The Armalite AR-10 (Vintage Promotional Video)

[Badger]

The following video(s) are excerpts which have been extracted from the "The Screening Room" (click here).

The Armalite AR-10 (Vintage Promotional Video)

This is a vintage promotional film for the Armalite AR-10. This is the rifle that eventually led to the M-16 currently used by U.S. forces. The video features field-stripping, the belt-fed version and even Eugene Stoner running onto a beach firing from the hip.

The AR-10 battle rifle was the 7.62mm NATO-chambered precursor to the scaled-down 5.56mm NATO-chambered M16/M4 family, the weapons that hold the distinction of being the longest-lived service rifles in US military history. This marketing film (featuring brilliant arms designer Eugene Stoner playing a most unconvincingly dumpy little AR-10-wielding soldier)was an ultimately futile attempt at selling the AR-10 in a post-WW2 small arms market that was both saturated with war surplus equipment and already well-served by the Belgian-designed FN-FAL and German H&K G3 battle rifles. The AR-10, a day late and a dollar short in marketing terms, was a non-starter, and only a few thousand were sold to nations such as Portugal, Sudan, and Cuba, where it generally gave very good service, despite its relative fragility and lack of engineering refinement and as a military weapon.

However, a market was identified in replacing smaller caliber weapons such as the US M1/M2 carbine, and so Stoner scaled the weapon down to fire a smaller-caliber, higher-velocity cartridge. The M16/M4 is of somewhat altered design from the AR-10, but it is essentially the same weapon. However, as any engineer will tell you, complex mechanical system rarely scale up or down without complications, leading to some of the problems encountered with the XM16E1 in Vietnam 1965-67.

To view any video, you must have Adobe Flash Player (click here) installed on your computer. Simply click on the film strip thumbnail pic and then on the PLAY button, or sometimes the center of the screen. Use the PAUSE and other buttons at the bottom of the video window to adjust your personal viewing preferences. Place your mouse over the video when it is playing, then "right click" for a "drop down box" to change other viewing preferences. Make sure you turn on your speakers and set the volume appropriately.

You may REPLY below with feedback about this video ..........

NOTE: This particular video is captured from old 35mm film and there's a black screen leader at the beginning of the film. So, when you click on the PLAY button in the bottom left corner of the pop-up player, make sure you wait 5-7 seconds of black screen for the movie reel to start playing.


Mouse Click on the film strip thumbnail.


The Armalite AR-10 (Promotional Video)
Video length = 15 minutes

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