Umarex USA began with the acquisition of Ruag Ammotec USA (Dynamit Nobel), North American marketers of the famous RWS brand of premium adult airguns. Combined with the world class products from German based Umarex, the parent company of Walther Firearms, Umarex USA has quickly become one of the premier providers of airguns and airgun accessories to North America. Along with being a premier airgun company they now have branched out into the rimfire firearms market with the addition of two high visibility, company licensed .22 long rifle lines. Last year Umarex introduced a Colt licensed .22 rimfire replica of the M16/M4 rifle called the Colt Tactical Rimfire. This year they have announced a series of Heckler & Koch licensed .22 long rifle replicas beginning with a .22 copy of the highly sought after HK 416D rifle. Three other guns will eventually be available and will also carry the H&K stamp of approval. These include two models of the HK MP-5 (an A-5 version as well as an SD model) and also an HK 416 SD pistol. As the HK416D rifle replica was the first model available it is the subject of our test and evaluation.

All of the Umarex .22’s are engineered and manufactured in Germany by Carl Walther. Like the Colt Tactical Rimfires, the new HK replicas are a dedicated .22 long rifle platform, are blowback operated and feature match grade precision barrels. This author has owned one of Umarex’s M4 .22 carbines for about a year now and it has had several thousand rounds put through it. The only time that is has quit working is when it gets so dirty that it just can’t go anymore. It is the first .22 that I grab when I get the urge to go rimfire plinking. That said, I was expecting high marks from the Umarex HK 416D rifle. As it turns out I wasn’t disappointed.

Upon first examination of the new rifle a couple of things are immediately noticeable. The first is the overall look of the gun. It is really a good looking firearm. The fit and finish is great. The upper and lower receivers mate up with no wiggle whatsoever. It is finished in a very nice matte black color and all parts match. There are not several different blacks and definitely no “purple” color anywhere on the gun. Next is the attention to detail. The left side of the lower carries the HK logo, model designation, caliber and serial number. The engraving is white color filled and is very sharp and clear. The right side of the lower has the trademark, manufacturer and importer information. This engraving is also color filled and is the only disappointment on the whole gun. With that much information in white letters the lower looks cluttered. Selector markings are in pictogram form and have safe and fire spelled out below each. The gun’s upper and lower receivers are held together with HK style push pins.

Like the original H&K rifle, the Umarex 416 has a free floating barrel housed inside a Rail Interface System (RIS) forearm. This RIS features rails at the 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock positions. The top rail aligns perfectly with the railed flat top upper receiver. This top rail also has a set of adjustable iron sights that look and work just like the H&K sights that they were copied from. The pistol grip is the same hand filling design that is used on the centerfire HK and a removable plate on the bottom of the grip covers a storage area. The 6-position telescoping stock mimics the stock on the original gun and even carries the “HK” logo. The buttstock has a removable soft rubber butt pad which exposes more storage compartments.

The barrel of the Umarex HK 416 looks like it has an M4 configuration but in reality is a .22 caliber barrel liner covered by shroud that makes it look like an M4 barrel. The barrel is threaded but Walther chose to use the same thread that they used on their P-22 pistol and their Colt rimfire rifles which is metric 8x.75. This is unfortunate as most US manufactured .22 suppressors are threaded 1/2×28. Not to fear, Gemtech has come to the rescue with their Umarex Barrel Thread Adapter. To install the adapter you simply remove the original Walther A-2 style flash hider which exposed the barrel threads. Screw on the Gemtech adapter and then screw on an original 1/2×28 flash hider or suppressor. This adapter is the finest quality, the finish matches perfectly and when installed is not even noticeable.

The magazine that came with the test rifle is a proprietary design and holds 20 rounds. The magazine’s follower has thumb pads on either side that enables sliding the follower down to make loading a breeze. These pads travel in slots on either side of the magazine that give a visual indication of the number of rounds left. Magazines of 10 and 30 rounds will also be available. Hopefully, Black Dog Machine will come out with a tower for their 50-round drums to fit this gun.

Testing of the Umarex HK 416D rifle was done using several types of high velocity .22 long rifle as well as some subsonic ammunition. These included Remington High Velocity Hollow Points, CCI Mini-Mag in both hollow point and round nose styles, CCI Stingers and Remington Subsonic lead hollow points. As Umarex USA is the U.S. distributor for RWS rimfire ammunition, the test also included RWS High Velocity HP ammo. All testing was done from a rest at 50 yards.

To get the best accuracy from the gun a Leupold Tactical Prismatic Riflescope was mounted on the receiver’s flat top rail. This compact scope is a true 1X optic that comes with a removable illumination module that lights the reticle up in red. The reticle is called a Circle Plex and consists of a crosshair with a 2 MOA center dot surrounded by a ranging outer circle. The reticle is etched glass making it visible, at all times, even without batteries. It features 1/2- MOA click windage and elevation adjustments and comes with a quick detach base that includes different height mounting spacers to work with any type of firearm platform. This scope is also compatible with the A.R.M.S. #22 throw lever base. This compact scope is not cheap but it is one of the best compacts that this author has used.

As long as the shooter does his part this .22 rifle performs very well. Groups with the CCI Mini-Mags were right around 1.5 inches as were groups from the other high velocity ammunition. The exception here was the RWS High Velocity Hollow Points. This ammo consistently grouped at 1 inch or slightly better. This is some very consistent ammunition. Accuracy was then checked with the Remington Subsonic hollow point ammunition. The author installed his Gemtech Outback suppressor coupled with their Umarex Barrel Thread Adapter. Though not unusual, the rifle produced its best groups with this combination. At 50 yards 10-shot groups were less than 1 inch.

The manual for the Umarex .22 guns recommends using only high velocity ammunition but the test rifle ran with any kind of quality .22 shells that were stuffed into it. The rifle utilizes a user adjustable bolt recoil spring tension that can be adjusted for most ammo but no adjustment was needed in our tests. Overall, the Umarex HK 416D rifle leaves very little to be desired in this type gun, as it has it all. It offers good looks, very reliable functioning, outstanding accuracy and, with the forearm rail system, can be equipped with all the bells and whistles that you would ever want to hang on a rifle.

C. Reed Knight, Jr. was born on 22 August, 1945, in Woodbridge, New Jersey. His family moved to Florida before he was a month old allowing him to claim he didn’t have time to be corrupted into a Northerner. His father, C. Reed Knight, Sr. was in the US Army Air Corps at the time flying B-25 bombers stateside as he had finished his pilot training in 1945 just as WWII ended. Reed is married to his high school sweetheart Jan, whom he married in 1967, and they have four children; oldest son Trey, middle son Jacob, youngest son Will, and daughter Sarah, ranging in age from 21 to 38. Reed attended a number of colleges including Florida Southern, Bavard Engineering College in Melbourne, Florida, and Indian River Junior College in Fort Pierce, Florida. Reed served six years in the National Guard starting in 1965. Reed’s companies are some of the amazing success stories of the small arms world, having grown to the point of employing over 300 people today in the manufacture of weapon systems and accessories that Reed has invented and put into production. The list includes the SR-25 rifle he designed with his late partner Eugene Stoner, as well as the Rail Interface System on most current small arms, and many suppressor designs and other firearms. The Knight Collection is one of the most important small arms collections in the world, and Reed’s devotion to the study of small arms has helped the community in too many ways to count. Reed is a tough businessman with a clear view of what he wants to accomplish, and very little patience with anything that interferes with making a proper, top of the line product.

SAR: Where do you think your interest in mechanical things came from?

Knight: I guess from the very beginning my earliest memories were of taking things apart. I like to see how things work. Maybe the side of my brain that’s mechanical overrides the side of my brain that does the reading and the spelling and the other side. I’ve always been able to see things in multiple dimensions and understand them in a very complicated way mechanically. My dad is like that, also. It’s a form of dyslexia, and he basically could not read or write. I have a very tough time reading and writing, too. When I was young, my dad told me, “Son, you can make a living at 40 hours a week, and you can do a little bit better at 50 hours a week, and you probably can do okay at 60 hours a week, but you’re so damn stupid, you’re gonna have to work about 80 hours a week. I suggest you go find yourself a job that you like doing because you’re gonna be spending a lot of time at it.” {Laughter} He was pretty close to on-target with me. I told my dad at the time that I liked guns, and he said, “Well, I guess you better find a way to make a living playing with guns.” I’m one of the very fortunate few people that have managed to make a living out of my hobby.

SAR: Weren’t you racing cars before the firearms?

Knight: Actually, the interests were concurrent. I built cars in high school. When everybody else would go out dating and going to parties, my future wife and I would go over to my garage at my grandfather’s house where I had Model A’s and different types of cars that I was working on. We used to make dune buggies and head down to the beach and go hunt turtles on the east coast of Florida. Model As were cheap, very lightweight, and we’d put big tires on them, strip them down to where they’d weigh almost nothing, and then drive right on the beach. We would run up and down the beach and that was our weekend fun: running from inlet to inlet on the east coast of Florida. We weren’t interested in making the cars original; we were making them into what we wanted out of them. I had a brand new ’63 Chevrolet Super Sport, less than three months old, and my mom and dad went out of town for the weekend. When they came back, I’d pulled the engine and transmission out of that to put it in my ’55 Chevy, and I had lightened it up and put a blower on it, put the big slicks on the back, and I never will forget the look on my mom’s face when she saw that I had taken this brand new car and tore it all up into my hot rod. I had to put the motor back in my street car, under duress. My dad and I put a motor together in my second floor bedroom for the hot rod. We were carrying it down the steps, and he was in front and I was in the back, and he tripped, and the motor cart-wheeled down the staircase and landed upside-down in the middle of my mother’s living room and the oil ran out and ruined her carpet. She was pretty upset when she saw it and asked, “Why in the world did you put this motor together in your bedroom?” I said, “Well, that was just the cleanest place that I could think of to put this motor together.” She got a brand new carpet out of that deal. She caught me at college where I had converted my kitchen sink into a parts washer and the rest of the kitchen into an assembly area. It’s “guy logic,” all those things were a natural for working on engines.

SAR: Did you have access to a machine shop?

