We’ve covered a little bit of the AR-18 here before, and in passing mentioned its ancestor, the 7.62mm AR-16. For those uninitiated to this relatively unknown rifle, there is a brief but instructive article on the rifle at Wikipedia. GunLab’s Chuck has posted before about the AR-16, which he got to examine in Reed Knight’s collection last year. On Friday, though, he mentioned his intentions to replicate the rifle:

In my off time, work has been completed on the AR-16 upper receiver right side. In case you don’t remember this rifle it is a 308 predecessor of the AR-180. Only 4 were made and of those only 2 are known to exist. I had the opportunity to photograph one a while back at the Reed Knight collection.

…

Mr Knight was nice enough to let me look at and photograph them, however I doubt he will let me have one. As I really want one of these in my collection I have taken it upon my self to reverse engineer it to make me one. This is what I worked on this weekend between everything else.

More to come

[emphasis mine]

I will be watching this project closely. The AR-16 is one of the last major attempts at an American full-power infantry rifle until the commencement of the SCAR program. I am awaiting the completion of the reproduction (or, if he’s so inclined, reproductions plural) very eagerly!