Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian, I am here today at the Institute for
Military Technology taking a look at some of their
interesting and unusual firearms.
And we have one here today that's a little bit more
modern than what we normally work with.
This is an FN CAL, this is FN's first attempt
to make a 5.56mm combat rifle.
And it was the military automatic carbine, or Carabine Automatique Légère.
And it was introduced in 1967, and it didn't do very well.
Ultimately this would be taken out of production, and it would be replaced by the FN FNC.
Which was a much more successful gun, it was adopted by Sweden as the Ak 5,
and used by a bunch of other countries as well.
The CAL here ... they sold something like 12,000 guns in total.
Only to a couple of countries, the most substantial sale being to Thailand.
The problem was this was an expensive gun, and it was a difficult to maintain gun.
Now it's a very handy, light gun, it weighs like 6.6 pounds.
So that's going to be something about 3 kilos.
So mechanically this is a short-stroke piston with a rotating bolt to lock.
And in some ways it's going to resemble the AR-15, but in many ways it does not.
So we'll pull it apart in just a moment to take a look at the internals.
But a couple of things to note.
Not a lot of unique stuff about the rifle,
one exception is the fire control mechanism.
These did as standard come with a four position fire selector.
So it was safe, semi-auto, 3 round burst, and full-auto.
So you had both the burst and the unlimited full-auto as options.
Now traditionally one of the complaints about burst options,
specifically 3 or even 4 round burst,
is that let's say you're firing a burst, and you let off the trigger a little too soon,
and you only fire 2 rounds of a 3 round burst.
On an M16 burst-fire control,
what that means is the next time you pull the trigger you'll only get one shot.
Because it has a 3 position ratchet that has to cycle all the way through before it can reset.
So if you only fire two, the ratchet goes two positions.
And when you pull the trigger the next time it goes one more position, and then resets.
Well, the FN CAL fixed that problem.
On this one the burst selector automatically resets when you let go of the trigger,
no matter how many rounds you fired.
So if you let off the trigger early, only fire two,
the next time you pull the trigger on burst, you'll still get a 3 round burst.
(As long as you hold the trigger down.) So that's a good thing.
In many ways this rifle is well built, it's just not a fully evolved design.
So let's go ahead and pull it apart, and take a look at the bolt.
Start with the markings, which are pretty simplistic and basic.
Just up on the top of the left side of the receiver there we have
Fabrique Nationale, Herstal, Belgium. Serial number and calibre 5.56.
There is our selector lever, automatic, 3, single, safe. Pretty simple there.
The rear sight is a simple two position aperture, 400 and zero to 250, very simple there.
Pretty much the same for the front sight, just a very simple post.
Windage adjustable on the rear, elevation adjustable on the front.
We do have an adjustable gas block here,
so you can vary the amount of gas going into the system.
You can also turn it off for grenade launching.
Magazine release right here on the side where you would expect it.
And as I said the magazine is not interchangeable with AR-15 standards.
We do have a case deflector here, and also a dust cover.
And ... the dust cover snaps around the charging handle like so.
So interestingly there is the slot up here for the charging handle,
because it is a reciprocating charging handle, so it has to have an open channel that it can run in.
And what FN did was actually put a rubber piece up here
so it slides open around the charging handle as you cycle, but then closes right behind it.
So an interesting dirt control system.
That's the sort of thing that works really well at first,
but this certainly has the potential to dry up and deteriorate over time.
So connecting the upper and lower receiver sections we have two pins, one at the front, one at the back.
Disassembly, I'm just going to punch out the back one,
that'll leave it connected, and it'll just pivot down the fire control group.
So let's start that with my thumb, I can then pull the pin out.
That allows us to pivot (all the way out, there we go),
now we can pivot the upper and lower apart.
Now I should have said, you want to make sure you have the hammer cocked,
so cycle the action first. You need to do that anyway to make sure it's unloaded.
Now once you have these two pivoted apart,
what you need to do is actually disconnect the charging handle from the recoil spring.
