MAS-49 Rifle



"The MAS-49 rifle? Well, never heard of that. That's a French semi-automatic rifle that replaces many French bolt-action rifles and made it a service rifle for the French, and that's first produced in 1949. The government-owned arms factory did this for the French Army, and do you know it's known as the Fusil semi-automatique 7 mm 5 M. 49?"

--Su Ji-Hoon, The Liberation of the Duong Minh

The MAS-49 is a French semi-automatic rifle that replaced various bolt action rifles as the French service rifle that was produced from 1949. It was designed and manufactured by the government-owned MAS arms factory. The French Army formal designation of the MAS-49 is Fusil semi-automatique 7 mm 5 M. 49 ("semi-automatic rifle of 7.5mm model [19]49"). The MAS-49 semi-automatic rifle was produced in limited quantities (20,600 units), whereas the shorter and lighter variant, the MAS-49/56, was mass manufactured (275,240 units) and issued to all branches of the French military. Overall, the MAS-49 and 49/56 rifles gained the reputation of being accurate, reliable and easy to maintain in adverse environments. All the MAS-49 and 49/56 rifles feature a rail on the left side of their receivers to accommodate a designated rifle scope. The MAS-49 and MAS-49/56 were replaced as French service rifles by the FAMAS assault rifle in 1979.