POTD: The One That Lost and Won – Artillerie-Inrichtingen AR-10

Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have a rifle that lost its trials and still set the course for every US service rifle since. This is an early Artillerie-Inrichtingen AR-10 in 7.62 NATO, built in the Netherlands in the Portuguese contract pattern.

Eugene Stoner had the AR-10 in front of Army testers by 1956, and on paper it should have walked away with the job of replacing the M1 Garand. Seven pounds in 30 caliber. Aluminum receivers. An in line stock so recoil pushed straight back into the shoulder instead of climbing. Plastic furniture, a carry handle with the charging handle tucked inside it, and sights riding up high where that handle put them. All of it is standard now. In 1956 it read as science fiction to a board that had been buying wood and steel for fifty years.

It also showed up late, and it blew a barrel at Springfield during testing, which is the part everybody remembers. The T44 became the M14 instead.

ArmaLite licensed production to Artillerie-Inrichtingen in Holland, which built somewhere around 10,000 rifles. Sudan and Portugal bought them, and they turned up with the French Foreign Legion, Cuba and Chad. Portuguese paratroopers carried theirs through Angola, Mozambique and Guinea and thought highly of them.

Then the Air Force asked for something smaller, Stoner’s shop scaled the design down to 22 caliber, and that is the rifle we have been arguing about ever since.

Most of our POTDs utilize images from our friends at Rock Island Auction Company, the premier firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse their current auctions – who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!

“AI AR-10 Battle Rifle, Class III/NFA ‘SALES SAMPLE’ MG.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4097/299/ai-ar10-battle-rifle-class-iiinfa-sales-sample-mg. Accessed 2 Aug. 2026.

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