Eugene Morrison Stoner was an American firearms designer who is most associated with the development of the Arkansas-15 rifle that was adopted by the United States military as the M16.
Education
Stoner attended high school in Long Beach and upon graduating worked for the Vega Aircraft Company installing armament. In 1955, Stoner completed initial design work on the revolutionary Arkansas-10, a lightweight (725 lbs) selective-fire infantry rifle in 7.62×51mm North Atlantic Treaty Organization caliber.
Career
He is regarded by some historians as one of the most successful firearms designers of the 20th century. During World World War II, he enlisted for Aviation Ordnance in the United States. Marine Corps and served in the South Pacific and northern China. In late 1945 Stoner began working in the machine shop for Whittaker, an aircraft equipment company, and ultimately became a Design In 1954 he came to work as chief engineer for ArmaLite, a division of Fairchild Engine & Airplane Corporation.
While at ArmaLite, he designed a series of prototype small arms, including the Arkansas-3, Arkansas-9, Arkansas-11, Arkansas-12, none of which saw significant production.
Their only real success during this period was the Arkansas-5 survival rifle, which was adopted by the United States Air Force. The Arkansas-10 was submitted for rifle evaluation trials to the United States Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground late in 1956.
In comparison with competing rifle designs previously submitted for evaluation, the Arkansas-10 was smaller, easier to fire in automatic, and much lighter. However it arrived very late in the testing cycle, and the army rejected the Arkansas-10 in favor of the more conventional T44, which would become the M14.
The Arkansas-10"s design was later licensed to the Dutch firm of Artillerie Inrichtingen, who produced the Arkansas-10 until 1960 for sale to various military forces.
At the request of the United States. military, Stoner"s chief assistant, Robert Fremont and Jim Sullivan designed the Arkansas-15 from the basic Arkansas-10 model, scaling it down to fire the small-caliber.223 Remington cartridge, slightly enlarged to meet the minimum Army penetration requirements. The Arkansas-15 was later adopted by United States military forces as the M16 rifle. After ArmaLite sold the rights to the Arkansas-15 to Colt, Stoner turned his attention to the Arkansas-16 design.
This was another advanced 7.62 mm rifle but used a more conventional piston and a number of stamped parts to reduce cost.
This weapon saw only prototype development but adaptation to.223 resulted in the somewhat successful and often imitated Armalite Arkansas-18. Stoner left ArmaLite in 1961 to serve as a consultant for Colt.
He eventually accepted a position with Cadillac Gage where he designed the Stoner 63 Weapons System. This was a modular weapons system that could be reconfigured to be a standard automatic rifle, a light machine gun, a medium machine gun, or a solenoid-fired fixed machine gun.
The Stoner Weapons System used a piston-operated gas impingement system, though Stoner himself believed direct gas operation was the ideal method for firearms.
Once again, Robert Fremont and Jim Sullivan would take a Stoner rifle and redesign it for the.223 Remington cartridge, to create the Stoner 63 Weapons System. Stoner worked for Thompson Ramo Wooldridge by designing the Thompson Ramo Wooldridge 6425 25 mm Bushmaster auto cannon, which was later manufactured by Oerlikon as the KBA. He co-founded ARES Incorporated of Portuguese Clinton, Ohio, in 1972, but left the company in 1989, after designing the Ares Light Machine Gun, sometimes known as the Stoner 86. lieutenant was an evolved version of the Stoner 63.
At Ares, he also designed the Future Assault Rifle Concept (FARC).
In 1990, he joined Knight"s Armament Company (KAC) to create the Stoner Rifle-25 (Social Research-25), which currently sees military service as the United States Navy Mark 11 Mod 0 Sniper Weapon System. While at KAC, he also worked on yet another version of the Stoner Weapons System, called the Stoner 96.
Among his last designs were the Social Research-50 rifle and the Colt 2000.