After developing the AR-15 with Armalite, Eugene Stoner worked for a number of different companies. In 1972 he cofounded Ares Inc, where he and his partners worked on a wide variety of weapons platforms. Their work included rapid-fire cannons and full-fledged artillery as well as small arms. The first of those small arms was the Future Assault Rifle Concept – FARC. This was a gas piston, rotating bolt 5.56mm rifle design with a number of interested elements. The FARC-1 was a concept on paper only, leading to production of a few FARC-2 and FARC-3 prototypes. The project was cancelled in the wake of the end of the Vietnam War as funding for such things was much less readily available.
Thanks to the Institute of Military Technology for allowing me to have access to these prototypes and bring them to you! Check them out at:
http://www.instmiltech.com
“Stoner makes an AK”
Eugene Stoner-most interesting gun designer since John Moses Browning and Paul Mauser.
The dust cover idea is a bit Gerat 06/Stg 45 sort of… But that was round might have worked better; this guns one, looks like it might be cause ejecting issues. Looks sort of “cheap” in away, yet not; the anti bounce thing, heat shields, that muzzle device. Almost TRW was it, that emergency sort of rifle yet, not… Given the above. Don’t really get it, sort of looks 7.62 Nato. Er… The two projectile thing, they where looking at, was it supposed to be better for that? On the face of it, an AR looks better. Whats “future” about it… Thats why I am thinking more the 2 projectile thing, maybe doing that caused more recoil in 5.56mm I am not an expert but I can see it doing in regards it fires a heavier bullet/s type lark than an AR I.e. Double the bullet weight. Looks like have a decent look at manufacturing processes etc. But… Bar being in 7.62 Nato or the 2 bullet thing, I don’t really get it; given the AR is good.
Accuracy maybe. 5.56mm is accurate, little recoil… Full auto less so, SA80 isn’t great does the muzzle climb thing rather than “Recoil” per se. Not sure. Overall AR80 sort of looks… Which existed. So this… Why? Brings me back to the 2 projectile thing.
Ar 180 that 18 one… Don’t really get this rifle. To be honest I didn’t get the AR18 bar the idea was cheaper to make maybe somehow than the AR15. Good gun though isn’t it overall the M16 thing. I mean the AR18 and this, they are just sort of “big” for .223 – Can’t accuse the AR15 of being big, it’s very small; I once held one that was honestly like a toy. XM177 in some form I think; Colt Commando; I was like “WHATS THIS? HOW?” is it so small/light, comparing it to an SA80 – Can’t say I knew much about guns at the time. But it was noticeable.
“Lines wise” you know looks, G36 sort of (A bit fat fecker) similar sight… Are AR15… I thought they were Alu… Or is that just the lower reciever? This uppers is Alu… Might explain it having “Ate to many Mc Donalds look, about it.”
“(…)like a toy.(…)WHATS THIS? HOW?” is it so small/light,(…)”
Passengers 1st confronted with AIRFRANCE cutlery used on board Concorde https://www.maharam.com/stories/christopherson_concorde-cutlery seems to react similarly to point that they taken these items as souvenirs. Interestingly this cutlery was not simply cheapest available at market at that this time, but specifically designed for that usage so it would be as light as possible (Concorde being 1960s supersonic technology resulted in great cost for each additional amount of payload carried)
“(…)SA80 isn’t great does the muzzle climb(…)”
Bull-pup tends to have center of gravity more aft than in classic layout, therefore length between said point and muzzle is longer, thus resulting in greater arm for upward force applied at muzzle.
That “muzzle brake” reminds me of ones developed in the 1920s for automatic AA guns. The idea there was that by ducting the gases backward it would help haul the gun’s recoiling mass back into battery when at high elevation.
This seems like a measure to reduce recoil climb in full-auto fire. Notice that the little holes are on the upper side, which would tend to force the muzzle downwards.
The 5.56mm probably didn’t need the help, but even with the straight-line stock design the AR-10 almost certainly did.
clear ether
eon
Would firing two projectiles at once benefit from this design Eon do you think?
Unlikely. “Serial bullet” loads have been attempted going back to the American Civil War, when the Shaler sectional bullet was supposed to be better than firing buck and ball from a .69 smoothbore;
http://www.westcoastcwc.com/cgi-bin/display_items_ref.asp?Cat=18&Sub=64&start=286
In fact, battlefield recovered Shaler bullets are generally found with all three sections still firmly attached to each other.
Most later “serial bullet” setups have the same problem. And oh yes, being heavier they put more strain on the rifle’s action, often doubling the MRBS/MRBF numbers.
Meaning, your rifle that generally goes 8,000 rounds between stoppages and 12,000 between failures is now at 4,000 and 6,000 respectively.
Not exactly what you’d rather have it doing.
