AR-18 .223 Cal. Rifle

[Guest fastshotivy]

Are these rifles good? I like to have more info. on them. What is a Ar-18? Is it as good as the Ar 15's?

[G27]

If you haven't seen it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-18

[Guest fastshotivy]

I've seen one. I was needing more info. on it.

[Guest price g]

Sheetmetal alternative for other countries to produce easily. Not bad rifles, just cheap.

[Guest gcrookston]

Functionally sufficient. Most were sent to Taiwan. Not a great gun, but a good one. Most I've seen in the last 10 years were way over priced. They should fetch about 50 - 70% of an AR, but often are marked up more than 200% because they are "rare"

rare does not equal valuable.

[Guest fastshotivy]

What is the good price for one?

[Guest gcrookston]

What is the good price for one?

SOG had some kit guns recently (former AR-18 converted to semi auto), for $499.00. The civilian version, the AR-180, used to cost about 1/2 to 2/3rds of an AR-15 (20 yrs ago that was $400 to $700, depending upon configuration).

These are basically a poor man's AR15.

[Magiccarpetrides]

Like an SKS to an AK? or different?

[Guest gcrookston]

Like an SKS to an AK? or different?

I don't really consider the SKS and AK rifles comparable, except in the current market. The SKS came before the AK, while the AR-18 came after the AR15.

Armalite had sold the AR15 to Colt, then set about making a sheet-metal version of the same rifle with just enough differences to not come into conflict with Colt's patents. In it's time, the AR18 (and AR180), were failures -- not because of any practical flaw in the design, but they bungled production and marketing. They set up primary mfg. in Japan which would only export to non-combatant countries (during the vietnam war they wouldn't even export to the US), they didn't have the capacity in the US plant and when they finally pulled all the equipment out of Japan and set it up in England, the AR15 was well established and impossible to compete against.

In a quick google search to make certain I remembered things right, I was suprised to discover Armalite is making this rifle again with some improvements...

http://www.armalite.com/ItemForm.aspx?item=180B&Category=0406c9ff-539d-4b4c-ae1f-d045b91324c3%20&ret_url=Categories2.aspx?Category=0406c9ff-539d-4b4c-ae1f-d045b91324c3

[Guest jwp]

Original variants have some feeding issues and should be inspected by someone with experience with them. They also have a tendency to go 'full auto' if they have been mistreated.

The newer ones are generally sub-par in fit and finish to their AR-15 counterparts.

If it were me I would pass on one and just get a used AR-15 or AK variant.