Ultra-Rare Colt AR-15 Survival Rifle, with firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson

Hey guys, welcome back to what this gun is. I'm Jonathan as always and this is the cult model 608 or model 0808

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, as I'm sure many of you guessed depending on how clever we were with our social media guessing game. It's quite

rare

. I'll tell you how weird it is near the end, one of several short variants of the classic AR-15, stoner-derived armor design, but at this point it's no longer armor, which I'll explain again in a moment, but let's deal with the obvious, so this is a very short 10 inch barrel, not extraordinarily short of course, we get the XM 177 series with a 10 inch barrel later on, so about 10 inches becomes an early standard for short CTs.

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s, carbines, submachine guns, one could well say that since the of the receiver.

Using the parlance of the day, there's no real stop plate on that thing, it's just a flat piece of metal support welded there with a sling. The loop also makes it sturdier of course, but this doesn't slide, this is just sort of a two diameter buffer tube, essentially, why doesn't it slide well? uh, they were still, I think when this was being published, this was basically ready for marketing, well, certainly, the sliding stock that we know from the xm177 series had not yet been conceived. We are talking about 1964, for this the different, they didn't put her in this, even if she wasn't quite ready, but they could have easily added her back in a little later, we're just talking about a There's a difference of years at most, so it's a bit surprising in the sense that they didn't go with a standardized plastic stock, um, like it was a plastic stock with half a rifle stock, but it telescoped on rods.

I'm not really sure where I didn't go for that, except. That the concept of this is a little different anyway so we have our short barrel but instead of a telescoping stock this works a little different this is the aircrew

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rifle that's what the 608 is now not it was so it is not designed to be shortened with a slide shot, what it does is divide, as the rifle already did, into two upper and lower sets, so the 20 round magazine has no other option at this time, but it also gives you a nice compact package that we have.

I have this clipped grip here, literally, it's an early cut, but black, not green or not, painted green brown. An AR15 pistol grip is literally cut and rounded at the factory, which means plus a 20-round magazine gives you a good experience. compact height for the gun and then to store it in the aircrew survival seat pack which is what it is designed to fit in, I would just put it down like you would to clean it so get out and close the dust cover again. Take out the two pins and it splits into top and bottom and that means you get this very compact package, so it's as short as possible, sort of a natural orientation that gives you some of the length of the top barrel, it's the whole thing a little bit longer, uh. meaning you would have to take it out of the package and assemble it, but it literally takes seconds to do so it's not a huge concern.

I don't know if you're getting off a plane, I think the faster the better and you might prefer the ability to just pull it out and use it right away, maybe you even already have a magazine in the gun so you just have to load it. I don't know any aircrew in the comments, let us know what. Would you prefer uh Ready Mix or ready assembled so there's a lot to this that's standard early ar-50 is the so called lower partial fence now this ridge here helps prevent you from accidentally hitting the magazine catch and losing a magazine but it's there mainly for a retaining pin so that these pins that allow you to remove it are very important for this, in addition, you do not lose the pins, so that that pop that remains in place is captive thanks to a little pin that lives in this housing, the casing also means that it is more difficult to hit the magazine catch, but it is intermediate between the Slick side and the still current fence around the magazine catch, so the first characteristic marks denote an early weapon we also have CT AR-15 no there is armor on this weapon and all the others in its range because it is now a product range that has been rebranded as a cult weapon and AR now means automatic rifle, not r Mite which is what it originally meant. because that in itself is significant, we have the model number model 08 not six attached or prefix at this point that comes later or maybe used behind the scenes.

I'm never quite sure, but at the bottom the actual role is Mark. 08, an early serial number in the 015 range and obviously the caliber that marks the company's markings, both the um cult logo. Again, there is no Armorite logo at this point as well as the factory details here on the bottom, as well as the early forged type front sight block, that's standard. at that time we had, as I say, the barrel is 10 inches, but it is the standard one in 12, one in a turn in 12 inches of this era, so it is not the one in 4 that caused the particularly horrible wounding effects in early use in Vietnam, but it was also unstable, which is why it was causing those wounding effects, by the way, so standardized, one in 12, Twist on every weapon on the range at this point and then, very interesting, I think this device in the front now some of these 08 models and there's only been 10 of these made um and I've never seen another one.

I know, I know there are others, at least one other, some of them had a conical flash hider, according to Colt's own designation, it's a sound moderator and Flash, so Actually, this is a silencer, believe it or not , this is a cult, saying this is not for me, it is a very small muffler or sound suppressor, not hugely effective, and like basically all sound suppressors, it also moderates flash, so it is a muzzle device quite interesting. It is the predecessor of the xm177 or the cult Commando that was not part of this product range in 1964 that was added in 1966 initially with a 10-inch barrel and from there we got the sliding stock, it is the iconic Vietnam submachine gun as he called it the cult or carbine and the grandfather of the uh M4, so this is part of that lineage that ends with the M4 that we still have today and everything and the mark1 18 in particular with its very short barrel, um, but it's a side strange.

Very early side shot at an aircrew survival rifle. Now if I unscrew this, we can see what makes it a sound suppressor and if we can't, I'll just tell you that this tube is double walled and it has an inside and an outside wall with an air space inside which is what which is causing the suppression effect and the inner tube is perforated and is perforated with four rollers, four rows of seven holes, so it has an internal port, allowing the expanding mouth gases to expand in an expansion very small. chamber to reduce that pressure differential and make that sound report a little bit quieter, now it's important for an aircrew survival weapon and that feature is you're going to be less detectable if you have to use this and defend yourself.

