FN FAL Full Auto

Shooting the Full Auto FN FAL

It's been a lot of fun pulling some of the older, more historically significant firearms out of the vault lately to video tape them. The FN FAL is one of those rifles that just finds its way into almost every country in the world. While I was in the military, I had the opportunity to see these in use all over Africa and in parts of South America in use by military and police forces all over. When you look at all of the modern machine gun out there, pretty much everything can trace its lineage to one of 4 firearms... the AK-47, HK G3, M16 and the FAL, which is commonly referred to as the "Right Arm of the Free World". Many of the smaller, lighter weapons we see today are a result fo countries looking to reduce the weight and recoil of either the G3 of the FAL.

The FAL (which stands for Fusil Automatique Léger or Light Automatic Rifle) was designed and first manufactured by Fabrique Nationale (FN) in Herstel, Belgium in 1947, and went into official use in 1953 with the British military. It is chamber in 7.62x51mm (7.62 NATO) and was chambered in this round at the request of the US government. FN had hoped to win a US military contract with the rifle, but at the same time that this was being developed, the M1 Garand was being rebuilt into the T44, which later became known as the M14 and won that contract, so the FAL never went into use in the US.

This is a great battle rifle, but in all honesty it will beat you up. this rifle fires at a rate of fire of between 650-700 rounds per minute. The Brits figured out pretty quickly that full auto fire in this system just wasn't effective for the average soldier, and so their variant, called the L1A1 SLR, was a semi-auto only rifle and served itself well. I will be posting another video of the shorter DS Arms SA58 OSW in full auto soon, and that one, with it's 11.5" barrel, really kicked my butt on the mag dump! I am recovering from a recent foot surgery in this video and am wearing a medical boot on my leg, but you can see that the mag dump causes me to lose my center of balance and start to get thrown backwards.

The FAL has been in use by 88 different countries, with 72 different countries still using it to this day. There are a lot of variants and versions made under different contracts, but much like the AK and the G3, it does what it is supposed to do in any environment... every single time, and is incredibly easy to maintain.

00:00 FN FAL
00:08 history
01:06 Semi- auto fire
01:13 Controlled bursts
01:26 Full auto mag dump

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DISCLAIMER: All firearms in this video are in use at a gun range, with all necessary safety precautions in place. Legacy Arms Intl videos are not intended to promote the sale or manufacture of firearms or firearm companies.

Legacy Arms International is a Federal Firearms License holder. We are a resource for gun demonstrations, safe handling instruction, and history of products discussed.