The city has a major armament and blade weapons factory, the Indústria de Material Bélico do Brasil - IMBEL (Brazilian Warfare Material Industry), builder of a licensed copy of the FN FAL assault rifle and several models of military-issue knives.
It is also home to the government-owned ammunition and weapons factory (CAVIM) that produces the Venezuelan version of the FN FAL (Fusil Automatique Leger - Light Automatic Rifle) rifle and will produce the newly acquired AK-103s; as well as the ammunition for both models.
The adoption of the 7.62×51mm NATO round and the adaptation of the intermediate cartridge CETME (later developed into the G3) and FN FAL designs to fire it, produced rifles that were relatively longer and heavier and had greater recoil.
The untested AR-10 faced competition from the two other major rifle designs, the Springfield Armory T-44, an updated M1 Garand design that became the M14, and the T-48, a version of the famous Belgian FN FAL rifle.
SLR: L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle (FN-FAL), standard 7.62 mm semi-automatic rifle issued to Australian infantrymen during the Vietnam War.
Communist Party of Malaya cadres had been found with the FN FAL as well, most of them looted from dead or wounded Malaysian soldiers.