Seeing that Colt was getting a lot of sales with their design, ArmaLite set out to design another rifle to compete head-on with the AR15. AR stands not for “Assault Rifle” as some think but rather for “ArmaLite Rifle”. To this day, Colt retains the AR designation on their commercial rifles. AR10s were made here and abroad in small numbers and used by a couple of governments, in particular the Dutch, but it never achieved any hoped for sales goals.ĭevelopment of the AR15 rifle began in 1956 and was then licensed to Colts Patent Firearms Manufacturing Co.
This rifle was adopted in 1959 as the M14. Government failed in part because it was bucking the government’s own Springfield Armory, (not the current commercial company), which was offering the T44, a modified M1 Garand which fired the new 7.62 NATO round from a 20 round box magazine. The forerunner of the AR15 was the AR10 in 7.62 NATO, similar gun just on a larger scale.Īll attempts to sell the AR10 to the U.S. The rifle we know today as the AR15 or M16 began as a design by Eugene Stoner who was ArmaLite’s Chief Engineer in 1954. The AR7 is now made by Henry Arms and was previously licensed to Charter Arms. In the years between these events the company had gone through all manner of trials and tribulations with the AR5 and AR7 Air Force Survival Rifle, then the AR10 and what would become the AR15 rifles. Thus rifles with the ArmaLite name began production in 1995 and Eagle Arms then became a division of ArmaLite Inc. Current owner Mark Westrom bought out Eagle Arms which was already making AR15 type rifles and parts one year earlier, then acquired the ArmaLite name from John Ugarte, a previous President of ArmaLite. Established first as a division of Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation in 1954, the company would change hands several times before becoming ArmaLite again in 1995. The history of the company now known as ArmaLite Inc., of Geneseo, Illinois is a long and somewhat convoluted one.