Eugene Stoner is considered, along with John Browning and Mikhail Kalashnikov, one of the most successful firearms designers of the 20th century. His designs, often using alloys and plastics to reduce weight without sacrificing strength, have been widely adopted by both military and civilian firearms users.
Stoner was born on November 22, 1922, to Lloyd and Brittania Morrison Stoner in Gosport, Indiana. He and his family had moved to Indio, California, by the time he started school. He attended high school in Long Beach, then worked for the Vega Aircraft Company (now Lockheed Martin), installing armament. After Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Marines in Aviation Ordnance, serving in the South Pacific and China.
Postwar, he held several different engineering jobs before settling at Armalite, a division of the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation in California, becoming chief designer. Among the many firearms he developed there, the AR-15 was the design of which the military needed new versions for the Vietnam War. In 1963, Secretary of Defense MacNamara ordered its adoption by the military as the M15 assault rifle.
The gun was used on the battlefield throughout that war. Stoner did not like the changes the military made to his design, adding to the controversy around the gun itself, much of it concentrated on its “overkill.” The weapon, and Stoner, by default, remained highly controversial in some circles throughout the 60s and 70s, necessitating his involvement in congressional hearings regarding the gun’s purpose and attributes.
Stoner had no college degree, was a quiet man, and was not interested in attention, let alone accolades. When, finally, he was out of the spotlight and able to move on, he and Robert Bihun started ARES, Inc., in Stoner’s garage near Port Clinton about 1971.
ARES grew quickly and moved to its present site on the west side of Port Clinton. The company’s quality product was (and still is) respected throughout the world. For example, ARES worked with the Shah of Iran to develop anti-aircraft cannons until 1997, when Islamic revolutionaries overthrew the Shah. Stoner attempted to maintain a low profile, no matter how respectfully gunmakers approached him with offers of more commercial success. He received royalties throughout life through his numerous arms and parts patents, too numerous to list here.
When Mikhail Kalashnikov and Stoner met in 1990 to try one another’s inventions, the rumor goes that Kalashnikov asked Stoner how it felt to fire the famous AK-47 that “won revolutions, ended tyrannical regimes, and is the most reliable in the world?” Stoner replied that he just “collected a royalty check every month.” Kalashnikov: “What? They pay you?”
Eugene Stoner never stopped designing. While at ARES, he also conceived and designed a prototype military gunboat, called the Ares 50 (for its length—military versions would likely be 75 to 100 feet). It was never under government contract while being designed, built, and tested in Port Clinton. It eventually became a superyacht, the SPITFIRE, after decades of evolvement. And he was working on a prototype lightweight airplane wing in his very last years.
He had married twice and had four children with his first wife Jean. He remained with his second wife, Barb, until his death in 1997, four years after being diagnosed with brain cancer. He continued to work during his illness. He put in writing specific wishes for his burial at Quantico National Cemetery in Virginia. Before he died in Palm City, Florida, in requesting a full and prolonged automatic firing by his honor guard, Stoner wrote that his “rifle (he considered this his greatest invention) was the first enabling
infantryman [sic] to fire effectively in long bursts and consequently—forever changed the way American infantry will fight their battles.” Each long burst was to be considered a salvo and he wanted “three salvos, thus maintaining the Roman legion’s tradition of striking their shields three times to honor fallen comrades.”
Eugene Stoner believed that creating a new light rifle for U.S. fighting men was his purpose. And he’d achieved that, although he felt that the military had ruined his invention. Nevertheless, he wanted to be buried as a Marine: His headstone simply states, “CPL, US Marine Corps.”
Another memorial to this brilliant, steadfast, but unassuming man is a small firearms business, owned and operated by Stoner descendants. Located in Martinsburg, West Virginia, it is Stoner Tactical Ordnance.