Knight: My family has been in the citrus business forever, so we had our place where we worked on all of our tractors and I had a welding shop and a machine shop; everything that you would need to work on tractors. It was basically a mechanical heaven. I would work at my dad’s shop during the summers taking tractors apart, fixing them, putting them back together and working on the heavy machinery. I loved it. My dad kept having clutches slip on some of his tractors that were using a “tree hoe.” I knew about a special clutch used on dragsters, so I sent one of the clutches in and had them build the dragster clutch plate package to fit on my dad’s Massey Ferguson tractor. It was so successful that Massey Ferguson came over and used the idea, and every tractor since then has that same clutch pack that I had altered. I guess that was my first invention that got adopted. I was about 16 years old when the Massey Ferguson deal happened. I got a Farmall Cub tractor for my 9th birthday, which was electric start but I had to hand crank it like a Model A, and I learned to work on that real fast. I mowed yards with it. My dad had a team of mechanics that used to teach me about engines and I would repair the tractors and the semi trucks that we hauled the fruit with. It was a lot of fun. I rebuilt a lot of transmissions and engines. Between 1965 and 1968, we road-raced Camaros at the “Baby” Grand Am – the pre-runner to the Bush races. Camaros, Firebirds, Mustangs and the little Ford Cougars, they would all race the day before the Grand Am, before Richard Petty, A.J. Foyt, and all those guys. I think it was year ’67 we ended up in the NASCAR points. We were seventh in the nation with just a three-man team. We had a driver called Billy Yuma, and I was the mechanic and about everything else. I never will forget sitting on the pit box and we had built this device that shook the rubber off the radiator because the radiator kept getting clogged up on the car, and Richard Petty walked by and saw it. He said, “Well, son, I really like that idea. I’m gonna do that.” He was the king back then, and that was thrilling. I did enough driving to scare myself half to death. What I really liked was drag racing, and I set four national records way back in the old days. I had an A Comp dragster with a 396 Chevy in it, and I had a B dragster back when you could do it economically. My Mom didn’t catch me this time, but the motor came out of my ’65 Corvette. [laughter] I guess I didn’t learn my lesson in ’63. Of course, my mom tells the story now as if it was funny but she didn’t act that way back then.

SAR: Reed, you talk about driving around off-road, plinking and shooting. What was your first firearm that you remember?

Knight: I started with bow and arrow in the 1950s. I was very competitive, and that went from archery to firearms to cars. I used to shoot .22s all the time. Being in the citrus grove business, we’d hunt rabbits, squirrels and varmints. I had a Winchester gallery pump gun. It was just part of every day life, plinking and hunting. My dad had an interest in arms and armor, and he took me to Europe where we bought a lot of antique guns and armor. The Customs guys thought we were in the antique business because of the flint locks and cap and ball guns. My dad enjoyed the history of firearms: he was a collector extraordinaire. He collected tools, coins; he collected all kinds of things. I grew up in an environment where people had respect for the past, and the details and the discipline of collecting. My dad would bring home bags of quarters, and I’d sit down watching TV with a bag of quarters and going through separating them. First, pulling all the silver quarters out, and second filling in all the quarters in the books. Of course all the books having all the different rare quarters and filling them all through was exciting. In the ’40s and ’50s, that was real common. On firearms, I did some hunting, but not a lot other than around the groves. In my first year of college I was on the ROTC rifle team where we used .22 caliber Remington 52s. I was on the rifle team freshman year, and then I started shooting what’s called PPC, and that’s police combat shooting with revolvers. I was a reserve police officer with the City of Vero Beach in 1969-70 or so.

SAR: Had you seen machine guns at that point?

Knight: I had seen some, played with them, and when ’68 came along with the Gun Control Act and the Amnesty, you know, everybody was so skeptical about the registration process, that I didn’t get involved. There were plenty of guys with machine guns, and they’d go out and shoot them at ranges, and before 1968 if you made the gun where it would not shoot automatic, then it was considered not to need registration. When the law changed in ’68, it became “Once a machine gun, always a machine gun.” That changed the whole thing for everyone I knew. I didn’t have anything to register, so in 1968 I didn’t make any. Sort of the opposite. Everyone was pretty cynical that the government was going to come take the guns away once they got them all registered. Most of the people that I ran with back then, because I was shooting pistols and stuff, were either police officers or friends of police officers. When the law changed, they took their guns and either gave them up or gave them to somebody else, or actually turned them in to the department, and let the department do the paperwork. People generally thought there would be a confiscation. They sure didn’t know they were going to be worth $10,000 or $20,000 apiece. Remember we’re talking about machine guns that people had bought very cheaply. They were buying Thompsons from InterArms for $125. The machine guns weren’t worth much even after the Amnesty for a very long time.

SAR: Were you doing any gunsmithing?

Knight: Yes. I was shooting about 50,000 rounds a year of .38 special ammunition and I had to reload that because it was so expensive. I was reloading at night, and shooting during the weekends. I had my own range and my own targets as well as turning targets. I had one of the best ranges set up. During the winter, all the shooting teams from the United States Secret Service would come down and practice at my home in Florida. It was cold up north and if they could get another couple months of practicing, they could get a head start on the year. Some of the early matches were held in Florida. The very first regional match was held in Pompano, Florida. I would travel with them to and from matches, pretty much all over the country, shooting. I enjoyed that, and I worked on the guns. I built combat guns and built the sights on them, and built the big, heavy bull barrels, and worked on the actions, put ball bearings in. I had a milling machine and a lathe, and a couple of real sharp files. I learned how to thread barrels, how to set head space and polish parts. One of the things I did was I built an adjustable trigger stop that in the combat you would use a two-stage trigger pull, rather than cocking the hammer. The amount of movement on the trigger would rotate the cylinder and cock the hammer and get everything locked up, and then you’d break the hammer, and it was very accurate. Back in those days I was building guns and shooting with wadcutter ammo, and we were shooting one-inch groups at 50 yards. I liked Smith & Wesson’s.

SAR: Were you collecting Smiths?

Knight: When ’68 came along with the Gun Control Act, I started very intently collecting Smith & Wesson’s. I didn’t have an FFL yet. I was collecting to try and get one of each and condition wasn’t too important at that time. They didn’t have to be new in the box. The hard guns to get were the snub noses. You wouldn’t think it today, but back then the little J frames were very hard to get because they were concealable and everyone thought the government was after them. Smith and Wesson wasn’t building enough of them for the customer base. The basic law change in 1968 was in fact going after concealable handguns and stopping interstate commerce in so-called “Saturday Night Specials.” Getting all the different models with all the alloy frames, the different concealed hammers and features sure was interesting to me. We were all into revolvers. Remember, not only myself, but there were no police officers that even thought about carrying automatics. They were not considered to be a weapon of choice for a police officer.

SAR: When was the first time you saw a sound suppressor, a silencer for a firearm?

Knight: I’m sure I saw some in the 60’s, but they didn’t really interest me then. I got into machine guns first. I had a very early semiautomatic AR-15; a three-digit serial number Colt Model SP-1. I was at a gun show and a friend of mine came over and gave me a barrel bag. I unzipped it and there was this barrel in it, it was obviously a heavy barrel, it was a quick change barrel, and I had no idea what that barrel fit. It had a barrel extension that looked like the AR-15. I started doing research. I found out that this guy Gene Stoner had invented a gun that was called a Stoner 63. I then found out that he was the same guy that invented the AR-15 which became our US M16. I read some of the books about the subject and I started thinking about if I could ever find one of these Stoner 63s. Roger Cox from Law Enforcement Ordnance Corporation advertised a Stoner 63 and in 1974, for $1,700, I bought my first Stoner 63. It was in the rifle configuration. Now I had the machine gun barrel and a rifle, and I was off on a quest.

SAR: A Stoner 63 couldn’t be your first machine gun… that’s just not right. {Laughter}

Knight: You’re correct. The very first machine gun I bought was a Military Armament Corporation MAC 10, and I bought it before I got a machine gun license. It came with a suppressor, and I paid $200 for the gun and suppressor, $200 for the stamp tax for the gun, and $200 for the stamp tax on the suppressor. I paid $600 for the package. There was a guy from Tampa who was a machine gun dealer. He didn’t have a shop, he was a collector who had quite a few machine guns and ran a Class 3 business on the side. I didn’t shoot it – we were at a gun show where he had it. He gave me the Form 4 paperwork, and I went and got the paperwork signed off immediately. Nothing really caught me about it except that it was affordable and it just looked like something fun to shoot. After that, I got an FFL and paid the Class 3 Stamp. The first gun that I bought under that license was an MG-42 from InterArms, and I really got ripped off on that because this guy had bought it from InterArms and he had resold it to me for a whopping $300! It was mismatched too.

SAR: Disgusting. You must have felt terrible. [laughter]

Knight: Yeah, but not anymore. Wish I could find MG-42s for that price now. It was one of the InterArms mismatched guns with wire wrapped around the buttstock to hold the buttstock together. It had been arsenal refinished. I had trouble finding ammo, but it ran fine, and it was fun. That was how I got started in Class 3, and that was probably in ’73. The Vietnam War was still going on, but it was winding down. I was chasing Stoner parts. I knew what I was looking for, and I just found people here and there with parts. I had found some belt feed parts, and I built other belt feed parts to complement the ones I had. The Houston Gun Show was where you’d really find all the parts. Back then that was the Knob Creek of the machine gun community. We’d find parts and pieces, and then we would finish them up or try to make them work. We didn’t have any drawings to work from. I guess I started going to gun shows in the ’60s. That Houston show was the classic of all classics, our favorite at the time. We also went to Ohio for Ohio Gun Collectors Shows. I went to Atlanta sometimes, and the big show in Florida was the Lakeland Gun Show. I had some traveling buddies, Pedro Bello, John Ciener, the local cronies that were gun nuts. We all kind of hung around together and traveled to shows.

SAR: This would be right around the time of the MAC auction in 1975. Did you know Mitch Werbell?

