Posted on 11/22/2012 7:43:10 AM PST by JRandomFreeper
Happy birthday Eugene Stoner. Born in 1922, Stoner was an iconic firearms designer. He represents the best of what made America great.
/johnny
an old boss had an AR18, one hell of a rifle... happy birthday Mr.Stoner!
/johnny
His designs have stood the test of time.
I still tend to think of the M-16 as fairly new yet it is over 50 years old.
Of course some of Browning’s designs are approaching 130 years old. I guess original single shot is over 130 and the 1886 is 126 years old.
Do you know if the Stoner 63 was in any way the precursor to the M249 SAW?
He got his education as he was working in aviation plants. As an engineer, when one looks at Stoner’s designs, you can see the aviation manufacturing influence on his designs. Unlike Browning’s designs, which were clearly the work of a gunsmith, Stoner’s designs solve various problems in ways that are most easily manufactured, not the typical ways that gunsmiths would build up guns (especially the lockwork) from a bunch of small, fiddly parts that had been hand-fitted.
Stoner also benefitted from the time period in which he designed his guns - it was the timeframe in which NC (numerically controlled) machines were coming into being, and you could program machine operations onto a punched paper tape to get repeatability. Prior to the late 50’s, gun makers had to set up huge machine shops, usually with one machine dedicated to one operation in a production line in order to get throughput and repeatability. Reading of how much machinery and investment in tooling Winchester put into something as simple as the Model 12 pump shotgun astounds me today.
I love ‘em!!! Have quite a few but ordering another one next week, and this one will be a Sig516 Patrol FDE. Going with EOHtec optics, SureFire for lights and just for fun, the Beta C-Mag and Slide Fire Stock.
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