M249s Review: The People’s SAW?

When Fabrique Nationale announced they were releasing the M249s, a semi-auto variant of the U.S. military’s M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), the reaction was pretty mixed. Sure, a few FFL/SOT manufacturers were going to buy them to convert into post sample machine guns, but the market wouldn’t be there for a (then) $7,000 semi-auto…right? Well, a funny thing happened and FN sold them all. Then, they sold the whole next batch. A few years down the road, and I’ve got my hands on one now. Here’s what I think, what I know and what I suspect about the FN M249s.

Much of the M249s remains identical to the M249 proper. We’re still looking at the same feeding mechanisms (drum and magazine), the same buttstocks complete with hydraulic buffer, the same bipod and barrels. Many of the alternative parts for the M249 will work in the M249s, but they’re not identical.

The internals were redesigned for semi-auto operation, with the bolt/firing pin/op rod being slightly modified and a slide hammer being added. This changed the M249s to a closed bolt design, an ATF requirement for keeping any firearm from being too readily convertible to full-auto.

The early M249s units had an excellent trigger, around 4 pounds of pull weight. Racking the charging handle to get the gun into operation was fairly easy as well. FN further modified the firing pin and slide hammer and added a stronger trigger spring. These changes increased the trigger pull weight to between 8 to 15 pounds of pull. The primary reason is that the newly extended slide hammer has to press backwards against the hydraulic buffer as you pull the trigger.

There’s only a couple changes in operation (besides being semi-auto). First, if you rack the bolt while the gun is on safe, the slide hammer will get stuck partway to the rear. It’s not terribly hard to clear (pop feed tray cover, jam your thumb downwards on the slide hammer and it should pop free), just one more small thing to be aware of. Second, there is no more locking the bolt to the rear. This does make barrel changes more difficult, but in semi-auto it’s also a lot less necessary.

I haven’t made major changes to this M249s, though I did replace the plastic forend with a Knights Armament rail system to allow attaching my old forward grip and visible/IR Surefire light. This is in addition to the M68 (Aimpoint COMP M2) red dot mounted on the feed tray cover. If I decide to purchase my test gun, I’ll add on a Para buttstock, PAQ-4 IR laser and a suppressor.

If you didn’t serve in the military and haven’t been able to rent a M249 at some range in Vegas, here’s a little primer on the FN Minimi/M249s/M249/MK46 family of guns. This is a machine in the truest sense of the word. Grabbing a SAW variant means you’re hauling roughly 17 pounds of steel around. Loading, operating and firing this gun feels far different than your usual AR, Mini-14, FAL or HK93 clone, and not just because of the significant increase in weight. This is a platform built to take the heavy abuse of 11Bs, 0311s and so many more. This is a system hilariously overbuilt for semi-auto fire.

The M249s, but for Who Though?

The question is, who is the target market for an M249s? Clearly there’s interest, since FN keeps churning these out and selling them for around $10K currently.

First, there’s the 07/02 SOT FFLs looking for a cheaper way to produce full-auto M249s, and the semi-auto platform is the best place for them to start.

Second is the LARP/milsim/cloner group. I say this with no judgement at all, but there’s a decent chunk of the population that wants to hit the range and feel like an Airborne Ranger for a couple of hours. Gear collectors, airsoft milsim teams, reproduction cloners and Civil War reenactors all feel this desire to differing degrees. I don’t blame them! To get a little taste of the action without all the downsides of military service is an intoxicating prospect. The M249s fits that bill.

Finally, there is the group I fall into, the graying vets. Early GWOT was my time of service, and a good portion of my time in 2nd Ranger BN was spent with a SAW in my hands. The M249s is a massive shot of nostalgia, and I break it out every time an old Ranger buddy (or new shooting buddy) stops by the home range. Everyone loves it, and I know exactly why. This gun is f’ing cool.

Where To Buy

Range Days with the M249s

But a dummy M249 would be plenty if nostalgic conversation was all I wanted. I wanna shoot the damn thing, too! So, how does the updated M249s fare with live rounds?

Better than expected. Prvi Partisan was nice enough to send some of their Rangemaster 55-grain 5.56mm ammo for this review. I linked it up using the steel links FN provides with the gun. I grabbed a quick zero with the M68 red dot and ran some CQB drills at approximately 8 yards. Yep, the gun is still as heavy as it was 20 years ago on my 5th deployment. The trigger didn’t stand out in any way at this point.

