"With no engineering background, Ronnie Barrett hand-sketched plans at home for a .50BMG repeating semi-automatic rifle. Later, he found a partner in tool and die maker Bob Mitchell and an employee at a sheet metal fabricator in Smyrna, Tennessee. Four months later a prototype was finished.
A second prototype shown off at a gun show in Houston would garner starting capital for Barrett from three investors, necessary for the Barrett Firearms Manufacturing company and production of the first 30 rifles for private use. Large-scale commercial success came when the CIA acquired an unknown number of rifles for arming the Afghan mujahideen as part of the Soviet–Afghan War effort."
