The AR-16, a 7.62mm NATO selective-fire rifle, was Eugene Stoner's final design for ArmaLite. The Armalite AR-16 appeared in the later 1950s. military ultimately selected the AR-15 as the M16, ArmaLite could no longer profit from its adoption. Fairchild also spun off ArmaLite as an independent company, allowing the new owners to buy all of the company's designs except for the AR-10 and AR-15. military trials of the AR-15, ArmaLite's corporate owners Fairchild essentially gave up on the design, and sold the AR-15 production rights to Colt. 22 high velocity round which was similar to, but not interchangeable with, the. 224 Light Rifle, a "Carbine" Williams prototype carbine design in a. The ArmaLite AR-15 was a scaled-down version of the 7.62mm AR-10, which had appeared too late to be a serious contender against the M14 for adoption by the US Army. ArmaLite and Winchester Arms were solicited by CONARC to provide prototype automatic rifles chambered for high-velocity centerfire. Army's Continental Army Command (CONARC) began an investigation of small-caliber, high-velocity (SCHV) rifles as an offshoot of the military's existing research program, Project SALVO. Soon after the adoption of the 7.62×51mm NATO M14 rifle in 1957, the U.S. ( November 2017) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. This section possibly contains original research.
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While the AR-18 was never adopted as the standard service rifle of any nation, its production license was sold to companies in Japan and the United Kingdom, and it is said to have influenced many later weapons such as the British SA80, the Singaporean SAR-80 and SR-88, the American Adaptive Combat Rifle, the Belgian FN F2000, the Japanese Howa Type 89 and the German Heckler and Koch G36. A semi-automatic version known as the AR-180 was later produced for the civilian market. The AR-18 was designed at ArmaLite in California by Arthur Miller, Eugene Stoner, George Sullivan, and Charles Dorchester in 1963 as an alternative to the Colt AR-15 design, a variant of which had just been selected by the U.S. The ArmaLite AR-18 is a gas-operated assault rifle chambered for 5.56×45mm NATO ammunition. magazine)Ģ0, 30, or 40-round detachable box magazine, STANAG magazines (AR-18B) Foreign derivatives based upon the AR-18 include the British SA-80, Singaporean/British SAR-87 and the Japanese Howa Type 89īullpup adaptations include Australian Bushmaster M17Sħ.18 lb (3.3 kg) (loaded w/20 rd.