The transition of cartridge from magazine to barrel can be smoothed by minor beveling of the chamber of the barrel, by using round-nosed as opposed to flat-nosed bullets and by paying attention to condition of the feed lips and feed ramp of the magazine. The rear sight is a peep sight, which comes on a flat metal blade with an aperture (in later production two different size apertures available by removing and flipping the rear sight), and is adjustable for elevation (up-down).Īccuracy is sufficient for hunting small game at ranges to 50 yards.įlat-nosed bullets tend to jam on the edge of the chamber of the barrel. The rifle weighs 2.5 pounds, light enough for convenient backpacking.
The AR-7 measures 35 inches overall when assembled. The original barrel was aluminum using a rifled steel liner barrels of some production models have used all steel barrels, others have used barrels made of composite materials. The AR-7 is constructed primarily of aluminum, with plastic for the stock, buttcap, and recoil spring guide. When the AR-5 was adopted as the MA-1 but was not placed in issue due to the numbers of usable M4 and M6 survival weapons in USAF inventory, ArmaLite used the research and tooling for the AR-5 in developing the AR-7 for the civilian market. The AR-5 had the advantage of repeat fire over the then-standard M6, using the same.22 Hornet cartridge.
The MA-1 was intended to replace the M4 Survival Rifle and the M6 Aircrew Survival Weapon which was a superposed (over-under) twin-barrel rifleshotgun chambered in.22 Hornet and.410 bore, using a break-open action. The rifle shares some of the features of the bolt-action AR-5, another takedown rifle designed by Stoner for ArmaLite and adopted by the United States Air Force in 1956 as the MA-1.