The FN49 is the predecessor to the famous FN FAL rifle, and the two guns share a lot in common. The way they function is almost identical, but the SAFN looks more conventional than it’s more successful counterpart. So what does the FN49 look like underneath the dust cover?

FN 49 Run and Gun (Shooting)

Transcript …

– [Voiceover] Hey guys, this is Alex C with TFBTV.

And for today’s field strip, I’m going to take a look at an FN 49 SAFN chambered in 7 millimeter Mauser.

This specific example is a Venezuelan contract gun.

Now we have done a shooting video on this gun for those interested and I’ll go ahead and link to it in the description.

But for a little background these were designed by Dieudonné Saive who designed the FN FAL rifle.

So, it influenced the FAL greatly and you may be able to tell if you take a look at our FAL field strip video and then watch this one, you can definitely see the influences there.

But, let’s go ahead and make sure the rifle is clear.

To do that, just grab the charging handle pull the bolt all the way to the rear and verify nothing’s in the magazine or the chamber.

Now in letting the bolt go forward, be careful because they do have quite a lot of spring pressure and will snap your dang thumb off.

So to remove the dust cover, slash rear sight base assembly, rotate this little lever up push the base forward up and remove from the rear.

This will move the recoil spring and guide rod assembly as well.

So at this point draw the charging handle to the rear, and once you get it to a recess it will lift out freely from the gun.

Next, you’re going to separate the bolt from the carrier by pulling it from the rear up and out.

So next up, go ahead and remove the gas plug by pressing this button over and by rotating this bit clockwise.

At this point, it should pop out as it’s under spring pressure and you should be able to remove the piston as well.

The piston return spring is attached although it can be separated if you wish to do so.

And there you go, you have a fully field strip FN 49 SAFN. Like I said, check out our FN FAL disassembly video if you’d like to see the parallels between the two designs obviously them being designed by the same guy and produced by the same company there are a lot of similarities as you would imagine.

And they came in a sorts of calibers as well.

Maybe 7mm is not your thing.

8mm is also very common.

30 ought six is a little bit less common and then 308 is kind of considered the holy grail among collectors as it seems to be the least common of the major calibers.

I’m sure there’s some one offs and things like that but, I sure haven’t seen anything on the market.

You can also find these in relativity good condition as it seems like a lot of these were unissued and made it onto the surplus market regardless, but.

Anyways, big thanks to Ventura Munitions for making our videos possible guys.

We hope to see you next week.

(gun firing)