Is there a good source or can someone lay out the history of the AR clone business?
My recollection is foggy at best having not paid much attention for years when I've had good functioning rifles that didn't need parts.
In my experience in the time before the Internet there was SGW/Olympic and various bags of mystery parts (all Colt or FN of course) sold by guys in trenchcoats at gun clubs and shows.
Then DPMS appeared on the scene and suddenly SGW was junk.
Then Bushmaster appeared on the scene and suddenly DPMS was junk.
Then Eagle became Armalite and were shortly joined by RRA (which was junk). And then RRA became not junk cuz they got part of a govt contract!
Then a plethora of other folks arrived on the civilian scene like Noveske and LMT and suddenly all of the above was junk again.
Seriously though, when did the patents run out and who jumped in when?