1995, President BillyBob said they were evil and dangerous, so I bought one.   Bushmaster XM15 E2S Shorty AK with a 14.5" Heavy Barrel and AK47 style muzzle brake permanently attached,  no evil bayonet lug,  A2 carry handle, and rifle stock.  It came with a 10 rnd magazine that was a 30 rounder cut down and riveted back together.    

There were no A to be found, and C were too expensive.  

Glock magazines were $75 - 100 each.

There may have been a change, but it's mostly passed me by. I have a couple of rifles with M-Lok or Keymod handguards, but the majority have rails and FSBs.

My most recent anti-riot rifle has an FSB w/bayonet lug, a carry handle upper and an A2 stock.

Sold my Clinton era Bushmaster and built this about 10 years ago...  I still love it.

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13 years?  Go back to the late 80s.

Service rifle freefloat barrels were made by a guy in Plano, Texas.  He welded your front handguard cap and a custom sling swivel mount to a metal tube and welded the tube to your barrel nut.  A2 handguards were then modified to fit.

Beginning in the early 90s, Milazzo made the only two stage trigger, Kreiger distributed it.

Sierra released their 80 grain HPBT and now you had a 600 yard rifle.

A popular cottage industry mod was a threaded rear sight into which you screwed apertures of various sizes depending on personal preference and lighting conditions.  The square A2 front sight was ground to a width matching the MOA of NRA high power rifle bullseyes.

If you get the impression most advancements were for NRA service rifle use, you’d be right.  We were the only folks buying ARs in the 80s.  Even then the AR was vastly outnumber by M1s and M1As on the firing line.  Ridiculed as a “mouse gun” until everything came together and they began winning matches.  Now you had a target rifle that just required a torque wrench to assemble.  None of that artsy shit like glass bedding wood stocks or hand lapping rear sights on M1s, and M1As, or eliminating op-rod bind as the barrel heated.

The first commercially available freefloat tube was an aluminum extrusion with the barrel nut machined into the end.  You used a strap wrench to tighten it.  Don’t twist it, it didn’t have an upper interface and may come loose.  The front sight post was cut off.

Flat tops were A1 uppers with the handle machined off and a Weaver mount (Pic rail V1.0) screwed on.

Those last two developments were for killing Prairie Dogs en mass.  Otherwise, any “serious” shooting was done with a bolt rifle.  You were a “fool” if you expected accuracy from an AR.

A.R.M.S.  S.I.R. rail from that period.





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It seems most of the AR stuff that has actually progressed comes from competition. Some of these upgrades may have traveled to the military side but when you bring in bureaucracy, politicians, and money in the fold it usually stops innovation which you can pretty much say for plenty of stuff.

Milspec was pretty pricey and looked up upon in 07 but now it's been surpassed aside from retro and clone building. 2012 is when things really went mainstream as far as everyone had one and things took off.


Machining is what really changed though

Pretty hard for me as I was born in '86

Grandpa was a WW2 vet and Bronze star recipient, but an ultimate Fudd and wouldn't even let Dad buy a mint 1903 Springfield back in the 70's because it was "only good for shooting at people". Pretty sure dad bought his first AR the year grandpa died, either 1997 or 1998 (dad was almost 40) So I was 11 or 12 when I got birthed into the AR world. I remember it being rather slim pickings when I started, I can just imagine a decade or two earlier.

I remember lusting over one of these so badly before everyone started turning their back on ARMS for reasons I don't remember.

I handled one and remember it was a great way to take an awesome handy M4 and turn it into an almost 9lb front heavy turd

I started put with a stainless Mini-14 that I got for $300 back in the mid 90's.  There was a group of us numbering around around 20 or so from work that liked to shoot.  Normally, 4 or 5 of us would get together to go out shooting.  I was the only one with a .223 semi auto rifle.  Around 97 I sold the Mini-14 for $500.  I then bought a Bushmaster Patrolman's A3 carbine with a fixed stock and a pinned AK brake for around $650.  Again I was the only one in our group with a .223 semi auto rifle.  But, everyone wanted to shoot it whenever we went out.  When the AWB ended, I started looking at Colt AR's.  Eventually I heard of a company called LMT.  I ended up buying a LMT Defender.  I installed a KAC M4 RAS, Aimpoint ML3. I still have that LMT.

