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Stealhead · 07-22-13, 04:47 PM

Well I'll tell you the rest of the story.After WWII most of the engineers that worked for Johnson got on with a firm called Armalite which was founded in the early 1950s.

Aramlite was owned by Fairchild at one time a large defense contractor mainly in aircraft.They wanted to get into the small arms industry so they formed Armalite their major concept was using non traditional materials in their designs aluminum and synthetics mainly.

They produced a couple of .22 caliber "survival rifles" and then the AR-10 which was designed by Eugene Stoner.Stoner was influenced by some of the concepts that the Johnson machine gun had.Especially how the guns recoil was "straight line" which meant that the weapon did not tilt upwards very much which at the time was common to most rifles for example the M-14,FN FAL,AK-47.

Most of the concepts found on the AR-15 actually originated on the AR-10 but the AR-10 came along at a bad time as the US Army had just recently adapted the M-14.Emphasis on most though the AR-10 was a bit different and contrary to popular belief the SR-25 is not an AR-10 converted to have AR-15 features it is really an AR-15 beefed up to handle 7.62x51mm.

Still it is interesting to see how concepts and ideas from one firearm are used in another design.When it comes to firearms imitation really is the best form of flattery.

It does always work out perfectly the M-60 for example took design features from the MG-42 and the FG-42 but early models had a lot of annoying problems.or example the the gas tube,barrel and bipod where all attached which meant that the gun was in two parts when you needed to change the barrel not ideal it also had a lousy feed ramp that is why they welded a tin can below the feed ramp.They missed out on one of the best features of the MG-42 which was its rapid barrel change.The FN MAG 58(M240) did a much better job taking concepts from the MG-42 and improving them.That MAG was around from 1958 but not until 1997 did the US Army finally accept it as the primary GPMG at least our tankers had them from 1977.Back in the 1950's though in the US there was kind of a mentality that we where the best engineers and that foreign stuff was inferior one of the rifles that the M-14 competed against was the FN FAL.
The M-14 is a good rifle but when it got accepted in 1957 it was supposed to replace several different weapons when it was really only good as a rifle.

07-22-13, 04:47 PM	#53
Stealhead Navy Seal Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Kentucky Posts: 5,421 Downloads: 85 Uploads: 0	Well I'll tell you the rest of the story.After WWII most of the engineers that worked for Johnson got on with a firm called Armalite which was founded in the early 1950s. Aramlite was owned by Fairchild at one time a large defense contractor mainly in aircraft.They wanted to get into the small arms industry so they formed Armalite their major concept was using non traditional materials in their designs aluminum and synthetics mainly. They produced a couple of .22 caliber "survival rifles" and then the AR-10 which was designed by Eugene Stoner.Stoner was influenced by some of the concepts that the Johnson machine gun had.Especially how the guns recoil was "straight line" which meant that the weapon did not tilt upwards very much which at the time was common to most rifles for example the M-14,FN FAL,AK-47. Most of the concepts found on the AR-15 actually originated on the AR-10 but the AR-10 came along at a bad time as the US Army had just recently adapted the M-14.Emphasis on most though the AR-10 was a bit different and contrary to popular belief the SR-25 is not an AR-10 converted to have AR-15 features it is really an AR-15 beefed up to handle 7.62x51mm. Still it is interesting to see how concepts and ideas from one firearm are used in another design.When it comes to firearms imitation really is the best form of flattery. It does always work out perfectly the M-60 for example took design features from the MG-42 and the FG-42 but early models had a lot of annoying problems.or example the the gas tube,barrel and bipod where all attached which meant that the gun was in two parts when you needed to change the barrel not ideal it also had a lousy feed ramp that is why they welded a tin can below the feed ramp.They missed out on one of the best features of the MG-42 which was its rapid barrel change.The FN MAG 58(M240) did a much better job taking concepts from the MG-42 and improving them.That MAG was around from 1958 but not until 1997 did the US Army finally accept it as the primary GPMG at least our tankers had them from 1977.Back in the 1950's though in the US there was kind of a mentality that we where the best engineers and that foreign stuff was inferior one of the rifles that the M-14 competed against was the FN FAL. The M-14 is a good rifle but when it got accepted in 1957 it was supposed to replace several different weapons when it was really only good as a rifle.