Tag Archives: Gendarmerie Nationale

Finally got my FAL kit

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Here is one of the famed FN FAL kits brought in last year by FN America.

The story, if you aren’t familiar, is that there were guns built for the old 15,000-strong Belgian Rijkswacht/Gendarmerie Nationale during the Cold War– rifles that spent most of their time with that service in storage as the police force didn’t need them daily. Then, FN got the rifles back as part of a deal for new guns after the Gendarmerie was demilitarized in 1992 and held on to them for another generation before deciding to disassemble 400 of them into parts kits for the U.S. Market. Ian at Forgotten Weapons has the full deets in a video for more background.

I got this example, Number 372 of 400 as noted by the certificate, during the lottery that FN held and was super happy to get it as the likelihood of these ever being available again is remote, especially for legit kits sold through FN in this condition.

The kit includes:

Bolt, bolt carrier, operating rod, trigger housing, trigger, hammer, disconnector, buttstock, pistol grip, forearm/handguard, and all small parts shown. The lower trigger frame, stocks, bayonets, and slings in these authentic FAL builder kits have light cosmetic markings from once-issued uses. 

This thing is about as legit and old-school FAL cool as it gets. Plus, as FN is based in Belgium and these were guns made for “the home team,” you know the QC during the original construction of these bad boys was on point. After all, the main reason the Gendarmerie had these was just in case WWIII kicked off and the Soviets came crashing into Western Europe.

I have to still get a receiver and some other minor parts to make it into a rifle but DSA is all over that. They are even making a run of specialty-marked Gendarmerie receivers just for these kits.

Jungle clips and smurfs

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Burundi policemen with RPK and jungle mags

Yup, there are three if not four 30 round mags jungle clipped together here.

Above is a Burundi policemen of the Gendarmerie Nationale with his trusty RPK in an image taken during increased tensions in that country via Reuters.

Once part of Kaiser Willy’s Germany, the Belgians inherited the area in 1918 and, since they left in 1962 the region has had a couple of failed coups, tensions between Tutsi and Hutu (just like in neighboring Rwanda though not quite as genocidal) and civil war.

If you ask why all the firepower by the blue-camouflaged police (good choice for a Central African paramilitary force, right?), it should be noted that the 20,000 man Army which uses conscripted child soldiers, is primarily Tutsi, while the 30,000-man police force is traditionally dominated by Hutu. Peace through mutually assured destruction in a way, effective power sharing in another. And while the Army definitely uses a strong hand, the police are also known to help disappear individuals pretty often as well.

Both forces are primarily equipped with Combloc small arms systems though a few French and South African platforms (Gazelle helicopters, RG-31 Nyala APCs) have been acquired since 1989.

Still, its hard to go wrong with a 10-pound light machine gun capable of draining a 30-round mag in about 3 seconds when needed.

Hence the jungle mags.