Well after lots of deliberation and saving up for a bit I finally bought my first machinegun gun today.

I bought an FNC with a registered sear from Ruben Mendiola. I talked to him on the phone and told him which one I wanted (he had 3 listed on his website that were all in about the same shape, excellent but lightly used) and he said to email him with a I'll take it and the serial number of the one I wanted.

He then emailed me back and said once he checked inventory someone had purchased all of the FNCs that he had listed, but that he had a couple more that he was just getting ready to post.

It worked out for the better, as the one I ended up picking was near mint. He honored the same price as the one I had initially asked for.

Now the wait for it to arrive at my dealer begins, and then the even longer wait for the form 4 to clear. Hopefully the approval time speeds up since most of the 41F rush has hopefully passed.

Congrats!  I've considered a transferable multiple times but still haven't been able to convince myself.

Congrats! Im sure you will be happy with your purchase

Also be sure to post pictures when you get it and let us know how it shoots.

You will be very happy with your purchase, and Ruben is a very professional dealer and my transactions with him have been buttery smooth.

Congratulations!

Congratulations on your purchase.  I hope that you have many enjoyable times with your machine gun.

The bad news is, from what my Dealer told me last week, while he has seen some early July, 2016 approved stamps, he had not yet seen any approved stamps from July 13, 2016 or thereafter.  The huge spike (such as the single party that filed 10,000 forms on July 13th) has not yet been addressed.  I mailed in a couple of Form 4s in early October, 2016, and I do not expect that they will be examined until sometime in 2018.  On the other hand, some of the slower times of late appear to be related to the BATFE making a diligent effort to correct all of their machine gun records.  As that happens, the overall examination process should become more efficient.

MHO, YMMV, etc.

Congratulations! I love my FNC. They are really smooth shooters. I've gathered most of the parts to do an AK5C conversion on mine. Out of curiosity what did you pay?

congrats!

You took the plunge with true style, the FNC is a superb rifle.


I once had an unfired FNC paratrooper.

And I had a unused FNC full auto sear, one of the last ones sold by the maker, S&H.

Never got the sear installed, sold them both.  

The rifle had an original Armson OEG sight on an FNC mount that had been made for the South African army.  Try finding one of those, I probably had the only one in the USA.

Mine was the special Law Enforcement Model (Model 6000) that was imported by Howco and sold only to law enforcement agencies. It had a short 16" barrel and short flash hider instead of the usual 18" barrel and long flash hider.

Unlike the 18" commercial models, it was not marked "Sporter" and was marked "5.56" instead of "223".

Howco imported these 16" law enforcement guns for the the NJ State Police, but they never took delivery, and they were eventually sold NIB on the civillian market.

You should buy an FNC for a spare.  

Just in case.

Very true if you plan on doing a lot of shooting.

$14,495 from Ruben.

I am considering picking up a spare FNC host if I can find one at a halfway decent price.

There's been a few post-41 approvals but it appears the bulk are still pre.

Any idea on how long dealer to dealer transfers are taking for approval these days?

Since the beginning of the year I have been running about 60 to 90 days for F3s.  I have had some come through as quick as 45 days and still have one that is pending at 4+ months with a transferring dealer that I suspect is part of the problem.

Congrats on the FNC, they are smooth shooters.  Its really too bad about the parts situation on these guns as they could potentially provide close to the same level of modularity of the M16 if they were just supported better by the aftermarket community.

Only advice I can give is to not run them too hard and try and do your best to take care of the host gun.    

The one thing to watch is for wear on the pre-rotation lug on the top of the bolt head and the welds between the bolt carrier recoil spring tube and main body.

These seem to be the two weakest design areas of  the FNC (along with the OEM firing pin) and if wear or cracks are caught early they could be repaired before more serious damage is done.

I would also proactively pick up a spare firing pin or two, some extra recoil springs, extra extractors, a spare hammer and a spare barrel while they are currently available.

