Lagniappe's newest gun

Well it looks as if Lagniappe has added another implement of force to the armory here at the Lair. This one is an SAFN-49, produced at the Belgian state-run Fabrique Nationale (FN) plant in Herstal, Belgium. This particular model was produced as a .30-06 rifle and probably It is not a recent commercial import.

Originally designed just before World War Two, the FN-49 was a solid, very well-built, reliable and accurate rifle but production was put on hold when the Germans invaded Belgium and overran the factory and the designer and his staff fled to England. The English really didn't care for this new-fangled semi-automatic regardless of how well-built it was so the design languished in the tool room until after the war, at which time it never found a real market because semi-automatic battle rifles were by then in production in several countries and the world was awash in cheap surplus arms left over from the war, in effect glutting what should have been a hungry market for the gun. As a result, relatively few of them were sold and fewer exist today.

These guns were originally produced in several calibers, .30-06, 8mm, and 7mm being the most common, with many of the 7mm guns being re-worked into .308 rifles by the Argentinians. The .30-06 guns saw service with Dutch and Belgian troops in the Dutch East Indies, the Belgian Congo, and/or Korea. This particular one was made in 1951 for the Army of Luxembourg and may or may not have been used in Korea as Luxembourg contributed two platoons of troops as part of the Belgian contingent.

I snagged this one from an upscale yuppie-oriented Loudon gun shop Friday when I noticed it sitting forlorn and neglected on the used gun rack. Apparently neither the shop nor the previous owner had any idea what it was worth, because it was priced well below market value for an original .30-06 FN-49 and I was able to dicker them down even more, getting it for about a third of it's actual value. It had apparently sat there for over two months, but had they put it on the internet, it would have sold immediately and for far more than they got for it from me. I plan to head out on a short vacation in the near future and this gun will be coming with me. Depending on how it shoots, I'll either keep it or flip if for the cash.