What Is FN?
This is the story of a gunmaker out of legend: Fabrique Nationale Herstal (French for 'National Factory Herstal'), or as it is more commonly known, simply Fabrique Nationale, or FN. It’s a company with a long history and an impressive lineage of products, not the least of which are the various arms that resulted from the company’s long association with the Maestro, John Moses Browning, and later, his son Val Browning.
When I was a young man, I first looked into building custom hunting rifles, which ended up being nothing more than a hobby. But back then, two actions were often used in the real high-end shooting irons: The pre-64 Winchester Model 70 and the FN Mauser. Browning imported the FN Mauser as the High-Power, and it was a great action: Solid, durable, with a lockup like a bank vault. FN manufactured the Browning Auto-5, the Browning Automatic Rifle (the civilian sporter, not the M1918 BAR), and the Browning Hi-Power autoloading pistol, among others.
But there’s a lot more to FN than just the Brownings, and there still is today. Let’s have a look at their history.The History
The story begins with a Belgian chap named Henri Pieper. Pieper had started an arms manufacturing company in Herstal, Belgium, calling it Anciens Etablissements Pieper, or “Old Pieper Establishments” in English. It’s unclear why he called a brand-new company “Old Pieper Establishments,” but there you are; he was, after all, Belgian. Who knows? The Pieper company made several guns under contract, including the 1888 Henri-Pieper rifle, the Pieper M1893 carbine, the Bergmann-Bayard pistol, and the Bayard 1908 pistol. The Bayard 1908 pistol, curiously enough, was based on a pattern designed by John Browning, making this the first documented collaboration between one of the founders of FN and the Maestro.
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The Pieper company didn’t just make guns; in 1897, they introduced an automobile, with an electric motor and a small gasoline motor. Yes, in 1897, they made a hybrid car, with no climate scolds shouting about emissions.
The Pieper company didn’t last, but in 1889, Pieper became one of the principal founders and, some say, the primary advocate for a new company, Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre (National Factory of Weapons of War in English) to fulfill a contract for 150,000 Mauser Model 89 rifles for the Belgian Army.
Then in 1897, the company formed its long-standing relationship with John Browning. From there, FN and Browning went from success to success.
The Company
The partnership with Browning reaped great rewards, but FN did not depend solely on that. Like old Iver Johnson, the company diversified into bicycles for a while, and even made cars, from the turn of the century to 1935, motorcycles until 1965, and commercial trucks until 1970. Wars come and go, but commerce is forever, and FN was able to cash in on both.
John Browning died in 1926, at his desk in the FN factory in Herstal, while working on the design of his over-under double shotgun, which his son Val would complete, and FN would manufacture. The other design he left unfinished was for the famous Browning Hi-Power pistol, which was completed by FN engineer Dieudonné Saive.
Then came World War II, or as certain U.S. members of Congress call it, World War Eleven. If you’re up on your history, you’ll remember that Belgium was overrun by Germany in 1940. FN was compelled, then, to manufacture weapons for Germany, and ended up building thousands of Hi-Power pistols for the Nazi government; you can still find Hi-Power pistols bearing Nazi markings, but they command fancy prices from collectors if they are nicely maintained originals. The factory was liberated by American troops in 1944, and the troops immediately started buying FN pistols, which gave the post-occupation FN a needed boost.
There were some post-war changes and reorganizations:
In 1977, FN bought the Browning Arms Company.
In 1981, the company opened FN Manufacturing in Columbia, South Carolina, to manufacture American military arms like the M240 machine gun.
In 1991, FN acquired the rights to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.
In 1997, the Walloon Region of Belgium purchased full ownership of the company and formed the Herstal Group, which owns FN Herstal, Browning, and Winchester now.
In 1998, the company formed FNH USA for American sales and marketing, and in 2014, FNH USA merged with FN Manufacturing, becoming FN America.
That’s where things stand now.
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The Weapons
Listing all of the weapons produced by FN would fill a small book. There are, however, some that stand out, for one reason or another, aside from the aforementioned Mauser rifles. For example:
- FN Five-seven, a rather odd little largely polymer pistol, with a magazine that holds 20 rounds of FN’s 5.7x28mm cartridge.
- FN/Browning Hi-Power, the initial design for which was begun by John Browning before his death and completed by FN; some call this the ultimate development of the pattern begun with Browning’s famous 1911.
- FN Baby Browning, a Browning-designed vest-pocket pistol in .25 ACP.
- Browning 22 semi-auto, a slick, slim, tube-fed, bottom-ejection .22 plinker and hunting rifle.
- FN-FAL, one of the most widely used main battle rifles in history, chambered for the big 7.62x51mm NATO round.
- Mausers, from the Model 1889, through the Models 1893, 1924, Karabiner 98k, and the later commercial 98 Mauser actions.
- FN P-12, a pump-action shotgun, mostly intended for police use.
- Browning Auto-5 shotgun, designed (obviously) by John Browning.
- Superposed shotgun, the first mass-produced over-under double, designed in part by John Browning, completed by his son, Val Browning.
There are a lot more.
What About Now?FN is still there, still in Herstal, and still making excellent weapons for civilian and military applications. They still make a variety of Tacticool rifles and pistols for civilian use, including the SCAR carbine series and the PS90 series, and the FN-15, an AR-15 pattern series of rifles and carbines. Handguns include the FN 309, FN 509, FN 502, and FN Reflex semi-auto sidearms.
And the Browning Automatic Rifle is still made in Belgium, although final assembly is in Portugal.
That’s a heck of a history for a heck of a company.
