The IMBEL MD97 is a Brazilian assault rifle used by the

Brazilian Army The Brazilian Army (; EB) is the branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces responsible, externally, for defending the country in eminently terrestrial operations and, internally, for guaranteeing law, order and the constitutional branches, subordina ...

, Special Forces, and

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

forces.

History

The MD97 is a selective-fire or semi-automatic

assault rifle An assault rifle is a select fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge, intermediate-rifle cartridge and a Magazine (firearms), detachable magazine.C. Taylor, ''The Fighting Rifle: A Complete Study of the Rifle in Combat'', F.A. Moyer '' ...

that has been produced by IMBEL in Brazil since 1997. It is based upon the IMBEL MD2, which is itself based upon the

FN FAL The FAL (, English: Light Automatic Rifle) is a battle rifle designed in Belgium by Dieudonné Saive and manufactured by FN Herstal and others since 1953. During the Cold War the FAL was adopted by many countries of the NATO, North Atlantic Trea ...

Variants

* MD97L- standard full-size, selective-fire version for use with Brazilian Army. * MD97LM- MD97L with the addition of MIL-STD-1913 rails for mounting scopes and tactical attachments intended for use by Brazilian Special forces. * MD97LC- compact, semi-automatic only version for use with domestic police forces.

Users

* **

** Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State **

Military Police of São Paulo State The Polícia Militar do Estado de São Paulo (''São Paulo State Military Police'') is a military law enforcement agency of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It is the largest state police force in Brazil. According to São Paulo state law, the a ...

** Military Police of Espírito Santo State ** Military Brigade of Rio Grande do Sul ** Military Police of Paraná State **

National Public Security Force The National Public Security Force (, FNSP) was created in 2004 and is headquartered in Brasília, in the Federal District (Brazil), Federal District, as a joint cooperation of various Brazilian Public Safety forces, co-ordinated by the ''Na ...

References

M 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifles Assault rifles of Brazil IMBEL firearms {{rifle-stub