That’s a clean one, and they are far rarer than M1 Garands in this country. When I was younger, I remember them selling for around $300-$350 for a clean one while SKS’s were going for $99 bucks. The last 49 I saw was going for $950. They’re very well designed, and good shooting rifles—make a fine addition for a guy thats already got a Garand or M1A, or that’s already got a few FALs!

 

Mine's a Luxembourg in 30-06. It's a GREAT rifle! And, to me, it seems more refined than the Garands that I've shot & handled.

 

Neat rifles. Very old worldly.
Never shot one, but felt heavier and less spritely in the hand compared to an M1 Garand when handled.

Would magazineman share more of his experiences?

 

Mine is 8 mm X 57. Nice rifle and not considered an ASS-SALT-WEAPON.

 

i bought a bunch of them for $89.00. egyptian issue, 'only dropped in the sand once'. they had been restocked and bayonet lug removed for the then current atf regs. they sold like hot cakes at $150. i bought a case of chek 8x57 corrosive to shoot. i kept one for a while, but sold at $650 and bought a fal inch pattern for $450 which had an oversize throat and wouldn't hit anything on purpose. rebarreled and it was fine. they are more or less an fal with a fixed magazine. if it has the original stock, or is factory chambered in anything other than 8x57 it's quite valuable. as i remember they were all made in belgium. at the same time the 'hakim' was available. there tons of fn-49's in this country, and way over- priced for the atf models. they were being developed before ww2 and the prints hidden from the germans for the duration. sauve was the lead designer. as to assault rifle, no, as they used the more powerful cartridge. the early fal development was for a shorter 8mm, which used a shorter receiver. when nato wanted the 7.62, fn had to lengthen the receiver. they are both classed as 'automatic rifle'.

 

This one is 8mm Mauser it has the spiked cross bayonet intact. From your statement, it seems to be $1200 would be an over inflated price?

 

really i have not looked at the market in a long time. does your stock have cartouches? markings will be in arabic if its egyptian. there are some from other countries. if so it's not common in this country. what i can tell you about price is the last i looked 1200 would be very reasonable. but do your own inquiry. with the bayonet, i'm guessing its original.

 

DrkBlue ------ Sure, here's more of my experience, which I did not mention in my first post: First, the Lux 49 I have is extremely gorgeous. The unsubstantiated (quite possibly BS!) lore that came with the gun is that it was Prettied-Up to serve as a Luxembourg Palace Guard weapon.

I posted pics of the gun here a couple years ago but I'll drag it out today, take photos, & post them. Anyhow, I've never fired THIS one. But I did get to do a heads-up comparo with one like Sechott has, to two Garands, on a desert shooting trip. Shooting cans & backyard fruit. The 2 other guys & I agreed that the 49 seemed like it was made by a a sporting rifle company & the Garands a bit like they were made by Coleman. Which was different than your take. These are just personal opinions so they don't mean much.

The 49 (8mm) functioned flawlessly. But one of the Garands had an issue where it would not cycle through the the entire clip. The other would sometimes "short stroke" with a spent shell left in the chamber. Ammo was surplus US Black Tip & the 8mm in foreign boxes stamped in Cyrillic, Egyptian, or maybe Klingon

I got to use that 8mm again, at a range, after a CMP qualification shoot. Again, handled & worked extremely well. A fine rifle for sure. But maybe a day with a properly working Garand would change my opinion of what's better.

Side note: I have a Imbel FAL too. It's relationship to the 49 is evident.

 

I would break my hand, reaching for my wallet, to get a FN 49 in that nice of condition in 30-06. I don't remember the exact date those came into the country, but I have a memory of seeing one in the 1970's. Could have been another caliber though. The 30-06 version was never plentyful.

