The Tirmax is a handy little carbine made between 1909 and 1914 in Liege by a German company. It is a semiauto action using a 5-round detachable magazine. The guns are quite scarce today because only a fairly small number appear to have been produced before World War One ended its manufacture.
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After World War Two, the new NATO defense alliance held a series of trials to adopt a standard cartridge and infantry rifle. This would eventually devolve and the goal of a standardized rifle would be abandoned, but during the early trials there were three main contenders: the British EM-2, the A...

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Today we're looking at an example of a cheap pocket pistol from a century ago - a 6-shot Belgian revolver chambered for .22 Short (sometimes called a Velodog revolver because of their use by cyclists to ward off dogs). Scads of these type of guns were made, often with no markings beyond the lega...

This is a Belgian-made Schulhof bolt action rifle. It is notable for its 9-round rotary magazine, and this same model of rifle was tested by the US Army in 1889. The magazine and overall design of the rifle was found to be quite good, but the bolt was too weak for Army approval. Regardless, it is...

The Belgian Army held rifle trials in the late 1880s to choose a new infantry rifle, and the winner was the Model 1889 Belgian Mauser. Quite a few different guns were involved in the competition though, including this Engh-patent rifle made by Liegeoise. It's a pretty unusual bolt action that is ...

The FN Model 1903 was a Belgian-made scaled-up version of John Browning's model 1903 pocket hammerless pistol. The pocket hammerless was made in .32 ACP and .380 calibers for (primarily) the civilian market in the US by Colt, and the FN model was chambered for the more powerful 9x20mm Browning Lo...

The FN FNC carbine was developed for military trials in the 70s and 80s, and saw some limited success.

The FS2000 is the semiauto civilian version of FN's F2000 bullpup rifle. It was designed for military use, but contracts have been well below FN's hopes - only Slovenia has decided to adopt it as a standard service weapon (several other nations have bought small quantities for specialized uses). ...

The FN CAL (Carabine Automatique Legere) was Fabrique Nationale's first attempt at a 5.56mm rifle, and it was not successful. They replaced it with the FNC, which saw much wider success. The CAL is quite scarce today, and it was a very cool opportunity to take one out to the range! It performed r...

FN began developing the P90 in the late 1980s, actually preceding the NATO requirement that it would eventually compete for. The idea of the P90 was to develop a weapon for secondary troops to replace 9mm pistols and SMGs. There was an anticipated threat of Russian paratroops wearing armor that c...

Having taken a look at the history and mechanics of the P90 yesterday, I'm taking it out to the range today. I wasn't sure how I would feel about the progressive trigger...

After World War Two, FN put the BAR back into production. This was initially the FN-D version with a quick-change barrel, but with NATO's adoption of the 7.62mm cartridge, there was a demand for the BAR in that chambering. The Belgian Army adopted this new round, and plenty of other nations did a...

The FN MAG (Mitrailleuse d’Appui Général – General Purpose Machine Gun) was designed by Ernest Vervier, who took over from Dieudonné Saive as FN’s lead military arms designer in 1954. The Swedish government approached FN about building a belt-fed version of the BAR, which they had been unsuccessf...

Fabrique Nationale was formed as a consortium of small gunmakers to produce Mauser rifles for the Belgian Army, and when that work was complete the company basically had nothing else to do...until they met John Browning. Browning had a new pistols design and needed a manufacturer - and FN happene...

The Browning High Power story begins with a French 1921 request for a new military pistol. FN engineer Dieudonné Saive developed a double stack, single feed magazine and John Browning adapted a Browning 1903 pistol to use it, and this was sent to France for consideration. This pistol worked well ...

The Browning High Power (“Grande Puissance”, aka GP-35) was developed by Fabrique National in Belgium, designed primarily by John Browning’s apprentice Dieudonné Saive. It began in the very early 1920s as a pistol designed for a new French Army requirement, but eventually split into two separate ...

After World War Two, the Belgian military wanted to replace its many Sten guns with a better standard SMG. The solution was designed by Colonel Georges Vigneron in 1953, and adopted by all branches of the Belgian military (as well as the Force Publique in the Belgian Congo) in 1954. This is a ver...

The Vigneron was adopted to replace the Sten in Belgian service – so is it actually better than the Sten? In my opinion, yes. The sights and overall handling are better. The pistol grip is a welcome addition, although its contours make the grip safety a bit difficult for me to fully depress.

A few months ago FN America was able to import 400 parts sets from original Belgian Gendarmerie FAL rifles. I got one of them, and had it completed by DSA. They made receivers with Gendarmerie markings, as well as the barrel and other parts not included with the kit. So today we'll take a look at...

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 f...

The FNC (Fabrique Nationale Carabine) was FN’s followup to the unsuccessful CAL rifle. Chambered for the newly-adopted 5.56mm NATO cartridge, the FNC uses a long stroke gas piston system very reminiscent of the AK, combined with a stamped upper and milled aluminum lower. After about 5 years of de...

Today, we're taking the FN FNC out to the range to see how it handles...

Bloke tries to go out for a night of well-protected wenching, leaving his beautiful platinum-haired wife behind. Ends up staying in to talk about a very gentlemanly Belgian bulldog revolver in 7.5mm Swiss from before WW1, fit to grace the pocket of any well-heeled fool. [It's early days with the ...