#Stoner63

In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves interviews the founder of Q, Kevin Brittingham, to find out what 6 guns the father of the Honey Badger finds to be the most important and influential to him. We look at the Heckler & Koch MP5SD, the Q Fix, the Stoner 63 LMG, the humble M16A1, and the not-so-humble Q Honey Badger. Have a watch and let us know what you think.

DIY guns usually fall into one of two categories. Most of the time when we are talking bout DIY guns we either get horribly botched creations that you see on Hot Gat or Fudd Crap, but sometimes you’ll also get some cursed guns like the toggle-locked belt-fed monstrosity we took a look at earlier. Long-time TFB Reader and TFBTV subscriber Stubbs usually has creations that fall into the latter category of heavily modified or bastardized firearms. However, he recently contacted me over our TFB Discord channel to show me his latest creation and I personally think that this is one that might have actually made Eugene Stoner himself proud. Today, we’ll be talking about Stubbs’ latest DIY creation, the S96S top feeding AR which was inspired by the  Stoner 63 modular weapon system.

Growing up, I often sat in an old dining room chair listening to my grandfather tell me stories about the war and his life experiences. As the years progressed, I started to hear the true versions of his stories that were unfiltered and raw. My grandfather had a busy life and after the war, he was a hydraulic engineer for Cadillac Gage from the Mid ’50s until 1979.

We are all familiar with the AR15 and M16 and you’re almost certainly familiar with the man behind the design, Eugene Morrison Stoner. Well,  The Institute of Military Technology has put together a fascinating documentary telling the story of the man and the guns he designed. IMT are in the unique position of having many of Stoner’s prototypes in their collection as well as archival photographs and many of his original design papers and drawings.

Arms of the 80’s, a blog that focuses on firearms advertising from the 1980s, has uploaded and shared a fascinating documentary made in the 1990s. The Stoner Machine Gun: A Navy Seal Remembers, features an interview with retired SEAL  Lt. Cmdr. Michael J. Walsh.

Update: The owner of MAG contacted me after the publication of this article to remind me that “there are thousands, not hundreds” of guns in the vault. Somewhere close to 4000 with 1000 of those being handguns and 2000 being machineguns. Clearly my urge to resist hyperbole was misguided.

When you travel abroad, there’s no telling what you might find. Tim of the Military Arms Channel was visiting the MKE factory in Turkey, when he stumbled upon an extremely rare original Stoner 63 rifle sitting in an arms locker. The very short video he made to document the encounter is embedded below:

If you are not familiar with the Stoner 63, it was a modular weapon system that could convert from assault rifle to light machine gun by changing a few parts around. As you might guess, Eugene Stoner was the man behind the development of this rifle.

New Jovian Thunderbolt discusses the mythical Stoner 63 carbine/rifle/machine gun that never took off.