Knight: Pedro Bello knew Mitch, and I never will forget riding up with Pedro up to Georgia in his pickup truck. Some things in life stick in your mind vividly, and I remember this very well. I had three machine guns to my name, and I sat there next to Pedro, I had a Class 3 machine gun dealer’s license, and there I was sitting at the MAC auction. I had also just gotten paid for a big citrus contract, and I had $50,000 with me – cashier’s checks in $5,000 increments. They were selling the MAC 10s. They started off, and they sold a few, but when it really got in the heat of things, when they were really trying to move them, they would put a pallet of 100 on the floor, and say, “We are not going to take one dime less than $600.” I don’t mean $600 apiece; I mean $600 for the 100 MACs. I said, “Pedro, how can I go wrong at six bucks apiece?” He said, “Those guns will be bookends, don’t buy them, you can’t get magazines, they’re no good, you don’t want them.” In two days at the auction, I ended up buying 750 machine guns and silencers, and I spent $11,000.

SAR: Did you keep any for bookends? {Laughter}

Knight: I still have some, so I guess if I wanted to… Anyway I bought everything I could. I bought every prototype silencer they had, I bought Reisings, a bolt Remington 700, and I never will forget, we went from there over to Mitch Werbell’s house, and Pedro introduced me to him. Of course Mitch was walking around and just having a ball because the auction had all gone off so well and he was at odds with Military Armament Corp. Mitch had his M134 Minigun for sale at his house for $600, just the receiver, and I passed on that because I figured I could never get the parts. Fred Rexer was there, and Fred came over to me and he looked me in the eye and said, “Who in the hell are you, and why in the world would you buy those machine guns?” And I said, “I just did it because I could.” He was mad because he had put in a full bid for everything and individually everybody’s bid ended up being more than his total bid. Of course he would not bid against himself to get individual pieces; it would be bidding against himself. He actually gambled on winning the whole thing, and he got nothing. Fred was just absolutely livid. Looking at how machine gun values went, I still like to tell everybody that I see that knows Pedro that Pedro cost me my first $1 million, because I could’ve bought $50,000 worth where I only ended up buying $11,000 worth. Jonathan Ciener was there at the auction. Ron Martin bought all the MAC11 .380s which went for $50 each and InterArms bought almost all of the 9mm MACs. Most of those 9mm MACs went overseas. If memory serves me right, there were about 10,000 MACs total, .380s, 9mms and .45s. The majority of everything was .45s, and there were probably less than 100 .380s MAC 11s.

SAR: Were some of those MAC 10s export models without a threaded barrel?

Knight: Actually, I don’t think so. I think people converted them afterwards. In order to export the MACs, the government made them take the threads off the barrel. I think it was a company called Swift Shops that did that later as they were going to export MACs and no threads for silencers were allowed. Our government didn’t want silencers exported or guns with the ability to accept a silencer. They took the threads off the end of the barrel and cold-blued them on the front.

SAR: How long did it take to get the paperwork done from the auction?

Knight: The paperwork was only about seven days. The interesting part is the ATF just came along and confiscated what they wanted for downtown, and I had gotten some of the really nice, consecutive serial numbered, high polished blue MAC 10s and MAC 11s. ATF confiscated some of my guns and simply did not approve the paper. Back then I didn’t know enough to complain. They just cherry picked the things that they wanted out of the auction. There was a ton of interesting parts and raw material they sold at auction as well. There were bolts, and stocks and all the internals. The ATF would not let them sell any of the parts for the silencers and they made them destroy those. The material they built the wipes out of, there were big sheets of that, and they made them destroy that. That indicates even in 1975 they had an idea that silencer parts were to be considered contraband, or at least had that attitude.

SAR: It wasn’t until 1981 that the suppressor parts were blocked from sale. I know Mitch used to sell silencer parts to whoever was doing whatever. It was a straight over the counter sale and any number of Class 2s in the early to mid 1970s bought their parts at Military Armament Corporation.

Knight: There wasn’t a law to prevent it, but ATF would not let the bankruptcy auction sell any silencer parts. In the MAC auction, the ATF had wanted all these machine guns and everything destroyed, and the bankruptcy judge said, “No, these are legal to own and they’re guns that are manufactured, and they can sell these.” The Bankruptcy judge had full control and if it was legal to sell, he was going to sell it. On another note, one of the RPB (Robie, Pitts & Brugeman, the next manufacturers of the MAC series) guys had been the shop foreman for Military Armament Corporation. I’m sure he was there and bought all the MAC tooling, and bought the machine guns in the flat, and RPB finished those. He knew how to continue the manufacturing process. I bought the very first guns from RPB; I have guns one through five in every caliber for the RPB production. I was good friends with them when they first started off building guns. They’re first production was taking the MAC flats and re-stamping them “RPB” on the other side of the receiver. These are called the “RPB Overstamp MACs.” I have very good examples of the entire MAC series machine guns, and some of the stock of MAC-10s left as well.

SAR: In this same timeframe, you had been making some Stoner parts and gathering up whatever you could find, but you hadn’t found any large caches yet.

Knight: The caches came later. Around 1974-5, I was doing my police combat shooting, and I was involved with the Secret Service teams. One of the guys from Secret Service had gone to SEAL Team Two, and they showed him these Stoner belt-fed machine guns that were inoperable, and he said, “Well, I know a guy down in Florida that works on those and has some parts and pieces, and you need to call him.” SEAL Team Two called me and wanted me to go up to see what they had. They had a conglomeration of 63s and 63As that were all hodge-podged, and they had mixed parts from 63s into the 63As and 63As into the 63s. Most of the guns just did not work. I took all their guns apart and repaired and rebuilt all their guns, as much as could be done. They had used those extensively in Vietnam, and they’d brought back all the stuff, but the guns weren’t supportable because the factory wasn’t building any of the new parts. I had the parts in stock, and I put all their guns back together. That’s way before I even knew that if you do the work, you were supposed to charge the government. I figured that out later. {Laughter} That’s also when I really saw my first pistol suppressor. The SEALs had what was called a “Hushpuppy,” a Smith & Wesson Model 39 that was converted by Smith & Wesson and had a little aluminum silencer on it with a rubber package that let the bullet go through it and trapped the gases inside the silencer. When they added a slide lock on it, and when the operator unlocked the slide and tried to jack the round out and put a new round in, the extractor would climb out over the cartridge case, and the cartridge case would stick in the chamber. They thought that that was some kind of a “vapor lock” (That was the term the SEALs used), and I later determined that the ammo they were using was manufactured by Supervel, and was way up on the high end of SAMMI specs for what was functional. They were using a heavier bullet, making that 9mm go sub-sonic, and of course at that time, in the early ’70s, no one had really perfected sub-sonic 9mm ammunition. It’s not as simple as just putting in a heavier bullet. I did a whole lot of experimenting and found out that as the slide went back, the barrel on the 39 unlocked by moving down, and as the barrel moved down, the extractor came over the cartridge rim and the extractor would leave the cartridge stuck in the chamber. I went and got a whole bunch of Beretta 92 series that used an extractor that was a larger size and a straight motion, they pulled the cartridge straight back as it unlocked. I threaded in the barrels and put their silencers on Beretta 92s and solved that problem. I also loaded 50,000 rounds of 9mm with a 170-grain bullet that they could also use in this suppressed pistol package. I built the Beretta 92s in 1978-79, and the special subsonic ammunition was in 1981-82. I only built about a dozen and all went to the government except my “keepers.” My first contract with the government was around 1974 when the government had wanted to fix the Stoner 63s, putting a block in the front of the trigger, and I took and built a little dust-cover for the Stoner 63 for all the guns. Crane bought a bunch of parts so they could rebuild their guns. I also built wooden handguards for the Stoner 63, so they could convert rifles to machine guns. To this day you still see some of my wooden hand guards that people think are original and I’m the only guy who knows that they’re not. I did a real good job of copying Cadillac Gage’s work.

(Reed’s son Trey has been quietly prodding his father on some issues in the Interview, and at this point Trey suddenly remembers this event and gets indignant.)

Trey: Hey! That’s right! You know, he gave me ten cents apiece to sand them. I didn’t know I was getting ripped off. I was just a kid!

Knight: Yeah. [laughter] I gave you ten cents apiece and you were darned happy.

SAR: How can you tell the difference between those forends? We’re going to start a new edition of Stoner collector frenzy here.

Knight: These were the Stoner 63 LMG handguards, and we built them out of the same wood that the originals were made from. We used the same steel bushings, everything was the same. The difference is that the original Cadillac Gage wooden forends had a sling swivel at one end, and ours did not, because the Navy SEALs didn’t want a sling that hooked to the hand guard. After that, I was rebuilding their Stoners, trying to keep them running, and I’d run out of parts. I went everywhere looking. One day, I said to myself, “There’s got to be a bigger stash of parts somewhere.” These didn’t just to dry up. I had heard that this guy by the name of Eugene Stoner had a house in Florida. I looked in the phonebook, and I found him in a little town just south of mine, just north of West Palm and south of Fort Pierce. I called him and I said, “Is this the Gene Stoner that worked for Cadillac Gage?” And he said, “No, this is the Gene Stoner that worked as a consultant for Cadillac Gauge,” and I said, “Well, I’m repairing some of the Navy SEALs’ guns, and I’m looking for parts and pieces, and is there any way that I can get any parts?” He said, “I have all that stuff, but I’m down here in Florida. If you want to come up to my place up in Port Clinton, Ohio, I’ll entertain showing you the parts and pieces and what have you.” It was late 1978, maybe into 1979. Trey says I “tricked” the family that we were going on a family vacation and that is what I told them. We all piled in the Dodge van and drove up to Port Clinton, Ohio, and we met Mr. Stoner. He took me into this warehouse that had big holes in the roof, and there were seven or eight semi-loads of parts, and all the tooling for the Stoner 63. I got a handful of parts I wanted and invited him to visit me in Florida. He came up a couple times and had lunch with me, and we talked, and I’d go down to his place, and we would have a lot of fun, just going out to lunch and talking. He was not really doing anything as he was between programs. At that time he had just gone to Iran and sat down with the Shah, who said, “We want an anti-aircraft gun to shoot down those Iraqi aircraft.” Stoner said, “I can build you a gun, and I can build it for anti-aircraft work,” and the Shah asked how long it would take. Stoner said “I’ll send you a proposal,” and they had a very nice, cordial meeting. As Stoner’s getting ready to leave, one of the assistants to the Shah came up and handed Stoner a check for $1 million. In those days that was pretty tall money, and the Shah had Stoner’s attention. The Shah said, “I want you to get started on this program, and I want you to send me monthly reports, and I want you to tell me how far you are and keep me posted. As you tell me what you spend, I’ll refurbish that money, but here’s your first draw, and just keep going on this thing, and let’s get this program underway.” Stoner was actually being directed by the State Department to do this project. One of the things that I later found out is they didn’t really want to sell the Iranians our best US anti-aircraft technology, but they wanted to sell the Shah good technology. Stoner basically had the very, very first of the laser-tracking systems that he built on his “Eagle” system, and was quite successful at building this twin 35-millimeter, high-velocity anti-aircraft system. We spoke quite a bit in that period. We’d talk about other things that he was working on, what he was doing in Ohio at Ares. His main projects were cannons and the 75mm and 90mm smooth bore, long rod penetrating, case telescoped ammunitions.

