Egyptian SAFN 49

[Greasemonkey]

I rolled the dice on another RTI offering A FN49 from Egypt, imported from Ethiopia. Kind of worried when I got it, the rifling was barely visible, but after cleaning and soaking, the bore thankfully presented strong rifling and a grey finely pitted appearance. I had no idea what would be under the grunge, thankfully it wasn't craters and a sewer pipe. Shes a bit ugly, the metal is mostly in the white, but after hard use in two nations, it's to be expected, and oh yeah, shes totally functional. The gas system is free and easily adjustable, the only issue is loading more than 5 rounds.. there's a bend in the mag that prevents it, it squeezes the mag follower, no biggie, I just ordered a replacement from Numrich, but will be leaving the original as is.







Egyptian crown present still


Barrel matches receiver, other parts,, the top cover and bolt do not match.



Belgian inspection stamp and Ledge proof


Capture screws present


Egyptian stock disc missing, probably laying somewhere in Ethiopia.


Unique to the Egyptians, a brass butt plate.


Bore shot after soaking and cleaning, there's rifling...


Oddball serial and x'ed out place on left side, unsure if this was done in Ethiopia or not, No arms I've looked at had serials added they imported. So big question on this one, technically it has 2 serials...

[running-man]

That number on the left with the ***'ing is wild.  Haven't seen that before that I can remember.  I'll have to dig mine out and compare. 

I saw the email from RTI (I must three per day from them on all sorts of temptations) and swung by the website to check them out, but that was as far as I got, especially considering the 'rolling of the dice' aspect with these Ethiopian sourced firearms. 

I may eventually grab a BRNO 2 or 5 .22lr if they go on heavy sale again, but I'm not quite there yet....

Nice one GM!

[echo1]

Definitely combat vetish, but at least the dice were nice and you ended up with a decent one. I used a New Hampshire quarter to replace my missing disc. I found my Egyptian about 8 or 9 years ago hiding under a bed for decades. German bayos of some sort fit on the Egyptian and Lux FNs. PAX

[Phosphorus32]

FN-49s are really underrated due to being late to the market. Largely due to the war interrupting the release timeline.

Glad your bore cleaned up well. Nice to have a complete one without any “improvements” like some of the much earlier Century offerings 

[Greasemonkey]

Thanks.. I'm sure my luck will run out with them at some point.. But...  I have gotten some decent and interesting ugly Bettys from them, which in many ways, suits.. I'm not a fan of pretty storage room fluff and buff specials.. It's typical glorious surplus junk, like 10-15 years ago, when surplus was surplus and every one is like a box of chocolates.. ya never knew what you were gonna get. 

I did some random searching on the left side serial.. it must either be a one off or my Googlefu fails me

I did finally get the butt plate door free and open, it had the remains of I'm guessing a chamber or bore brush and an oily piece of cloth. I just crammed it back in.