Friends inlaw passed and left her a FNC.  What's it worth?


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About $3.50 I’ll take it off her hands

Does it have an auto sear?

Last one I saw for sale was about $7k asking.

My understanding is their are more transferrable sears than imported FNC's. So for another $7k to $10k you can have a working 5.56 machinegun.

Good idea

Where/how to did you sell it?  

There seem to be a lot of them being listed on Gunbroker for anywhere from $6-10k and not selling.  I was thinking that they are maybe high 4s to $5k.

There was a full auto in Grand Forks about 2019 for $20k.

Funny, I’ve been going through Forgotten Weapons videos and just went across Ian’s review of the FNC.

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/fn-fnc-the-belgian-5-56mm-nato-carbine/

It’s not gonna tell you value, but give a bit of history on them.

I shot a select fire version last year, that thing was so fucking sweet. Wish I had the kind of cash to buy one.

The gun from HEAT!

I bought a semi version in the 90s for just over 1000.00.
About 10 years later I put a sear in it for 3000.00

I have probably put 1000 rounds a year on it the last 20 or so years.
Fun gun to shoot!

@ContraHQ

I believe that it was the Higgins guy in OK. His joke that he made more registered sears than FN made the FNC rifle available on the civilian market.  He did an interview with SAR like 15 years ago.

There are many overpriced semi FNCs sitting on Gunbroker, listed by people who don’t understand how to sell on Gunbroker.

$5-6k seems to be realistic market at this time, which is likely the range a penny start no reserve auction would hammer.

Re: spare parts, the situation is not good. But one can get recoil springs, firing pins, and extractors fairly easily. Navgunner on Sturm and FNCtalk is in the process of making replacement FNC bolts, which is fantastic. I’ll be picking up a few spares for my S&H sear converted FNC.

Replacement FNC bolts

S&H fnc autosears are more like $10-11k right now. If one wants a FA FNC, the better option is to buy one that’s already been converted by S&H. Current market on those is $17-20k.

This.

And I would like to add, from what I've been told, is that the "experts" that did the quality sear installs have long ago retired. So as stated above, if you want a FA FNC it is best to find one that was professionally done in the day.

But because I am a nice guy, I'll offer $7.00....

Curtis Higgins is the expert. He’s alive and well, still in business. He told me it’s important to properly heat treat his FNC sears. The uninstalled sears that were released in 2001/2002 after the Higgins vs Sesslar court case are all not heat treated.

I bought mine about 5 years ago of Gunbroker for around $3,500. I see more recent auctions going much higher.

LOL, I still have the FNC that I bought new back in the mid-80’s for under $500.  Doesn’t get much use these days, though.

This looks to be a relatively clean Steyr imported semi-auto FNC which means it will most likely be the more common/less desirable 18" barrel version. (Howco/GS brought in the more rare 16" barrel folders)

Total import numbers between Steyr and Howco/GS are are reported to be ~6000ish between the 16" folders, 18" folders, and 18" fixed stock variants.

In terms of FNC registered auto-sears there was only one outfit that made registered FNC sears which was S&H (Seslar & Higgins)   An updated version of S&H run by Curtis Higgins is still in business and will do a conversion on an FNC if you can locate a bare registered sear.  (Tom Seslar is no longer in the gun business being he is a convicted felon)

To the best I can figure based off the serial numbers of the sears I have seen over the years there are no more than 4000 FNC sears and most likely less than that.   I don't think I have ever seen a sear in the 4xxx range as the serial seem to peter out in the mid 3000s and I can't recall ever seeing one below 1000 either.

For all the internet lore about there being more sears than guns, Curtis ran out of sears back in the early 2000s and he only sold sears as part of conversion work.  The bare uninstalled FNC sears that came out around the 2004/2005 timeframe were the sears that were caught up in the legal fight between Tom Seslar, John Norrell, and Curtis Higgins and which were ultimately released to and sold by John Norrell via his sales proxy Jim Banks. (which is where I got my first FNC sear as part of a group buy when they were advertised by Jim and John)  There were only a couple hundred of the bare sears as well when they were first posted for sale.

These numbers also seems to track as I have not seen a bare uninstalled sear for sale in years.... yet gunbroker seems to always have semi-host guns.   I am sure there are still some limited number bare uninstalled sears still squirrelled away by folks but those numbers have to be pretty small by now.

As for value on a clean 18" FNC folder and if you actually want to sell it in any reasonable timeframe $5000 to $5500.  Anything above $5500 they just seem to sit.

The big issue for these guns both semi-auto and the machineguns is that there are many critical parts (like the bolts, carriers, etc.) that are almost impossible to find if they break.  While the FNC is a robust gun I have seen bolts and carriers both fail which pretty much means the gun/host is dead and you are buying another complete gun for those parts.

There is an effort by a guy on Sturm to make bolts but he is also the 2nd or 3rd guy I have seen over the years saying he is going to make bolts as well.  That said, I hope he pulls it over the line where others have failed but the "replacement FNC bolt" projects to date have not been very successful.

I bought my uninstalled sear in 2013/14.  It's #34XX.

I haven't seen a loose one in the wild since.

