FN

FN traces its roots to Fabrique Nationale de Herstal, founded in Belgium in 1889. For more than a century it has been one of the world's premier military arms makers — many of its most famous designs came from John Moses Browning, who spent the latter part of his career working with FN on guns like the Browning Hi-Power. FN went on to build the FAL battle rifle, the M249 SAW and M240 machine guns, and much of the U.S. military's M16/M4 production.

That military pedigree carries into FN America, the U.S. subsidiary in Columbia, South Carolina. The SCAR — adopted by U.S. Special Operations — anchors the rifle line alongside the AR-pattern FN15 and the PS90 carbine. On the handgun side, the striker-fired 509 was a finalist in the Army's Modular Handgun trials and became a commercial success, the 5.7×28mm Five-seveN remains in a class of its own, and the revived High Power brings back one of Browning's masterpieces.

For shooters who want guns built to a military standard, FN is about as close to the source as it gets.