Obscurity to omnipresence
How the AR-15 became "America's Rifle."
AR-15
Howdy, folks. Welcome back. This is it. The long awaited, long promised AR-15.
This is about the modern civilian AR-15. We already covered what an assault rifle is: it’s a select-fire weapon that fires an intermediate cartridge. Select-fire means that it can select, hence the name, either semi-automatic fire, in which one pull of the trigger fires one cartridge, OR full-automatic, in which the weapon continues to fire for as long as the trigger is held down, (until it runs out of ammunition, anyhow.) “Like a machine gun.”
The civilian AR-15 isn’t that. I repeat, it isn’t an assault rifle. It is semi-automatic only. The gun lobby wants us to call them “modern sporting rifles,” but that’s a mouthful. We’re just gonna call it a rifle, if that’s all right with you. There’s nothing the black rifle can do that a Ruger Mini-14, or a Remington Woodsmaster can’t. They’re both semi-auto rifles.
Anyway. All the disclaimer-y stuff out of the way, let’s look at how the AR-15 reached its present level of ubiquity.
We covered the early history, how it was developed as “Armalite Rifle, design number 15,” (not “Assault Rifle,” “Automatic Rifle,” or any of the other backronyms that have been applied. Armalite was the development firm, a subsidiary of Fairchild Aircraft who first designed the AR-15. They didn’t have the capital, the facilities, or the personnel to build rifles by the thousands, and their plan was always to sell the patents to someone who could. That someone was Colt.
Colt bought not only the design, but the name, too. In fact, even though the patents have long since expired, Colt still owns the trademark to “AR-15.” (Hence why all the legions of clones have to be called something else. Usually as close to the trademark as they can get without bringing a legion of rabid lawyers down on their heads.)
The military, after some drama, adopted that early rifle as the M16, and quite soon thereafter the M16A1, which served through the latter part of the Vietnam War.
Colt, however, also decided they could sell the rifle to the public. They released it… and took the world by storm, right?
Actually, no. They sold a few thousand a year through the rest of the sixties. By the seventies, sales had picked up a bit, with Colt moving ten thousand or so rifles a year, until their patents expired in 1977.
And then everybody and his brother started making their own AR-15s and took the world by storm, right?
Well, again, not really. A few more companies did get in on the act. The first iteration of Bushmaster, PSA, Olympic Arms, DPMS, and a few more. Most of the imitators didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory, either in terms of quality or of overwhelming sales numbers.
In fact, by the time the Clintons’ Assault Weapons Ban kicked in in 1994, thirty years of civilian manufacture (1964-1994) had only produced about 750,000 rifles, with the lion’s share, 500,000 or so, being Colts.
Why is this? Well, they were new. They were funny looking. The Colts, especially were expensive, especially for a jumped up gopher gun. We just looked at my grandfather’s old varmint rifle last week, and the AR-15’s “intermediate cartridge,” is basically just that, a varmint round, with a slightly stouter bullet. The original models, with the sights built into the integrated carry handle were difficult to mount optics, or much of anything else to. Also, the original pencil barrel might have been light, but it was infamous for shifting zero between hot and cold. The old clamshell handguards didn’t help accuracy much either.
The real revolution came from two directions at once. The development of the M4 carbine, on the military side, included a flattop upper receiver, with 1913 Picatinny rail in place of the integrated carry handle. That allowed for far easier and cleaner installation of optics. Soon, the Picatinny grew to include quad rails as well, with room for lights, lasers, bipods, and all the other accessories of the modern rifle. The beginning of the “AR as adult legos,” phenomenon.
The biggest and most important boost, however was the 1994 Clinton Assault Weapons Ban. It banned both the Colt AR-15 by name, as well as rifles with certain distinguishing features. The ones that presumably separated the ultra-dangerous semi-automatic “assault weapons,” from common semi-automatic rifles. Those features included detachable magazines,folding or telescoping stocks, pistol grips, bayonet lugs, threaded barrels, flash hiders, etc. As a ban, it was… odd. It permitted the earlier, “pre-ban” manufactured guns to remain in circulation, though they promptly got a tremendous boost in resale value.