SAR: Were you still racing?

Knight: No. At that time, I was really focusing on my main work; I was in what’s called the hedging and topping business, in the citrus business. I also had a garbage company at that time, yes, before you jump on that Dan, I was actually a garbage man. {Laughter} I just hadn’t made up my mind what I really wanted to be when I grew up. I wasn’t racing, but I was always an avid shooter. For ten years I won the Florida State Championship for the number one on the Governor’s 20, which was the top 20 revolver/pistol shooters in the State of Florida, consecutive, up until 1981. I wasn’t doing archery anymore, but guns were always around. I had a big pile of machine guns. I was an FFL dealer, doing business, but I was also working towards the collection that was my passion. Regarding the firearms business, other than dealing, I had been working on silencers for the Berettas and Hushpuppies. Right about 1980, I basically started working very close with the government to develop better silencers for them. I also went all over the country looking for parts and pieces for the government. They wanted certain types of guns and certain types of ammunition, and I was kind of a go-to guy to get things for them.

SAR: This is the same timeframe you started working with Dick Marcinko? (Richard Marcinko, the “Rogue Warrior” of SEAL Team Six and Red Cell fame.)

Knight: That’s affirmative. I didn’t know all the details at the time, but I was read into a then-to-be secret program that this individual was going to go out and build a bunch of equipment and put together a team for counterterrorism. This later became Dev Group. I went all over the country finding parts and pieces, and getting guns and things that they could use to do their job. I sold to the Navy, and I sold Marcinko the first Beretta 92s that the government ever bought. Later I traded the 92s back and gave them 92Ss. These were all Italian pistols. Some of these I altered for slidelocks and suppressors. The early years of this were all pretty wild. Carrying guns and ammo to Little Creek in the back of that same old Dodge van I had, pulling a U-haul trailer behind it filled to the top with guns, and getting there and dropping them off in this warehouse in Little Creek, Virginia, walking over to this other warehouse and a guy handed me a check, then I’d leave and go back home to Florida. I was a contractor, and doing business with them.

SAR: Did it make you money in those first deals?

Knight: Gas was a lot cheaper then, and I did make money, but this was all exciting. I traveled a lot for shooting, but very little overseas. I worked a lot through InterArms and some of the other companies that had product that I could buy and import. I was not like Sam Cummings and the people who were really international-type people. I was such a low denominator and so low on the food chain in these deals. I know I made some money and had a good time. I learned a lot. I was “drinking water through a firehose” back then. It was certainly exciting because I was working for all the high-end people. I remember one day I was up at Beltsville, the Secret Service facility, and these guys came over and said, “Listen, we need you to go talk to somebody,” and I said, “Okay.” So we went into this room and we sat down and this guy was there chomping on a cigar, and he’s sitting there looking at me, and he said, “Listen,” he said, “I understand you’re doing some work for my buddy, Marcinko,” and I said, “Well, yeah, I have.” He said, “Well, I really want you to come to work for me.” And I said, “Okay, I guess I could. Who are you?” He said, “I’m Charlie Beckwith, and I have a need for what you do,” and I said, “Well, I’m your guy.” Charlie had heard about all the work that I’d done for Marcinko, and of course, Beckwith and Marcinko were rivals, they both wanted to be on top of the hill. I’m sure that everybody that Marcinko had, Charlie tried to steal, and everybody Charlie had, Dick tried to steal. I started working for Charlie Beckwith in the early ’80s, at SOTF, the Special Operations Training Facility.

The two Navy SEALs that I repaired the Stoner 63s for, one was Fly Fallon, the other was Ken McDonald. They were the armorers at SEAL Team Two. They had served in Vietnam with Marcinko. When Marcinko stood up at Dev Group, he basically picked five guys, including himself made six. Ken McDonald basically knew me from work me in the arms room, and that’s how my connection had got there. Fly had started working for Special Operations Group Two, which was basically the early WarCom. At that time there was SEAL Team Two, SEAL Team Four. Fly did all the weapons testing. Fly was actually the Navy SEAL that did all the testing on the M-60E3, which was a lightweight M-60. He also did all the early testing of the very early Minimi, and the HK262. That’s where I got into all the early weapons in the ’70s, when all those systems were being tested. Fly served up until almost until his death. He had gotten “Agent Orange’d,” and about seven years ago he died from cancer.

SAR: Reed, here we are in the early 1980s, and you’re running a bunch of different, diverse businesses that don’t have much connection to each other…

Trey: Selling guns to the Navy SEALs was probably a lot more fun than hauling trash and trimming trees.

Knight: I was still in the citrus hedging and topping business, and yes, selling guns to the SEALS was pretty exciting. In 1981 I started a supply company for the police departments in the State of Florida, and the name of that company is Lawmen’s Shooter Supply. We were a distributor for Smith & Wesson, Remington, and Winchester. I sold handguns, body armor, light bars, car equipment, holsters and whatever they needed. I started off kind of small with three or four employees. I had a retail store at 3801 Okeechobee Road in Fort Pierce, Florida. Trey started working there when he was 11 or 12 or so. It was kind of a family business.

Trey: That was my first exposure to the firearms business, getting behind the counter and selling guns.

Knight: I actually worked there too, that was my day job. I was driving around to different police departments doing trade-ins and straight sales. We would trade guns, we would bid on guns, we would do light bar demonstrations, we would go all over the state and sell guns. I got some good trade-ins, did a lot of good business with a lot of good departments. Basically, grew that from a startup company, it’s still in business, and now my oldest son, Trey, still runs and manages that company, with 25 employees. We basically just stay in the state of Florida. We had other people that we competed against that, they stayed in their territory and we stayed in ours, it just made sense. This is also about when I went to the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot for the first time.

SAR: Did you go there when it was tents outside, or when it was the pole barn?

Knight: The first year or so the show was in tents. I guess that would be in 1986 or so. Right after the 1986 law change banning manufacture of machine guns for private ownership. After they put the pole barns up, I would get some tables with friends and go there to shop for firearms and parts we needed, and sell some Stoner 63s. It was always a good time. I still like to go there when I can, to shop, see what’s there, see old friends.

SAR: Regarding finding Stoner 63s and parts, you went back to Port Clinton with Gene Stoner and made a deal….

Trey: I remember when. It was13 tons of parts and tooling, seven tractor trailer loads that all had to be loaded, sorted, stored.

Knight: Yeah, they included the tooling and everything else in the deal we did. That was much earlier than 1986. I guess it sets the stage for where we were. I was collecting that stuff just to keep it, to supply parts for the Navy SEALs, to have inventory. I thought that I might build a gun one day and actually made 100 pre-1986 transferable Stoner 63As. I saw the end of the machine gun world coming and like everyone else I built whatever I could. 100 Stoner 63As, some Steyr AUGs, some HK trigger packs, a few M134 Miniguns, and even some Remington 1100 machine guns in 12 gauge. There was a window of opportunity of about 45 days from when we knew the law was coming at us, to when it took effect. It was quite a frenzy in the industry, and some people that were based in the civilian market turned out a tremendous amounts of items. On the Stoners, I was interested in preserving and keeping up with the tooling. There were only maybe two dozen Stoners that the SEALs would try and keep going by this point. It wasn’t like it was a big, monumental effort on my part or their part. In 1982, there was an RFP out on the street for suppressors for the M16s that the Navy was going to build, seems like it was 3,000 suppressors for the M16A1s. The silencer had to meet certain thresholds – of so many rounds a minute for such a period of time, had to be submergible, had to meet all the military Navy specs. In 1982, we won that contract, and delivered those suppressors to Crane Naval Weapon Support. It was our first major suppressor contract. We had sold a couple dozen here or there in the past. As has been noted before, there’s a difference in a “sale” and a “Contract.” This was a full size “Contract.” This was the Navy Model, from Knight’s Armament Company. I built a few extra; I probably sold 100 other than that on the civilian market, and they were all stainless steel. The flash hider was removed and the Navy Model was screwed on, and had a tapered split collet that clamped onto the barrel that kept the silencer straight, and it also kept it from unscrewing off into the barrel. It extended back over the barrel. It was an inch and three-quarters in diameter, and about seven or eight inches long. Our delivery time frame was six months, and we met the deadline.

SAR: What were you doing for sound testing in that time period? There really wasn’t a solid protocol.

Knight: I had bought a B&K 2209 sound meter from Don Walsh (Larand). Mickey Finn (Qual-A-Tec) was testing suppressors, and Don and I were testing them. We got together and said, “Okay, this is how we’re going to standardize things. We’re going to test this at one meter from the muzzle, at 90 degrees to the muzzle, and we’re going to use a 4136 microphone, and the B&K 2209 meter, Peak-Hold, but A-weighting.” Basically, Crane followed us and their standards, and we set up what became the Mil-Standard for A-testing used today. Our combined experience with sound level testing led us to choose the 2209 meter with that particular microphone because of the very fast rise time, and for the high sound pressure levels with firearms.

SAR: When did you meet Don Walsh?

