Posted: 9/6/2006 11:43:30 AM EDT
Yesterday I visited the small arms museum at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois. They have a lot of experimental stuff, as well as just about every rifle or pistol we've fielded. Everything in these pictures was tested by the government at some time. Everything here also has documentation stating when it was cleaned, made, tested, etc. If you've never been there, I highly recommend it.  Entrance  Plaque on entrance                                         M16A2 trial rifles      General Officer's Serial #1  Beretta Serail #1    Experimental AR mags  Early BFAs       Memorial Field with arty and tank pieces |
| Thanks for posting this, i buried my father in the Veterans Cemetery there in '70. It is a huge place, i hope to get back up there one day to see his grave. They have the service at the gate, give you a map with an X on it for location.I was 19 at the time, still remember all the red tape i had to wade thru. |
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Sweet. Did they ask to see your FOID card to gaze at the guns? IL is pretty ghey like that. One time I was at a store in IL looking at a rifle and the guy working there said "Sir, can I PLEASE see your FOID card?" I laughed and said "I'm not from this fucking communist state, I'm from Missouri!" He didn't laugh. Sorry, sweet pics. 
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No, but it looks like a device to launch grapnel hooks |
| I live about 5 minutes from the museum,feel lucky to be able to go there frequently......was once friends with a curator that used to work there and went to see him one day,secratary said he was up in the attic of the building next door rummaging for a display he had in mind and said I could go look for him there,WOW you want to talk about endless rooms filled with the coolest stuff that would make any ARFCOMMER get a woody! I had a frickin blast that day....but alas he has been replaced by female curator who has way different political views than one would imagine for a weapons museum,but that is a different story and I no longer have almost unlimited access........oh well,was fun while it lasted. |
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5823 was a mock up of what would become the OICW. Well it started the whole ball rolling. I have handeled the other one of those that is in the Smithsonian Collection. I want to say it was "made" by Olin defence as a display for the trade shows. I will have to check on it though. In the first 2 years of Small arms review there was a good run down of that so look for the first article about the OICW before HK got the contract ans it will exxplain it there. see the basic idea of repeating grenade launcher and and 556 rifle. It was a kind of revenge of the ACR program type of thing in the late eighties. Hope that helps |