Certainly cant hurt to stash away a whole gun as well for the day the carrier, bolt or some other unobtanium part fails and cant be repaired.  This has always been the challenge with the FNC in that by the time you pay $15K for the machinegun and 3 to 4K for a spare host you are within a grand or two of an M16 that comes with virtually unlimited/cheap spare parts.

Congrats.


I passed on a FACTORY built FNC just a few years ago (he had 2).
They were asking 8K. Conversions were selling for 7K.

All the "experts" told me these were unreliable and parts were unobtainable.

That's what I get for listening to the experts.

I really like the look and uniqueness of the FNC.

Dont worry, they were not experts as there are no transferable factory fnc rifles in the country due to the foeign MG ban in the 60s (68 i think).

Yep, factory-original, foreign machine guns were banned from being transferable to individuals as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

the experts were sort of right

the FNC is very reliable, but does eat the occasional part.  Probably more often than the typical pistol caliber SMG, most of which are way overbuilt.

FNC spare parts are more or less unobtainable.  Of all the common MGs in the NFA registry, the FNC probably has the worst spare part supply situation.  If you want spare parts for your FNC, buy another FNC.


I guess you can think of a spare semi-auto FNC as an expensive parts kit.

A parts kit for a typical NFA gun like a Thompson or MP40 is going to cost around $1500, and a spare FNC is going to be around $3000.

So if you look at it that way, it's not such a bad situation, you're only spending an extra $1500 for your FNC parts kit.


https://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_22/459817_.html&page=1


When the situation gets dire enough, no doubt someone like TBA will fire up a CNC and make some parts.

I've been wondering if a major firearms company would be willing to build FNC parts on a subcontract basis. FN makes parts for the Steyr AUG, and for PSA. It seems like with a right order you could have them or someone else build parts.

It's a niche market. More likely a smaller shop that could 3D print the smaller parts.

A couple years ago I did an inquiry with a company that makes small batches of gun parts.

You could get an FNC bolt laser scanned and CNC-ed for not too much money, I think a batch of 50 bolts was like $10,000.

It was entirely "do-able".

Think about it - there are companies that make fancy custom made AR15 bolts and they manage to turn a profit.  

If it pays for some company to make 100 uber-hi-speed titanium AR15 bolts, then surely the same could be done for any rifle.

http://www.jlbillet.com/5-56-billet-titanium-bolt-carrier-groups/


seriously, how hard would it be to CNC a batch of hammers and other small breakable parts?

Green mountain made FNC barrels and a couple of small shops made firing pins and ejectors.

someone made a batch of FNC lowers as well


My understanding is that making a sheet metal part is actually harder than making a billet part nowadays since CNC is so sophisticated.

I think it's a matter of time before someone starts turning out major FNC parts.

maybe even make a whole clone FNC

I don't think parts availability will be a issue long term. Modern machining and 3D printing is becoming cheaper and available to common folks. Just a mater of time, tech, supply and demand to all line up and someone will start making after market spare parts.

This has been my thinking.  Even seemingly the most difficult to find, most sought after FNC part, the bolt, isn't much more than a modified AK bolt.  Not exactly a super high tech piece of engineering.

Firearms companies crank out AR and AK bolts daily by the thousands.  It seems like with the right group buy or someone to front the money, they could have a batch of bolts built by a reputable manufacturing company that would get the parts right and in spec with the proper materials, heat treat, etc.   If there are around 2000+ registered auto sears out there, I would estimate that you could probably plan on selling at least 800-1000 bolts for the FNC rifle, as most people who have weapons that shoot them would buy at least one in a heart beat at a reasonable price.

The other small parts can't be that hard to make.

I think the challenge is that contrary to popular opinion, many owners wont go out and purchase spare parts when they are available and prefer to wait until a part breaks before searching for a spare.

The folks who own FNCs and have historically been proactive about getting spare parts have probably already searched and found a spare bolt or have already purchased a spare semi FNC.

It wouldnt shock me if it took you a couple years to move even 100 bolts, even with the small surge of early adopters.  If you had 1000 FNC bolts made up I would bet that a decade later you would still easily own half of them or more.

On the other hand if you made up a thousand now and sat on them, you could probably sell them for a pretty penny ten years from now.