We regret to use a news slot on this nearly-routine information, but we have to put it up while it still has some news value. – the Eds. As the expiration of its May 26 deadline came and went, Colt grabbed for another week for its bond exchange and restructuring plan. Further, the Issuers also …
A very rare M16 variant, fully transferable, is up for auction on GunBroker. It’s the retro AR guy’s Holy Grail — an original Colt Model 601. It has a low serial number (605), meaning it was one of the first production ARs, making it a gun of notable historical significance. It’s being offered by a reputable …
Category Archives: Pistols and Revolvers Here’s Ian of Forgotten Weapons with a capsule history of Colt, currently holding down the title of the Most Mismanaged Company in the Gun Racket. Seemed timely, with Colt having purged the Custom Shop lately, in an overall downturn in the industry that has seen Remington lay off a couple …
This memo’s been around as a scanned, non-OCR’d .pdf for a long time. We’ve OCR’d the PDF, and double-checked the numbers against the original data. The PDF is here:M16 Serial Number List OCR[.pdf]. The complete text is below this editorial comment. We would add the following remarks: The first few Colt serial numbers (001-100) were …
It won’t shock you to know that Kevin had a lot of firearms, firearm accessories, knives, bayonets, swords and other military memorabilia. As we have been cleaning out his house to get it ready for sale this fall, we are selling most of his collection on consignment through Original Bobs Shooting Range & Gun Shops …
The M249 Squad Automatic Weapon is widely distributed in the US Army and Marine Corps (even after the Marines replaced many SAWs with M27 Infantry Automatic Rifles). But how did we get to that point, and what other weapons were considered along the way? This series will look at each of the four contenders in …
In Monday’s installment, we gave you the overview of the SAW program as of 1979, and we looked in depth at the least radical design, the magazine-fed M16 variant, XM-106 automatic rifle, a product of the Army’s own Ballistic Research Laboratory. Today’s installment will fill you in with a little more on the competition and …
(Note: there’s an update and acknowledgements at the end, which you might not have seen if you got this by RSS or read it between 0600 and 0830R 9 Nov 13). Afghans have a saying about the cruel and charismatic guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatayar: “If a man is ever once Gulbuddin’s man, he’s Gulbuddin’s man …
The M16A1 Carbine upper is cut away to show the workings of the gas system and locking mechanism. Long after the XM177s were gone, and before we got the first weapon called an M4 (which had a fixed, M16A2-style, carrying handle) there were “M16A1 Carbines” and “M16A2 Carbines.” These weapons were made for export and …
OK, so Beretta is considering leaving Maryland, Magpul’s already bailing on Colorado (while, RUMINT says, preparing to pour resources into crushing its Colorado politician enemies at the polls, in hopes of reversing the Hickenlooper Ban, and saving their corporate HQ and many of their employees’ jobs), Colt’s hinting at dumping its 150-plus-year residence in Connecticut, …
