Brownells’ Retro Rifle

By G&A Staff

A Blast from the Past … Today

Grabbing one of the first Brownells Retro Rifles was being transported back in time and thinking I could have been in the same room as firearms’ Hall of Famers and pioneers Eugene Stoner and Jim Sullivan as they inspected their first production rifles. You notice the dimensions, the balance, and even the feel and sound the plastic makes, relishing the end result of all the design work.

While I have not had the pleasure to handle a first-generation M16, handling one of the Brownells’ first retro rifles was a wow moment in this writer’s experience. You could almost hear the echoes in history of the men who not only designed it but who got to use these first rifles as I opened the box.

Yes, many of the early echoes would be pooh-poohing it as a “toy” as some called it (among other things). But from a historical point of view, the Stoner/Sullivan rifle was truly state-of-the-art in the late 1950s and early ’60s. Being made of steel, aluminum alloy and composite plastics, these first rifles were the forerunners of the guns we have today …Read the Rest

Source:: Guns and Ammo