Your work in resurrecting this rifle is outstanding.

*Looks for the dang LIKE button.*

Yo, web site guys! Can y'all add a LIKE button easily?

I look forward to these updates...

Looking good.
Everyone on this forum wants one.
Out of curiosity, how much are you asking for a repo barrel?

Thanks. There is a loosely knit consortium of people working on build components for the guns. I have two of the Commando style barrels left not spoken for.. They don't have barrel extensions, sights, gas blocks, or flash suppressors as those items are hard to coyme by. They just got caliber engraved yesterday and will be manganese phosphated and ready for shipping  mid April. The gas ports will not be drilled as different gas blocks have the corresponding gas ports in different locations. They are $425 apiece shipped to continental US only. Thanks. Steve

Finished welding up the receiver today. The crappy cell phone photos make the welds look more like ass than what they really are.

The auto sear trip block rail  welded in place. A little more cleaning and parking and it will barely be noticeable.

Cool. Not a bad price for such a rare bird.

425 for unobtainable Barrel is fantastic price

It's a newly made copy. The company that made them isn't looking to make a killing.  It was just a run done as a favor to me.

Someone asked how we did the mounting points. Used the rear sight as a guide to position the rear sight front mount.  Once that was tack welded in place, used the magwell and some pins to locate the cleaning rod retainer mount. C-clamped the mounts and tack welded. The side cocking guide involved a .25" endmill, digital read out, and math (but I nailed it anyway). Held in place with a C-clamp and tacked in place.

Tested the side cocking handle guide today. It worked. Yay.

Awesome, you are really close to getting it done!

Thanks.  I milled out the ejection for today. I somehow managed not to muck that up  A few PITA interior welds to clean up and I can assemble and test fire.

SWEET!

I cleaned the welds out of the inside of the receiver...or so I thought. I assembled the Stoner in pistol configuration (yes, my Stoner is a pistol....with a 15.something inch barrel and only a pistol grip.....since I haven't pinned and welded any barrels yet). Manually cycling the bolt, the gun ejected fine, hurling the rounds across the room. Only glitch was a teeny bit of the sheet metal receiver deformed inside from weld heat where the rear sight front mount and the cleaning rod bracket mount are located. The op rod kept binding on those spots. Need a little more filing, sanding, and polishing there. Good to know I put my ejection port in the right place

Looking forward to seeing it all finished up!

Awesome project sir resurrecting the dead.  Not to be a debbie downer and I am sure you are aware of this with the early 63 models but just food for thought with your project and the take down pins and why they were changed in later models

"In war not all the things go the way you want them to regardless of the tool or quality of preparation. Word came back to us at headquarters that teammate BM1 Walter Pope was killed by non hostile fire somewhere in the Kien Hoa Province, RVN, on April 29, 1968.

As it turned out Pope's platoon was aboard an armored landing craft with him and his fire team forward inside the bow compartment. His Stoner LMG had begun firing on its own, the rounds ricocheting inside the small space and devastating everything they struck. When a cat goes crazy and you try to control it, sometimes the thought process is to hug that wild cat in close and smother it against you. That's what Pope did according to his teammates that day. He stood up and pulled the muzzle of the weapon into his body to protect his fire team and took forty rounds in the stomach. Still, other men were wounded but none died.

The investigation of the accident showed they were just arriving at their infiltration point when the Stoner went off. The weapon offers a feed cover and receiver group that locks to the trigger group using two pins (a pivot pin and a takedown pin). The bolt is held to the rear in the receiver group by the sear located in the trigger group. If the rear takedown pin comes out for any reason the receiver pivots upward, disengaging the sear from the bolt. The result is a runaway gun if rounds are present.

It was determined the vibrations coming through the boat hull jimmied the takedown pin free as Pope was resting the weapon's butt stock against the boat's deck, muzzle up. The pin itself has a tiny wire detent spring holding it in place. It was never discovered if this spring had been worn or if the pin wasn't fully engaged.

What was determined was we needed Cadillac Gage to correct this deadly fault and they did so immediately after we went to work on the problem at the armory. Our armory personnel found the takedown pin for the carbine and LMG feed tray cover were manufactured differently than the pin for the LMG receiver group. The carbine / LMG pins were made of two parts which threaded together." "We passed this along to Cadillac Gage and within days the new pins for the LMG's were on their way. Once installed, this tragic malfunction never repeated itself." From TEAMMATES: SEALs AT WAR, Barry Enoch. Pg 99-100.

Thanks. Mine is a semi auto only firing from a closed bolt. In the carbine/rifle configuration, should the take down pin work its way out (and that's a zero percent chance of happening as this gun is so tight it requires a punch to unass that pin), the only result would be is that pin worked it's way out. The trigger housing will not go anywhere unless both it pins are removed. If the trigger housing did for whatever reason come off, it would be like an AR15 upper with a chambered round. Relatively safe.

Appreciate the updates, OP!  I echo the sentiments re: what an awesome thread this is.

