Ronnie G. Barrett | |
|---|---|
 Barrett in 2009 | |
| Born | 13 May 1954 |
| 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 firearms manufacturer that produces handguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenade launchers. The company is located in Oberndorf am Neckar, Baden-Württemberg and also has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.
A semi-automatic rifle is an auto-loading rifle that fires a single round of ammunition at a time, contained in a cartridge, with each pull of the trigger. It uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and automatically loads another cartridge into its chamber. This is in contrast to bolt-action or lever-action rifles, which require the user to manually chamber a new round before they can fire again, and fully automatic rifles, which fire continuously while the trigger is held down.
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 applied to different kinds of firearms. There is no clear, consistent definition. It can include 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 BMG, also known as 12.7×99mm NATO, and designated as the 50 Browning by the C.I.P., 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. The cartridge itself has been made in many variants: multiple generations of regular ball, tracer, armor-piercing (AP), incendiary, and saboted sub-caliber penetrator rounds. The rounds intended for machine guns are made into a continuous ammunition belt using metallic links.
The M14 rifle, officially the United States Rifle, Caliber 7.62 mm, M14, is an American 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; deliveries of service rifles to the U.S. Army began in 1959. 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.
An anti-materiel rifle (AMR) is a rifle designed for use against military equipment, structures, and other hardware (materiel) targets. Anti-materiel rifles are chambered in significantly larger calibers than conventional rifles and are employed to eliminate equipment such as engines and unarmored or lightly armored targets. Although not originally designed for use against human targets, the bullet weight and velocity of anti-materiel rifles gives them exceptional long-range capability even when compared with designated sniper rifles. Anti-materiel rifles are made in both bolt-action as well as semi-automatic designs.
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, originally known as the Objective Sniper Weapon (OSW) and now called the Anti-Materiel Payload Rifle (AMPR), is a prototype anti-materiel sniper rifle. It is chambered for 25 × 59 mm grenade rounds and was 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.
The Barrett M82 is a recoil-operated, semi-automatic anti-materiel rifle developed by the Australian-owned company Barrett Firearms Manufacturing and produced in the United States.
The Violence Policy Center (VPC) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control.
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 Norinco Type 86S is an AKM-type bullpup rifle that was produced by Norinco. Many major parts are interchangeable with other standard Kalashnikov rifles.
The .416 Barrett (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 a 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, which is a scaled-down derivative of the AR-10 design. It is closely related to the military M16 rifle.
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 Shooting Illustrated magazine.
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.