It will be less detectable to the enemy's comrades when you fire what you have, you know, I don't know a few miles ahead, I guess, or they might not detect it as a firearm at all, depending on how far away they are. Now, the other function of a survival rifle, besides escape and evasion, is to search for meat to survive in the wild, so if you are pretty sure that the enemy is not on your trail, you might as well use a survival rifle . rifle, that's why several of them are in the 22 22 caliber range, you can actually survive shooting rabbits or whatever, this will make your rabbit potentially minced meat, but you could still use it that way and not very a good sound suppressor would help avoid detection its not a silencer nothing its a true silencer as we know but it was enough to reduce the improved report of the shortened barrel this is without this this is going to be louder than a 20 inch barrel AR-15 and the same logic applied to the xm177.

I think the sound and Flash moderator that's what I'm referring to is clearly going to be more effective, it has more volume, it's still not a true sound suppressor, although these are both just taking the same edge, so those are the basics , um, the handguard is this unique type of straight tube fiber and resin laminated together, so the retainer is standard, the standard round retainer of the day, but the handguard is completely proprietary, so at this point let's just do a comparison here is a very contemporary Colt AR-15 rifle, so this is part of the Colt model 15 K5 automatic rifle range.

This has been serialized on the upper receiver, so it is a British service example anyway, It allows us to compare a lot. First of all, let's take a good look at the overall length so you can see that the length of the stock is actually identical to the length of the original ar15/m16 M6 A1 stock, so it has gone through basic training as an aircrew with an M16 or an xm16 E1 or whatever, you'll be very familiar with this gun, the pistol grips will look a little squat and the barrel is very short, but the stock will look familiar, the buttplate is obviously smaller and then very clearly that the barrel is half the length, obviously some of that is offset by having the moderator on the end.

The handguard is much shorter, but the actual gas system is also shortened, making it one of those first. carbines, where are they shortening the gas system now, which makes it run faster and dirtier, which means it is less sustainable than a gunfight, but it is very practical and portable and, in this application, most importantly, It can be packed and stored, it is also very light, as expected? It's that short, it's super light, it weighs 4.75 or 2.2 kilos. I think I've seen incredibly light modern AR builds that are this light or nearly as light, but for 1964 this is the lightest 5.56 gun out there.

I think that's probably fair to say. Aside from the 607, which is their original SMG, so to speak, we now have the standard rifle buffer here, this is the Edgewater patent buffer. It looks identical, it is identical to the rifle shock absorber and in fact this allows Colt in their automotive product table. 15, so this means that Colt can quite legitimately claim that in their product table they had a sample of how many things in common there were across the entire range of the 15 auto and that the only difference with this is the barrel and extension of the receiver as it was then. called buffer tube there is clearly a little more to it than that as the receiver extension also includes the stock, you have the shortened pistol grip which is not common to any of the others, this device is exclusive to this model, um. the handguard is unique, there is more to the barrel than just the barrel, there is the front sight that blocks the gas tube, yes, a little naive of them to claim that you can swap two parts and suddenly you have a survival rifle, so this auto 15 Ranger that I'm talking about this, the base model is still the AR-15 rifle.

They are also including the xm16 E1 in there to show that they are still working on an even better rifle for the military, but it is the same, essentially the same capability. There are actually two what they called a heavy assault rifle in this range, one is just a heavy barreled rifle, essentially the M1 and the M2 is the belt fed model, and neither of them had any particular success, in fact , none of that initial range of auto5. Actually the 607 s was of limited use, I believe, by the US Special Forces before they specified some changes and it became the xm177, so it wasn't a success in and of itself.

Heavy assault rifles weren't really. The AR-15, of course, remains the same. a rifle, but the xm16 E1 becomes the M16 A1 um, it is more or less the same product that ArmaLite was offering, the other type of product unfortunately also not very successful at the range was the 605 carbine with a 16-inch barrel that also we have again, um some purchases were made of that, but it wasn't a success either, the success ended up being that experimental xm177 variant that diversified into its own lineage of carbines, which brings us to the M4 and unfortunately this same story, so which, strictly speaking, no. successes of that car5 range other than the existing success that was the AR-15 rifle and this was no exception, it was not adopted for use by the US Air Force or anyone else.

This was supposed towould give it much greater firepower than a standard pistol, the 1911 A1, which was in service at the time, which is what the aircrew had, otherwise other survival rifles were conceived for the aircrew, but this was not adopted now, surprisingly, it was not, it did not come directly to the ministry of The collection of defense patents that we received in 2005, it was actually handed over in 1968 as part of the amnesty associated with the change in the 1968 legislation. Much of the UK's

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legislation is based on the 1968 law and someone handed this in, which I think is interesting that they latched on to it, well, they got it very early in the early doors, so to speak, in '64 and then in '68 they handed it over, well, which could have been destruction, but fortunately it was. saved by the patent room and we have it today, as we often find with weird and wonderful

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, the idea may not be a success at first, but it may come back later and just a few years ago the US Air Force The US adopted the G. or the G 5A Folding Survival Rifle, which is the same basic idea, you split it into its two sets and Al, instead of the truncated pistol grip, it has a folding pistol grip, um, like this. that idea came back if the guys who came up with it were very with this 1960s predecessor, I imagine they were, I don't know, but it's funny how ideas can come back and it really makes a lot of sense, so, the british army aircrew flying Apaches they will be carrying a small truncated sa80 the l22 A2 US Air crew has the option of an essentially modern version of this thanks for watching guys we appreciate it um as always check out our various social media channels and if you're feeling touched, we have a donation link on the website and in terms of what's happening, we still have our exposure reloaded here on leads, that's until the end of June and also in June, but at the beginning June, June 6th, around the time of D-Day, we'll have uh, We'll open an exhibition at our Fort Nelson site which, for those of you who don't know, is on the south coast and is worth seeing anywhere. time of year, but if you go in June you'll see some uh, stuff dedicated to D-Day that we're excited about, but we'll see you here again next week.