Our doubts are our traitors. They make us lose what we could possibly have won if we weren't afraid to try.
William Shakespeare. Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene IV
Accidental happiness, chance encounters
And it so happened that the president of Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation, Richard Boutell, came up with the idea of doing small arms as well. He was acquainted with George Sullivan, a patent consultant for Lockheed Corporation, who was financed by his company, and he suggested that he open such a company, but under his patronage. After leasing a small machine shop at 6567 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, California, Sullivan hired several employees and began work on a prototype for a lightweight survival rifle that could be used by downed pilots. And already on October 1, 1954, the company was registered as the Armalite corporation and became a division of Fairchild. It is clear that Armalite, with its limited capital and tiny mechanical workshop, was not focused on mass production of weapons from the outset, but had to deal with the development of concepts and samples for sale to other manufacturers. And then something happened that sooner or later had to happen. While testing an AR-1 prototype survival rifle design at a local shooting range, Sullivan met with Eugene Stoner, a talented inventor of small arms. Stoner himself was a Marine, fought in World War II, and was a good specialist in small arms. Since the early 1950s, he worked in various enterprises, and in his free time created prototypes of new models of small arms, well, he told Sullivan about his ideas in detail. And he turned out to be smart enough to appreciate them, and immediately hired him as chief design engineer at Armalite. Interestingly, Armalite Inc. was a very small organization (back in 1956 it had only nine people, including Stoner himself). Having secured Stoner as chief design engineer, Armalite quickly produced a number of interesting developments. The first to be accepted for production was the AR-5, a survival rifle chambered for the.22 Hornet. The AR-5 was adopted by the US Air Force as the MA-1 survival rifle.
A rifle that can swim
The civilian survival weapon, the AR-7, was later chambered for the.22 Long Rifle. The AR-7 semi-automatic, like the AR-5, could be easily disassembled, and the components could be stored in the stock. Originally made from light alloys, the AR-7 could float as it had a foam-filled stock. The AR-7 and its derivatives have been produced by several companies since its inception in the late 1950s, and is currently manufactured by the Henry Riping Arms of Bayonne, NJ and is still popular. even today.
All rifles that the company was engaged in were designated by the letters AR, short for Armalite Rifle. And already the first project - the AR-1 rifle proved to be a truly ultra-modern development. Judge for yourself, it had a fiberglass stock and stock filled with foam and a composite barrel made of aluminum tube and steel threaded liner. This achieved her phenomenal lightness, which immediately made the US Air Force pay attention to her. The success with the MA-1 rifle showed the firm's creativity, and it received an invitation to compete for a new battle rifle for the US Army, which led to the creation of the AR-10. The AR-10 lost the competition in 1957, but then many of the ideas that were in it were then reused in the smaller and lighter AR-15.
Who would you sell you to?
But then Fairchild got tired of pushing new rifles (it turned out to be much more troublesome than expected) and it sold licenses for the AR-10 and AR-15 to Colt, and the AR-10 to the Dutch Artillerie –Inrichtingen in exchange for aviation contracts for the parent company Fairchild. Then Fairchild in 1962 sold its stake to Armalite altogether, since the profit it brought was too small. But the company "Colt" still managed to sell the AR-15 to the US Air Force to arm the security forces of air bases. In turn, the Dutch AI was able to produce and sell small batches of rifles to various countries, including Cuba, Guatemala, Sudan, Portugal and even the elite Italian COMSUBIN Marine Corps. They also ended up in special forces in Vietnam. Then, after all the troubles and problems caused by the use of uncertified gunpowder, the military finally approved this rifle. And starting in 1964, this 5, 56 mm rifle, designated M16, became the main battle rifle of the United States. Now we are talking about its replacement, but in stages, so that it will fail only by the mid-2030s.
Purchase and sale and new rebirth
The company had other successful developments, for example, the AR-18, which had a piston system, unlike the gas one in the AR-15. It was sold to Japan, but it wasn’t enough to keep the company going, and it ceased operations in the early 1980s. The rights to the lion logo and name were acquired by Mark Westrom, a former US Army officer and designer of the 7, 62nd NATO Sniper Rifle, again based on the designs and concepts of Eugene Stoner, who "resurrected" Armalite, Inc. in 1996. The company's headquarters are located in Gineseo, Illinois. However, in 2013, he again sold it to the Strategic Arms Corps corporation, which also owns AWC silencers, the Nexus ammunition manufacturer and firearms manufacturer McMillan. In 2015, Armalite introduced 18 new designs of its rifles, including the AR-10 and M-15. In mid-2018, the firm was relocated to Phoenix, Arizona.
