I recently had the opportunity to visit FNH USA during a trip to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and I was amazed to see some of the most cutting-edge and modern firearms now available to American law enforcement and civilian shooters. The great people at FNH USA were kind enough to walk me through some very exciting FN weapons.

The FN SCAR®
We started with the totally innovative short-stroke, gas-piston FN SCAR® 16S (5.56mm) and FN SCAR® 17S (7.62mm) shoulder-fired arms with quick-change barrels and stocks featuring adjustable lengths of pull and cheek rest heights. They also feature fully-ambidextrous operating controls. Each SCAR® has a full upper mil-spec Picatinny rail to accept any kind of optic or sight on the market (and those in most shooters’ range bags). When I shot both the 5.56 and 7.62 SCAR® variants, the felt recoil was gentle and the accuracy was half-minute accuracy at 100 yards. The 7.62 SCAR® felt like I was shooting a 5.56, and the 5.56 felt like I was firing a 9mm carbine! The FN SCAR® rifles and carbines have already been successfully deployed with Tier 1 U.S. special operators and I now readily understand why operators I have talked to prefer these weapons.

FN 5.7x28mm Firearms
Developed from a NATO request for a new personal-defense weapon to replace 9mm platforms, FN offers series of firearms based on its amazing 5.7x28mm cartridge. The futuristic FN P90® and civilian FN PS90®, as well as the FN Five-seveN® pistol, now provide law enforcement and civilian shooters with superb low-recoil weapons. With recoil more like a .22 magnum, both the P90® and FiveseveN® pistol are notably lightweight, even when fully loaded with twenty rounds for the pistol and fifty rounds for the stubby P90®. Both were easy to shoot and keep on target, with the FiveseveN® having less than three quarters the recoil of a comparable 9mm handgun. I thoroughly enjoyed both the engineering and ease of accurate shooting with the excellent, flat-shooting 5.7x28mm round.

The new FNS™ Pistol
The FNS™ pistol introduced by FN in 2012 is a new polymer-framed, striker-fired pistol offered in 9mm and .40 S&W for law enforcement, competitive and self-defense shooters. The ambidextrous FNS™ comes with an internal drop safety as well as an external trigger safety, and can be purchased with an optional external manual safety. A notable difference between many other polymer-framed handguns and the FNS™ is the FNS™’ slide rails, which can be replaced to regain original tolerances without requiring a shooter or department to decommission their pistol. Shooting the pistol with iron sights proved it to be very accurate with slight recoil that just seated the pistol in the hand with very little muzzle flip, even with the .40. I found the grip size and angle more to my liking compared to other polymer-framed pistols, so it pointed more naturally and got me instantly back on target after each shot.

FN Supports American Industry and Shooters
Overall, I found that each FN weapon was superb, with no compromises in production, quality or performance. The current line of excellent FN firearms is extremely competitive in price to similar long arms and pistols from other manufacturers. But with more than 100 years of worldwide gun-making experience behind them, FN excels in performance and user-friendliness. What can I say—if a shooter or agency is looking for an accurate, top-tier pistol, carbine or long-range rifle, they should include the comparable FN weapon in their decision matrix. For more information, visit fnhusa.com.