If you do get it, be aware of the slamfire problem with these things. Do not, under any condition, fire "commercial" ammunition in one. That is ammunition that does not have on the box "M1 Garand"

note the lower velocity of the mil spec type ammunition

Besides the over pressure issues of "commercial ammunition", my primary worry is the slamfire potential of FN 49's. Which is real, and catastrophic to the rifle.

Kaboomed 8mm Egyptian FN-49 .... Now A Floorlamp!!!!

http://www.sksboards.com/smf/index.php?topic=132165.0

« on: July 03, 2014, 06:26:50 PM »

My LGS gave me this Kaboomed Egyptian FN-49 today. It's a CAI gun. To add insult to injury it was the second time it had kaboomed. The owner had it "fixed" and then it let loose again after a few rounds. I think I would have quit the first go-round.

The funny thing is when I took it apart I could not find any reason it let go unless it fired out of battery. The gas setting was fine. The only broken part was the rear of the extractor when the kaboom bent it out and cracked it.

When it let go (8mm Romanian surplus) it looks like all the force went straight down and bulged the mag and in turn stretched the sides of the mag well in the trigger group/guard assembly. I got the mag pounded back in shape and bent in the sides of the mag well opening true.

One thing I did notice was that the stock was repaired poorly after it let loose the first time. It would not have taken but a few rounds to have split it again. It is one of those beech CAI replacement stocks and it split darn near perfectly in half.

I could fix the stock but why bother, I'd never-ever trust the rifle. The guy got away twice with nothing but hurt feel-goods and a lighter wallet and I don't want to be the odd man out with a injury.

I was thinking of parting it out or selling it as is but I think I might make a gun lamp out of it instead to preclude anyone getting bad parts or crazy ideas of trying to shoot it.

I glued/screwed the stock back together well enough to start making a lamp of it. It will be real easy to do.

I am buggered that a link I had to an article "collecting and shooting the model 1949 FN semiautomatic rifle" at thisoldrifle.com is busted. The site must have gone away. Anyway the link showed how to remove the firing pin, and strongly recommended replacing any one piece firing pins with a two piece firing pin. Apparently the one piece firing pins would break.

But my concern is about sensitive commercial primers in this mechanism. There are reports of out of battery slamfires where the post ka boom analysis indicated the firing pin was just fine. The only allowable primer to use in this mechanism is the CCI #34, which is an American mil spec primer. Hopefully that is good enough, but FN may have required an even less sensitive primer than the US #34, but that would not have made sense if the buyer wanted to use US surplus ammunition.


Slamfire FN49 8 mm Factory ammunition

http://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=367888

I had a slam-fire once, in an 8x57 Egyptian FN-49. I was slightly injured by small brass particles that cut my forehead, and my glasses were scratched. The rifle was damaged, wood blown out of the bottom around the magazine well. I was using some relatively anemic factory loaded 8mm Mauser hunting ammo someone had given me to use up. The rifle "doubled" the second shot which was a slam fire nearly immediately following the first shot. And apparently the bolt lugs had not fully locked, the rifle firing out of lock and the case rupturing. Previously I had used only Milsurp full-power ammo. FN-49's are known to have firing pin problems, breakage which can leave the forward part of the firing pin extending through the bolt. I had no parts breakage, and the firing pin seemed to retract OK. I can only assume the slam fire had something to do with the soft factory primers, but I'll never know for sure. I felt very fortunate to not have been hurt worse. I don't want to repeat the problem, so I am very careful about high primers, and use only CCI-34's in my reloads for semi-auto rifles (Garand, M1A) which I shoot often in local matches. I don't know how an AK would handle an out-of-battery slam fire any better than anything else.

