ArmaLite, Inc. is mostly remembered for the AR-10 and AR-15 rifles they designed and what would eventually spawn into two of the most prolific rifles ever amongst military, law enforcement and commercial markets. ArmaLite was a design firm, not a manufacturer and they never tried to be. Their mission was to design the most advanced rifles in the world and sell/license them to gun manufacturers who could mass produce and sell them. With the AR-10 and early on with the AR-15 they tried to do marketing and sales themselves. The AR-10 really was held at bay by Army bureaucracy and killed dead in its tracks, at least for the next 40 or so years. The AR-15 was getting some attention but ArmaLite realized they did not have the political clout to further it into the U.S. military. This spawned the sale of the AR-10 and AR-15 patents and production rights to Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company in 1959. The heart of both of those weapon systems was Gene Stoner's direct gas impingement system. However, when the patents were sold, Stoner could no longer design weapons using this system. He had to go back to the piston (short stroke) system when he designed his next rifle, the AR-16. This was a selective fire 7.62×51 mm rifle that never left the prototype stage (three were known to be made). This was also the final rifle Stoner designed before his departure from ArmaLite.
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