Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and courtesy of the French Ministry of the Interior
today we are taking a look at a FAMAS G2.
This is the last version of the FAMAS to actually
be produced and issued by the French military.
And it was specifically made for the French Navy.
Now there are two major distinctions between this
and the F1, which is the standard Army pattern of the FAMAS.
The first is this change in the handguard, and the second,
and more substantial one, is the change in the magazine well.
And I suppose that leads me actually to a third one, which is changing the rifling rate of the barrel.
But you can't see that from back there.
Now when the FAMAS F1 was first adopted, the French standardised on a 55 grain projectile.
And they used the rifling that was most appropriate to a 55 grain projectile, which is one in 12 inch twist.
That's what the US M16A1 used, that was the standard for 5.56.
Until NATO trials selected the Belgian SS109 cartridge, which used a 62 grain semi-armour-piercing ... projectile.
Now a lot of people think that like the US forced 5.56 on NATO.
In reality the NATO trials didn't adopt the US 5.56 cartridge. They didn't adopt that 55 grain.
And in the aftermath of NATO adoption of the 62 grain projectile
(I know this sounds nit picky, but stay with me here),
the result was the US had to do a lot of re-barrelling of rifles because
the 1 in 12 twist that had been used would not sufficiently stabilise that Belgian projectile.
It needed a faster twist because the bullet was longer.
So the French Army never made this change. The French Army just stuck with its 55 grain ammunition.
They thought it was perfectly effective.
The SS109 actually had slightly inferior wounding capability, terminal ballistics,
but a little bit better barrier penetration.
This was a trade-off where the French just stuck with what they had.
However the French Navy, operating independently from the Army and with much smaller equipment requirements,
they decided that they wanted to have a NATO standard SS109 capable rifle.
So at this time, GIAT, which is the corporate entity that had acquired the Saint-Étienne Arsenal complex,
they were also trying to sell the FAMAS on the commercial market.
And in order to do that, of course it was important to have it capable of using standard NATO ammo,
and perhaps more importantly, capable of using standard NATO magazines.
So GIAT at the time was owned by the same ... conglomerate that owned FN,
so actually when they standardised on NATO magazines, they standardised on the FNC magazine,
which is interchangeable with, but slightly different from, the M16 magazine.
The original M16 or NATO magazine version of the FAMAS was the G1.
So you have the F1 as the standard commercial rifle, and then the next iteration is the G1.
Now the idea with the G1 was to make it more economical. Because this was a very expensive rifle to produce,
and that was the major reason why none of these were ... actually purchased in substantial numbers by any foreign armies.
So to economise this, they did things like they got rid of the grenade launcher sight.
They got rid of the bipod legs.
Simplified a few other things as well. They got rid of the grenade launching hardware on the barrel.
And then they adopted this open trigger guard assembly, and gave it a NATO standard magazine.
That was the G1 pattern. It was offered for commercial sale and it failed to get any substantial sales.
But when the French Navy [became] interested they looked at the standard G1,
and it had this NATO magazine feature that they liked and the rifling for NATO ammo.
But they wanted all those extra features that had been on the F1, the bipod, the grenade launching capability and so on.
And so adding those features back on you get the G2, and that's what we have here.
So let's take a closer look at it.
So I think the best way to illustrate the difference between the F1 and the G2 is just to show you both of them side by side.
So here's an F1 and here is a G2. I do need to point out this is an experimental F1
which has a different style of magazine release, just subtly so.
So don't worry about that, pay no attention to that little guy.
You can obviously see the change in handguard here.
This was done to accommodate shooting with, say, mittens in cold weather.
On the F1 this was accommodated by allowing you to rotate the trigger-guard forward and out of the way.
But it was simpler and cheaper, and arguably more effective, to just have a permanent whole hand handguard.
If we look at the markings we have pretty much the same as what was on the F1, except it's marked G2.
The serial prefix here is M, and that is for the French Navy contract.
They were all M prefix, and they made 10,000 of them.
Now I said the F1 had a prototype magazine release, which it does,
but all of the F1s had the magazine release located here at the front of the magazine.
You would pull it in and pull the magazine out.
Well, if you're going to use NATO standard magazines, they don't lock in that way.
They don't have any feature at the front edge of the magazine to latch against.