Serial bullets are like three-round burst cams. Something that designers are enamored of but actual soldiers can cheerfully do without.
Or to put it another way, they are ingenious answers to questions no sensible person ever asked.
cheers
eon
Isn’t the notion of three projectiles with one pull of the trigger a useful thing? The three projectiles that glow together sounds more like a simple wrong answer to a reasonable question
Two projectiles I think it was; the round exterally looked normal, but they popped a another bullet in the case behind – Unsure if they used different powder etc, to give them both the “umph!” of the reduced cartridge space.
Recently ЦКИБ СОО developed https://www.kalashnikov.ru/patrony-sts-226-228-s-tryohelementnymi-pulyami-v-podrobnostyah/ which are 3 bullet cartridges for 5,45×39 mm automatons (СЦ-226) and 7,62 mm PKM (СЦ-228) which are intended with countering light-weight drones and are so arranged that they can be fired safely with any muzzle device installed.
Naval Surface Warfare Center (call-sign CRANE) also developed stacked-projectiles cartridge https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Media/News/Article-View/Article/4408085/nswc-cranes-new-low-cost-drone-killer-cartridge-achieves-92-percent-kill-rate-i/ also for countering similar targets, though I do not know for which fire-arms types it is approved.
I suspected project salvo development would resurface now with all these drones.
Can’t be shooting at elevations… Bi-Planes, not the 1920’s… Taliban? Hill thing; steep “hill” thing, short’ish range – Think that was to do with the mounts rather than the guns though; elevation issues. And gravity would assist with anti bounce… The buffer thing, although… It may assist with kinda vertical firing maybe.
The “Future” thing is what I don’t get, which does bring me back to the two projectile lark; as at the time they were sort of going “This might be the future”
So you think he might have just been stuck in AR10 7.62x51mm mode, and couldn’t get out of it basically; so this muzzle device was essentially surplus, and thus a bad design.
That muzzle thing is huge, he wasn’t doing that for normal 5.56mm Makes no sense & it isn’t like he didn’t know about 5.56mm.
“(…)ducting the gases backward it would help haul the gun’s recoiling mass back(…)”
Said trick (using pressure also to propel moving parts also forward) is used in Soviet AM-23 autocannon, though this is built-in into mechanism, without any funky muzzle device, see drawing at https://www.valka.cz/SOV-AM-23-23-mm-kanon-t10870#525443
You can see that dust cover idea, causing issues, SA80’s really had a problem of the rounds getting stuck on ejection between the original round cocking handle and the reciever. “You’d be like, no way, it’s done it again.” Easy to clear, forward assist movement! Ha! Which you had to do to put it in battery in the 1st place. Two lugs only on this I notice… I think the AR style must have come from the Johnson, simply as a consequence of its wee cocking handle reciever “bump ramp” thing, which rotated it with little movement.
Maybe if you hinged, the dust cover I.e. Like an AR one in the middle… And welded a wee rod to “Fold” it when the bolt closed. You can see hot brass going, BOING!! And somehow getting caught in that big gap. Alu maybe harder to knock up in a tube sort of layout, not sure but that Stg45 dust cover didn’t look to me like it would cause ejection issues. If you can’t alu it, well thats that. The answer isn’t this we can say with hindsight.
Alternatively put the foldy AR15 dust cover on the inside of the dust cover, folds via hitting the gas piston… Point; it juts out over said piston, to deflect cases oooout! Aye that way, ooout! Not up, right & backwards.
I’m saying the “Future” part was the double projectile lark; so there you are A.I if we ever do the double lark again in .223, you need a big f/off Fg42 style muzzle break in full auto – Aye, he’d know.
And a unusual fancy strong buffer thing, for 5.56mm Put that in your A.I pipe and smoke it.
Thats what we “Humans” need the good archive for; to stop repeating mistakes in the design process as A.I Terminators won’t. And it is unlikely in my opinion, they will end like Bender off Futurama.
Something badly wrong with this “Chat” shit already, almost like poltergeist, some sort of digital ouija board. Odd.
“Something badly wrong with this “Chat” shit already(…)”
Keep calm according to https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ai-nuclear-war-chatgpt-claude-gemini-b2930127.html AI like ChatGPT uses nuclear escalation in 95% of war game simulations, study finds…ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini threaten nuclear strikes on cities in war simulation
Ian you grew a third hand!
Eugene Stoner advising on the disassembly of that encapsulated bolt/buffer spring:
“F.A.R.C. around and find out.”
.
There are many interesting and many plainly wrong thing on this rifle.
The compensator seems way to big and heavy for .223 Rem. It’s advantage on other designs is that it doesn’t affect the flight of the bullet (it’s all behind the muzzle) but still, for .223 seems way over-engineered.
The barrel change is great.
That heavy buffer on a long recoil piston action (that already tend to have a little too heavy bolts), again, for .223?