Knight: I met Don in the mid-’70s, probably around maybe ’76, ’77. All that period of time I was doing work with the suppressors and the Navy SEALs. Everyone knew all the cast of characters in the business at that time. It was a small, closed community with a closed customer base. Kind of a parallel sales situation. Some of the people concentrated on selling to the civilian market or a little bit to law enforcement, but the community that was actually selling to the government was very small. It still is, no matter what the marketing hype might be. When I said “Cast of Characters,” I meant that it was an interesting group. Mickey Finn was the first one to coin the term “investors” in this industry, in that he went out and got a bunch of people to put money into his business, and they did a lot of R&D and took a new style of write-off. I was funding all of my work out of my back pocket. They really got a leg up on us and they really built some great products. That was in the ’79-’80 timeframe, when we were very heavily involved in the suppressor development work for the government, doing different things: .22s and 9mms, and MP-5s and integral suppressors. Most of that was nickel and dime stuff and nobody had any real large major contracts at that time. That first Navy contract was pretty much the largest contract that had come along out of the military for a number of years since the Vietnam era. Testing at that time was still based on the Frankfurt Arsenal-style testing. Our new protocol moved things up to a higher level. It was still an analog system, it hadn’t moved to the digital system, but it was so much further ahead then because it was a defined parameter. How you measure the sound of a gunshot, because it is so transient, is very important on what type of rise time you use, and also what kind of microphone you use, and what kind of distance you use away from the sound source, as well as angles. All of those things, when you define them, and we all started using the same “ruler” to measure something it became so subjective so we could accurately understand the effects of our suppression techniques. Especially on products like the Hushpuppy-type suppressor, because the sound is over such short period of time, but the peak of that sound is higher. A Hushpuppy-type suppressor with a rubber-type baffle or wipe system actually shows on the meter at a much higher level of sound than other suppressors, but because the sound source is for such a short period of time, you actually hear the bullet hitting the wipes as the source of the sound, not the muzzle blast. On many wiped designs, it’s the bullet strike that’s getting the noise level that you actually hear. That being said, the Hushpuppy was quiet to the ear, but it showed a 127 dB on the sound meter. If you would compare it to a non-wipe system, it would be probably about 122 dBs, and you’d look at that and you’d see that five or six-dB difference, and that was 100% noise difference, but the Hushpuppy sounded quieter to the ear. We really perfected the rubber wipe suppressor in what we called the “Snap-On.” We actually built a little aluminum can with the rubber baffle stack for pistols. Because the suppressor was so light and it built pressure in this chamber, it negated the need for a Nielsen-type device, and the gun/suppressor system became very reliable. The Beretta happens to be the gun of choice in this type system, because the barrel does not tilt, the action just goes straight back.

SAR: You do have a tremendous passion for the history and technology of military small arms. Would it be fair to characterize your experiences though as living a little bit in the civilian world of ownership, but living mostly in the military and law enforcement community in your designs and manufacturing?

Knight: I guess we’re always trying to identify what we want to be when we grow up. I have crossed over in the communities, looking for balance and diversity to get companies through the hard times. We all want to be something, or aspire to be something. My inspiration has always been for making better equipment for our servicemen, and building good equipment, and improving the tools that they have to do their job. It’s not all good times though. I remember in 1990, waking up one Monday morning and having a big mortgage on a brand new factory that I’d built, and not having one government contract in-house at all. They were completed. That was quite frightening because I looked at the mortgage and I had made a major commitment to it when I had had some very large government contracts, and it looked like they were going to last forever. I had committed when we had three major contracts hit all at one time. I was building silencers for the Beretta M9 for the Air Force, about 5,000 of them. I was building helicopter gun mounts for the H-53 helicopter, and both of those contracts were running concurrent with each other. I also had another very large classified contract of delivering product that was right after that. With three of those contracts, it looked like we had “arrived.” We were now, in my opinion at the time, a major military contractor, because we were certainly able to do the work. I had another business that I mentioned earlier that was a company called Lawmen’s and Shooters’ Supply Inc. That company was very, very stable. We were doing good sales, we were making a decent profit, but the Lawmen’s and Shooters’ Supply Inc. ended up, from time to time, covering the payroll for the research and development that we were doing over there in the other side of the house. When we got these good contracts for these large deliveries, I did not have any way to manufacture what was needed. I started going to the tool shows and looking at manufacturing methods to be able to manufacture this equipment that I had sold to the government. I ended up buying new CNC machines and developing processes. From 1986 to 1988, we became a pretty serious manufacturer. I owned two or three CNC lathes and two or three CNC milling machines, and we were learning on how to “manufacture” as opposed to “filling small contracts.” Big difference. Then, like I said, there is the day when everything is done and you’re looking at that big mortgage, no open contracts, and you wonder, “What do you want to do when you grow up?”

SAR: Knight’s was making suppressors, some larger mount pieces, and some other accessories. There had to be a point where you had an inspiration for a rail system.

Knight: One of my very good Navy SEAL friends had gotten tangled up into his parachute going into Panama and drowned wrapped up into his parachute cord. I thought, “I need to help make their load lighter.” I noticed that in the pictures and on TV that they had taken their flashlight and taped it to their hand-guards with duct tape. I thought, “That’s not going to stay lined up and it’s going to hit on doors, and it makes the rifle bulky.” I thought, “What if we had a way to put that flashlight on and off the gun easily and compactly?” I played around a little bit with what we called the “Lego,” nicknamed after the toy company product that allowed you to clip things together. I had no idea that this thing was ever going to be used for holding anything other than a flashlight. I built flashlights that went underneath the rifle, and vertical pistol grips. I built flashlights that went on the side of the rifle. I built all kinds of flashlight mounts, and converted a lot of already existing MAG lights to brackets and mounts that attached to guns. Our first goal was to take an already existing firearm and modify it to make this “rail system” that parts could plug onto. We took the thing to Colt, and other manufacturers, and I said, “Hey, I got this idea. I’d like to show you this, and I’d like for you to build it,” and I remember meeting there at Colt, and Rob Roy said, “Is there a requirement for this?” I said, “What do you mean by requirement?” He said, “Does the government have a need for this?” I said, “Yeah, they have a need for it.” He said, “Well, is there a written requirement?” I said, “They don’t even know they don’t have this yet, but there is a need for it.” So he said, “Well, you go get a requirement for this and we’ll build it for you.” I said, “If I go get a requirement for this, I’m not gonna need you. I need you now, I need you to go help me sell this.” They all said, “Well, we just don’t think that there’s a need for it, and we don’t think there’s a requirement for it.” I had been doing a lot of work with Colt because I built the muzzle brake on the Advanced Combat Rifle, the ACR program. So I knew everybody at Colt, and they knew me, and they’d been down to my factory and I had a relationship with them that was a very good and strong.

SAR: They just didn’t get the vision.

Knight: In retrospect, it took forever to get the government interested in it. They really didn’t know that they really needed it. Remember, I was selling it as a mount to hold a flashlight. I remember talking to Gene Stoner about it one time. I said, “Why in the world didn’t you give me a place on this M16 that was square to the bore, so that I can mount something on that would always be parallel to the bore?” He said, “Well, what is it that you wanted me to mount? What is it that you have in mind that you’re going to mount to this?” I said, “Well, like maybe a laser,” and he looked at me and he said, “Yeah, in 1958 I was thinking about a laser.” {Laughter} I said, “I guess you’re right, you didn’t have any need for that at that time.” I remember in the early ’90s sitting in a meeting with a colonel who was briefing people and he said, “I believe if they put one of these rails on a butt stock, somebody would buy it.” I was in the back of this room filled with the industry people, and I raised my hand and I said, “Sir, did I understand that to be a requirement?” {Laughter} It was a joke at the time, but today it might not be a joke. I’m sure somebody’s thinking about it.

The hardest thing to do was not modifying the existing rifle, but to have those rails to stay in alignment for the total life of the shooting of the rifle for its total life. The rail system had to withstand the wear factor, it had to withstand the recoil factor, the heat factor, and all the other adverse conditions as well as be soldier-proof. We had to build it so it didn’t make the gun any heavier, it didn’t change the point of impact, that it didn’t take any tools to put on, and that it could be put on at the user level rather than having to come back to the armory to install. I remember sitting in the first meeting, we were negotiating, and I said, “You guys aren’t even asking for the most important part of this rail system, which is the vertical pistol grip.” They said, “We don’t need that. We don’t have a requirement for it.” I suggested they do some testing. They had just finished up with a simulator that they had just built for the ACR program, and they had just spent umpteen millions of dollars of testing that equipment against the baseline of duplex rounds and different things. The simulator rifle actually recoiled, and you had to acquire the next target. About two months later they came back to the colonel and he said, “You know something? We have found that that $39 vertical pistol grip that we put on your gun increased the hit probability for every soldier type, experienced soldiers, non-experienced soldiers, all types of shooters, significantly more than the whole $32 million that we spent on the ACR program.” The $39 piece that they added to the M4 and the M16 increased the hit probability more than all the training and testing they did with spending and development on the Advanced Combat Rifle.

SAR: So just getting your rail system on there and putting your front grip on it—

Knight: – Gave a better than 20% improvement to hit probability, which was the goal of the ACR program. What they really said that was significant is that the people that had the most improvements were novice shooters who had a much better hit probability increase than experienced shooters. Experienced shooters knew how to hold the gun, knew how to shoot and what have you. I remember being at Fort Benning one year, and I was there with a group of people, and this sergeant came up to me, he said, “You’re Reed Knight, aren’t you?” I said, “Yeah, I am.” He said, “I just want to shake your hand,” he said, “I train thousands of people here in basic training in the shooting skills, and every time I get a shooter that does not qualify, I can give them one of your vertical pistol grips, and they always qualify afterwards. That one piece of gear has made more difference in people qualifying in military shooting than any other piece of gear that I’ve ever seen come through here.”

SAR: That’s pretty satisfying.

Knight: It was great. It was also satisfying that this was something that the government didn’t even want and I had called it right and gotten it approved. Actually, in my infinite stupidity, when we were negotiating on the rail system, I said, “You don’t want the vertical pistol grip? I’ll throw it in for free.” Obviously it was included in the price with all the other stuff, but at the same time, when I added it to the kit, I didn’t increase the price for the vertical pistol grip. That was the RIS (Rail Interface System), our first product in 1992. It was a USSOCOM purchase. The RAS (Rail Adapter System) was an almost concurrent requirement. The Army tested the RIS first, then tested the RAS, and wanted some changes made. At 5-6,000 rounds with their testing style using a bore rod, the point of impact had shifted out of the specification on the RIS. We developed the RAS, and spent another $250-300,000 developing that product. Six months of development, really a very strong program, and we submitted it. They tested it and said, “It didn’t do any better than the RIS.” That was a shock. I asked how they tested it. It turns out they were testing with a bore rod down the bore like they had on the RIS, and the bore rod had gotten worn out, that it became out of synch, and they didn’t have a baseline. We showed them how we tested it, and they adopted our test procedure and re-tested it, and they said, “You know something? Your first one would’ve passed also.” We had ended up spending a lot of our own money to give them a different product, and that’s why we always look carefully not only at our own products, but what the customer’s test protocols will be.

