Mystery BFA

Ever see one like this?

Where'd you find it Roscoe?

At a gun show years ago. It's the only one I've ever come across but I've seen pictures of the type, mostly from the 1970s and always being used by Marines, never any other service. It clearly was designed with the open prong flash suppressor in mind though it will go on the birdcage, as can be seen. My own guess is that it is an early model and the Marines got the Army's hand-me-downs when the M15 series came into use. Only a guess, though.

Here's another view:

And another:

That was very early US military. There were two different versions. It shot off, so it was eliminated. I have been trying to find the contractors, but since I have not seen any in the original contract wrap, it has been impossible.

Thanks to this month's smallarmsoftheworld.com/archive I know a little more about the mystery BFA. In a document entitled M16 — Overhead presentation from January 1971 "Doing More With Less", I found this, p.26-27:
BLANK FIRING ATTACHMENT: Several years ago, under contract with an industrial company, a blank firing attachment for the M16 rifle was developed. The model XM-15 shown above is expensive, difficult to attach and detach, functionally unreliable, and has not been favorably received in the field. An "in-house" project then developed a new BFA. The selected item is currently under test at TECOM, has greatly improved reliability and utility and substantially lower cost. This is a high volume item - we anticipate an initial buy of 200,000 units - with initial savings approaching $900 thousand.

The accompanying illustration (sorry but a screenshot is beyond my skill level right now) shows the XM15 ($6.47) and the XM15E1 ($2.17). The XM15 turns out to be our mystery BFA while the XM15E1 is the well-known M15 used ever since. It's still puzzling that two completely different devices would both be called M15, though.

Next step was a web search on XM15 BFA. It yielded only this, p.21 of PS magazine issue 198 from 1969, discussing blank firing "through the new XM15 blank firing attachment ( FSN 1005-921-5481)". At the bottom of the page is a Will Eisner illustration of the XM15 and instructions on installing and removing.

Thanks for the follow up Roscoe. You could also just post a link to the article rather than trying to capture pics...message me if you like...we can discuss it.

Here's the PS page:
PS

That's perfect Roscoe...thanks again for coming back with the info after all this time. That's how we info share...