AR-15

The AR-15 is a lightweight, magazine-fed, air-cooled, autoloading centerfire rifle designed by Eugene Stoner of the Armalite corporation who developed it as a smaller version of the AR-10. Armalite sold its rights to the AR-10 and AR-15 to Colt in 1959 after which the AR-15 was adopted by the United States military under the designation M16. Colt retained the name AR-15 for its semi-automatic civilian/law enforcement model. Today the AR-15 and its variations are manufactured by a plethora of companies and have captured the affection of sport shooters and police forces around the world.

Some notable and revolutionary features of the AR-15:

An aircraft grade aluminum receiver
Modular design allows many configurations, as well as rapid swapping of parts for field repairs
Small caliber
Synthetic Stock and Grips
Carry handle
bayonet lug located under the front sight
front and rear sights are adjustable for windage

In the United States, variants with certain features were prohibited for new sales to civilians during the period 1994-2004.

The Colt AR15 SP1 has been designed to look and feel like the M16A1 battle rifle. The M16A1 battle rifle is select-fire, meaning that it can switch between semi-automatic and fully-automatic fire modes at the discretion of the user, while the Colt AR15 SP1 can only be fired in semi-automatic mode (one shot per pull of the trigger.)