Robinson Armament M96 Picture thread!

alexD92

alexD92

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Hello everyone!
I though it would be nice for everyone who owns an M96 Expeditionary Rifle or Carbine to share them with the rest of us. They are no longer in production and are now a rare sight. I wish I could be the first one to post a picture of mine but I do not own one and have yet to actually handle one. Nonetheless, I still like the look of these Stoner 63 "wannabe" and they are the closest we can (or could) get.

Cheers!
Alex

Here's one I gracefully found on google images...

image006.jpg

Not mine.
 
They used to be around $2200 new at the dealer if I recall correctly. I have no idea what's the going price these days.
 
alexD92 said:
Could someone explain why the Stoner 63 never caught on?
Click to expand...

In the Vietnam war the Stoner 63 (MK 23 Mod 0)was very popular with the Navy SEALs...........there were a couple of incidents of the receiver take down pin vibrating out due to vibrations from their STAB boats that caused the upper and lower receivers to come apart and causing the weapon to fire uncontrollably....................IIRC, one SEAL was killed and another had his finger shot off...............After that the Navy decided not to buy any more Stoners or parts for them..........This problem was easily solved by going to a captive receiver pin, but the system never recovered from those two incidents..............The Marines were also interested in the system, but at the time the U.S. army controlled the buying of small arms for the services, and decided they would rather have the M16 and not to have to worry about fielding and supplying two different systems.........That's the Readers Digest version........Chief James Watson recounts this in his books "Pointman", and "Walking Point"........He was quite the fan of the Stoner system.........


I picked up a used M96 a few years backoff of the EE for around $1800.00 IIRC.........with the full length upper rail.................sold it off for around $1500.00 with a custom desert paint job............I loved the rifle........other then upgrading the bolt (factory recall), I never had an issue with it.................the EE prices I see today are more then the original retail.......too much $$$$ IMHO for a out of production rifle, no spare parts availability, and crappy customer service from RA.........
 
The M96 went through more birthing pains than the XCR - one of the early problems (which was solved) was the barrel loosening to the point where it would launch downrange. Unfortunate, because the Bren conversion would be the cats.
 
enefgee said:
The M96 went through more birthing pains than the XCR - one of the early problems (which was solved) was the barrel loosening to the point where it would launch downrange. Unfortunate, because the Bren conversion would be the cats.
Click to expand...

As I recall the early batches had bolt issues that were fixed with a recall. The later ones had the barrel issues.
 
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