So we have a short-stroke gas piston up here with the recoil spring around it,
and the bolt handle is what actually connects the recoil spring to the bolt.
So from this position, we're going to pull the handle directly out ... away from the receiver,
just until it snaps.
Now it's disconnected from the recoil spring,
which you can maybe just barely see up there,
but it's still connected to the bolt.
We can now pull it to the rear, at this position I can then take the bolt handle out.
And then the bolt assembly comes out behind it.
That's as far as you need to take apart this assembly to be done with it, so we'll set this aside.
Now looking at this bolt assembly kind of will explain in microcosm
why the [CAL] didn't get more popularity, didn't see wider service.
So in order to take the bolt out, that's the goal here, I want to take the bolt out.
Which means we have to take the cam pin out.
The cam pin is held in place by the firing pin, so we have to take that out.
In order to take the firing pin out we have to take out
the cross pin locking the firing pin in place.
Now all of that is the same process as on an AR-15.
The difference being at the very end here on an AR-15 you have a cotter pin
where you can hook the tip of a ... bullet under the end of the cotter pin, and pop it out easily.
On this you have a small diameter pin inside this hole that you have to line up here.
It's way too small to use the nose of a bullet,
you have to actually use a punch or other tool.
Now once I get in there it's pretty easy, there's the pin coming out that side.
But I've got this little tiny pin, I've got to use a punch to get it out, that's not a good thing.
So we'll put that there. Now I can take out the firing pin.
The firing pin on the [CAL] is pretty interesting.
It is this thing, kind of looks like an actual pin.
That round ball on the end, and it ... just sits in this carrier.
This acts as an out-of-battery safety, which I'll show you in a moment.
Got that.
Now we can pull the cam pin out.
... The cam pin comes out, that works just like an AR-15.
Then ... the next step here was ...
OK, now I can rotate the bolt, pull the bolt out.
And then I have two elements of the bolt carrier, which come apart.
Take those out.
Now I think you're probably getting an understanding of what I meant
when I said this gun was expensive and difficult to maintain.
So the locking lugs are not the AR style that we think of today,
rather we have just a couple of individual locking lugs here 180 degrees opposed.
And then I mentioned the out-of-battery safety.
What this does, the firing pin sits in the back here,
and you can see that this angled track can slide up and down.
And when the bolt is in battery like this, the firing pin can protrude all the way.
When the bolt rotates out of battery it forces this piece back,
which pulls the firing pin back with it and prevents it from protruding,
which thus prevents the gun from firing.
So if the bolts not locked it can't fire. That's a critical safety factor in any firearm,
and that's how they address it in the [CAL].
One last neat feature of the [CAL], it was of course intended as a military rifle,
which means it needs to be able to serve in all climates.
And one of the traditional things that one needs to account for
is firing rifles with heavy gloves on. So what if you ... have a mitten,
or what if you have a glove where you can't fit a finger through that trigger guard?
Well, the [CAL] came with a, sort of, detachable trigger guard.
So the bottom ... guard here pivots on a pin, and it's held in place by this spring.
So if I pull this spring backwards, you could take a bullet tip in there and pry it back,
or you can just use your thumb.
There we go. We can pop this out.
And it folds back right up along the pistol grip.
And now you have access with mittens.
Thank you for watching guys, I hope you enjoyed the video.
This is an extremely rare gun today because they were
really only sold to the military market, and not very many of them.
By the ... mid/late 1970s these had been pulled out of production and replaced with the FNC.
So they are quite difficult to find these days.
And very cool that the IMT let me pull this one down and show you guys the insides.
If you like this sort of stuff, please consider checking out my Patreon account.
It is funding from the folks there that lets me travel here and show you guns like this.
And if you're interested in doing more in-depth research on firearms like this,
or early prototypes, or experimental guns,
or all manner of interesting firearms, contact the IMT.
They are not open in general to the public, but they are available by appointment.
Thanks for watching.