SAR: You were putting a great team together in the ’80s, and today you’ve got a good team to design and build the products that you decide to take on.

Knight: One of the things that I’ve been very fortunate on is that even though I’m not an educated engineer, I’m not an educated business manager, and I’m really not an educated pretty much anything, I have been able to associate myself with some very, very talented people. I have been able to find people that have the same passion that I do, or they have come to me. We have been able to take the ideas and the needs of a customer, and take those needs and to build solutions to those needs. My talent has probably been to think outside of the box. Gene Stoner told me something interesting one day; he said, “I believe when you become an engineer, and they teach you the disciplines, you learn that one and one make two, and that you have to do it this way because this is what the book says to do. I think it prevents you from becoming a true designer. If I sometimes knew what the engineering math was on some of my designs before going all the way through with them, I probably would’ve quit earlier.”

The Knight Interview continues in the next issue of Small Arms Review, where Reed discusses the MK23 suppressor program, SR-25, The SASS, and more.

Every war is different. Every battleground has diverse characteristics. Each mission, whether a military role or civilian law enforcement detail varies greatly in its specific purposes. It seems almost impossible on the surface that a single weapon system could adapt and function in such a range of climates and missions, but the familiar M16 is still going strong. From a lightweight carbine to a heavy barreled LMG, the M16 weapon system has been fulfilling the role of America’s primary service weapon for more than 40 years and it doesn’t seem it will be replaced wholesale anytime soon.

The earliest history of the inception and design of the black rifle bas been chronicled numerous times and it is not the intent of this author to rehash this historical material other than a very brief and condensed historical summary. There are many credible sources for this information including The Complete AR-15/M16 Sourcebook by Duncan Long, The Black Rifle I by Blake Stevens, Black Rifle II by Christopher R. Bartocci and an extensive Colt M16 ID Guide in the Machine Gun Dealers Bible by Dan Shea. This article will focus on the versatility of the M16, the characteristics that have allowed the metamorphosis from the original designs to the current battle rifle of the 21st century and possibly beyond.

Although there are a countless number of model designations for these rifles from numerous manufacturers, for simplicity purposes in this article, the designation “M16” can be assumed to be a fully automatic rifle while the designation “AR-15” makes reference to the semiautomatic version.

A Very Brief History

While its initial roots are clearly in the Stoner designs of the early 1950s, like most designs, the multiple lug bolt head, lockup into a barrel extension, and gas system principle can be traced back farther. It was at ArmaLite where this all came together. The first heavy public exposure to the black rifle started in the wet and humid environment of the tropics with the earliest variations sent to US troops in Viet Nam. There were many positive responses at first, but after the ammunition/propellant change, the black rifles were plagued with an extremely lackluster initial impression and poor performance in the field. Problems were eventually minimized after several rounds of intense testing combined with numerous committee change recommendations. Many alterations in production were initiated including chamber dimensions, rifling twist ratios, firing-pin changes, redesigning the flash hider and charging handle, and (against the advice of many people) the addition of a forward assist assembly. Along with ammo and gunpowder refinement, proper maintenance, and problems addressed with early magazines, the early version of black rifle as we know it today was on its way to becoming the cornerstone of the modern American military arsenal.

As early as 1963, Colt started manufacturing this “new” rifle in semiautomatic only with the civilian population and the law enforcement community in mind. Sold as the AR-15 Sporter it was virtually identical to the M16 with the exception of the fire control group. With an early retail price of $189.50 it was marketed to the hunting and sporting community as a beacon of a new wave of manufacturing technology allowing it to be lightweight while remaining accurate and effective. Although several minor changes have been made to separate the function of the semiautomatic version of these rifles from their fully automatic relatives over the years, and to keep them from being easily converted to fully automatic, they remain wildly popular and an enormous civilian market thrives today. Numerous upgrades and model enhancements of the civilian line of semiautomatic variants have followed very closely to those designed for the fully automatic models keeping them on a fairly level playing field.

With the 1977 expiration of Gene Stoner’s patent on the M16 gas system, several companies sprang up and started manufacturing their own versions of this popular rifle. The trademark model name of “AR-15” was, and still is, owned by Colt, and they are still one of many businesses that manufacture this weapon system and its many configurations.

Modularity is King

At the heart of the black rifle is the versatile lower receiver. This portion of the firearm is the section considered by federal law to be “the firearm” by definition. The lower receiver is the portion of the firearm that contains the trigger group and the pistol grip as well as the magazine well. Also attached to the lower receiver is the buffer tube and stock. This is the part that requires purchase through a licensed federal firearms licensee (if ordered from an out-of-state dealer) and the paperwork that goes along with any other firearm purchase, depending upon the laws of the State of the buyer. Every other part of this firearm may be ordered directly by the end user and requires no federal licensing or paperwork. All other parts, including the upper receivers and the barrels are treated just like any other non-regulated parts.

The upper receiver plays an equally important role in the mechanism. The upper receiver is the point of attachment for the barrel and the housing for the bolt, bolt carrier and charging handle. It is attached to the lower receiver by two takedown pins that are operable without the aid of any tools. The upper and lower receivers may be separated and rejoined at any time without fear of losing any components under normal handling. This may be attractive for size considerations when breaking down for transportation or when changing the characteristics of the rifle for a specific task.

Several rifle configurations may be assembled on a single lower receiver simply by swapping out barreled upper receivers. Specific tasks may require features unique to that task but may not be desirable to others. This is where the real beauty of the black rifle comes in. Unlike most other firearms, the characteristics of the black rifle can be altered at any time, and reversed back again, just by changing upper receivers. It is indeed more than a weapon; it is truly a “weapon system” as it is often properly referred as.

For obvious reasons, an entry-type rifle may consist of a very short barrel and either iron sights or a zero-magnification dot-type sight. A varmint hunting rifle may be much more effective with a long barrel and high power telescopic sight. With a black rifle, both of these configurations are only a quick upper receiver swap away with no lack of performance in either field.

There are barrels ranging from the 7-inch* “Kitty Kat” barrel from DPMS (www.dpmsinc.com) to a 24-inch Varminter Extra Heavy Barrel from Bushmaster Firearms (www.bushmaster.com) and a multitude of lengths in between. (* Under Federal Law a rifle barrel has to be over 16 inches in length to be a legal Title I firearm. By purchasing or registering the rifle as a Short Barreled Rifle, the owner can use any barrel length at will. With registered machine guns, the barrel length is not a legal stipulation under Federal Law and any length barrel may be used). There are not many rifles that allow the flexibility of swapping out barrel lengths without the necessity of tools in less than 30 seconds like this system. Additionally, another major advantage is the sights are part of the upper receiver as well, so there is no need to re-zero after making this swap. If multiple barreled upper receivers are owned, they can all be sighted-in and swapped as desired with a complete return to zero with careful handling and the correct ammunition.

From Plinking to Protecting

If there is any one thing that can always be counted on in the firearms community, it is American Ingenuity and the desire to make something bigger and better. (Sometimes smaller and better, in this case.) Fortunately, this has proven to work well in transforming the once light .223 Rem. (5.56x45mm) rifle into something left only to one’s imagination and budget. With the ease of changing upper receivers, the transformation from the original caliber to a completely new round is almost as simple. Since the upper receiver holds the barrel, bolt and bolt carrier, this is the portion of the rifle where the caliber of the ammunition to be utilized is determined. Thanks to many able minded firearm enthusiasts, these rifles can be converted to almost any caliber ranging from .17 to .50 BMG with minimal (if any) temporary modifications to the lower receiver. From the luxury of plinking for recreation on a budget or additional training, to having the stopping power to assist our front line fighters in the War on Terror, the black rifle can be custom configured to suit every application.

One of the most popular subcaliber units among black rifle shooters is the “Atchisson” .22LR conversion manufactured by Jonathan Arthur Ciener, Inc. (www.22lrconversions.com). When utilized with the recommended ammunition, properly maintained and operated, they provide hours of plinking fun in semiautomatic AR-15s or full automatic fun when used in conjunction with a registered M16. On the opposite end of the ammunition spectrum is the .50BMG Upper Receiver from Watson’s Weapons Inc. (www.watsonsweapons.com). This upper receiver actually allows the use of the massive .50 BMG round when attached to your lower receiver. It functions as a single-shot rifle that must be partially taken down to be reloaded between shots.

One of the most popular pistol caliber conversions would include the 9x19mm (Luger) conversion. First introduced in 1985, Colt offered a 9mm blowback-operated submachine gun that worked quite well. Most of the characteristics were the same as the standard rifle, making operation simple for anyone who had utilized or trained on the 5.56x45mm rifle. A special magazine (both 20-round and 32-round) was developed for the much shorter 9x19mm round and a block was pinned inside the standard lower receiver’s magazine well to accommodate the smaller magazine while utilizing the same magazine release. A civilian version was soon to follow in semiautomatic only with a 16-inch barrel. Other than the upper receiver and bolt differences, only the buffer was changed to a heavier one, and a few of the trigger group parts were slightly modified. In the 1990s, the US Drug Enforcement Agency adopted a silenced version of this rifle. The Department of Energy also adopted a very short variation known as the Model 633, commonly called a “DoE Upper.” The 633 had a 7-inch barrel, collapsible stock and a front handguard to keep the operators hands from straying in front of the muzzle.

Several other companies started manufacturing these pistol caliber conversions with numerous types of feeding systems. While a few emulated the Colt style mag-well block and use the factory Colt 9mm magazines, others used highly modified magazines reworked to fit the interior portion of the factory magazine well. Although many of the modified magazines work very well, they are often expensive and the availability is less than desirable in most cases. Even though there are several manufacturers of aftermarket (any non-Colt) black rifles including several Caliber conversions, the pistol caliber most often encountered remains the 9x19mm.

