Non-Colt AR-15's- When did it all start? "Old timers" chime in.

I wish my memory were better than it is.
While stationed at Ft Bragg, NC in 1977 I went in search for an AR 15 that I could afford at the the time. I spent most of a Saturday two weeks in a row hunting for such. All were around $360 most were Colts if I recall. I do bit remember the other brands.
I was unable to find anything I could afford so I bought a National 30 cal carbine M1 that was of course used for $95 dollars. Money was tight for a Corporal in the Army with a wife and child living off base in Fayetteville. Did not buy my AR until the early 90's.
In the 70's I never saw or heard of anyone putting together their own AR style rifle. If kits were available I never saw such.

Did Colt buy the patent/have a patent on the Armalite design? When did FN license the design for production? I have no idea, interesting thought.

Colt bought the patents from Armalite in the late 1950s.

Aftermarket lower receivers (non-Colt) became available in the early 1980's. Quality was hit or miss. I remember struggling to assemble some of them (from Olympic, etc.) that were seriously out of spec. But people bought them because Colts were too expensive. IMO the Sendras were the best of the aftermarket receivers in those days.

AR-15 parts other than lower receivers were available earlier. (These came from military contractor overruns, etc.) The lower receivers were the "missing link" before people could start assembling their own guns.

From my perspective the craze really happened AFTER the 1994 AWB. Prior to the ban AR's were very much a niche rifle owned by only a handful of people. That was part of the reason they were targeted for the ban. They weren't nearly as popular as today and had fewer people resisting banning them.

The ban however didn't really ban anything. It was a list of evil features and a rifle with all of them was considered an Assault Rifle. You could build the exact rifle, leave off the flash hider and it wasn't an Assault Rifle. Magazines over 10 rounds could no longer be produced for civilians, but older mags were legal and plentiful.

Tell people they can't have something, and they want it even more. There may have been other brands available prior to 1994. But this is when things really took off, at least from my perspective. I don't have any data to back up that, just my observations. Prices on a genuine pre-ban Colt went through the roof. But there was a huge demand for AR's at moderate prices and I started seeing bands like Stag, Rock River, and dozens of others. After the ban expired in 2004 there were even more manufacturers.

I recall Bushmaster making ARs in the late 70s, early 80s. They weren't very good. These were the first non Colt ARs I can recall.

DPMS started out in the 80s making AR parts for Colt IIRC. They started producing their own rifles in the late 90s.

The first time I even fired an AR was a friend's Colt in the mid-1980s. The only names I remember seeing in print and in a few gun shops back then besides Colt, were Bushmaster and Eagle Arms.

The worst place to get kits was Nessard

Did that once. Cheap and crap. The buffers were plastic will with birdshot

The early Bushmasters had tight mag wells that would take Orolite magazines

FL-NC

When I went looking for my first AR back in the mid to late '70s, Colt was the only game in town. The only other military-type .223 semi-auto available at that time was the AR180 and the quality of those varied greatly between who made them (Howa-Japan, Armalite-US, and Sterling-UK). I do remember seeing Quality Parts Co. (I think they were a division of Bushmaster at the time), offering uppers, lowers, and parts kits in the late '70s (they use to have full page ads in Shotgun News), but not sure if they were selling complete ARs back then. Springfield Armory did have some ARs for sale back in the early to mid '80s (might have been under the Rock Island Armory name), but they didn't seem to be around for very long (possible legal issues with Colt?). I also remember seeing complete Eagle Arms ARs but that was probably sometime in the late '80s.

I have a Quality Parts/Bushmaster upper from the early '80s and used it in building my version of the XM177E2. The lower was made by Olympic Arms, the buttstock is an aluminum model from Colt, and the internal parts were from Colt and Olympic Arms. Build quality with all the parts was very good and it runs just fine.

GRIZ22 said:

I recall Bushmaster making ARs in the late 70s, early 80s. They weren't very good. These were the first non Colt ARs I can recall.

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Bushmaster is the name I remember. If her were others I don’t remember them.

I still have mine. It still seems to shoot just fine. I guess if I had had the money I would have bought a Colt.

FL-NC

An article and ads from SWAT magazine from the Springfield Armory/Rock Island Armory and Eagle Arms Co. ARs:







Really liked the looks of the XM15 with the walnut furniture!

I remember the Colts well. They seemed pretty high in price. I agree that the assault weapons ban brought on a renaissance of the AR-15. I had my M1 and M1A but never considered the AR until the ban was over. I carried one in the Marine Corps and we called them maggie matels. Maggie for "maggies drawers", a complete miss on the rifle range, and matels for the toy company. That was a little while ago. The rifles are much better today and prices are so low in the basement I personally cannot believe it.