Similar, I bought a second bare FNC sear in late 2014 in the 34xx range and they pretty much dried up not too long after that.  I have maybe seen a handful since then but its been at least a couple of years or more since I have seen a bare sear for sale.   IMHO,  if there were really twice as many FNC sears as guns you would never see semi FNCs on Gunbroker and Sturm would be littered with FNC sear WTS ads.  However the reverse is more the reality and if anything FNC semi pricing seems to actually have relaxed a bit from their high water mark a couple years ago.

From memory, Curtis at S&H ran out of his sears around 2002ish as I was actually saving up money (being much younger and poorer at the time) for one of his sears and an FNC host to send him.  By the time I saved up the funds for the sear and called him back to get in line for a conversion he was effectively out of sears but he said he would call me if somebody cancelled a previously committed conversion order on him.

It wasn't too long after that in late 2004/early 2005 that John Norrell/Jim Banks posted the ad for missing FNC court case sears that were supposedly recovered from Tom Seslar. I jumped in a a group buy on that deal and got my first FNC sear (another 3xxx serial sear).   At the time, I thought I was getting a great deal on an FNC MG but didn't anticipate the cost of FNC semi hosts doubling in price and drying up overnight.  

The semi auto FNC market went from where you could barely get $1500 for them on a good day,  to being very difficult to find a nice host (especially a 16" host) as soon as that Norrell/Banks FNC sear ad was posted.    I think it took me the better part of a year to find a host gun that wasn't drastically overpriced as all those sears were looking for hosts.   I ended up getting a very gently used Howco 16" gun from a guy who was partially blind who had hacked up the pistol grip to install/glue a switch into the grip to activate a laser sight which I think tempered demand on that gun.  Thankfully,  I was able to score a replacement grip for Scott at Vulcan imports at the time.

I ended up buying that second FNC sear about 9 years later from that same Norrell/Banks lot of sears (dealer I got it from bought it direct from Norrell/Banks) for a fixed stock 18" host I had originally set back as a spare parts kit but over time had collected enough standalone FNC spare parts that I felt confident I didn't need the 18" gun as a source of spare parts anymore.

It wasn't too long after getting that second FNC sear that the FNC parts situation became much more clear (and dire) since Todd at Ohio Rapid Fire FNC project (who was going to import Pindad based kits and build new semi host guns) was DOA and Todd himself also passed away.  I had one of ORFs partially complete FNC lower receiver as well.   Vulcan Imports also basically stopped doing business in FNC parts as well by that point.

Ultimately I decided I had enough stand alone FNC spare parts collected to safely keep one of my FNCs going for my lifetime, didnt really need or want two FNC MGs,  and decided to trade off the 18" fixed stock gun and sear toward a belt fed.

I bought 10 from Jim Banks back around 2002 or 2003. Kept one. Should have kept more.

Funny, if I was to buy the FNC MG, I would definitely get the semi spare :)

Thanks for posting this link.  I hope this project comes to fruition as I've got an FNC with a transferable sear and don't shoot it all that much because I'm afraid of breaking a bolt.

How often do FNC bolts break?
(I've never even broken an AR-15 bolt, which I assume break more often.)

That's an Interesting question. To my understanding of the FNC, you have a greater chance of the firing pin breaking than a bolt failure.

The original firing pins on the FNC was not a solid design. There are some weakness in the base of firing pin. DS Arms had some replacement firing pins that were solid one piece pin. I would have to look for the original and the replacement pin somewhere in my parts bin.

You need to message Navgunner through Sturm or Uzitalk and tell him how many bolts you want.

I have seen a couple of folks on Uzitalk over the years with broken bolts and have anecdotally heard of a few more.  I sold one of my spare bolt years ago to a guy desperate for bolt after his broke as well.

The weak spot on the bolt is the little "pre-rotation" nub that slams into the trunnion every time the bolt closes.  (red arrow)

This little nub wears or breaks off over time.  If you keep shooting the gun and the little nub on the bolt is damaged or missing that the primary rotation lug on the side of the bolt makes contact with the flat spot on the  "finger" cut out in the carrier. vs sliding into the channel in the carrier and continuing to rotate until the bolt carrier group is fully closed.


If that nub on the bolt head is compromised than the main lug on the side of the bolt doesn't pre-rotate the bolt body and instead the flat part of that lug on the side of the bolt and the flat part of the finger on the carrier sort of slam into each other (blue arrow).   Eventually you damage the main lug on the side of the bolt, the finger that makes the cutout on the carrier or both at which point you need a new bolt and/or a new carrier.

Ideally what happens is the bolt carrier closes, the little angled nub impacts the top of the trunnion and start the bolt rotating enough so that as the carrier starts to collapse onto the bolt body and the main lug on the side of the bolt is then lined up with the channel/finger to continue to rotate the bolt into battery as the carrier fully closes.

I am not sure why FN designed the FNCs bolt head in this way and has that little nub to start the bolts rotation vs just changing the geometry of the lug on the side of the bolt and the cutout on the carrier.

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I think the more seats than guns thing is a myth. Haven’t seen a sear for sale in forever. My FNC sits sadly waiting for one.

As for value I’d say 5-6K. I was fortunate to pick one up for $2400 a few years back from a pawn shop in Amarillo TX, it needed a new rear sight aperture which I sourced from one of the FN forums, but I highly doubt I’ll ever see another below 4.5

Thanks I did and am on the list.  I'm so glad that he put this project together.