A senior member with the name GeneStoner.  Any relation to the Eugene Stoner?  If not, sounds like a ripoff of a good name.

For those of you who don't know, Eugene Stoner worked with Armalite (hence AR in AR15) to develop first the AR10 then the AR15, and then developed the Stoner line of weapons used by Navy Seals in Vietnam.

Too bad I thought of it first, huh?  [}:)]

You devil, you.

I saw the history of the AR15 recently on History Channel. I think they said he died before the M16 rifle went into full production.

His genuis was the application of lightweight aluminum alloy and plastic/fiberglass materials in the design of a military rifle.

They said the ARMY tried to kill the AR. If it hadn't been for the Air Force the AR might never have seen military service.

At the time Armalite was a division of Fairchild  Aircraft. Classic transfer of technology from one discipline to another.

Eugene Stoner passed away only a few years ago, 1997 I think.

Ok, you win this one.  Nice name, glad you appreciate it.

[kill]

Eugene Stoner (a former WWII Marine) died in 1997 from Cancer.

His AR15 was originally developed for the 7.72 NATO round (the AR10) Also his AR18 or AR180 and the Stoner 63 were all originally chambered for 7.62 NATO before he came out with an identical design for the 5.56 Nato round.

Eugene Stoner was bright and innovative. The AR15/M16 was NOT his best design...(that would be reserved for the Stoner 63 system and the AR180 which were improvements over the AR15 design.)

Stoner was a good designer...perhaps as good as John Garand. Certainly a better designer than Garand when it came to innovative designs..though not as good when it came to reliability.

And of course John Moses Browning (father of the Browning M2 Machinegun, BAR, 1911, 1892 Winchester Repeating Rifle, Browning Auto 5 shotgun, Winchester Model 1897 Shotgun, Browning Hi Power, etc etc. [the list is too long for me to write])
stood head and shoulders above Garand, Stoner, Kalashnikov, Gaston Glock, Simonov, etc.

I wonder what kind of Rifle Browning would build if he were alive today ?