I picked-up this one during a pawn shop run last week. I forgot there was a AR-7 manufacturer between Charter Arms & Henry. This one was made in 2001.

AR-7 Industries was bought out by ArmaLite in 2004. I guess ArmaLite sold the rights to Henry. They still sell parts, barrels, and stocks under AR-7.com.

I took it down to my range along with some older mags (I don't think Henry mags will work in it) and it ran flawlessly. I was sort of surprised to be honest. Accuracy is about what you would expect....MSH....Minute of Squirrel Head at 25 yards.





AR-7.com sells both a steel 16" threaded sporter barrel and a unthreaded sporter barrel for it for a pretty reasonable price that still fits in the stock so I might pick one or the other of  them up. I suspect either would cause it not to float but that is not a concern to me.

http://ar7.imoutdoorshosting.com/store/page89.html

I had one of the newer Henry's... Great fun, never once gave me a malfunction with any kind of ammo. They really ironed them out. Probably is Henry is a fud company and no hi cap mags available. Every now and then you can find an old Ramline mag but they don't work in the Henry and kind of suck. Until they offer a hi cap, no way would I recommend them as a survival 22. Ruger 10/22 Takedown or perhaps a 15-22

FYI...ArmaLite never owned AR-7 Industries.  They bought some recievers and roll marked them.  These sold for a short time.  Henry never had any dealings with ArmaLite.  Their AR-7 predate the ArmaLite offering.

You have it backwards. Armalite was the 1st manufacturer.....


1959-1973: ArmaLite
1973-1990: Charter Arms
1990-1997: Survival Arms, Cocoa, Florida
1997–2007: Henry Repeating Arms Co., Brooklyn, New York
2007–present: Henry Repeating Arms Co., Bayonne, New Jersey
1998-2004: AR-7 Industries, LLC, Meriden, Connecticut (bought by ArmaLite in 2004)

Meh, it's perfectly fine for what it was designed for.....A stow-able pot filler.

I don't consider myself under-gunned with a single shot. I'm not going to war, I'm just putting a bunny in the pot.

Being the survival and not hunting forum, I would highly recommend against the AR-7 in a survival situation. You should always try to get as many purposes out of an item and I would not bring a weapon that I could not adequately use in a fight. Such as camping, if I'm bringing a rimfire rifle, it's going to be something that serves a dual purpose of defense. Every now and then, you hear about some psycho hunting down hikers on trails... Just saying

Not knocking the AR-7 just for fun, I like the design of it a lot like any other Stoner gun, just providing my input on why I can't recommend it as a survival .22. If they started offering hi cap mags for the gun, I'd buy one in a heartbeat again, but to me it's a huge deal breaker.

The best way to test a "survival" rifle, is to take it small game hunting.

I worked for ArmaLite...

Weepin' Jesus on the Cross.

The acid test for any rifle you plan to depend on as a "survival rifle" no matter if it's short or long term is actually taking it out in the field and hunting with it.

To be honest I'd not recommend the AR-7 as a long term wilderness survival rifle either due to the easily bent lined plastic barrel but as a short term affair it would do just fine....eight round mags and all.

Then you need to go correct  Wikipedia......

History & design[edit]

The prototype of what would become the AR-7 was designed by Eugene Stoner at ArmaLite Inc., a division of Fairchild Aircraft. The rifle shares some of the features of the bolt-action AR-5, another rifle designed by Stoner for ArmaLite and adopted by the United States Air Force in 1956 as the MA-1.[2] The MA-1 was intended to replace the M4 Survival Rifle and the M6 Aircrew Survival Weapon which was a superimposed ("over-under") twin-barrel rifle/shotgun chambered in .22 Hornet and .410 bore, using a break-open action. The AR-5 had the advantage of repeat fire over the then-standard M6, using the same .22 Hornet cartridge. When the AR-5 was adopted as the MA-1 but was not placed in issue due to the numbers of M4 and M6 survival weapons in USAF inventory, ArmaLite used the research and tooling for the AR-5 in developing the AR-7 for the civilian market

Having killed with the AR-7 a few times, gun is plenty accurate. Any modern .22 is really. I wouldn't have concerns with the barrel, but the nice thing is you can easily replace it. I'm always concerned about the two leg critters. Too many other break down rifles available to limit myself to 8 round mags

Its possible both of you are right. ArmaLite Inc., (a division of Fairchild Aircraft) =/= ArmaLite (name licensed by eagle arms). Two different companies without any connection other then a license to use the name. IIRC

Someone correct me if I understand this wrong.

is one more valuable than another?

I own all of them except the Henry. The early ArmaLite with the brown camo stock, and brown buttplate is the rarest I know of.......

Of coarse, non of the are big dollar guns.......