Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today's subject is the AR-14,
because the AR-14 sort of is a real gun, or at least it was supposed to be a real gun.
It was a design from the ArmaLite Company.
The "AR" in all of the AR pattern guns stands for ArmaLite.
And while the AR-15 is the one that has obviously become the most widespread
(I think way above and beyond anything that
Eugene Stoner would have originally anticipated),
and the AR-10 is also slightly reasonably well known,
there was a whole series of AR pattern guns.
Starting with the AR-1, which was the first rifle that ArmaLite built as a firearms company.
So ArmaLite was a subsidiary of Fairchild,
and Fairchild was an aircraft manufacturing company.
This is why ArmaLite fit in well with them,
ArmaLite and Eugene Stoner were using aluminium.
And Fairchild, as an aircraft company, was very well versed in the use of aluminium.
Aluminium is what you made aircraft out of.
The idea in the 1950s of making guns out of aluminium
was really kind of a far out, strange, novel idea.
And so the initial ... idea behind a lot of ArmaLite guns was,
"We are going to make very light firearms."
And so for example, the first one, the AR-1, was ... intended as a military sniper rifle.
It was a bolt-action rifle that used a composite barrel and it was really light.
It unfortunately had some heating and barrel exploding issues.
It didn't get adopted anywhere.
But ArmaLite would go on to make a variety of other guns.
It's not like they got Eugene Stoner's gas system and went,
"Ah ha! We will make this in 5.56mm,
and it will just take over the military small arms market across the world."
No, it's far different. Fairchild was looking to expand into firearms production,
and they has all sorts of ideas about what might work.
The AR-9 was a semi-auto shotgun with an aluminium receiver.
The AR-17 was actually another shotgun with an aluminium receiver.
There would be the AR-5 which was proposed to the Air Force
as ... a little compact bolt-action survival rifle.
It didn't end up getting adopted, the Air Force chose some other guns.
But ArmaLite would then introduce that commercially as their AR-7 pattern,
which is still around today, you can find those out there on the market.
They had plans for some other shotguns, they had plans for ...
I think the AR-8 was going to be a bolt-action hunting rifle,
kind of based on the AR-1, but improved.
And, in with all the rest of these, we get the AR-14.
Now this was originally going to be a semi-auto sporting rifle.
And in fact what's interesting is we do actually have
a piece of original ArmaLite literature showing it.
And we can also see it in the first patent that was taken out on Eugene Stoner's gas system.
Because, potentially, I don't know if this is 100% true or not,
but potentially to kind of conceal that they were developing a military rifle,
when they patented the gas system the drawings that they provided
were in the guise of a semi-automatic sporting rifle. That is to say, an AR-14.
So if you take a look at Eugene's gas system patent,
the drawings that you'll find, well, that is the AR-14 right there.
So the intention was to offer it in a couple of different calibres, I think
.30-06, and then .243 or .257 Roberts.
A variety of what were at the time, and by the way we are talking 1955/1956 here.
The patent was submitted in 1956, it was eventually approved in 1960.
But that was going to be another part of ArmaLite's commercial rifle product line.
However, they kind of got sidetracked with the AR-10 and its development into a military rifle,
which was successful, although not nearly as successful as the AR-15 would be.
Of course the AR-15 followed the AR-10, and
eventually ArmaLite would sell the whole gas system idea to Colt.
And so the AR-14 never actually went into production.
But it was actually a real concept.
I don't know that they ever actually made one, I suspect that they did not.
We just have marketing drawings, because
kind of a lot of things get marketed that never end up getting manufactured.
So, I just thought that would be an interesting little interlude
for folks who were wondering about the AR-14,
because it does occasionally get talked about inadvertently.
Well, the rest of the story is: there really was an AR-14.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed it.
Thanks for watching.