MAC Takes Out An Unfired AR-180
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.
Nathaniel is a history enthusiast and firearms hobbyist whose primary interest lies in military small arms technological developments beginning with the smokeless powder era. He can be reached via email at nathaniel.f@staff.thefirearmblog.com.
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I loved that AR-180 design and used to shoot prairie dogs by the thousands with it! I almost never had to clean the thing, as the gas port seemed to self clean. I shot some pretty cheap scummy ammo through it, and it digested it as if it were french cuisine! That rifle was every bit as accurate as my government issue M16A1!
I finally decided to trade it off though, because you had to jump through a lot of hoops to mount a grenade launcher on it, and the scope would always go slightly off kilter on zero every time you took it off and mounted it again. It wasn't bad, but since we didn't have things like rail systems in those days, and I didn't want to ruin the originality of the thing to put better mounts on it, I gladly traded it off.
The quality of the Sterling welds looked like goose shit anyway - I was never happy about that. If someone would do a good job building a new version with some quality included, and modern amenities - I'd definitely be a customer! I must admit though, that the AR-15 family is hard to beat, with the forged aluminum receiver. You could run over them with a tank, and they'd come up shooting straight!(I've witnessed that unfortunately)
I suppose there is nothing wrong with direct gas impingement, but when you've shot an AR-18(0), you get spoiled on such accuracy and reliability, with absolutely no cleaning necessary! I had the 40 round clips and never had a stove pipe or double feed once. I guess I was just lucky the feed lips were in the right position. I had always heard the Air Force dropped the AR-18 because the receiver would bend when using the weapon as a step ladder in obstacle courses, and this was a requirement back then. That cheap stamped metal was a problem that way.
change out that horrible draconian handguard and yippie I want .......