Eugene Stoner

Mikhail Kalashnikov and Eugene Stoner

Eugene Stoner (1922-1997) was a ballistics expert and weapons engineer.

He was contracted by the ArmaLite division of Fairchild Aircraft in 1950's to design a 7.62mm rifle for use by the US Army. He soon saw that the weapon specifications would make it too heavy and cumbersome. His answer was to redesign the ammunition.

He experimented with the Remington .222" hunting round, finally giving it a longer casing and calling it the .223" Remington. ArmaLite designers Robert Fremont and L. James Sullivan then manufactured a rifle to fire this round rather than the 7.62mm NATO standard round of those times. The result - eventually the M16 assault rifle - was a massive saving in weight due to an extensive use of aerospace grade aluminium alloys and plastics in construction.

Stoner was quite a prolific American firearms designer. The only design which bears his name is, ironically, a 7.62mm heavy-barreled adaptation of the M16 (the SR25). It was basically a return to the BAR philosophy of WW1 & WWII. What the SR25 offered was excellent range and accuracy, but - like the BAR - it was limited by its 20-round magazine.