Also, as long as it wasn’t called an AR-15, had a few cosmetics altered, and couldn’t accept full capacity magazines, Colt and the rest could go right along selling… well, this is definitely not an AR-15, is it? That’s banned. This is something completely different.
Right.
The question one wants to ask any of these gun banning politicians and the voters who supported them, (that’s an aspect we’ll look at in a later post,) is “Have you met people?” Because really, is there any better way to convince people they want something than to tell them they can’t have it?
Even for the restricted models available during the “ban” years, sales grew year on year. When the ban finally sunset in 2004, sales exploded. Just about every company that owned a milling machine saw the prices fully-featured pre-ban rifles commanded, and wanted in on that. The AR-15 renaissance had begun. In the next few decades, any time noises were made about a possible renewal of the ban, rifles started flying off the shelf. The election of 2008. Again in 2012. Again in 2016. Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, together with Mr. Obama, have done more to get black rifles into the hands of the average American than anyone else in history.
With all the development happening on the military side, with the M4 carbine, its many attachment points for ancillary equipment, and those being featured in both the Global War On Terror and media and games relating to it, like Call of Duty, the AR, especially the “M-Fourgery” configuration, got more advertising than probably any firearm model ever.
The “ecosystem effect” kicked in. So many people knew the AR, had ARs, and AR magazines, ammunition and accessories, that when they went looking for another rifle to do some other niche thing, they were unlikely to look at a Mini-14 or AK, they got another AR. The overwhelming aftermarket support hit critical mass and led to a chain reaction of self-perpetuating popularity.
It wasn’t long before the effects of sales volumes began to affect pricing. When I was a gun-crazy kid in the late 90s and early 2000s, just coming of age, scouring the gun forums, and trying to learn everything I could, the AR-15 was still a premium option. The Colts were $1,000 to $1,500. Some of the other brands were cheaper, but below about $800 (remember, these were Y2k dollars, so double them at least for modern purchasing power,) you couldn’t really expect much.
The other platforms, like the Mini-14 or AK, typically sold for half that. Today, AR-15s are sold in such numbers that decent examples can be had for under 500 of today’s dollars, while the others have moved steadily into increasingly irrelevant expensive niche territory. If you’d told the gents on The High Road Forum that in twenty years Minis would be $1200, and ARs $400 you’d have been laughed off the internet. Yet, that is the case today.
Economies of scale combined with cutthroat competition have made them cheap. Combine that with the modularity of parts and familiarity of the manual of arms, the answer for a lot of people is “build another AR.” Need a deer rifle? Build an AR. (In .350 Legend.) Need a feral hog gun? Build an AR. (In .450 Bushmaster.) Need a long range precision rifle? Build an AR. (Just pick a heavy barrel, bipod, and a big scope.) Need a light, compact carbine? Build an AR. Service rifle competition? AR. Pistol caliber? AR.
Is an AR really a better deer rifle than Grandpa’s .270 Winchester or Great Grandpa’s .30-30? That’s arguable. (I think they’re kinda bulky myself, and a good slick levergun doesn’t lose anything that matters on speed.) What isn’t arguable is that you can build three decent ARs for the price of one nice Winchester.
Estimates vary, but the second thirty years of AR production have seen their numbers skyrocket from under a million in 1994 to somewhere between twenty five million and forty-four million in 2024.
Well played, gun banners. Well played. This observer feels compelled to point out that their stated goal would have been better served if they had simply sat down and shut up.
The versatility of the platform was probably sufficient in itself but no question the BANS were a huge boost. Most customers would just be fine with cowboy action or a pistol (which, I'd grimly point out, is still enough to wipe out a college campus) but then the AR became a symbol so everyone wanted one. Which I'm fine with: as I've said I think it's the modern equivalent of the Brown Bess and every household in a free republic should have one.
Henry's latest, the magazine-fed Supreme caught my eye. But what's the point of lever action when you can just go pew-pew-pew.
I love machining the 80%ers, getting them perfect,and storing them after dialing them in. I made an all white one, for winter in the north, named him Casper, the friendly ghost gun.