Stoner System rifle or carbine

[FyredUp]

Doing a little reading in a new book I bought yesterday and then follwed up reading online about the Stoner system. For those that don't know this involved multiple weapons desgined by Eugene Stoner. The usage by the US military was pretty much limited to the Navy Seals in Viet Nam.

Okay now my questions. Has anyone here ever fired any of the components of the Stoner system? Were they ever available commercially? Seems like an awesome system other than perhaps the weight versus something like the M-16 and its variants.

Thanks for any info you can supply.

[Hkmp5sd]

The Stoner was essentially a belt fed M16 (as used by the SEALs). There are a few that are registered trasnferrables, but you would have to swap your house for one. There are a few manufactures that make belt fed uppers for the M16/AR15 firearms. The most common of these is the Ares Shrike. Unfortunately, they are a few years behind in production. It uses the same links as the M249 SAW so getting linked .223 isn't all that hard. Jonathan Arthur Ciener used to make a conversion, but his used his own designed links.

[ronl]

I take it you are talking about the Stoner 63 weapons system. Very ingenious creation. It could be switched from assault rifle to mag fed LMG, to belt fed LMG within a few minutes with 80% commonality of parts. There was even a version to be mounted in tanks and armored vehicles. The Marine Corps was very interested in the Stoner 63 but couldn't get proper funding because the Army had already selected the M-16. Special Forces did use the 63 in VN on a limited basis. As I understand the SBR versions had some trouble feeding. As to commercial availability, the only thing that I know that is available is the M-96 rifle by Robinson Armament which is a close copy of the Stoner 63.

[FyredUp]

Thanks for the responses.

I was in fact talking about the Stoner 63 weapons system. It seems like an obvious choice. Parts and training commonality, what a unique concept.

Thanks for the info on the Robinson Armament M-96. I am gonna take a look at that.

[globemaster3]

Many, many moons ago, I worked for Knights Armament Co and they had all the spares for the Stoners. My understanding was Eugene Stoner was on their payroll for a time. If you wanted more data on them, you might try to contact Knights.

[M14fan]

Check out this family of rifles from Robinson Arms. These are based on the old Stone 63.

http://www.robarm.com/M96_Home.htm