ArmaLite AR-18

The ArmaLite AR-18 is a gas operated rifle chambered in 5.56 by 45 millimeter NATO, designed in 1963 by Arthur Miller with input from Eugene Stoner at ArmaLite in California as a cheaper alternative to the AR-15 after the United States military chose that earlier design for adoption as the M16. Manufactured in relatively small numbers, 1,171 AR-18s and 21,478 of the semi-automatic AR-180 variant, by ArmaLite, Howa in Japan, the Sterling Armaments Company in the United Kingdom and Elisco Tool in the Philippines between 1969 and 1985, it nonetheless appeared in the hands of irregular forces in the Communist insurgency in Malaysia, the Lebanese Civil War, the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the Mexican drug war, and its gas piston design influenced many later rifles.