Many different calibers in black rifle variations have been written about here in the pages of Small Arms Review over the last 10 years. While there are new caliber combinations coming out at an amazing rate, some of the latest ones we are familiar with include the Alexander Arms .50 Beowulf and 6.5 Grendel, (www.alexanderarms.com), .502 Thunder Sabre by Cloud Mountain Armory (www.bigborecanyon.net) and lastly the .45 Bushmaster (www.bushmaster.com). We will be testing the .45 Bushmaster for a future issue of Small Arms Review very soon. Some of the more common calibers include, but are not limited to: .308 NATO*, 7.62x39mm and 6.8SPC and can be found from multiple vendors. (*.308 NATO (7.62×51) requires a different lower receiver due to the longer interior dimension of the magazine well necessary to accommodate that particular round).

Feed Me, Seymour!

Like the hungry man-eating plant named Seymour in the 1960s cult classic film Little Shop of Horrors, a black rifle is always hungry and never seems to be fed enough. Firearms, especially those in a military role, are no exception. The earliest magazine design of the AR-15 was a 25-round magazine, which had problems due to being straight, and was immediately replaced with a 20-round magazine. The first ones were steel “waffle” pattern magazines, which were also immediately replaced with the standard aluminum 20-round magazine that eventually evolved into the 20-rounder so common today. In the mid 1960s, a 30-round magazine was manufactured with a slight curve and it seemed to work great in all new rifles but had a hard time feeding in some, including the earlier ones. This was corrected in part by keeping the top portion of the magazine straight like the 20-round version and starting the curvature at the bottom of the magazine well. These magazines still had a reputation for jamming if they were loaded to 30 rounds, and the SOP was load to 28 rounds. This was corrected later by stabilizing the follower with equal leg lengths.

In order to address this “need for feed,” Colt experimented with a belt-feed mechanism that operated with a modified upper and lower. With a 20-inch barrel this unit weighed in at almost 8 1/2 pounds without the bipod or ammo box. The belt fed M16 never made it to production.

Fast forward to the early 1980s and bring Jonathan Arthur Ciener back into the picture. A manufacturer primarily specializing in sound suppressors at the time, Jonathan took it upon himself to redesign and reintroduce the concept of a belt-fed AR-15 and M16 and made them available to the general public. When they were evaluated for the now defunct Machine Gun News in 1992, this writer had the pleasure of working on the article and spending some trigger time with these guns. We were provided with both a semiautomatic model and a fully automatic model. They were built on factory Colt AR-15 and M16 rifles, and like Colts early design the upper and lower receivers were both modified. The Ciener system had a few very interesting points. First, the belt-feed mechanism could be removed from the weapon and it would again accept factory magazines. Second, Ciener produced some of the belt boxes which locked into the magazine well, as in the original design.

We tested them under several conditions with many types of ammunition in semiautomatic and full automatic. We tested it in belt-feed and magazine feed. We tested it with and without the addition of a sound suppressor. In summary it performed excellently. The only drawback was that in the case of a jam it was a “4-handed” operation to clear it and have it up and running quickly, but with a little practice it could be done quite efficiently. It also used a proprietary, modified link that was quite expensive at the time compared to standard unmodified links. These were sold for a few years but were eventually discontinued due to the enormous amount of time necessary to manufacture them.

There are a few current belt-feed systems for the black rifle but nothing yet has reached a mass marketing level. In the March 2003 issue of Small Arms Review (Vol. 6, No. 6), the Shrike 5.56 from Ares Defense (www.aresdefense.com) was covered in great detail as it was due to be released en masse around the time of publication. To this date, it is still being manufactured, released and shipped in very small quantities due to several redesign upgrades and improvements. The great attraction to the Shrike 5.56 is the fact that it works in conjunction with a completely unmodified lower receiver. All attempts at a belt-fed black rifle in the past have required major lower receiver modifications. Like the Ciener, model it can be fired from belt or box magazine but in the case of the Shrike 5.56, when the belt is out, a box magazine is simply inserted, the rifle charged and firing is uninterrupted. There are no parts to take out or change over. We are anxiously awaiting mass shipments of the Shrike 5.56 and will certainly test the newest production model as soon as they are shipped.

Another interesting belt feed option for the black rifle is the XMG from BRP Guns (www.brpguns.com). The XMG34 is essentially an MG34 “upper receiver” designed for use on an M16 lower receiver. Currently in its 5th year of production this inexpensive alternative to an original MG34 has been receiving great reviews for years. Available in 8mm and in .308, they are popping up at ranges nationwide and are becoming more popular with every passing year. They will function in fully automatic when used in conjunction with a registered lower receiver and require only a small (nonpermanent) modification to function.

Seeing a need for a belt-fed black rifle that is inexpensive to feed, the master of the miniatures, Lakeside Machine of Tippmann Arms fame decided to design a .22LR belt fed upper receiver with a similar mechanism to the popular Tippmann 1/2 scale miniature machine guns. (www.lakesideguns.com). This upper receiver, available for both semiautomatic and fully automatic function, was tested in the April 2006 (Vol. 9, No. 7) issue of Small Arms Review. The only modifications required to the lower receiver in this assembly are the exchange of the factory buffer and the suggested replacement of the hammer spring.

Understanding the demand for more ammo capacity than the 30-round magazines were able to provide, the Beta Company, of Atlanta, Georgia (www.betaco.com) worked with Jim Sullivan of the old ArmaLite and the M16 design fame, the original inventor of the 100-round C-Mag. Sullivan worked as a consultant with Beta Company in the early developmental stages of the new Beta C-Mag and with the introduction and advances in plastic materials and its ability to keep tight tolerances the C-MAG as we know it today has developed into an extremely reliable system, all while keeping weight to a minimum.

Mounting Madness

We live in a market driven economy and combined with the simple truth that necessity is the mother of invention, some “solutions” have been presented to us for “problems” we may never have known existed otherwise. In the last several years there have been an enormous number of accessories manufactured for mounting on MIL-STD-1913 rails. Along with these accessories came a mad rush for mounting platforms, and the standard factory handguards on the AR-15 and M16 are quickly being antiquated and replaced with new and improved rail systems. There are several to choose from including the Knight Rail Interface System (RIS) and Rail Adapter System (RAS) (www.knightarmco.com), VLTOR VIS System (www.vltor.com), POF-USA Predator Rail System (www.pof-usa.com), LMT Monolithic Rail Platform (www.lewismachine.net) and many more. All of the aforementioned have been of excellent quality.

For those not needing the precision, or wishing to spend the amount of money those mentioned may cost, some simple handguard replacements have been introduced that incorporate rails into them and some rail adaptors have been manufactured that simply bolt on to the existing A2-type handguards. A few of those have been utilized for testing devices like vertical grips where a slight amount of movement was not detrimental to the system and they performed fine. Other applications like mounting optics or more “load bearing” accessories would probably not be recommended for the latter systems.

All the new configurations and types of intended deployments these systems are capable of bring the necessity of new support equipment. One area where a serious advancement has been made is in the sighting systems available. Electronic “dot type” sights are very popular for close-up work and there are many types and styles. A few extremely popular systems include the EOTech Holographic Sight (www.eotechinc.com), the Aimpoint CompM4 (www.aimpoint.com) and the Trijicon ACOG (www.trijicon.com). While each system has distinct advantages the author is very familiar with the EOTech model 552. It has several settings for use with a night vision monocular as well as the standard day settings. The Holographic Sight is placed in a forward position on the top rail and utilized as usual during normal daylight. During low light the monocular is mounted behind it so the operator can use it at night without having to re-zero the weapon.

Along with the popularity of low or zero magnification electronic sights, the demand for a well-made, high quality, Back Up Iron Sight (BUIS) has been high for use during a potential electronic failure. Several contenders on the market include the Troy Industries, Inc. Folding Battle Sight (www.troyind.com), the GG&G Flip-Up Sights (www.gggaz.com), and A.R.M.S. Inc., #40 Folding Sights (www.armsmounts.com). An interesting front sight is the POF-USA FTA2005 Front Sight. It is not a folding sight but a stationary sight that is hooded for an extremely fast target acquisition and has been found to be complementary to use in conjunction with “dot-type” sights or as a stand alone with the correct rear BUIS. Due to the great number of new sight requirements, many of the modern rifles are available with a removable carry handle. Once the familiar carry handle and rear sight is removed, a standard MIL-STD-1913 rail is exposed to be used alone or in conjunction with these new sights and rail systems.

Another interesting new front sight was recently introduced for the black rifle. It is made by KNS Precision (www.knsprecisioninc.com) and is actually a circular “peep” with a crosshair in it. Initial testing appears it is fast and accurate and we are anxious to spend more time with this new front sight as well as several more of their latest offerings.

As a Catch-22, these new mounting platforms that were spawned from new items in need of mounts have spun off their own items made to be mounted on this newly available space. There are several devices available for mounting on MIL-STD-1913 rails including visible lasers, IR lasers, and lights. optics, night vision, camera equipment and many more items. Some earlier available items that were designed to mount on standard handguards or directly on the barrel have even been redesigned to mount directly on a rail system due to the high proliferation on later models. A prime example is the new rail mount 40mm LMT M203 Grenade Launcher. This tried and true M16 accessory used to mount on the barrel of the standard black rifle and a special handguard replaced the factory A1 or A2 handguard issued with the rifle. With the new rail mounted version, no additional handguards are necessary and due to the nature of the mounting system there is no longer any stress on the barrel as it is allowed to free-float with many current rail systems.

AR Accessories

As mentioned previously, several companies exist today just to service this weapon system. A quick glance around the Internet or any large, stocking gun shop will uncover thousands of items geared toward users of the AR-15 and M16 weapon systems. A look at KNS Precision and their product line will unveil several components for the black rifle useful in simple preservation roles such as pins that are designed not to rotate and egg-hole the aluminum receivers at the thin section supporting the hammer and trigger pins. They carry a variety of sights for target, plinking, competition and tactical applications and even manufacture a set of Spade Grips so you can shoot the rifle in the same manor as a 1919A4 with butterfly grips or an M60D model. We tested these grips in the May 2007 (Vol. 10, No. 8) issue of Small Arms Review and we found them a blast to shoot, especially with a pintle mount and Beta C-MAG. They are well made and functioned flawlessly.