Recoil is laughably nonexistent. We’re talking Mp5 levels of recoil. The gun shifts a bit as the heavy op rod and bolt cycle back and forth, but the weight of the gun combined with the hydraulic buffer and hefty recoil spring spread the recoil impulse out over a relatively long period of time.

Hitting my mini e-type steel at 100 yards is easy as it gets in the prone shooting off the bipod. Even kneeling or standing, these are easy shots until you’ve been holding the gun up on target for a while.

Being the inquisitive type, I wanted to dig into this system and see what kind of raw accuracy numbers I could get. I mounted a 5-25x optic, during which time I couldn’t open the feed tray cover. Besides mocking up for the photo below, I ran the match ammo from the 30-round mag that FN included with the rifle. I loaded that mag with Federal Gold Medal Match 77-grain ammo.

Shooting at 25 yards, groups ranged from 2.63-4.29 MOA. As the day went on, I realized something about this trigger. When I tried to perform my usual trigger squeeze, the kind I use with two-stage match triggers, the heavy weight of the M249s trigger was exacerbated. When I ignored conventional wisdom and yanked the trigger like I was cutting loose a trebuchet, that’s when the 2.6- to 3-MOA groups appeared. My curiosity has been satisfied for the time being, unless a better trigger becomes available some day.

Having fired long belts of ammo out to 200 yards, I’m finding that the M249s is, as expected, immensely similar in regards to accuracy to the multiple M249s I was issued. Dropping rounds on a man-sized target is easy well past 300 yards, and you can keep sending rounds on target until your poor trigger finger seizes up from the effort needed to yank the expectedly heavy trigger.

Through the first 1,000 rounds, reliability hasn’t been an issue. This is mostly having run the gun with linked ammo, but I’ve used the included FN STANAG magazine for about 120 rounds with no failures as well. Wipe down the internals from time to time, and for a helpful old Ranger acronym for machine guns, try “Always Needs Ample Lube.”

Where Does It Go From Here?

So you decide to buy an FN M249s. What now? The aftermarket is limited and expensive. It is not totally bare though. There are different barrel lengths available to include rare 300 BLK conversion barrels. There’s a couple different gas systems that exist and at least four different kinds of buttstocks. If you dislike the forend, there’s vintage KAC tri-rails like the one shown here, and a few other options. You can ditch the plastic 200-round drum for soft cloth 100- and 200-round “nutsacks.” A sling is a necessity. Expect sticker shock on the prices of the few accessories available.

So, a few aftermarket bolt-on parts are available. What now? Well, now you can get to work burning the rest of your retirement. First, a tripod makes long-range shooting far more accurate. Second, surplus Humvees are regularly dropping in price. Buy one to haul your M249s and you can simultaneously look cool and get terrible mileage!

But the third option? It’s too ridiculous by far, but nobody’s going to import a Toyota Hilux and make a homebrew technical for a future article…right?

Bottom Line

Yes, it’s cool. Yes, this is a massive nostalgia dump. No, I’d never be able to justify dropping this much cash on a gun on a writer’s pay, as the FN M249s currently has an MSRP of $10,584 with a street price of $8,500-$9,000. It turns out after a few decades of shooting, trading and collecting guns, I had a decent sized assortment of guns that I no longer shot regularly or had much enthusiasm for. So, selling some of those off should net enough to pay the M249s off. Is such a deal worth it to you? For most the answer will be no. This is a high dollar item aimed at a pretty niche market. For a few, however, enough clearly to be worth it to FN, the answer will be yes. Expect to be asked to show it off, often.

For those who’ve echoed some version of the sentiment “a semi auto version of a machine gun is useless,” I’ll disagree. First, any M249s that’s sold now might be converted to full auto if done by an FFL down the road, perhaps at a rental range. Second, more receivers, barrels, stocks and so many other parts being produced for new guns means that there will be spare parts around for years and years of repairs. Finally, buying one of these most likely means I won’t be bidding against you on GunBroker for quite a long time!

I’ll take a moment to commend FN on having the guts to even attempt to release the M249s. It takes money to redesign an open bolt machine gun to meet ATF requirements for semi-auto guns, and it took verve for someone inside a corporation like FN to even suggest it in the first place. Just like the few hundred imported Toyota Hilux diesel pickups in the U.S., having more M249s around the country (even semi-auto versions) is a rising tide for us all. So, if you see me at the range, feel free to ask…and yes, I’ll happily let you shoot it.

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Check out more articles from Jens “Rex Nanorum” Hammer or visit him on Instagram @Rexnanorum.

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