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.

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.