Out of Battery Slamfire in FN49

Out of Battery Slamfire in FN49 - The Firing Line Forums

Out of Battery Slamfire in FN49 The Art of the Rifle: Semi-automatics

thefiringline.com

Hey all,
I recently had an 'out of battery slamfire' in my, two piece firing pin, FN49. I had made 8mm Mauser ammo from milsurp 30-06 cases. The dimensions of the cases (30-06 and 7.92x57mm S) are identical at the base and only need to be cut down to the correct length, sized and trimmed. The problem with making your own ammo for the FN49 is that it is a very robust firing mechanism that will ignite a sensitive primer before the round is seated in the chamber. I was using CCI 200 Large Rifle Primers which are reasonably sensitive for bolt action rifles and, I have found out, too sensitive for semi auto rifles. Even though I've used these primers for years in my FALs, and WASR AK47, I'm going to stop and use CCI 34 Large, 41 Small, or milsurp in the semi auto rifles.

The 'oob' slamfire caused the receiver and bolt carrier to become a bad fit! I searched (Google) and found a gunsmith in Missouri who could fix the rifle. His name is Guy Snelen at AMG International in Humansville, Missouri. He repaired it, test fired it, and sent it home to me. If anyone needs a good gunsmith, get in touch with Guy.

 

I would break my hand, reaching for my wallet, to get a FN 49 in that nice of condition in 30-06. I don't remember the exact date those came into the country, but I have a memory of seeing one in the 1970's. Could have been another caliber though. The 30-06 version was never plentyful.

If you do get it, be aware of the slamfire problem with these things. Do not, under any condition, fire "commercial" ammunition in one. That is ammunition that does not have on the box "M1 Garand"

note the lower velocity of the mil spec type ammunition

Besides the over pressure issues of "commercial ammunition", my primary worry is the slamfire potential of FN 49's. Which is real, and catastrophic to the rifle.

Kaboomed 8mm Egyptian FN-49 .... Now A Floorlamp!!!!

http://www.sksboards.com/smf/index.php?topic=132165.0

« on: July 03, 2014, 06:26:50 PM »



I am buggered that a link I had to an article "collecting and shooting the model 1949 FN semiautomatic rifle" at thisoldrifle.com is busted. The site must have gone away. Anyway the link showed how to remove the firing pin, and strongly recommended replacing any one piece firing pins with a two piece firing pin. Apparently the one piece firing pins would break.

But my concern is about sensitive commercial primers in this mechanism. There are reports of out of battery slamfires where the post ka boom analysis indicated the firing pin was just fine. The only allowable primer to use in this mechanism is the CCI #34, which is an American mil spec primer. Hopefully that is good enough, but FN may have required an even less sensitive primer than the US #34, but that would not have made sense if the buyer wanted to use US surplus ammunition.


Slamfire FN49 8 mm Factory ammunition

http://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=367888

Out of Battery Slamfire in FN49

Out of Battery Slamfire in FN49 - The Firing Line Forums

Out of Battery Slamfire in FN49 The Art of the Rifle: Semi-automatics

thefiringline.com

op's is 8x57. not sure if you knew that. good info on firing pin. i never knew that.

 

Pix

 

I have one of those Egyptian refins. They were around $200 when I bought mine. Nice shooter. Glad I bought a bunch of affordable full-power surplus 8x57 Mauser back then too. Gotta be careful of the ammo. Lower power American sporting ammo might not work. Some ammo is very hot. It does have an adjustable gas system.
Another brainchild of JMBs star pupil, Belgian Dieudonne Saive.

 

I have an FN 49 in 8mm Mauser. It has a scope rail on the receiver side and I managed a few years back to get a base from Northridge, found an ECHO mount and rings but haven't found an issue scope. Very nice set up but not exactly my 1st choice for a sniper rifle.

I think $1,200.00 is a tad high for a fairly well used FN49 in the Italian (IIRC) made stock. But, I suppose these aren't going down in price.

 

I put up photos of my Luxembourg .30-06 in post #11. What do you more knowledgeable FN49 fans think of the "palace guard" legend that came with that rifle? I had doubts so I paid no extra premium based on that tale, BUT I think it does look nice enough for the role.

So, a skilled Bubba Job? Or Legit Artifact?