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I would love to run across a deal on an a SIR sometime. I have always wanted one.

Those fellas at LMT moved to my side of the river and are only 25mi from my house. Course, finding their stuff has been seemingly impossible the last few months

It's funny how we all progessed
mine from 03

I swapped out the ARMs cantilever for a LaRue

Mine today

I remember when the old Daniel Defense rails with the I-Beam profile were three new hot thing. I had one and it was cool.
surprised how few of those I see on the secondary market considering how many were sold back then.

Yeah some stuff no matter how much/many were made seems to just vanish over time.

I guess things eventually find their way into the back of safes over time.

Neat topic.   I got stuck behind enemy lines for about 10 years in a state where I couldn’t play ARs.   Probably saved me a ton of money.   Now that I am free man (for now) I have added a few updates to the collection.   Longer, lighter rails are a good thing.   Some of the furniture works a little better.   Optics are about the same with maybe a bit more variety of options.

I really feel this.

Ive been trying to find some older Aimpoint M2/ML2/M3/ML3's from that time frame and they're actually kinda tough to track down and are commanding rather stiff prices for some older optics.

A was late in the game.  Westrom bought the Armalite name in ‘96.  It was really O-B-C.  Before the AWB went into effect, I put together a lower order with Olympic that included some 20+ lowers.  That order in itself was a fiasco.  Many orders placed before the AWB but not delivered, were cancelled when the manufacturers figured out they could rape us on pricing.

That's because even though they don't have all the latest features, they can still get the job done.


Comp ML





Comp ML2





Comp ML3






















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Thanks for the walk down memory lane OP!

My 1st AR was a 20" bushmaster a4, round handguards and all.  At the time the only "omg!" Mod was putting a quad rail on it so you could throw a light out front.  Even though so many versions and options have come out, 1 of my favorite rifles to shoot is my 20" service rifle.

Absolutely!
My first AR was a Colt 6700 HBAR, around 2000.
For whatever reason, at the time Colt's quality was called into question by the louder voices at AR15.com and AK47.net (remember that place?)

We were a fickle bunch, and that month Bushmaster seemed to be the go-to rollmark. My Colt did have feed issues (which now I'm sure were actually mag-related), so I convinced myself I had to buy a Bushmaster A2 20". There was a Bushie Patrolmans Carbine in there at some point, as well as a Rock River - they gained instant cred here 'cause of some gov't contract ....or something.

I never owned an Armalite. Noone did. ;)

Good times. :)

Great thread!

No one touched on the era of all the forward heavy as shit bull barrel craze.

Dpms sold a shit ton of those.  Picked one up once in a gun shop......no.....no....just aweful....WTF!

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This is the way.  Or was it?

Ya know... folks rip on "The Chart"
But if you look at todays AR's, even the cheaper ones, hit most of the checks on that list. it sure benifited us AR owners and got the industry to
tighten things up and follow some specs. When's the last time you saw a poorly staked BCG?

I have an old RRA rifle with  the old plain logo. I think I got it around '93-'94. It's been through a few barrels, but a great rifle.

Add 4150 barrels, MP'd barrels, MP'd bolts, and 158 carpenter steel bolts to that too. That was almost a Colt only thing. Bushmaster batch tested, and the arguments were never-ending about if they were as good as the prancing Pony.

Is that one of the old Cleveland, IL ones? I've got some of the new logo ones in the 35,xxx range and 45,xxx range because I didn't like how the old logo ones looked at the time. Nowadays, I wish I had the old logo