Where did the Eagle rifles come from?
The funny thing is that at first Armalite was sold to the Philippines due to the failure with the AR-18, and it was bought by the Elisco Tool Manufacturing Company. Apparently, she, too, was tired of dealing only with tools and wanted to produce the most modern weapons. But the purchase fell through due to the political crisis in the Philippines, as a result of which the company was unable to expand production of AR-18. Then two Armalite employees, Carl Lewis and Jim Glaser, decided to found an independent company called Eagle Arms in Koal Valley, Illinois, in 1986. Eagle Arms began supplying components for the M16 and AR-15. Then Stoner's patents expired, and Eagle began assembling entire rifles, and in 1989 the production of finished rifles, the main supplier of parts for which was LMT.
Hollywood model, Portuguese model and Sudanese version
But Armalite did not give up and continued to produce AR-10 rifles at its Hollywood enterprise. These rifles, made almost by hand, are called the "Hollywood Model" AR-10. When Fairchild sold the Dutch arms manufacturer Artillerie Inrichtingen (AI) a license to produce the AR-10 for five years in 1957, it found that the "Hollywood model" AR-10 had a number of flaws that the firm had to fix. Firearms historians divide the production of the AR-10 under the AI license into three versions: the "Sudanese model" (it was exported to Sudan), the "transitional" and "Portuguese model" AR-10. The Sudanese version has about 2,500 AR-10 rifles, and the transitional one was distinguished by changes made to the design based on the operation of the Sudanese model in place. The AR-10 "Portuguese Model" was an improved version sold to the Portuguese Air Force for use by paratroopers.
The total production was, however, about 10,000 AR-10 rifles. Moreover, none of the Dutch improvements by Armalite was adopted.
In search of a new twist
As Fairchild became disillusioned with the AR-10, they decided to try their luck with the.223 Remington (5.56mm). Thus was born the AR-15, designed by Eugene Stoner, Jim Sullivan and Bob Fremont. However, both of these samples at the beginning of 1959 had to be sold to the Colt company. In the same year, Armalite made the decision to relocate its office and design and production facility to Costa Mesa, California.
Since the main hope in the form of the AR-10 / AR-15, Armalite urgently developed a series of less expensive 7.62mm and 5.56mm rifles. 7, NATO's 62mm rifle was designated AR-16. The AR-16 had a more traditional piston gas mechanism and a steel receiver instead of an aluminum one. The rifle was similar to the FN FAL, H&K G3 and M14, so no one showed interest in it.
As mentioned above, Armalite developed both the AR-18 and AR-180 rifles at its facility in Costa Mesa, and even licensed them to Howa Machinery Co. in Japan. But according to the laws of Japan, it was forbidden to sell military-grade weapons to the belligerent countries, and since the United States was fighting the Vietnam War at that time, the production of Japanese rifles was limited in scope. Then the license for the production of the rifle was sold to the British firm Sterling Armaments in Dagenham. But sales were modest. Although the AR-180 was actively used by militants from the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Ireland, which bought these rifles on the black market. However, American manufacturers and creators of the AR-18 can take comfort in the fact that it was the design of its rotating bolt and the gas mechanism that served as the basis for the SA80, the British small arms system. After all, the predecessor of the SA80 rifle was the XL65, which is essentially the same AR-18, only converted into a bullpup, like the SAR-80 adopted by the Singapore army and the German G36. All of them are based on the AR-18 design.
Rifles of the hundredth series and the return of the brand
Then a series of AR-100 rifles was developed in four versions: AR-101 - an assault rifle and an AR-102 carbine, as well as an AR-103 carbine and an AR-104 light machine gun. The 100 series did not succeed, and by the 1970s, Armalite ceased to be engaged in the design of new rifles, and actually ceased its activities.
But then the company nevertheless resumed its activities under the name Armalite Inc, and today it produces a number of new rifles based on its time-tested AR-15 and AR-10, as well as heavy (weight 15.5 kg, caliber 12.7-mm !) sniper rifles BMG.50 (AR-50) and a modified AR-180 called AR-180B (production was discontinued in 2009). In the mid-2000s, the company tried to produce pistols as well, but they were discontinued.
