The single time in the twentieth century that the timing of French small arms development was not adversely interrupted by an inconvenient war.

Looks like someone started to dieselpunk a FAL but gave up. I kinda dig it.

Even if the French copy something, they do their own thing anyway.

I did not knew that France was ever developing such a rifle before our Famas. Thanks for this very interesting review !

What is it with mid-century French guns looking like they were crafted with the biggest, gnarliest hydraulic press in France? 🤔 _Le chunky bloc avec funky ergonomiques_ is still kinda awesome but you can see why nobody else wanted their stuff...

I like how it took 10 years for the French to make something that basically looks like a cannibalized FAL in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it looks like it was made in a week using broken pipes and bicycle parts.

I would kill to see Ian review and test drive a Citroën SM, given his appreciation for French weirdness.

Ah well the FAL and the MAS49/56 are such pretty guns, I wonder what their child would look like and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHOHGODMYEYES!

What a Beauty! Never even heard of this one and i'm glad our lovely French Neighbours let you do a Video with this. I'm sure when you come to Germany our 2 great Weaponry Archives/Museums (The official one of the Bundeswehr & the Waffenmuseum Suhl) will also let you do some Videos on their Treasures including a lot of odd Prototypes. I'm 100% sure the lovely People from these 2 definitely know and watch your Channel Prost & Cheers from the Bavarian Alps

So a striker-fired FAL with a funky handguard and top cover, nice!

That is interesting. I think I know why it was never made. I bought a MAS back in the late 90's at the gunshop/range I worked at. I got a cost because it sat there for 3 years. Oddly enough no one reloaded there and we didn't stock ammunition for it. I did reload so I bought all the components and reloaded 100 rounds to try it out. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it shot. I had it until a few years ago. Unfortunately I needed the money for an emergency. I didn't sell the reload components because I want to get another one some day. It just looked so nice with my other milsurp rifles. It fit in like kibbles and bits with the rest of them. I would trade out rifles on my 4 space rifle rack in my reloading room to keep different. I love historical firearms especially shooting them. I love to feel and shoot history at the range. My wife now understands why I love the old rifles now that she shoots and has her own mini collection of milsurp handguns. We just bought her a Walther P-38 and she will just hold it and smile. When ever she see's one of her other firearms in a movie she says hey look there's my handgun. It's so fun to see. If anyone gets a chance to but a MAS I suggested you buy it. Thanks Ian for sharing your wonderful knowledge about historical firearms. I have been shooting since I was 8 years old or so. I am 53 now have a fairly large collection of firearms and I lean something every time I watch one 9f your videos. Sorry I wrote a book on your video. I do that when I am passionate about something. Happy Safe Shooting 🇺🇸💪.

I want the story behind the bullet hole in the wall to Ian's left.

Reminds me of the M16 I used in BCT. An A1 milled out to A2. Basically all the bluing on the upper receiver was actually carbon fouling that hadn't been scraped away.

I love how Ian has access to his favourite firearms! Vive la France!

Ah, I see, the first french war crime against Belgium...

A series on the French development in that 50's and 60's period would be quite interesting, methinks!

Therapist: French FAL doesn’t exist, it can’t hurt you. French FAL: *B O N J O U R*

I went through basic with the FAL, before we converted to the Steyr in service. This warms my heart ❤️.

As a Frenchman, I'm allowed to say this ;P The "look at everyone else's work, say it all sucks then do it the "French" way and ending up with essentially the same thing they declined in the first place from other nations is the FRENCHEST THING EVER. Almost offensively French lmao!! Proud nation to a fault..

Thanks Ian for providing us with these prototypes. I guess every french small arms development interested person here, is already really looking forward for you to dig up more of these and bring them on camera, especially since you come up with the juicy back stories ! greetings from France !

damn, a french rifle I've never heard about?

Cool looking gun. Looks like it would fit well in the fallout universe

Thank you for documenting pieces of our firearm history!

Good to see you out n about

I'd never thought you'd do this one

I think that is an extremely interesting rifle. It is such a simple design and I believe could have been a very effective weapon. I thank you for bringing things like this to people like me who would never get to see or hear about it.

Love that lone bullet hole sticker/magnet on the wall.

Very informative. As usual ! Thank you.

I hope Ian can take a look at the mentioned intermediate cartridge rifles they were looking at before. The CEAM 1950 was the french roller delayed blowback assault rifle in a number of different cartridges, designed by the mentioned mauser engineers working for France before they went to Spain to design the cetme and before they returned to Germany to do the G3 at HK. However I don't think any of the rifles have survived, online you pretty much see the same 3 black and white photographs and nothing else

Remove the magazine and put some extra bits on it and it would look right at home in Star Wars or really as a prop in a old school scifi show/movie... I like it :-)

What a beautiful piece!

Been looking for this!!!

That striker/recoil spring is rather cool. After all, according to Anvil Gunsmithing a good gun designer used both ends of the spring!

GOOOOD I’ve wanted to see this one for sooooo long! 🤩🤩

I have never even heard of this rifle. Thanks for the video.

Well, someone was excited lol. Love it when you get excited about a particular topic lol

Great video, keep doing ones like this

Thank you for sharing

Looks like the Hunting rifle from Fallout 1/2

Thank you , Ian . 🐺

The bullet hole to your left really hammers the point home that this is a firearm storage area.

Many thanks for this nice video and well documented discover of a weapon I didn't know the existence (I was in the French army, using a MAS-49/56)

Thanks for the content, interesting design.

That's the most non-Fallout Fallout-looking rifle I've ever seen.

Thanks

I like it's looks and am looking forward to the prototypes.

They might not have adopted this weapon but that old girl looks like somebody definitely put her thru the paces.

