Introduction

The FN MAG (Mitrailleuse d'Appui General or General Purpose Machine Gun), is an automatic, air-cooled, gas-operated, belt-fed weapon developed by the famous Belgian company FN Herstal in the early 1950s. The MAG is a true universal machine gun which can be used as a light machine gun on bipod, as a medium machine gun on tripod or as a vehicle-mounted and coaxial machine gun on helicopters, ships, armored cars and tanks. All these variants are fed from disintegrating ammo belts and are capable of firing most types of 7.62mm NATO ammunition.

The FN MAG is the most successful post-war machine gun design. By no way a beauty, FN MAG is an extremely reliable and proven weapon which was adopted by more than 80 armies around the world and is fielded under different designations (MAG 58, L7A2, C6, etc.). So far it is one of the most popular GPMG's in the world.

Live Resin is a resin company from Russia, specialized in producing high quality weapon and accessory sets in 1/35 scale. This review covers their MAG General Purpose Machine Gun (LRE-35088) set.

Review

The MAG 58 weapon set is packed in a zip-lock bag safely secured between firm cardboard backings. The CAD box art on the front shows all the kit parts, while the one on the back lists Live Resin offerings which a modeler can use to accessorize this set.

This kit consists of 3 resin casting blocks with weapons and 3 blocks of accessories (ammo belt portion, carrying handle and bipod): 15 parts in total for building 3 complete MAGs. The grey resin looks really good and, other than some tiny flash residues which are easy to remove, there are no defects in the cast. All the delicate parts are superbly executed in scale.

The MAG features a receiver constructed from sheet metal stampings reinforced by steel plates and rivets. The rear of the receiver has been reinforced and slotted to accept the stock. A folding leaf rear sight is also attached to the top of the receiver. The air-cooled barrel features the gas block, carrying handle, front sight and a slotted flash suppressor. The simple folding bipod is attached to the gas block, and there's a mounting points on the bottom of the receiver to fit into the various mountings, including infantry tripods. The open sights are fitted by standard, and some of the latest production MAG versions have Picatinny-style scope mounts on the top of the receiver. Standard guns are fitted with the pistol grip and trigger, and the plastic buttstock. All these details are clearly visible and really well depicted on this 1/35 scale FN MAG weapon set.

The carrying handle is not only used for transporting the weapon, but also for barrel replacement procedure. The MAG handle in this kit looks good but very delicate, so take your time when cleaning it from the big resin carrier block. Also, be sure to study the references before attaching the piece to the barrel in order to see the correct handle/barrel connection point and angle of the attachment as well.

The machine gun is fitted with a folding bipod, attached to the end of the gas cylinder that can be adjusted for height. For carrying or use as a forearm, the aluminum legs can be folded back and secured in slots under the receiver by hooks and a spring-loaded catch. When firing from the hip, the bipod legs remain extended and the left leg is gripped for support. The kit is supplied with both open and closed bipods, with the unique shape of MAG bipod extremely well rendered. Again, be careful when cleaning the bipod from casting blocks, the parts are very delicate.

The weapon is fed from the left side from open-link ammunition belts. A regular belt for the FN MAG comes in a box of 220, and one in five rounds is a tracer. The kit comes with a small portion of a 7.62mm ammo belt which is nicely reproduced and very detailed. If anyone wishes to use longer belts, Live Resin has a 7.62mm belt accessory set available separately.

What more can be said about Live Resin products? I'm sure most of you have seen some of Live Resin weapon sets and witnessed the incredible amount of details in their 1/35 scale kits. Digitally sculpted and developed using high-resolution 3D printing technology, these FN MAGs are a true work of art: from the well defined plastic buttstock, rivets and various other fine-points on the receiver, to the characteristic shape of the bipod magnificently executed in scale... these weapons are in fact a miniature copies of the real GPMG.

Conclusion

This 1/35 scale kit features one of the most popular general purpose machine guns, FN MAG. The set includes MAGs and accessories (carrying handle, bipod, ammo belt portion)... all together 15 resin parts for building three MAGs. The resin cast is flawless and features incredibly well defined details, making these GPMGs a real 1/35 scale masterpieces.

Thanks to Yaroslav from Live Resin for this review sample.

References

FN Herstal
World Guns