FN P90

FN P90

FN P90 In 1990 Belgian "Fabrique Nationale" (FN) presented new product - compact submachine gun FN P90. It was intended as a main weapon for armored personnel carrier and infantry combat vehicle drivers, artillery crews, staff personnel, communication forces and other secondary purpose units.
Weapon is used by Belgium, Saudi Arabian and some NATO countries. FN P90 submachine gun is a new generation weapon. It was designed using Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) conception. Furthermore it was presented with totally new SS190 cartridge, fitting PDW conception.
In development process designers decided that it should be automatic weapon with small recoil power and easy to use FN P90

FN P90 Such high bullet penetration abilities are provided by extremely fast initial bullet speed. Small cartridge dimensions allowed to increase ammunition in 60%.
Recoil power is pushing weapon directly backward, but not upward. It's automatics works on free lock recoil principle. Submachine gun executes single, automatic and 3 shots burst fire. Reloading handles are placed from both sides what is convenient for left-handed soldiers. It has two pistol handles: one main and one additional for better weapons stability.

FN P90 cleaning and oiling is done without dismantling. Solider just takes off magazine and gets full access to submachine gun's mechanisms. Submachine gun has built-in collimator sight calibered on 150 m range. P-90 has active flash-hider which partly compensates weapons toss energy after every shot. In special operations it is used with suppressor and lower subsonic speed bullets. Laser sight can be additionally placed in the front side. Insufficient recoil power, "bullpup" scheme, compensator, collimator sight, and ability to fire in burst mode provide good fire accuracy in close combat. Great magazines capacity is also advantage for this weapon. To sum it up FN P90 developers created successful new generation weapon, surpassing traditional submachine guns. It's bullet penetration abilities in a short range distances are equal to assault or automatic rifle abilities