Fegyver- és Gépgyár
Fegyver- és Gépgyártó Részvénytársaság, known as FÉG, is a Hungarian industrial conglomerate founded on 24 February 1891 in Csepel. The company came under the ownership of MPF Industry Group in 2010. It was an important arms manufacturing company before World War II. Since the acquisition, FÉG is one of the biggest exporters of HVAC products to the international markets in the East-Central European heating device industry.
Throughout its history it was renamed several times for various reasons; to Fémáru, Fegyver- és Gépgyár in 1935, to Lámpagyár in 1946, to Fegyver- és Gázkészülékgyár in 1965. Decades later, in post-communist times it was renamed as FÉGARMY Fegyvergyártó Kft..
1891-2004
On February 24, 1891, the legal predecessor of the Fegyver és Gépgyár was founded in Budapest. In the beginning, the company produced rifles and pistols for the Austro-Hungarian Army and also exported its products for foreign armies. However, to further increase its revenue, the company also produced pistols and rifles for civilian use on a large scale.The company became an important arms manufacturer in the country, but it also produced gas equipment, water heaters, lamps, various boilers for steam engines, steam hammers for the steel industry, and miscellaneous metalware. CEO Oszkár Epperlein recognized the growing importance of ICE engines in industrial machinery which may eventually make steam engines obsolete in the near future, thus the company made efforts for manufacturing of industrial ICE engines. The production of Diesel engines started in 1899, when the Hungarian engineer Oszkár Epperlein and Jenő Böszörményi bought the patent rights of Diesel engines for the FÉG company from Rudolf Diesel. and the FÉG PA-63, but currently only self-loading pistols and break-barrel air rifles. In Hungary, the company is also famous for its starting pistols, for example the GRP-9, as well as manufacturing most of the propane water boilers and heaters found in Hungarian houses.