Any info about this AR-10?

[Cosmik de Bris]

Can anyone give me information on my AR-10? It looks like a Portuguese model but has wooden furniture.

Cheers

 

[seanie!]

Is the charging handle inside the carry handle?

 

[Cosmik de Bris]

Is the charging handle inside the carry handle?

Yes it is, you press it down and pull it back.

 

[Shear_stress]

Where are you located? I believe original, Dutch-made AR-10s are vanishingly rare in the U.S.

 

[Cosmik de Bris]

I live in New Zealand, we have a lot of AR-10s here, both Sudanese and Portuguese models. I believe they were all dumped here from South Africa and Portugal. The Australians had quite a few too but were all destroyed when semi-autos were banned. All the Ar-10s I've seen here have plastic furniture hence the question about the wood on mine. AR-10s go for any where between US$1200 and US$2300.

Cheers

 

[HHollow]

It is a portuguese. The wooden handguards are custom made. The original handguards (wood or plastic) had vent holes. The pistol grip looks odd. The wooden buttstock is also a reproduction but has a very nice butt pad, which is unusual for these rifles. You are luck to have nice metal handguard heat shields as they are impossible to find.

Are any parts available in New Zealand? Scarce as hen's teeth here.

 

[SDC]

To clarify, the wood may be off of a rifle produced for the Portuguese, but the rifle was made by Artillerie-Inrichtingen, of Zaamdam, the Netherlands, on licence by Armalite. AI also made a run of rifles for the Sudan around the same time, but I believe they all used the longer style of handguards.

 

[HHollow]

The first very few AR10's were made in Hollywood, CA by Armalite. Then came the Dutch, who greatly omproved the design. The various Dutch incarnations of the AR10 were many, but generally fall into three broad classes: Sudanese, Transitional, and Portuguese.

A Sudanese contract rifle is shown below:


I have also been told that there is a Guatemalan contact AR10 that looks much like the Sudanese, except for the bayo lug to the flash hider:


The Portuguese contract rifle has completely different handguards and a larger stronger bolt. The Portuguese handguards are 4-piece, with metal heatshields covered in bakelite. I have been told by a Dutch gunsmith that wood was used for early rifles.


Many parts are interchangeable between the Sudanese and Portuguese variants. A Transitional rifle has a Portuguese barrel+bolt+handguards and a Sudanese upper+charging trigger+lower.

So many of the partes are interchangeable betwen these rifles. My Dutch buddies tell me that when the Artillerie-Inrichtingen factory closed many of the parts fell in the hands of local builders who made custom rifles that do not fall into any of the normal classes.

A few hundred semi-automatic AR10 live now in the US, and sit upon domestically manufacturered semi-auto lower receivers. Some of these rifles served time in Africa, and are pretty much worn out. The most worn out rifles tend to wear reproduction furniture. Below is a Portuguese rifle with new wood.


It seems that some of these Portuguese rifles lost their original metal handguard heat shields. That is the reason why it is common to see one-piece reporduction handguards for the Portuguese. Here is an example of wood and plastic.

 

[Cosmik de Bris]

Hi HHollow, thanks for all that information, we have communicated via email I believe after I posted on AR15.com. There are plenty of AR-10s around but not that many parts from what I can see. I'm still keeping an eye out for the furniture you wanted.

Cheers

 

[HHollow]

Now I recall our prior conversation. I can not keep myself from bothering people about parts.

Your serial number is 008100, which makes it a later Portuguese. These later rifles probably were not born with wood. My Dutch buddies tell me that the wood was initially used for ealy Portuguese rifles because the new plastic formulation was not handling the high temperatures.

I think genuine handguards made of wood or bakelite would have vent holes. Yours have none.

I would be willing to wager that the rifle below has the original wooden handguards. I might have an extra set of heavily used bakelite handguards.

 

[Lance White]

This picture sure looks familiar! I'm taking this rifle to my local military collectors club tomorrow to give a 15 minute talk on AR-10's.

 

[HHollow]

Lance: Is that Portuguese AR10 yours?

I found the photo on Sturm and posted it here as an example of a Portuguese AR10 with reproduction furniture.

Can you tell us anything else about the rifle?

 

[trader859]

Thought I would share my photos of my AR10