I am very great full to have come into contact with a long time collector and Colt engineer from back in the 60’s who collected and saw some very neat pieces of history!

With everything that I have been getting from them, I am making sure to get the full stories on all the oddity items as well as getting signed COA’s for future reference. I am being very careful to keep some items separated as not to confuse with other aspects of my collection.

The only 2 mags that did not come from his collection are the gen 1 blank firing mag and silver mag.

Colt made 2 versions of the blank firing mag in 1968. First was painted like this one and the others were anodized red. The silver mag came from a colt employee back in the 60’s and it was one of only a few that were finished as a display piece.

The other items in the picture are a see through cartridge counter mag from 1965 they were playing around with, a personal waffle mag from Rob Roy, an early waffle mag from the early days of the 601 testing taken directly from Aberdeen Proving Grounds form the colt employee and prototype full curve magazine from colt engineer Bruce Hughe who was I charge of the magazine development at the time. With this mag, it came directly from his office and he was testing the magazine with a 20rd floorplate and follower to test for function. Obviously we know that didn’t work but led into the design of the standard ones we see today.

I also picked up a collection of 222/223/5.56 cartridges from him that some belonged to Rob Roy as well. In that collection were about 350 single rounds and every one different. In it I picked up a few spare 222 special dummy rounds. These have been something I have been searching for for years and finally got them! They do not have powder and the primer is punched out as is the sidewall of the shell. They were then dyed black in some way in order to distinguish them. I included a picture of some of the early shells. Quite a few dummies and grenade blanks as well as early 222 cartridges. I hope to spend time going through all of them at some point.

Also in the picture is a factory demo of chrome vs non chrome chambering on cut barrel sections from 1967 range.

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Man, every time you use the word Prototype, I freak out lol

Nice collection! I especially like the chamber cutaways.

I mean i have a few prototype armalite AR15 25 rd mags ive posted before lol these are M16 not AR15 Armalites

That’s what I mean lol

On your window mag, does it have a 1 in the circle on the side?

Hat tip.  Nice collection

It does not. Standard 223 colt marked floorplate

Reason I asked. I’ve had this since 1984.
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That’s pretty neat! Any ideas on where it came from?

Issued to me in 1984. I was a M60 gunner an was issued 15 rounds of M193 "if" I needed the drivers M16A1. I saw windowed, three hole an one five hole (could of been six) an mine. Turned in the ammo an the Supply Sergeant handed me the mag back. Told me to keep it in my ruck, as he just got a case of 30's. As a lowly E-2 I was lucky to get anything!

Sad part is most of the surplus 20's got crushed instead of shipping them back to the States or Panama.

I was in Honduras (most) of the time in '84.