Armalite AR18/AR180

[Cabin Fever]

I read some books recently about "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland recently, and I happened to learn about the Armalite AR 18/180 (18 is a machine gun, 180 is the SA version). Seems like it saw some action with the provisional IRA.

Well I don't have a green card, but they pop up on gun broker from time to time. Does anyone have any opinions on the AR 180? All I've learned so far is they use an AR15 dimension magazine with different cutouts, and that they were made in multiple countries. Any comments are appreciated.

I know about the silly 180B.... no interest.

 

[Boris]

Stamped steel ... let me repeat that STEEL, stahl, сталь

this is all you need to know, no aluminum or plastic crap. They are for sale, from time to time.

 

[Gammon]

The 180 is an interesting weapon. Supposedly Stoner eliminated the mistakes he made designing the AR 15.
The 180 doesn't vent muzzle gases into the receiver and the recoil spring is in the fore end, not the butt stock so you can have a folding stock. These are major improvements over the AR.

 

[ranger4-7]

Not a bad design, by any means. It is my understanding that the intent was to produce a weapon who's simple stamping construction could be easily exported/licensed to lower technology countries and compete with the M16.
As it stands today, I think the big plus to the AR18/180 is that it uses the standard AR mag, so no problem getting plenty of pre-ban mags. The downside it probably lack of parts availability. I don't believe there is much, if any interchangability between the new 180b and the old 18/180.

 

[Boris]

Not a bad design, by any means. It is my understanding that the intent was to produce a weapon who's simple stamping construction could be easily exported/licensed to lower technology countries and compete with the M16.

I don't know where all this prejudice toward metal stamping is coming from, but for what it's worth, there were made in US, Japan and UK. Metal stamping done right is light weight, durable and most importantly can be made very fast and cheap.

 

[BriMac]

The AR18 is a cool gun and almost bought one in the early 90s. The dealer that had it talked me out of due to the spare parts. The prices for them today seem to reflect that compared to the m16/ m16 clones. A few years ago Gun Parts Corp imported a few parts kits that were not demilled correctly and the ATF had a problem with them.

 

[ranger4-7]

Not sure why you interpreted my comment as prejudice. As I stated, it was not a bad design. Your follow-up comments on the nature of stamped metal, clearly illustarte why the manufacturer's hoped to have sucess, in the developing world, competing against the more expensive, complicated processes used to manufacture M16s.

 

[Cabin Fever]

The spare parts thing makes me hesitate to pick one up. Not sure what the long term durability of the AR180 IS.

 

[BriMac]

I don't think that you would want a AR18/180 as your SHTF rifle with the pencil 1-12 barrel. I think of it more as lets take something odd to the range .

 

[Remsport Mfg]

We sold a 18 last year it was an OK machine gun and the pricing on these are less then $10,000. They are around you just have to look if you wan't one.

 

[Wildweasel]

One thing to point out (used to own an original ar-180 sterling) you have to mod an ar-15 mag so they lock up. it is a small slot above the regular ar 15 mag lock square in the mag body. some ar-15 mags do have the slot cut in them (aftermarket ones) Mine was a nice rifle Operated fine and I liked it sold due to needed funds. I still do have an original ar-180 20 round mag kicking around.