14 Facts About AR-10

1.

However, the ArmaLite AR-10 would become the progenitor for a wide range of firearms.

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2.

In 1957, the basic AR-10 design was rescaled and substantially modified by ArmaLite to accommodate the.

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3.

AR-10 focused on producing small arms concepts and designs to be sold or licensed to other manufacturers.

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4.

ArmaLite's AR-10 entered the competition late, hurriedly submitting two hand-built "production" AR-10 rifles based on the fourth prototype in the fall of 1956 to the United States Army's Springfield Armory for testing.

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5.

The AR-10 prototypes featured a straight-line stock design, rugged elevated sights, an oversized aluminum flash suppressor and recoil compensator, and an adjustable gas system.

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6.

AR-10 production was limited, though Guatemala, Burma, Italy, Cuba, Sudan and Portugal all purchased AR-10 rifles for limited issue to their military forces.

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7.

The AR-10 remained in service with Sudanese Special Forces until 1985.

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8.

AR-10 was officially adopted by the Portuguese paratrooper battalions, and the rifle saw considerable combat service in Portugal's counter-insurgency campaigns in Angola and Mozambique.

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9.

Portuguese paratroopers found the AR-10 to be not only accurate but reliable in combat, despite rugged service conditions in African jungle and savannah.

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10.

Additional sales of the AR-10 rifle were stymied after the Netherlands embargoed further shipments of the rifle to Portugal.

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11.

Nevertheless, the AR-10 continued in service with a few Portuguese airborne units, and was in use as late as 1975 in the Portuguese Timor decolonization emergency.

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12.

AR-10 is a lightweight, air-cooled, magazine-fed, gas-operated rifle that uses a piston within the bolt carrier with a rotary bolt locking mechanism.

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13.

Original AR-10 action designed by Eugene Stoner is commonly called a direct impingement system, but it does not utilize a conventional direct impingement system.

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14.

Since 1995, the new ArmaLite company has incorporated various other design and engineering improvements to the AR-10, including a newly designed steel magazine derived from the model used on the U S M14 rifle.

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