely.
In the next few months I’ll be having this kit built into a complete rifle, and we’ll have a closer look at the original military pattern of the FAL…
Disclosure: FN America gave me the kit.
Please do a video series of you building your complete
FAL. Thanks.
And please, Ian old gunbug, fire some 100 meter groups with it off the bench. It makes my back teeth ache to see a gun tested without establishing what kinda group it can print.
The Belgian Gendarmerie is no more for some years. It had been merged with the National Police which co-existed beside it to become the Federal Police (Belgium is a federal country). There are also Local Polices, which are subordinated to municipal authorities to make it short.
The Gendarmerie was in the peculiar position of being part of the armed forces but under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior (in peacetime, Ministry of Defense was to take over in wartime).
By the way, the frog is not supposed to be purple but rather blue, it looks times has taken its toll on it.
They couldn’t have given a FAL kit to a better person.
Thank you for all you’ve done for firearms history
Hi Ian, hi from South Africa. Last week on auction i managed to pick up a Belgian FN ex Rhodesian Military, with Camo. paint on it at a decent price. These are now as scarce as chicken teeth out here. Very very happy.Thanks for all the videos. i have actually contacted your website twice about a Mauser rifle i have but get no response??
This 992R business really sucks. It’s almost as if the BATF does not understand “shall not be infringed”. Sounds like a whole lot of infringing going on here.
As to these FALs, they are obviously semi-auto only, which surprises me, I had thought they would be selective fire, but I am glad they weren’t.
Screw the majority of those guys. They couldn’t tell a matchlock musket from a machine gun, and I heard one (apocryphal) horror story where the witness the BATF asked to testify about a “gun runner” was a half-blind old “hippie” woman whose only testimony amounted to “that man was holding a scary gun that looked like the one in the picture I have right here.” The picture in question was that of an antique CROSSBOW. Do the math.
Looks like DSA is offering a receiver with the correct markings for building up these kits. Is this what was in the works that you couldn’t mention in the video?