ArmaLite

Founded in 1954 as a division of Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation, ArmaLite set out to apply aircraft-industry materials (aluminium forgings and glass-reinforced plastics) to small arms at a time when service rifles were still built from milled steel and walnut. Eugene Stoner led the design work that produced the AR-10 and, from it, the AR-15 that Colt would take into US service as the M16. ArmaLite sold the AR-15 design to Colt in 1959 after struggling to sell the rifle itself, and Fairchild dissolved the original company in 1973.

The ArmaLite name and trademark passed through several owners before Eagle Arms revived it in 1996 as a maker of AR-pattern rifles in its own right; that company is now part of Strategic Armory Corps.