la marseillaise starts playing

guys were talking about a totally french rifle today

this thing practically comes with baguettes and a beret

now that i think about it the military berets very specifically did come with it lol

what is it

this is the famas

a rifle unlike almost anything else

its just now being retired from french service after decades of service

lets talk about where this baby started

so its the cold war and the french are using the mas-49/56 battle rifle

its pretty good

but by now a lot of countries have switched over to intermediate caliber assault rifles

the soviets have been using the ak47 for decades

the americans are using the m16 shooting the new 5.56 round

and nato has adopted that as their new standard

now france is kinda funny

theyve always been very independent militarily

oh you have nukes eh

well we already got one

they do everything on their own

they were a founding member of nato but kind of separated in 66 to do their own thing

same with their weapons development

thats why they were using their own rifle instead of like an fal or something

and then in the 70s they decided to make their new intermediate caliber rifle

they did that on their own too

so theyre like yo

we need a bullpup because everybody is in helicopters and apcs now

gotta keep it short

5.56 obvs

and they designed their french rifle using their own stuff as inspiration

specifically the aa52

guys this thing is lever delayed blowback

i know

im excited too

but lemmie finish the history section first

so the end result is a very simple rifle with like almost no parts

added a bunch of plastic

so its cheap light simple functions well

merde this is great

now some weird stuff

it doesnt use a stanag mag

you know like the m16 mag

see stanag means standardization agreement

with nato

and remember france was negging nato pretty hard this week

france is a total chad

anyway

it uses a 25rd mag

kinda weird

but they wanted them shawties to get low

like in prone and stuff

interesting to note tho that mag is straight not curved

built in bipod

not bad guys

they called it the f1

they made like 400000

then the navy was like ok but

can i has nato mag

also giant handguard for some reason

so they made a new version called the g2

they made like 15000 of those

exports were pretty much nonexistent

this gun is super french guys

so there were some problems related to foreign ammo but otherwise it works pretty well

and you would hope so

design started in 1967 and it wasnt adopted until 1978

thats a pretty long timeline

so lets take a look at the design

ok so like i said its somehow a lever delayed blowback

they figured out a way to make a blowback gun shoot rifle ammo

maybe you remember how the g3 was roller delayed

well this is lever delayed

the famas has a piece that fits between the bolt and bolt carrier

rearward pressure from the detonating cartridge pushes the bolt back

but there is also the lever mechanism

that specifically uses mechanical disadvantage to force the bolt carrier back much faster

the result is that bolt movement is delayed long enough to reduce pressure

although this is tuned to specific ammo

which is where complications arise

french ammo was designed for a 55gr bullet and made with steel cases

steel holds pressure better

and 55gr has its own pressure curve

it was found that using other nato ammo sometimes caused split cases because brass couldnt handle the pressure as well

and when nato moved to heavier ammo the famas wasnt able to stabilize it as well

plus theres that 25rd mag thing

so these were the things they changed for the g2

but they didnt build many

other than that the rifle pretty much stayed the same

its very ambidextrous

charging handle up top

you switch to lefthanded shooting by swapping the extractor and cheekpiece

rifle grenade launcher and sight

safety in triggerguard and burst or auto selector in the back

mag release for easy fast mag swap

overall it was well liked

soldiers called the le clarion

that means bugle lol

it served widely but only with french forces

if you want one today

well good luck

not impossible to find but only like 250 mas 223 rifles were able to be imported before the us banned all cool foreign rifle importation

so theyre kinda pricey

but check out buddy hinton

he is the famas guy

a bunch of these pix came from him

if you do want one i wish you luck

because youre gonna look fuckin badass

lol

pew pew

#click here for previous articles