Ronnie G. Barrett | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1954 (age 68–69) |
| Alma mater | Murfreesboro Central High School |
| Known for | Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Barrett M82 |
| Spouse | [1] |
| Children | Chris Barrett Angela Barrett |
Ronnie G. Barrett (born 1954) is the founder of Barrett Firearms Manufacturing of Christiana, Tennessee, board member of the National Rifle Association of America, [2] and the designer of the Barrett M82.
Barrett was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1954, and graduated from Murfreesboro Central High School. [3] He started his career in 1972 as a professional photographer for a studio in the same town. [3] In 1982, while he owned a photography studio, he was inspired to create the Barrett M82. On January 1, 1982, when Barrett was photographing a river patrol gunboat on the Stones River near Nashville, Tennessee, a picture he shot of the twin Browning machine guns mounted prominently on the boat made him think of the .50 BMG cartridge and its potential for commercial users. [4]
With no engineering background, Barrett hand-sketched plans at home for a .50BMG repeating semi-automatic rifle. [5] Later, he found a partner in tool and die maker Bob Mitchell and an employee at a sheet metal fabricator in Smyrna, Tennessee. Four months later a prototype was finished. [6] A second prototype shown off at a gun show in Houston would garner starting capital for Barrett from three investors, necessary for the Barrett Firearms Manufacturing company and production of the first 30 rifles for private use. [5] Large-scale commercial success came when the CIA acquired an unknown number of rifles for arming the Afghan mujahideen as part of the Soviet–Afghan War effort. [4] In 1989, the Swedish Army adopted the M82 as a sniper rifle. In 1990, the United States Armed Forces followed, and subsequently deployed the rifles during Operation Desert storm. [7]
Barrett is an advocate for the private ownership of firearms. Barrett has headed fundraising campaigns for the National Rifle Association, [8] sits on its board of directors, [2] and makes occasional appearances on the Cam & Company podcast where he speaks on gun laws. [2]
Barrett married former Tennessee State Rep. Donna Rowland in 2010. [1]
Heckler & Koch GmbH is a German defense manufacturing company that manufactures handguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenade launchers. The company is located in Oberndorf am Neckar in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, and also has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France and the United States.
A semi-automatic rifle is an autoloading rifle that fires a single cartridge with each pull of the trigger, and uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and load another cartridge into the chamber. In contrast, a bolt-action rifle requires the user to cycle the bolt manually before they can fire a second time, and a fully automatic rifle fires continuously until the trigger is released.
A muzzle brake or recoil compensator is a device connected to, or a feature integral to the construction of, the muzzle or barrel of a firearm or cannon that is intended to redirect a portion of propellant gases to counter recoil and unwanted muzzle rise. Barrels with an integral muzzle brake are often said to be ported.
A bullpup firearm is one with its firing grip located in front of the breech of the weapon, instead of behind it. This creates a weapon with a shorter overall length for a given barrel length, and one that is often lighter, more compact, concealable and more maneuverable than a conventionally configured firearm. Where it is desirable for troops to be issued a more compact weapon, the use of a bullpup configuration allows for barrel length to be retained, thus preserving muzzle velocity, range and ballistic effectiveness.
In the United States, assault weapon is a controversial term used to define firearms with specified characteristics. The definition varies among regulating jurisdictions, but usually includes semi-automatic firearms with a detachable magazine, a pistol grip, and sometimes other features, such as a vertical forward grip, flash suppressor, or barrel shroud. Certain firearms are specified by name in some laws that restrict assault weapons. When the now-defunct Federal Assault Weapons Ban was passed in 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice said, "In general, assault weapons are semiautomatic firearms with a large magazine of ammunition that were designed and configured for rapid fire and combat use." The commonly used definitions of assault weapons are under frequent debate, and have changed over time.
The .50 Browning Machine Gun is a .50 in (12.7 mm) caliber cartridge developed for the M2 Browning heavy machine gun in the late 1910s, entering official service in 1921. Under STANAG 4383, it is a standard service cartridge for NATO forces as well as many non-NATO countries. The cartridge itself has been made in many variants: multiple generations of regular ball, tracer, armor-piercing (AP), incendiary, and saboted sub-caliber rounds. The rounds intended for machine guns are made into a continuous belt using metallic links.
The M14 rifle, officially the United States Rifle, Caliber 7.62 mm, M14, is an American selective-fire battle rifle chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge. It became the standard-issue rifle for the U.S. military in 1957, replacing the M1 Garand rifle in service with the U.S. Army by 1958 and the U.S. Marine Corps by 1965. The M14 was used by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps for Basic and Advanced Individual Training from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s.