I discovered a post in GD which I thought might be of interest to you and the small community of Stoner builders you mentioned.  There is apparently a gun company in Calgary, Canada, making custom parts for a new version of the Armalite AR-180B:

https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/Frostback-AR-180B-upper/5-2099619/

That company supposedly also makes "legacy" parts for the original 180B.

It stands to reason they have some familiarity with Stoner designs; would any of their parts be of any use in your project?

Just thought I would throw that out there.  And, it does not hurt to bump your awe-inspiring build thread.  Please carry on.

Thanks, but two major issues with that AR180 stuff from Canada. The first is importing firearms components in from Canada.  Too much federal hassle. Second is, although their manufacturing concept is really neat, the product is not close enough to the original design to make end users happy. One has only to look at some of the retro clones being offered by Colt, Brownells, and others to hear some of the comments when something is off.  We are wanting to stick with as many US made parts made as close to the original design as possible. I do really like what they are doing though.

Yeah, they're not trying to get anywhere close to the original AR-180.  The Canadians don't want an AR-180.  They want an unrestricted rifle that uses as many inexpensive, plentiful AR-15 components as possible w/o being a restricted AR-15.  That's what he linked to.  Uses a Nodak Spud lower w/ AR trigger & hammer, AR mags, and a 20" AR-15 bbl.

Cue Yello's "Oh Yeah" from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (from when he sees the Ferrari for the first time) .....I can't lie....I have something that rhymes with "toner".

You now have one of the rarest birds EVER!

You have indeed won the Internet for today!

Okay....disassemble, clean oil and inspect one last time and go shoot this thing RIGHT NOW!!!

WE GOTS TA KNOW!  WE GOTS TA KNOW!!!!

Thanks. I'm even more excited that I made it with my own two hands.....with some help from Cadillac Gage and some good Stoner friends.

I concur.

VIDEO, or it did not happen! You know the rules!

You asked for it..!!!



And... you built it..!!!  Congratulations!



The Stoner 63A is the only gun that I've elevated to "grail" status for myself.
This thread has been so very fun to watch.

Thank you for sharing your adventure with our retro community!

Thanks. I haven't been this tingly since I made my first MP-5 in 1986. PS.....Holy crap...that video is the most disturbing thing I've ever seen.....ever...seriously, I've never laughed so hard in my life. I had to stop the video half way through.

IT'S BEAUTIFUL!

So beautiful.....

I have one kidney, half a liver, a left arm, and my first born. Interested in a trade?

In all seriousness, amazing work. By far, one of the best things on the Internet.

Truly one of the coolest builds ever. I’ve enjoyed being along for the ride. Thanks for sharing.

This was an amazing project to watch. So happy it finally came together. Kudos to you! Awesome work... I like the rest will be waiting on a shooting video.

Now you have to fire it suppressed.  Not sure if a Stoner ever was ? And you know it has to be a sionics or KAC can. Congrats !  Oh and please send it to forgotten weapons for a mud test

If Robinson had done THIS with the M96...it would STILL be made.

This is awesome. I have been following this from the beginning. Thank you for sharing.

Beautiful!  

Now if only Brownells can produce a copy for the retro masses. Outstanding build!!!!

OUTSTANDING.  I first read reference to the Stoner 66 in about 1984-5 or so but never thought I'd see one in the wild.  Again, outstanding work.

Since somebody else mentioned the M96, how close was the receiver to the actual?  I know very few (if any) parts interchanged, but in concept, at least, was it ...ya know, sorta... close?

Any plans for a belt feed top cover?  Would that even be a possibility with your rifle?

Thanks all. Had an M96 long ago, but sold it. It's very similar and some people use them for Stoner clones. Various parts can be modified to fit, not sure if they will function though. A belt feed or Bren feed would require some trigger group, op rod, and bolt carrier engineering to make it closed bolt (not to mention acquistion of some more crazy money parts). On my list of things to do, but going to work on making other parts first.

I would definitely buy a Stoner rear sight!

Someone recently made repro rear sight housings.  They pop up for sale on GB every so often. Can't recall the seller. Some people drill their M96 sights to resemble Stoner rear sights.

Other than looks, the M96 had about as much in common with the Stoner 63 as I do with Barrack "Hooooosayn" Obama.

There was a thread on this forum where John Thomas did a bunch of work on a M96 to "Stonerize" it.  I'm not sure if he made a rear sight or just installed it, but it was a damn good job

Given the M96 could be converted into a top-feed, if one bought one of the handful of top feed kits when they were on sale, it would seem as faithful a rendition a commercial manufacturer could do, given ATF rules.  I know everyone likes to hate on Robinson, but no one else has ever come close to putting a clone in production, and you have to give the man credit, it's as much as a clone as Nodak-Spud's Snow Mexican 180 venture is of an AR-180.

OP's is far closer, but it ain't for sale.

I love this project... When I was a kid I had a book about Vietnam and that gun was my favorite.

Dude... YEA!!!!

@WaffenUndBier where’s the video???  We want to see this thing running!