Was Ruger Developing an AR-15 Automatic Rifle?

Posted January 28, 2012 in Rifles by Steve Johnson with 20 Comments
Tags: rifle, rifles, ruger, str-556

A Ruger patent for a “Firearm Barrel Retaining System”, filed in 2009, was published by the USTPO yesterday. The patent application (#20120017483) describes a quick change barrel system that includes an old school machine gun carry handle that help facilitate hot barrel changes.

I wonder if Ruger had planned to enter a quick barrel change variant of their SR-556 into the Marines IAR competition that was won by H&K.

Steve Johnson

I founded TFB in 2007 and over 10 years worked tirelessly, with the help of my team, to build it up into the largest gun blog online. I retired as Editor in Chief in 2017. During my decade at TFB I was fortunate to work with the most amazing talented writers and genuinely good people!