FAMAS Light Laser Red Dot Spring Rifle Manual

France chose the 5.56mm caliber in 1970. By the same time, other weapons as the Belgian CAL, German HK33 and M16 are tested. But the final result linked to politic and economic reasons lead to the development of a national weapon.

The Blue Prints of the weapon describes it as being able to replace the rifle, the submachine gun, be precise up to 300m and to be able to launch a 500 grams grenade.

The project is given to the Manufacture d'Armes de St Etienne hence its name FAMAS (Fusil Automatique Manufacture d'Armes de St Etienne) where the team leaded by Paul Tellier and Alain Coubes will design it within 2 years as in march 1971 ten prototypes of FAMAS A1 are presented and tested against CAL and HK's. Throught the experimentation models A2 through A5 are tested. Technical matters delay the development from 1974 to 1976. The A6 prototype still presents slight failures which are corrected throught model A7 officialy adopted by french Amry the 8th of August 1977 under the name FAMAS F1. Two more years are necessary to have the 3 rounds burst mode validated.During this time the industrialisation process was set-up and serial weapons are delivered by 1979.