{"id":30208,"date":"2026-08-22T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T13:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/22\/the-very-first-fal-prototype-in-8mm-kurz\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T08:00:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T13:00:25","slug":"the-very-first-fal-prototype-in-8mm-kurz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/22\/the-very-first-fal-prototype-in-8mm-kurz\/","title":{"rendered":"The Very First FAL Prototype (in 8mm Kurz)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mejs-video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"autoplay\" width=\"580\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Tno1jLnYteQ?controls=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Dieudonne Saive at Fabrique Nationale began developing the FAL to submit for the British post-war program to adopt new small arms. He built the first example in the German 8x33mm Kurz cartridge, as this was of a lot of interest at the time, and offered the possibility of controllable automatic fire from the shoulder. The rifle was tested successfully, and led to a British request for two more guns for more substantial testing &#8211; but those next two were to use the .280 (7x49mm) cartridge. This example, serial number 1, is really the only intermediate-caliber FAL ever made.<\/p>\n<p>Many thanks to the Ars Mechanica Foundation for giving me access to this unique rifle to film for you!<\/p>\n<p>The best firearms reference books: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.headstamppublishing.com\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.headstamppublishing.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! <a href=\"http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dieudonne Saive at Fabrique Nationale began developing the FAL to submit for the British post-war program to adopt new small arms. He built the first example in the German 8x33mm Kurz cartridge, as this was of a lot of interest at the time, and offered the possibility of controllable automatic fire from the shoulder. The&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/22\/the-very-first-fal-prototype-in-8mm-kurz\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Very First FAL Prototype (in 8mm Kurz)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}