In 1958, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista ordered some 35,000 FAL rifles from FN, including both regular infantry rifles have heavy-barreled FALO light machine guns. Before any of them could arrive, however, Batista fled the country and his guns were delivered to Fidel Castro beginning in July 19...

In this short video we'll take a look at a manual for the FN Light Automatic Rifle 'Competition Model'. The FN LAR was a semi-automatic only commercial export variant of the FAL. This undated manual likely dates from the 1980s when FN began importing LAR's into the US.

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Shoot to Live - British Army Marksmanship Training pamphlet Shoot to kill had long been a British Army slogan, appearing in numerous training films and pamphlets, but in the late 70s a need introductory pamphlet on marksmanship filed it on its head. In this video we take a look inside an original...

Many the nations that adopted the FAL (or L1A1, in Commonwealth terminology) opted to also use a heavy-barreled variant of the same rifle as a light support weapon. In the Commonwealth, this was designated L2A1 and it was used by Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The Australian model was buil...

Bloke takes a look at a Canadian C1A1 in 7.62x51 NATO made by Long Branch, including a cutaway model! Of course, this leads to a geeky primary extraction discussion...

In the early 1990s, the Brazilian Imbel factory made a small run of FAL rifles converted to 5.56mm using AR magazines. They used standard FAL receivers and bolt carriers, with a boltface cut for 5.56x45mm and a magazine well insert with a new magazine release compatible with the AR magazines. Abo...

When the Browning Arms Company first began importing semiautomatic FAL rifles from FN in 1959, the submitted an example for evaluation, and ATF determined that it was not a machine gun. The rifle was made with a selector that could not be moved to the fully automatic position, and did not have th...

A compact take on the highly recognisable FAL this week. Join Jonathan Ferguson as he takes a look at a DIY shortened version of the Belgian-made battle rifle.

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...

Today we are taking a look at a German G1 pattern FAL. The initial purchased of the G1 were actual made by the German Border Guard (the Bundesgrenschutz). In the aftermath of World War Two, the western Allies decided to perpetually disarm Germany, and German security was provided by French, Briti...

Today I am joined by Larry Vickers to take a look at his original H&R T48 FAL. The Harrington & Richardson company was awarded a contract to produce a pre-production series of 500 of these rifles in the mid 1950s when the United States was conduction trials to choose a new combat rifle. The Belgi...

FN introduced the paratrooper folding-stock version of the FAL rifle in the early 1960s, and it became a very popular addition to their rifle line. Since the recoil spring on the standard pattern FAL runs down the length of the buttstock, fitting a side folding stock required a redesign to the in...

Israel was one of the very First Nations to adopt the FN FAL rifle - after Canada but before many actual NATO nations. Israel made its first purchases of the rifles in 1955, and delayed them almost immediately in the 1956 Suez Crisis. The first rifles were wholly made by FN in Belgium, but over t...

The iconic weapon of the Rhodesian Bush War is the FN-FAL, painted in a distinctive "baby poop" yellow and green pattern. Because Rhodesia was under international embargo, its options for obtaining weapons were limited. Some domestic production was undertaken, but one large source was neighboring...

In South African military service, the R1 was the FN FAL and was the preferred infantry combat rifle until the adoption of the Galil as the R4 rifle. So what were the guns in between? Well, the R2 was a South African adaptation of the G3. A large number of rifles were needed as a reserve, and als...

Canada was the first country to formally adopt the FN FAL as its standard service rifle, and in 1958 it added the C2 light machine gun version of the FAL to its arsenal. The C2, later updated to C2A1, was a heavy-barreled version of the regular FAL rifle. It shared all the same basic action compo...

The US prejudice against the FN FAL (including the inch pattern L1A1 SLR) is that they'll inevitably choke. However, Bloke's legit BSA L1A1 ran like a champ at Finnish Brutality 2023, with only one very minor hiccup at loading on the last rifle stage. Interestingly, the same hiccup that Ian's (Fo...

The FN FAL is one of the iconic infantry weapons of the Cold War. Since Autumn last year we have seen several variant appear in use in Ukraine. In this video we take a look some of the examples seen and get some direct insight from some of the Ukrainian personnel who have used them in the field. ...