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An AR-15 style pistol is a handgun assembled using an AR-15 style receiver with suitable parts to create a pistol held and fired with one hand.
Colt's Manufacturing Company began marketing the Colt AR-15 self-loading rifle in 1964. [1] These rifles were assembled from interchangeable parts designed to allow replacement of malfunctioning parts without the gunsmith skills and tools required for most firearms. Other manufacturers produced similar parts with features not found on production rifles. [2] Some of these parts can be assembled to create firearms with overall length or barrel-length shorter than rifle dimensions specified by law. These small firearms may be defined as pistols by local laws. [3]
AR-15 style pistols have been publicized by Hollywood films including Clear and Present Danger, Bad Boys, and Spawn. [3]
They have been used in mass shootings in Boulder, Colorado [8] and Dayton, Ohio. [9]
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries.
In firearm designs, the term single-shot refers to guns that can hold only a single round of ammunition inside and thus must be reloaded manually after every shot. Compared to multi-shot repeating firearms ("repeaters"), single-shot designs have no moving parts other than the trigger, hammer/firing pin or frizzen, and therefore do not need a sizable receiver behind the barrel to accommodate a moving action, making them far less complex and more robust than revolvers or magazine/belt-fed firearms, but also with much slower rates of fire.
The Colt AR-15 is a lightweight, magazine-fed, gas-operated semi-automatic rifle. It is a semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle sold for the civilian and law enforcement markets in the United States. The AR in AR-15 stands for ArmaLite rifle, after the company that developed it in the 1950s. Colt's Manufacturing Company currently owns the AR-15 trademark, which is used exclusively for its line of semi-automatic AR-15 rifles.
The .22 Long Rifle or simply .22 LR or 22 is a long-established variety of .22 caliber rimfire ammunition originating from the United States. It is used in a wide range of rifles, pistols, revolvers, smoothbore shotguns, and submachine guns.
A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device for a repeating firearm, either integral within the gun or externally attached. The magazine functions by holding several cartridges within itself and sequentially pushing each one into a position where it may be readily loaded into the barrel chamber by the firearm's moving action. The detachable magazine is sometimes colloquially referred to as a "clip", although this is technically inaccurate since a clip is actually an accessory device used to help load ammunition into a magazine.
The .223 Remington is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was developed in 1957 by Remington Arms and Fairchild Industries for the U.S. Continental Army Command of the United States Army as part of a project to create a small-caliber, high-velocity firearm. The .223 Remington is considered one of the most popular common-use cartridges and is currently used by a wide range of semi-automatic and manual-action rifles as well as handguns.
The Colt Automatic Rifle-15 or CAR-15 is a family of M16 rifle–based firearms marketed by Colt in the 1960s and early 1970s. However, the term "CAR-15" is most commonly associated with the Colt Commando ; these select-fire carbines have ultrashort 10.5-inch (270 mm) and 11.5-inch (290 mm) barrels with over-sized flash suppressors.
The ArmaLite AR-10 is a 7.62×51mm NATO battle rifle designed by Eugene Stoner in the late 1950s and manufactured by ArmaLite. When first introduced in 1956, the AR-10 used an innovative combination of a straight-line barrel/stock design with phenolic composite, a new patent-filed gas-operated bolt and carrier system and forged alloy parts resulting in a small arm significantly easier to control in automatic fire and over 1 lb (0.45 kg) lighter than other infantry rifles of the day. Over its production life, the original AR-10 was built in relatively small numbers, with fewer than 10,000 rifles assembled. However, the ArmaLite AR-10 would become the progenitor for a wide range of firearms.
The Ruger 10/22 is a series of semi-automatic rifles produced by American firearm manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Co., chambered for the .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridge. It uses a patented 10-round rotary magazine, though higher capacity box magazines are also available. The standard carbine version of the Ruger 10/22 has been in production continuously since 1964, making it one of the most successful rimfire rifle designs in history, with numerous third party manufacturers making parts and accessories for upgrading and customization. The 10/22's aftermarket is so prolific that a complete 10/22 can be built without using any Ruger-made components.
Thompson/Center Arms was an American firearms company based in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company was best known for its line of interchangeable-barrel, single-shot pistols and rifles. Thompson/Center also manufactures muzzle-loading rifles and was credited with creating the resurgence of their use in the 1970s.
The ArmaLite AR-7 Explorer is a semi-automatic firearm in .22 Long Rifle caliber, developed in 1959 from the AR-5 that was adopted by the U.S. Air Force as a pilot and aircrew survival weapon. The AR-7 was adopted and modified by the Israeli Air Force as an aircrew survival weapon in the 1980s.
Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC, was an American firearm manufacturer and distributor. The company's product line revolved around semi-automatic pistol and rifle variants of the M4/AR-15 design. The company is currently in full operation and is based in Carson City, Nevada.
Title II weapons, or NFA firearms, are designations of certain weapons under the United States National Firearms Act (NFA).
The Smith & Wesson M&P15 is an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle by gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson. Introduced in 2006, the firearm is designed for police use and consumer markets.
An AR-15-style rifle is any lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on or similar to the Colt AR-15 design. The Colt AR-15 removed the selective fire feature of its predecessor, the original ArmaLite AR-15, itself a scaled-down derivative of Eugene Stoner's ArmaLite AR-10 design.
The SIG MCX is a family of firearms designed and manufactured by SIG Sauer, produced in both selective fire and semi-automatic only models, and features a short-stroke gas piston system, which is inherited from the earlier SIG MPX submachine gun. The MCX is available in rifle, carbine, short-barreled rifle, and pistol configurations. The rifle was further developed into the SIG MCX Spear, which was adopted in its .277 Fury chambering as the XM7 by the U.S. Army in 2022.
The BCL 102 is a lightweight, 7.62×51mm, magazine-fed, gas-operated semi-automatic rifle.
Palmetto State Armory is an American firearms company based in Columbia, South Carolina. The name is derived from South Carolina's official nickname, "The Palmetto State". Palmetto State Armory operates several retail locations around the states of South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina. Palmetto State Armory's website sells firearms, tactical equipment, reloading supplies, as well as fishing and hunting equipment.
In firearms, barrel threads refer to the screw threads used to attach a barrel.