I did not buy my first AR until just before the AWB.
At the time, the selection (if memory serves) was Colt, Eagle, Olympia, SAI, and Bushmaster, with some also-rans in that mix.
Back in that day, the gun shows looked nothing like what they do today. I want to remember that there were maybe 10, possibly 12 tables at the Dallas Market Hall show had any AR15 out. On 29-Nov-92 I paid the rather exorbitant $625.68 for an Eagle AR-15A2.

I probably ought to dig it out of the safe and put some rounds in it, being close to its "birthday."

JONWILL said:

The worst place to get kits was Nessard

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Nesard = Sendra = Drasen (the real name of the owner). All incarnations of the same business. As I understand it, Nesard specialized in parts while Sendra sold lower receivers. (Some of the Sendra receivers were the basis of full-auto conversions done by others, such as RIA.) After Sendra got the initial bugs worked out, their lower receivers were quite good. I'm not sure if this outfit ever sold complete guns.

AlexanderA said:

Nesard = Sendra = Drasen (the real name of the owner). All incarnations of the same business. As I understand it, Nesard specialized in parts while Sendra sold lower receivers. (Some of the Sendra receivers were the basis of full-auto conversions done by others, such as RIA.) After Sendra got the initial bugs worked out, their lower receivers were quite good. I'm not sure if this outfit ever sold complete guns.

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That confirmed something that I was told. Nesard was the name of the owner spelled backwards.

I assume that this "Historical Review of Armalite" is accurate:

https://www.armimilitari.it/wordpre...0814-History-of-AR15-and-M16-and-Armalite.pdf

On page 7 is states that the original Stoner/Armalite patents held by Colt expired sometime in the late 1980's. Eagle arms produced their first AR15's in 1989. I doubt that any non-Colt firearms were available much before then. I didn't get into the game until I bought a "Golden Eagle" about 1998. If I remember I paid around $900. I'm still running that lower receiver with the original service rifle match trigger.

bannockburn said:

When I went looking for my first AR back in the mid to late '70s, Colt was the only game in town. The only other military-type .223 semi-auto available at that time was the AR180 and the quality of those varied greatly between who made them (Howa-Japan, Armalite-US, and Sterling-UK).

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Colt started selling AR-15's on the civilian market around 1964. (I bought my first one in 1968.) In 1970, Colt took them off the market temporarily to address the "hammer follow-down" issue (the gun could fire full-automatically -- erratically -- if the disconnector was removed). This absence of the AR-15 from the market was what allowed the Armalite AR-180 to gain a foothold. (In other words, for a short time, it was the only game in town.) When Colt re-introduced the AR-15, it had the so-called "unshrouded" bolt carrier and notched hammer. In such guns, if the disconnector was removed, the bolt carrier would catch on the hammer and the gun would jam hopelessly. Later, the ATF apparently agreed that this was a non-issue, and Colt went back to the original configuration.

BullSlinger said:

All were around $360 most were Colts if I recall.

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That's nearly $1500 in today's money, according to the official inflation index. But, considering a new car back then was under 5k, $360 had the buyer power of over $2,500 today.

I gave $300 for a Colt A2 in 1984 or '85. In 1986 I bought a como-se-llama box of AR15 parts for $150, but I don't recall any brand name. Screwed it together, it functioned. Didn't really like it, though, so I sold it. But that's the earliest non-Colt I remember.

JONWILL said:

The worst place to get kits was Nessard

Did that once. Cheap and crap. The buffers were plastic will with birdshot

The early Bushmasters had tight mag wells that would take Orolite magazines

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That company is still around; Like Blackwater, it changes names every few years to divest itself of a bad reputation, then immediately builds a new bad reputation.

I built one right after I got out of the Army ('88); I guess I missed my old job. (Unit Armorer with SMOS of Small Arms Repair) It was basically a range toy, but the impending AWB and short funds led me to sell it just before the ban. Made quite a few buck on that one. I'll agree, AR's were mostly for ex-sevicemen before the AWB, but the ban piqued everyone's interest; the popularity soared. I didn't own one after that, but my son wants to trade me his Sportical for a couple guns of mine he wants, and I was contemplating building one anyway, so I guess whenever he finally gets over here, I have an AR again after 23 years.

"No one else can manufacture or sell your invention unless you give permission. However, this protection does not last forever. Depending on what you've invented, your patent will expire in either 14 or 20 years. When this occurs, anyone can copy your idea and market it."