FN Herstal

FN Herstal has been making firearms in the town of Herstal, Belgium, since 1889, and it is one of the few small arms makers whose products are genuinely used across the world rather than mostly by one national military. The company is owned by the regional government of Wallonia through the FN Browning Group, which makes it unusual among major arms manufacturers as a state-owned rather than private or publicly traded firm, and it employs around 3,000 people while operating in more than 100 countries. FN's reputation rests heavily on machine guns and rifles that became NATO standards. The FN MAG, adopted as the M240 by the US military, is a general-purpose machine gun that has armed vehicles, helicopters, and infantry squads across dozens of countries for decades.

The Minimi, adopted by the US as the M249, did the same job at the squad level as a lighter belt-fed light machine gun and remains in front-line service with the US Army and many allied forces. On the rifle side, the FN SCAR, developed for US Special Operations Command, became one of the most recognizable modern combat rifles fielded by special forces units worldwide, while older designs like the FAL and the FNC still see service in various militaries decades after their introduction. The company's F2000 bullpup rifle and its P90 submachine gun, distinctive for its horizontal top-mounted magazine, round out a small arms catalog that spans nearly every category an infantry unit might need. FN Herstal also builds sidearms, including the Five-seven pistol chambered for its own proprietary 5.7x28mm cartridge and the newer FN 509 polymer-framed service pistol line, alongside the historic Browning Hi-Power that FN produced for most of the twentieth century.

Beyond firearms, the company has organized its business around two customer sets: Defence Solutions for military and special forces, covering rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, aiming systems like its FN PUREVIEW optics line, and ammunition and training support, and Security Solutions for law enforcement and security personnel, which adds less-lethal weapons and security-specific firearm variants to the same core product families. FN Herstal has at various points been described as the largest exporter of military small arms in Europe, and its 2023 revenue of roughly 908 million euros reflects a company whose scale is closer to a mid-sized defense prime than a boutique gunmaker. Its weapons remain in US service in significant numbers, most visibly the M240 and M249 machine guns that have been standard issue for American infantry for a generation, alongside ongoing SCAR procurement for special operations forces.