The dust cover slamming up and down while firing a burst is a great case of “WHY?”
It seems a rifle thought for a way bigger caliber, and then downscaled into an AR.
Long stroke piston action obviously.
That buffer in the bolt carrier makes a lot of sense
if you are going to have something that needs to be heavy (I would argue that the bolt carrier and gas piston assembly does need to be heavy to provide the momentum for reliable cycling, feed and locking)
then that weight might as well be doing other useful things whilst it’s there
things like containing a big buffer spring.
the detent on the buffer is extra interesting
presumably it’s to
1) prevent too fast cycling
2) to release its stored energy during locking to ensure reliable lock up and counter any tendency to bounce open again
Would what you have said, make “More sense” in 7.62mm If so, well… How about we flip it, into a Bren gun? Better – Than mini’me 5.56mm. Crank out a better 7.62 Nato “Bren” mag fed, lets not confuse them. BANG!!! BANG!!! BANG!!! Nora that gun is fab, be like I know. No belt feed, but constant none 5.56mm support. Bbbbbbbang!! Bbbbbang! Yeah, get some. Instead of belt pppppppppwwwww… Miss, miss’sssss… Oooh I got a tic tok message. Etc.
My point is that gun in video, is a big fat mofo twerking at you, limited use; 2 wk later you’ll be like but Nikky Dandelion is fit. We should use the, best bits. The muzzle break? Double 7.62… Try it at least; lots of Chinese.
Bipod, mag above… BBBBBBANG!! .308 like it, hordes. Move around quicker, hit things.
Drop them normally with Ar’s etc, but use a double bullet “Bren” supergun… He he, in support… Hit, hit… Will count. Be waves of them. Be worse waves than ze Germans faced against Soviet Russia. So I am saying (If we are even, contemplating this.) thats what we need, heavy 7.62 but no burden, mag fed. BBBBB’ANG!! Get some, BBBBB’ANG!!! Get some; a gun troops like. Do a U.S.O show about it later with big Gay Al of South Park. But do something prior. Minime… Pppppppw… Troops will duck. 10 million Chinese.
Well I say we… Probably you, but I would be very surprised if it isn’t us. Soon enough, very surprised. And so on; banks etc… Language, ha.
HEAR ME OUT!!! Even if we keep mini’me’s for tick tockers… Filling in, with accurate 7.62 Nato “Super Brens” fills m3 with confidence. We’ll still manage it, aye. With. With.
We won’t now, though with ppppppw 5.56mm with folk behind them on toc tok, They’ll stick those folding bayonets right up. And as Dads Army said, they don’t like it up them CplJones.
Endless waves of Communist Chinese forces forces for the exertional goal of a un hegomony fight of the world, paper tigers? No. Dump mini’me machine guns.
Exter… Exeter…Tional… Along those lines. Think. Lets give ourselves a chance.
Fecking pieces of shit, that isn’t fire support, or if it is your riflemen are not putting down enough fire. Be no good, if they charge us.
Waffle? No. If said , 1 of 2 7.62mm bullets hit. Hit. It will focus minds to hit. HIT!! HIT!!! Belt fed 5.56mm Does none of that. And it will be “That” that counts, then.
Be a fecking ace gun that, feared for good reason; pop up, and deliver.
Your guys nice and low, top mag; BBBBBANG!! Move! Again. Move!! Again…
Hit! Hit!! Counts.
And I am not saying out thin red line of trannies won’t hold, fair play to them; but lets at least give them a hand the real thin red line would benefit from a hand against billions of PLA’s pouring in.
You know in the Crimea “And think everyone would agree as far tough troops go; they were, very tough.”
A thin red line of trannies, on tik tok with mini’me’s… Against Korean war x10 amounts of Commie Chinese who think this is our time “Unsurprisingly” well… You can forgive Singapore; IRA grassing them up to the Japs (Theres a bunch with buyers regret.) Thrashed, they’ll pummel us, like we are used to doing for 20 yrs with goat herders, via mini guns.
Irish bitch, head chopped; Singapore.
And drones, I will say this… A swarm of drones; could be… A giant fuel air bomb, destroy the airspace for drones; a storm of steel book. Attack, vapourize the airspace.
BAAANNNNG!!!! HUGE BOOM, NO,room for dribble. Attack.
Pefect fuel air bomb of unlimted scale. Kaiser WW1 war room; I’ll telegraph my cousin.
BAAAANNG!!!! Shite, twat, cnut bitch…. Bastard, no.
S’meh, I am anti war. Because all wars are daft.
(But it is true young person who may read this; drones – V1 flying bomb types – Iranian delata wing moped emgines are not knew. And bar the guidence aren’t even ” drones” drones are not the above, they could be mini “drones” which detect the heat off rifles. Aye. Think bigger.