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when I was given a chance to evaluate two STG 58’s from Entréprise Arms
I was interested to see how they would stack up to what I was accustomed
to. Entréprise Arms offers quite a selection of rifles and carbines
based on the Austrian STG 58 version of the FN-FAL. Standard and select-grade
models are offered as well as carbine versions and even a target rifle.
Manufactured with both newly manufactured American components as well
as original Austrian parts, they looked like just the ticket for someone
looking for a rugged and reliable self loading rifle. But why are they
called STG 58’s instead of just being referred to as FALs? Good question,
let’s take a look at the rifle’s history and lineage before examining
the rifles themselves.
You have to flip the pages back all the way to the 1930s to find the beginning of the story. A Belgian named Dieudonne Saive, working at Fabrique Nationale (FN), was engaged in designing a self loading rifle. By then the writing was on the wall for the conventional bolt action magazine rifle, and all the world’s armies were searching for self loading replacements. However Mr Saive’s design was not perfected when the Wehrmacht rolled through Belgium in 1940. Not wishing his design to fall into German hands, he and several of his colleagues fled to England to continue their work. During the war he continued refining his rifle at the Design Department of the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield. After the end of the Second World War his rifle was produced back home at FN as the SAFN (Semi Automatique FN). A conventional looking baffle rifle, it would seem more at home in the 1930s when it was envisioned than the late 1940s and early 1950s when it was finally produced. Manufactured in 792x57, 7.65x53, .30-06, and 7x57mm, it was adopted by several countries and is usually referred to as the FN Model 49.
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