While you are in research mode, take a peek at some of the products in the Command Arms Accessories line (www.commandarms.com). Some of these accessories manufactured for the AR-15 and M16 weapon system look more like they came back from a fact finding mission from the 22nd Century than from Ivyland, Pennsylvania where they are located. With accessories and upgrades from buttstock to muzzle, the only part of the original weapon system that looks familiar is the distinct shape of the receiver section. Watch for a piece in an upcoming issue of Small Arms Review where we take a “Plain Jane” AR-15 and give it the complete CAA treatment while testing it every step of the way. We are looking for something that really enhances performance and not just cosmetics and we have been assured we will not be disappointed.

Back to the Future

There is one unique feature of the black rifle that is as controversial as all other designs combined. This would be the way the gas system of the firearm operates and whether changing it is considered an upgrade or downgrade by the user. The black rifle operates with a direct impingement gas system in the following manner. When the rifle is fired, the rotating bolt is in its locked position in the barrel extension. As the bullet passes a gas port located under the front sight, some gas is bled off into a gas port and directed through a gas tube to the rear. The hot gas pressurizes the gas tube and the rear end of the pressurized tube is the gas key located on top of the bolt carrier with the gas thus exerting rearward pressure on this movable part. This pressure starts the bolt carrier traveling rearward, unlocking the bolt via its cam pin in the cam path on the carrier, and initiating the extraction. The bolt carrier travels rearward, and the projectile exits the bore evacuating the pressurized gas from the gas tube, ending any rearward pressure from the gas system. That time under pressure is critical to reliability and is dictated by the amount of time the bullet is traveling in front of the gas port. As the bolt carrier passes into the buffer tube (concealed in the stock) the fired casing is ejected. Met with a forward amount of spring tension from the now compressed buffer spring, the bolt carrier is returned to the front, picking up a new round from the magazine, loading it in the chamber and rotating and locking the bolt to restart the sequence.

The problems with this particular system are multiple. It is dumping combustion byproduct – “dirt” – into the same place it feeds ammunition from. This leaves a lot of carbon buildup over time and can create function problems when not maintained regularly. The lower receiver and its trigger group are often heavily soiled from this gas system and it is compounded numerous times over when combined with the use of a sound suppressor. Due to the carbon, unburned powder and extra heat following the path of least resistance, the extra back pressure created with the use of a silencer leaves more debris than normal and blowback is often an unpleasant effect inflicted on the shooter. On top of the maintenance issue, which in the recreational shooting world should be a no-brainer, is an issue not often spoken about. As indicated before, the additional debris is carried back into the action of the gun and it is carried by very hot gas. It has been suggested by some people that the effect of these hot gasses under heavier than normal shooting conditions could cause metal temperament problems over time. A heavy influx of heating and cooling could create some structural problems with extremely heavy use.

There are several systems that now use a gas piston system in place of the direct impingement system and Small Arms Review has covered several of them in the past. In the last two years we have examined the HK416 System, the POF P-416 System and just recently, the Colt LE1020 Advanced Law Enforcement Carbine. Fairly recently, Ares Defense introduced their GSR-35 Black Lightning system, which is a drop-in piston kit that takes the place of the original gas tube and bolt carrier. Leitner-Wise Rifle Company (www.lwrifles.com) also specializes in a piston system however we have not had the opportunity to evaluate it yet. While the concept is certainly nothing new, (Colt experimented with a piston system in the 1960s, and there are many other examples pre-dating that) its time certainly seems to have come and it appears to be here to stay.

Other than a brief amount of time spent working with an early “Rhino System” in the early 1990s, of all the systems mentioned above, this writer only has an extensive amount of time on the POF P-416 system at this point. Other SAR contributors have extensive trigger time on the HK416, and will cover other systems in the future. On the POF system that I have tested, there are definite advantages that have been witnessed, primarily the number of rounds it is able to run with little or no maintenance with no malfunctions. The POF P-416 utilizes C.R.O.S. (Corrosion Resistant Operating System) where their major components are impregnated with silicon nickel creating an incredibly slick surface. After firing several thousand rounds, the surface easily wipes clean with only a dry cloth, and after almost 20,000 rounds in one particular test unit there is no visible wear on any of the coated parts.

During initial testing the system was fired in excess of 9,000 rounds with no maintenance or lubrication of any kind and when it was finally cleaned because we thought there was a single failure to feed, ending the endurance test, it was later found that it was a faulty magazine creating the feeding problem and not the gun itself. Another factor that assists the P-416 system in functioning so well under harsh treatment is the fact that there are no gas rings necessary since there is no actual gas pushed back into the bolt carrier. This seems to translate into a firearm that will operate in a harsher environment due to much lighter tolerances. Without the presence of gas rings creating a seal between the bolt and bolt carrier, everything moves much smoother and is less meticulous in its typically tight tolerances.

If there is an immediately noticeable advantage in this particular gas piston system it is durability. On top of the several thousand rounds fired with no maintenance except for the initial cleaning after the perceived stoppage, many of them have been in a succession so rapid that it would have been certain failure for a direct impingement system; melting the gas tube and ending the testing very early on. After years of testing black rifles, the author has a collection of failed gas tubes, many resembling spaghetti found lying on top of the barrel after reaching the point of failure. If there are any immediate disadvantages of this gas piston system over a direct impingement system, this author has not yet noticed them.

Now Left Can Be Right

A fantastic example of how the civilian market often takes its own direction and even has the potential to influence the military marketplace is a manufacturer from New Britain Connecticut named Stag Arms, LLC. (www.stagarms.com). Founded in May of 2003, Stag decided to cater to a percentage of the market who had been all but ignored for years. They completely redesigned the upper receiver, bolt and bolt carrier to eject from the left, specifically for left-handed shooters. Featured in the March 2006 (Vol. 9, No. 6) issue of Small Arms Review, southpaws will never again have to depend on a brass deflector keeping hot brass from hitting them or crossing their line of fire.

The Future

It is the versatility of the AR-15/M16 that has allowed it to adapt and thrive in so many differing environments and it is the modularity of the system that is a direct contributor to its survival and evolution. There are a few companies that are addressing this in ways that could never have been originally conceived 40 years ago and will lead the way into a long future for the black rifle.

MGI (www.mgimilitary.com) has been in the black rifle business for decades. Their upgrades have been chronicled in the pages of Small Arms Review several times including their Rate Reducing Buffer – May 2004 (Vol. 7, No. 8), The QCB Upper Receiver – December 2004 (Vol. 8, No. 3) and most recently The Hydra Modular Weapon System – May 2007 (Vol. 10, No. 8). With such versatility as a quick-change barrel upper receiver that requires no tools and works with original factory barrels, changes in length, style and caliber have never been faster, easier or less expensive. The Marck-15 Lower Receiver with interchangeable magazine wells, again with no tools, allows the correct magazine to be used to coincide with the caliber being fired. For example, if you are utilizing a 7.62×37 barrel and bolt, you can use the AK mag-well and utilize standard AK47 magazines. This ensures the correct feed and presentation rather than redesigning a new magazine around an existing space and angle. Mags are inexpensive, available and reliable. Next in the works is a 9mm SMG mag-well that will utilize the factory Colt 9mm SMG magazines. Several new offerings are in the pipeline, some certain to be out even before this magazine hits the newsstand.

Cobb Manufacturing (www.cobb50.com) has a line of rifles called the MCR (Multi Caliber Rifle) and it is based on the design characteristics of the AR-15, just a little bigger. The MCR is a semiautomatic, gas operated system that can be chambered in a long list of calibers from 9mm to 338 Lapua, designed originally for the SCAR rifle program. They are far from newcomers to the industry and have been dealing with such innovative firearms as the .50 BMG FA50 and BA50 for several years. Teamed up with top-line suppressor manufacturers their systems are well made and versatile.

With the “feeding” frenzy a constant issue as discussed previously, we expect to see upgrades and alterations to this portion of the weapon system as long as it is in use. Just before finishing this article the author received what is perhaps the latest offering to the high-capacity quest to evaluate for a future article. It is the CL-Mag from Armatac Industries, Inc. (www.armatac.com). Resembling the Beta C-MAG in shape, the CL-Mag is manufactured from aircraft aluminum and holds 150 rounds of 5.56x45mm. Finished in a hard coat type III anodized finish, it is intended to work in all AR-15/M16 variants. We are anxious to proceed with testing this new feeding system in the near future.

Conclusion

Since there is really nothing to compare the popularity of this unique weapon system to, with its longevity in both military and civilian applications, it is the opinion of this writer that the sheer ability to act as a chameleon and adapt to almost every environment is the life force behind its ever growing popularity. It has to be noted that many of the upgrades and enhancements are civilian based ideas with no military spec sheet giving them direction. Some of these ideas and items can be looked at as simply “fun” and that is an important aspect of shooting that some of us who are a little too hung up on being “professionals” tend to overlook a little too often. Not everything that is discovered or tested has to have an adrenaline soaked special operations application in mind. Some of the best gear for our professional applications stands a chance of starting out as a light-hearted civilian product, just because it is looked at and designed with fresh, new, untainted eyes. Some of the greatest design innovations this writer has witnessed have come from challenges from people who specifically stated that in their professional opinion something couldn’t be done.

With an ever-changing requirement for the ultimate weapon system in this unpredictable War on Terror, if any weapon stands the test of time it is the AR-15/M16. With a virtual flood of new accessories, upgrades, calibers, finishes, furniture and design enhancements being introduced at breakneck speed, this writer has a hard time even thinking of the day where the black rifle or some form of it is not going to be the basis for our primary service weapon for at least 40 more years.

Author’s Note: While this article started out to be a short overview of the AR-15/M16 and its longevity, it soon became obvious that it could not be done in just a few words. The system is too complex and the changes, alterations and upgrades are far too numerous to simply skim over and condense. Unfortunately, due to space constraints, it had to end somewhere and we were not able to include every single company that offers firearms and accessories related to this weapon system. They are far too numerous, and even a quick glance through the pages of Small Arms Review will reveal several more businesses who specialize in parts and accessories for the black rifle. It is not our intention to promote anyone in particular while leaving anyone else out, nor should either be misconstrued as an endorsement or lack of such in the latter case. We would be happy to put together a condensed Black Rifle Buyers Guide listing every business related to this system in the future, but had no room to so in this article.