Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm here today in Slovenia at the Arex factory
where they have generously given me access to a Slovenian-issued F2000S.
This is slightly different than the standard F2000,
and we're going to take a look at what makes it different.
But first, let's put a few rounds through it.
[ Slovenian F2000S ]
The F2000 was not one of FN's more successful rifles,
but they did sell it to a number of countries, including Slovenia.
And the Slovenian model is actually a little bit different than the standard production gun.
So the deal is Slovenia was looking for a new combat rifle in the mid-2000s,
and the main contender in this contract was the G36.
Arex, actually having done a bunch of OEM manufacturing work for FN,
was of course aware of the Slovenian Army tender.
They were aware of the F2000, they already made parts for it for FN.
And they decided it would be a cool idea to submit
the F2000 to Slovenian military trials, they thought it was better than the G36.
However, there ... was one particular specific requirement in the Slovenian Army tender
that the standard F2000 didn't meet, and that was the requirement to have a carry handle.
And so what Arex did was basically they went to FN and they said,
"Look, we'd really like to submit this to the Slovenian military trials.
But it's got to have a carry handle, so can we redesign it to have that?"
And FN goes, "Yeah, sure, not a problem at all."
And then Arex goes, "Also by the way, the tender is in like six weeks, so we need it in like four weeks."
And FN, "That's impossible, not going to happen. It's going to take two years to redesign a rifle like that."
Well, Arex was not willing to take no for an answer.
And so they went back and in-house here in Slovenia
designed a new upper assembly for the F2000 that incorporated a carry handle.
It raises the Picatinny rail here just a bit, a little bit better sight offset for iron sights.
The original F2000 is a bit low unless you've got really tall iron sights.
And then modified the other parts as necessary to fit the new carry handle.
So let's take a look at what they put together for tender,
and then we'll talk about what ended up happening with it.
So in basically every detail other than this upper aluminium assembly,
this is identical to a standard F2000.
I should also point out we have an Aimpoint CompM2 here with a 4 MOA dot.
That is the specific optic that was requested and used by the Slovenian Army.
Now if I bring in a standard F2000 you can see the difference here.
So this polymer block remained the same,
but the aluminium upper assembly has been lifted up, extended backwards a bit.
The rear iron sight is integrated in.
So that's mounted back there, it's just an aperture sight.
You can flip it up for generic backup irons.
The front sight however, is a bolt-on extra component that you can completely remove.
The standard F2000 has a sling swivel out here in the front.
In fact it's on both sides right there.
The Slovenian pattern actually extends that slightly further out
away from the rifle to make it a little easier to use.
And last but not least, the markings on the Slovenian rifles are slightly different than standard F2000s,
they are marked with an "SV', which stands for Slovenian Army.
And then the serial number, obviously these aren't in their own serial number range,
that's part of overall F2000 production.
The designation on this is not marked anywhere on the rifle, but according to FN it is the F2000S.
And then "AX" is actually a marking for Arex,
because they make a number of the components in the rifle.
They made barrel extensions, they made the new upper receiver assembly,
they made the bayonet lugs, and they made a number of other parts.
Because as I said, they had been an OEM parts manufacturer for FN before this trial took place.
Alright, you may have figured out since I already said that this was a Slovenian military F2000,
or F2000S specifically, that they did in fact win the contract with this.
... Between 2006 and 2007 rifles were actually delivered to the Slovenian Army,
a total of 6,500 of them.
And this remains the only non-standard version of the F2000 rifle.
It's since gone out of production, because like I said at the beginning
this wasn't one of FNs more successful models.
But pretty cool to have an example of one here. So before we close this out,
let's take this over to Arex's range, put a few rounds through it,
see if it's actually different from a regular F2000.
Alright, one F2000S on the range.
If I'm going to be perfectly honest, it feels just like shooting an F2000.
Just with a slightly higher optics riser.
Well, I'd like to give a big thanks to Arex Defence for giving me the opportunity to come in
and take a look at their factory and pull out one of their F2000S rifles to show to you guys.
Hopefully you enjoyed the video. Thanks for watching.