Barrett Firearms Manufacturing is an Australian-owned, American manufacturer of firearms and ammunition located in Christiana, Tennessee. It was founded in 1982 by Ronnie G. Barrett for the purpose of building semi-automatic rifles chambered for the .50 BMG ammunition, originally developed for and used in M2 Browning machine guns. Barrett began this work in the early 1980s, and the first working rifles were available in 1982, hence the designation M82. Barrett personally designed every part of the weapon. He marketed the weapon and mass-produced it utilizing private funds. He continued to develop the rifle through the 1980s, and developed the improved M82A1 rifle by 1986. Barrett was acquired by the NIOA Group on 17 January 2023, solidifying the long-standing relationship between the two companies.
Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc., better known by the shortened name Ruger, is an American firearm manufacturing company based in Southport, Connecticut, with production facilities also in Newport, New Hampshire; Mayodan, North Carolina; and Prescott, Arizona. The company was founded in 1949 by Alexander McCormick Sturm and William B. Ruger, and has been publicly traded since 1969.
The Barrett XM109 is a prototype anti-materiel sniper rifle, chambered for 25 × 59 mm grenade rounds and developed by Barrett Firearms Manufacturing. It was designed in accordance with a requirement set out in 1994, and is capable of defeating light armor and equipment out to 2 km (1.2 mi).
The Barrett M82 is a recoil-operated, semi-automatic anti-materiel rifle developed by the American company Barrett Firearms Manufacturing.
The Violence Policy Center (VPC) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control.
The M110 Semi Automatic Sniper System is an American semi-automatic sniper rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO round. It is manufactured by Knight's Armament Company, developed from the Knight's Armament Company SR-25, and adopted by the U.S. military following the 2005 US Army Semi-Automatic Sniper Rifle competition.
Hornady Manufacturing Company is an American manufacturer of ammunition cartridges, components and handloading equipments, based in Grand Island, Nebraska.
Donna Rowland Barrett is a former Republican member of the State Representative in the Tennessee General Assembly for the 34th House District in Rutherford County, Tennessee. She served as the State Representative from that area from 2000 to 2010.
The .416 Barrett or 10.4×83mm centerfire rifle cartridge is a proprietary bottlenecked centrefire rifle cartridge designed in 2005. It is an alternative to the large-caliber .50 BMG in long-range high-power rifles. It was designed in response to a request for a medium/heavy rifle cartridge combination that was issued from Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division in late 2004.
The Barrett M90 is a bolt-action, bullpup rifle chambered in .50 BMG. It was designed and manufactured by Barrett Firearms Company. In 1995, Barrett stopped production of the M90, and replaced it with the M95.
An AR-15–style rifle is any lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on or similar to the Colt AR-15 design. The Colt model removed the selective fire feature of its predecessor, the original ArmaLite AR-15, itself a scaled-down derivative of the AR-10 design by Eugene Stoner.
The Barrett MRAD is a bolt-action sniper rifle designed by Barrett to meet the requirements of the SOCOM PSR. The MRAD is based on the Barrett 98B and includes a number of modifications and improvements. The Barrett MRAD was named the 2012 Rifle of the Year by the NRA.
The Iver Johnson AMAC-1500/5100 is a 36 lb manually-operated single-shot sniper rifle/anti-material rifle. The 29" barrel with a massive 7" two-stage muzzle brake on its end has a 1 in 14" twist rifling rate, an adjustable crisp trigger pull between 3 lbs - 8 lbs, an adjustable stock length of pull between 13.75" to 15.5," and a stock comb adjustable to +1.5" for operator tuning. The rifle featured a removable "shell holder" rotating bolt with three lugs. For each shot, the removable bolt was rotated and removed from the receiver, then a cartridge was inserted into a half-circular retaining ridge breech bolt face, and then bolt with cartridge were inserted back into receiver and locked closed prior to firing pin cocking and firing. As such, there is no 'safety' once the bolt is engaged with a live round other than counter-rotating the bolt from the locked position. The rifle does not have any integral open sights as only telescopic sights were intended to be used. The integral receiver dove-tail rail with cross-key is set up for a scope mount with fixed ring spacing and 60 min of angle elevation. The rifle was not designed to be fired offhand, and thus had no forearm; instead, each rifle was issued with integral stout folding bipod attached to the receiver that allowed harmonic tuning adjustment in the bipod tube. For carry, rifle was easily disassembled into several major parts. There are several variants that also have larger calibers for this same design.