Among gun legends, Eugene Stoner stands out as one of the finest American gun designers of the post-war period. During his long life, he created many wonderful models of machine guns and carbines of various classes, but the most famous was the Armalite AR-15 assault rifle, more familiar to the general public under the M-16 index. Among the military, his authority is comparable to that of Mikhail Kalashnikov.
Biography
Eugene Stoner is a Native American. He was born November 22, 1922 in a typical agricultural region, the town of Gosport (Indiana), whose population still does not exceed 1000 people. He would have been a respectable farmer, but the boy from school was drawn to mechanics.
The first place of work was the company Vega Aircraft, which was the "daughter" of the aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Aircraft Company. Stoner Eugene was engaged in the installation of weapons on aircraft. When the United States entered World War II, a young manassigned to the Aviation Ordnance Unit of the Marine Corps. He served in the South Pacific, and by the end of the war - in northern China, where several US air bases were located.
In late 1945, Eugene Stoner was invited to work in the machine shop of Whittaker, an aircraft manufacturer, where he worked as a design engineer. In 1954, the young man became the chief engineer of the small arms company ArmaLite. His tasks included the development of promising types of weapons and the sale of licenses to large manufacturers.
AR-5 rifle
In the 1950s, the US Air Force created the XB-70 strategic six-engine bomber. For flight crews, it was necessary to develop a light, compact weapon in case of emergency. The most promising was the AR-5 model, presented by the American designer Eugene Stoner. The reliable bolt-action rifle was made of lightweight plastics and aluminum alloys and fit freely in cramped aircraft cockpits.
However, while the bomber was being created, a surface-to-air missile was tested in the USSR and the XB-70 became too vulnerable to the opponent's air defense. The project was closed, and, consequently, the order for the production of rifles was not received.
Creation of AR-10
Eugene Stoner did not think to lose heart. By that time, he had developed a whole series of prototypes of small arms and developed his own design style. His technical solutions were elegant and efficient,which had a positive effect on the convenience and characteristics of the weapon.
In the 1950s, the command announced a competition to develop the main small arms for the US Army to replace the obsolete M1 Garand. An important condition was the compatibility of cartridges of caliber 7, 62×51 mm NATO with the new model.
In 1956, ArmaLite presented their development - AR-10. It used innovative solutions. Thanks to the use of composite materials and forged alloy alloy parts in the design, the rifle turned out to be surprisingly light and at the same time stable when firing due to its ergonomic shape. Testers of the prototype claimed the AR-10 was the best automatic weapon ever tested by the Armory.
Failure leading to victory
However, the brainchild of Eugene Stoner, with all the enthusiasm and objective advantages, lost in the competition to the M-14 rifle. There were several reasons. Firstly, ArmaLite joined the fight at the final stage and simply did not have enough time to eliminate minor design flaws. Secondly, the director of the company sent the wrong product for testing, as a result one of the parts burst. The problem was quickly corrected, but the unpleasant aftertaste remained. By the way, the famous Belgian FN FAL rifle also dropped out of the competition, which later became even more popular (than the M-14) in European NATO countries. This may indicate some bias of the military commission.
But nevertheless, experts unanimously recognized the prospects of Eugene Stoner's concept and advised to further develop this direction. Later, the Dutch company Artillerie Inrichtingen bought the license for the AR-10 and produced weapons until 1960. A total of just under 10,000 copies were produced.
Progenitor M-16
At the request of the US military, ArmaLite has converted the AR-10 to the smaller caliber 5.56x45mm cartridge. The already light semi-automatic rifle has become even more compact and convenient. It widely uses aluminum alloys and synthetic materials. Thanks to an ingenious gas exhaust system and a smaller caliber of cartridges, it was possible to achieve outstanding accuracy when firing bursts, and a long barrel with complex rifling made it possible to increase accuracy at long distances.
The product was assigned the index AR-15. Later, Colt acquired production rights and, after a series of improvements based on the Stoner design, released the M-16 model, which became the main one for the US Army and allies.
Legends, secrets, personal life
Eugene Stoner leaves ArmaLite in 1961 to become a consultant at Colt to fine-tune the M-16. After introducing an assault rifle into the series, he accepts an invitation from the defense company Cadillac Gage, where he is working on a secret project of universal automatic small arms. The resulting Stoner 63 system allows the production of modular weapons that can be quickly reconfigured depending on the tasks.
The design is built around a common receiver and someinterchangeable components. Weapons can be converted into rifle, carbine or various machine gun configurations by simply picking up the appropriate parts.
Among the later developments of the master stands out the automatic gun Bushmaster TRW 6425 caliber 25 mm, which was later released by Oerlikon. In the 1990s, the designer participated in the creation of the SR-25 sniper rifle.
Among other projects we note:
- ARES FMG folding machine gun.
- Advanced Individual Weapon System.
- AKA Stoner-86 light machine gun.
- Future Assault Rifle Concept (FARC).
- Special rifle MK-12.
- AR-16 and AR-18 rifles, which served as prototypes for many models: the British SA-80, the Singaporean SAR-80 and SR-88, the Belgian FN F2000, G36 and others.
In 1990, a landmark event took place, which subsequently acquired a mass of rumors. Under conditions of secrecy in the shooting club of the town of Star Tennery (USA), two of the greatest gunsmiths of the second half of the 20th century met: Stoner and Kalashnikov. Then the USSR still existed and the conversation with the “sworn enemy” did not fit into the ideological framework. They say they became friends.
Eugene Stoner was married. He had four children and 7 grandchildren. The owner of one hundred patents received a dollar for each rifle produced according to his developments and later became a millionaire (more than 10 million units were produced alone M-16). Already in retirement, he acquired his dream - a privatereactive plane. The famous designer died on April 24, 1997 at the age of 74 in Florida.