So instead of having that ambidextrous magazine release, a magazine release button
was added to the right side of the receiver which you push in,
and that allows the gun to use the standard NATO magazine locking surface there.
Not the most significant change, but the style of the butt plate was changed.
You have this sort of pebbled texture on the F1, which changed to just straight serrations on the G2.
The rest of the features, however, stayed largely the same.
So we have the same safety.
In the safe position it points back towards the trigger to make it very obvious that the safety is engaged.
When you flip it to "1" side you have semi-auto.
When you flip it to the other side you have full-auto.
However, full-auto can be either 3 round bursts or unlimited automatic,
depending on where you have this lever on the fire control group set.
Of course this is a bullpup, so the actual fire control mechanical pieces are right back here.
Move that lever to zero and you have unlimited full-auto. Move it to 3 and you have 3 round burst.
The grenade launching hardware remains on the front of the barrel.
So this stop adjusts the range of your grenade, depending on how far back it sits on the barrel.
Charging handle is the same, bipod legs are the same.
However, there is one very subtle difference mechanically.
So I can pop this pin,
and pull off the buttstock.
I should also point out that the receiver is slightly longer than the standard FAMAS receiver.
That is done because the standard FAMAS magazine does not have a hold open tab on it.
And so the magazine is actually slightly shorter
than the NATO standard, the AR magazine.
So there is no way to convert an F1 to a G2 pattern ... short of replacing the receiver.
Because this receiver has to be all new.
You can see they changed the profile of it as well, so that you have enough space to properly lock the magazine in place.
Anyway, what I wanted to show you in here is
when we pull the bolt off
the elements of the bolt remain the same.
And this is a lever ... delayed blowback system,
meaning that when it fires, when the bolt starts to push backwards,
this accelerator lever right here forces the bolt body to move a substantial distance
before the bolt can really get moving at all.
For more explanation on that, see my video on the FAMAS F1.
That accelerator lever interacts with the receiver,
and it holds the bolt in place as long as the lever hasn't fully rotated.
Now on the F1 here, the original gun made for ... 55 grain ammo,
this section of the receiver is just flat. The accelerator locks in front at this little line, and rotates and cycles etc.
On the G2, in order to tweak the mechanism just slightly to better accommodate
the slightly different recoil impulse and pressure curve of SS109,
a little bit of a lip has been added right there, and you can see it (this rifle's a little dirty),
but you can see it right there.
And that just slightly changes the behaviour of the accelerator lever
and allows the rifle to function better with SS109.
We have a grenade launcher sight here on the front. And that has two positions, one for high angle, and one for lower angle.
And the way you would actually do this is you would hold the rifle on its side, like this, and you have,
see there, you have a rear sight (sort of) and the front sight both on this lever.
And so in this extreme position you get a fairly high angle trajectory,
which is one line on your sight table. And when you flip it to this one you get a
shallower angle of trajectory which is going to give you a longer range.
And this folds out to both sides so that the gun remains ambidextrous.
That way you can launch rifle grenades and not have it eject straight into your face.
Inside the handguard trough we have an assembly here, and this is both the direct-fire grenade sight,
and also the night sights. So you can ...
you can see in here in there and in there, there were two holes that would have tritium vials to light up at night.
And then there would be a sliding front night sight that would slide up in front of the regular sight here.
Now these have been removed. There was unfortunately a bit of a big scare about radium and radioactive components,
and so the night sights were removed from the FAMAS rifles.
This one doesn't have the radium in it, but it still has the mechanical elements.
So the other half of that is this flip-up sight there.
And that has
its own separate notch right there, and this is used for direct fire of grenades.
So it's lifted a little higher than your regular rear aperture sight.
It has two markings, or two positions, a 75 metre and a 100 metre.
If you're shooting something less than 75 metres you just aim at the base.
But basically that gives you the little bit of elevation that you need
for direct fire of grenades, like anti-tank grenades in particular.
So you've got your two positions there.
Over 100 you can't effectively direct fire. And when you're done, you just flip it down.
Given the total production of these was about 4% as much as regular FAMAS rifles,
and that there was never a civilian semi-auto version of the G2 manufactured and sold,
these are very rare rifles to find today outside of France.
So I very much appreciate the Ministry of the Interior giving me the chance to take a look at this one,
and bring it to you guys, to show you the last, last gasp of the military production FAMAS.
Thanks for watching.
[ sub by sk cn2 ]