Eugene Stoner
Eugene Stoner | |
---|---|
Born | Gosport, Indiana, U.S. | November 22, 1922
Died | April 24, 1997 Palm City, Florida, U.S. | (aged 74)
Resting place | Quantico National Cemetery |
Occupation | Engineer |
Engineering career | |
Significant design | AR-15 and other small arms |
Eugene Morrison Stoner (November 22, 1922 – April 24, 1997) was an American machinist and firearms designer who is most associated with the development of the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle that was redesigned and modified by Colt's Patent Firearm Company for the United States military as the M16 rifle.
Early life
Stoner was born in
During World War II, he enlisted for Aviation Ordnance in the U.S. Marine Corps and served in the South Pacific and northern China. In the Corps, he had his first experience of working with heavy-caliber automatic weapons as an armourer. The work experience and combat training served him throughout his weapons designing career.[1]
Engineer
In late 1945 Stoner began working in the machine shop for Whittaker, an aircraft equipment company, and ultimately became a Design Engineer.
In 1954 he came to work as chief engineer for
The Stoner bolt and carrier piston system is a widely known gas system designed by Eugene Stoner. The gas operated bolt and carrier system was filed in 1956 and subsequently patented by
The Stoner bolt and carrier piston system is ammunition specific, since it does not have an adjustable gas port or valve to adjust the weapon to various propellant and projectile or barrel length specific pressure behavior. It provides a very symmetric design that allows straight line movement of the operating components. This allows recoil forces to drive straight to the rear. Instead of connecting or other mechanical parts driving the system, high pressure gas performs this function, reducing the weight of moving parts and the rifle as a whole.[5] The straight-line recoil design, where the recoil spring is located in the stock directly behind the action,[6] and serves the dual function of operating spring and recoil buffer.[6]
In 1955, Stoner completed initial design work on the revolutionary
At the request of the U.S. military, Stoner's chief assistant, Robert Fremont along with
After ArmaLite sold the rights to the AR-15 to the Colt Firearms Company, Stoner turned his attention to the
Stoner left ArmaLite in 1961 to serve as a consultant for
[7] This was a modular weapons system which could be reconfigured to be a standard automatic rifle, a light machine gun, a medium machine gun, or a solenoid-fired fixed machine gun.
The Stoner Weapons System used a piston-operated gas impingement system patented as US PAT No. 2,951,424 and granted in September 1960. Once again, Robert Fremont and Jim Sullivan took a Stoner rifle and redesigned it for the .223 Remington cartridge, to create the Stoner 63 Weapons System.[9] Stoner then worked with
He co-founded
In 1990, he joined
Meeting with Kalashnikov
On May 16, 1990, Stoner and Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47 and its derivatives, would meet for the first time. They would spend the next few days talking, sharing stories, shopping, going out to dinner and touring Washington D.C. They visited the Smithsonian Institution, the NRA's National Firearms Museum, and a hunting lodge owned by the gun club at Star Tannery, where they went shooting. They would also visit the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, where they watched new weapons being tested. During this short visit, both men, intimately familiar with the other's work, shared a common bond and became friends, "not needing an interpreter to get their thoughts across."[12]
Death
Eugene Stoner died of cancer at the age of 74 on April 24, 1997, and was later interred in the Quantico National Cemetery, Quantico, Virginia.
He was survived by his wife, Barbara Hitt Stoner, whom he married in 1965; his first wife, Jean Stoner Mahony of Newport Beach, California, from whom he was divorced in 1962; four children from his first marriage, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. His wife, Barbara Hitt Stoner, passed away at her home in Plymouth, Michigan on February 17, 2022, and was interred with her husband. [13]
Weapon designs
Armalite designs
Other designs
- Stoner 62 / Stoner 63
- Oerlikon KBA 25 mm Autocannon (evolution of TRW 6425)
- ARES FMG (Folding Machine Gun)
- Ares Light Machine Gun(A.K.A. the "Stoner 86/96")
- Advanced Individual Weapon System(AIWS)
- Future Assault Rifle Concept (FARC)
- SR-25 (U.S. Navy Mark 11 Mod 0 Sniper Rifle)
- SR-15
- Mk 12 Special Purpose Rifle
- SR-50
- ARES XM274 (tested on HSTV-L, HIMAG, rdf/lt and ELKE)
References
- ^ a b Ezell, Virginia (May 30, 1997). "Obituary: Eugene Stoner". The Independent.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84908-690-5. Retrieved July 29, 2013.
- ^ US2951424A, Stoner, Eugene M., "Gas operated bolt and carrier system", issued 1960-09-06
- ^ "ARMALITE TECHNICAL NOTE 54: DIRECT IMPINGEMENT VERSUS PISTON DRIVE" (PDF). Armalite. July 3, 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 5, 2012.
- ^ "Armalite Technical Note 54: Direct Impingement Versus Piston Drive" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 17, 2012. Retrieved February 12, 2014.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-88029-601-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7432-7076-2.
- ]
- ^ Johnston, Gary Paul (2006). "New from DPMS A 308 That Delivers the Goods". Soldier of Fortune. Vol. 31. Boulder, Colorado: Omega Group, Limited. p. 24. Retrieved July 29, 2013.
- ^ ""Philco-Ford PFB-25 (Bushmaster 25mm)"" (PDF).
- ISBN 978-0-87349-658-2. Retrieved July 29, 2013.
- ISBN 978-0-47-016880-6.
- ^ "Barbara Bradford Stoner Obituary - Visitation & Funeral Information". www.desmondfuneralhome.com. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
External links
- M16 Development
- SR-25 Archived October 22, 2012, at the Wayback Machine