I certainly won’t pass up a chance to post about the AR-18; the rifle has a uniquely 1960s-chic about it that I can’t resist. The marriage of unadorned stamped steel and black polymers makes for a rifle that looks like it’s ready to be carried by a special operations trooper in some desolate and ungodly hot backwater, in the seemingly unending struggle against Communism.

Tim of the Military Arms Channel owns an AR-180, the civilian semi-auto variant, which he has kept in its box since he bought it. Until he made the below video, Tim says he had never shot the gun before. So naturally, his fans set him straight on that account:

We at The Firearm Blog love covering the AR-180. In February, The AR-180-centric blog AR180s.com was our Blog of The Month. That same month, Phil Hirsh, author of The Guns We Left Behind, wrote an article for the site giving his take on the sheet-steel Armalite. Lastly, less than two weeks ago, Alex and Patrick took a look at the AR-180 as part of their TFBTV segment on rifles that were commercial failures.