FN Evolys ultralight machine gun: first look and disassembly

Key points: FN Evolys ultralight machine

• The Evolys is not a Minimi or FN MAG replacement — FN started it around 2015 as a separate special-purpose gun, answering requests from one direction for an infantry rifle capable of sustained fire and from the other for something like a Minimi but far lighter.
• It has no quick-change barrel by design: FN found units carrying 600 to 1,000 rounds on a mission often left the spare barrel behind, or carried one only to switch between suppressed and unsuppressed, and fixed-barrel light machine guns already had precedent in the RPD, RPK and Finnish KvKK 62.
• The 5.56mm gun weighs 5.6 kilos (just over 12 lb) empty and the 7.62mm gun 6.3 kilos (14.9 lb), far under any comparable 7.62 NATO machine gun, with one barrel length per caliber at 14 and 16 inches.
• The feed cover is canted 45 degrees onto the side so the receiver top can carry one continuous fixed Picatinny rail, keeping the optic still while loading and clearing, and closing the cover corrects a belt that was laid on sloppily.
• The receiver is a single lost-wax casting finished through plugged access ports that should never be pried out, and the complicated feed tray is additive-manufactured in series production — the first 3D-printed part McCollum reports seeing outside a prototype.
• The gas system is a short-stroke piston, essentially a scaled-up SCAR, with a single gas port and no adverse setting, because FN's testing showed enough reserve power to run dirty or behind a modern flow-through suppressor.
• A hydraulic buffer built into the bolt carrier absorbs return-stroke energy only, dropping the rate of fire from roughly 850 to 750 rounds per minute, and making it durable enough was hard enough to delay the gun's public introduction.

About this First Look video

FN Evolys ultralight machine gun, seen at FN Herstal in Belgium: Ian McCollum strips the 5.56mm and 7.62mm belt-feds down past field-strip and shoots both. The Evolys gives up the quick-change barrel to reach 5.6 kilos in 5.56 and 6.3 kilos in 7.62, and gains a 45-degree side feed cover that frees a full-length fixed Picatinny rail, an additive-manufactured feed tray, a SCAR-derived short-stroke gas system with one gas port, an ambidextrous three-position selector with a semi-auto setting, and a hydraulic buffer that took FN years to make durable.

Transcript: FN Evolys ultralight