Very nice. Next up MAS54B? And what about this Famas sniper I've heard from some people in the know you had the chance to take a look at? 😉

I’m a gun enthusiast and all but I swear to god I follow FW mostly to listen to Ian speak. His voice is super relaxing for me for some reason and I usually play one of his videos and go about doing my own thing. Love you gun Jesus from Iran ❤️🇮🇷

Thank You for the video.

I am surprisingly early today, a nice treat alongside my late lunch!

Name a more iconic duo than Ian and the french IRCGN. I’ll wait.

A bit more of a linear hammer than a striker, reminds me of the VZ58.

As soon as you got the camera a little closer to this I was like, "Are we sure this isn't an Elbonian episode?"

That was so ugly the enemy's going to die laughing (probably against the Geniva convention)!

I would love it someday if Ian could just do an entire segment totally in French. I understand the Francophile world would worship at his alter and the rest will froth in their mouths at a funny sounding language but I for one would be curious if Ian does speak French in some manner. :)

From what I remember the funds were used to improve adaptations of air and ground launched wire guided missiles for close air support and anti tank capacity... these were then exported for a load of money allowing development of further weapons of those types ....

A few shades of Stg57 too, with that complex rear sight.

*Awesome beauty!!*

Thanks, I hadn’t seen this before, I tend to think the French were trying to improve the FAL accuracy. The bolt and slide design were interesting.

Great video

Nice piece of history.

I think this would qualify as a "Linear Hammer" fired system, like the VZ-58.

Day after day you improve your French language!!! BTW it's the first time i heard of this weapon. Day after day i improve my knoledge of weapons in my country!!!! thanks a lot!

This looks like when a country that doesn't have access to the FAL needs one for a movie, so they have to make a prop that looks like one or modify a pre-existing gun to look like one

The small cutout for out of battery safety is briliant.

that hand grip design, straight off a space gun!

I guess all that's left for Ian is to get access to an AA-52 and a forever-unobtainable Ribeyrolles.

Thank you.

very interesting piece of history

I trained on the FAL and loved it.

loved the in depth look on another type of modern rifle. I always wonder if they caught the guy that thought full auto on a .308 was a good idea.

That striker system reminds me of the Vz58.

How weird for the French to have gone to all this trouble to develop a rifle so FAL-like! FN is situated in Liege, in the French-speaking part of Belgium. It would have been utterly logical and simple for the French to have adopted the FAL. But "logical" and "French" are two words that do not often feature in the same sentence! Although, the decision not to adopt a new rifle but to stay with the 49/56 was absolutely the correct one, imo.

1:40 Ian is advancing the teleprompter - that something new!

It look really cool !

Love the bullet hole in the wall

this is a treat. True unicorn in every way

That FA-MAS 62 is pretty cool!

I had the mass semi auto rifles they were putting out in 1998 or so converted to .308 and hated it. It had nothing but problems. I traded it for one in 7.5mm and loved it. Had issues getting ammo at first. I also own the bolt action. Would love to try one of these out.

Such a cool looking rifle

Looks to me like a cartoon FAL. Super funky looking.

nice :) I wonder if our favorite presentator got a chance to fire that unique FA-MAS....

When visited the "Commando Marine" in Lorient, France in 1980, they had Thompson and FNFal in their Rifled Weapon racks. I believe they latter on traded those for the Sig550.

That front sight hood and night sight insert looks like it would do a good job of really blocking out your target.

Now that is interesting.

I served in the 2nd regiment of Hussards from 2001 to 2006 and at some point we felt the need for a battle rifle in 7.62 to use in our 6 men team. We eventually chose a FAL para, but it's very difficult for a french soldier not to be able to throw rifle grenades. A 7.62 FAL with the french adjustment system for windage and elevation and grenade launching capability would be the ideal battle rifle. The basic Hussard role in the army is a G.V., a "grenadier voltigeur" (a quick-moving soldier using rifle and grenades to assault the ennemy). Everyone in the army knows the phrase "Dédé est un bon G.V." used to remember that you need to "unscrew to correct to the right" (Dédé= DD = Dévisser Droite) and to "screw to correct to the left" (G.V. = GV = Gauche Visser).

The side reminds me of the Howa 64 but backwards where the Howa's got a clean receiver section this has the bumpiness ofte Howa's runt end.

Nothing is ever simple with these baguette eaters.

I just realized... You're in a gendarmerie facility, which means... probably a video on the ellusive aa52!

interesting M1A1 and fal are 2 of my favorites , he like a gun historian ,you can see that signature clip

Ian needs to be on one of those GQ videos. “Firearms Expert Breaks Down Unusual Firearms In Movies”

French innovation can be incredibly unique, clever and groundbreaking at times. And at others, absurdly ridiculous and utterly impractically complicated and delicate.

Looks like you pulled a _battle-scarred_ version.

Great video. I have a question: I see no firing pin spring. The MAS-49/56 has a reputation for slam fires when if comes to Non French Army standard ammo due to primer spec differences, the lack of a firing pin spring and a heavy firing pin. Could this have been a extra factor in rejecting this Type 62 for service? Or was the financial factor the only factor? 7,62x51mm NATO has different specs for the primers then the French Military had for the 7,5x54mm (and the 8mm Lebel before)

That is the foulest looking fun I've ever seen

Just googled "bullpup FAL" 😱 ..... thanks for the teaser !

Probably the best choice in the long run even though it wasn't intentional. I doubt there would have been money for the FAMAS is these had been adopted.

I do declare, that is just about the funkiest FAL I ever did see.

Looked (to me) like there were two rear sights. The second looked like one of those flip up post style AR rear sights. It would stand up higher for longer ranges.