January 21st, 2021
7minute read
TheSpringfield Armory SAINTis the ultimate iteration of the classic American Peoples Gun.
And the developmental process that brought us this superlative recreational, competition, and defensive tool is indeed thought-provoking.
Eisenhower occupied the White House, andElvis Presleywas a soldier.
From its earliest iteration in the 1950s through to the latest versions of today, the AR rifle has become a highly evolved and capable design.
Their modest little enterprise was based in Hollywood, California, and sported a grand total of nine employees.
Sullivan, Stoner and company designed guns.
In this era,Parkerized steel and stained walnut still ruled the battlefield.
The SAINT’s family tree stretches all the way back to the 1950s and this Dutch-madeAR-10 rifle.
Stoners revolutionary new AR design, by contrast, fired 7.62x51mm ammunition and weighed a paltry 6.86 lbs.
Stoner achieved these modest numbers by utilizing aircraft-grade aluminum for his receivers and cutting-edge phenolic furniture.
He also used the simple, yet elegant direct gas impingement operating system to drive the thing.
The first .223-caliber AR-15 rifle developed for the CONARC trials was starting to take on some familiar lines. Note the straight 25-round box magazine and charging “trigger” inside the carrying handle.
U.S. patent 2,951,424 in the name of the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation covers the particulars.
The end result was exceptionally lightweight and beautifully accurate.
This AR was originally built under license in the Netherlands and saw action with Portuguese Special Forces in Africa.
The M16A1 would becomethedefinitive Vietnam-era service rifle.
CONARC stood for Continental Army Command.
This program was exploring a new lightweight rifle for the U.S. Military.
In 1958, Stoners crew submitted 10 rifles and 100 of some 25-round magazines for consideration.
The M16 family of rifles cut its teeth in the jungles of Vietnam, Image: U.S. Army
Arrested Development
Well skip a bit here in the interest of brevity.
The solution was the space-age M16.
The M16s teething travails are well documented.
The XM177 developed in the mid-’60s pioneered any number of features that profoundly influenced the Modern Sporting Rifles of today.
Congress got involved, as did some justifiably livid parents of fallen servicemen.
Beginning in 1965, the military began to explore the innate modularity of Stoners revolutionary design.
This resulted in the XM177 (or CAR-15).
The XM177 would set the path toward the M4 Carbine of today. Image: U.S. Army
The handguards on this new carbine were also redesigned such that the two halves were interchangeable.
The previous triangular design used on the M16 had unique left and right versions, complicating logistics.
The XM4 righted many of the intrinsic wrongs of the XM177.
From top to bottom we see the original 7.62mm AR-10, the Vietnam-era XM177, and finally the semi-automatic-only, civilian-legal Springfield Armory SAINT.
Predominant among these was the adoption of a 14.5-inchbarrel with a 1-7 twist rate.
These numbers were experimentally determined to be the best balance between portability and downrange performance.
It took a minute, but the M4 Carbine lifted off like a cockroach in a campfire.
The lineage of the civilian-legal SAINT rifle (below) traces back to the original1960s-era AR-15.
Civilian Siblings
But our tale takes an unexpected turn.
Up until this point, the military drove the development of the M16 family of rifles.
However, American civilians acquired an interest in semi-automatic-only black rifles of their own.
The Springfield Armory SAINT line of Modern Sporting Rifles offers something for everyone and is the aggregate result of decades of mechanical evolution.
American civilian shooters really couldnt get enough.
Capitalism, not government or educational institutions, is the primary engine driving revolutionary innovation.
If theres money in it, the best and the brightest will start competing.
The SAINT family has expanded to include a version in .308 as well, taking the design full circle.
As of 2009, there were 20.5 million soldiers under arms around the globe.
Thats one out of every 330 human beings.
At the same time, there were around 400 million firearms in American civilian hands.
The ultimate iteration of that unstoppable evolutionary process is curiously not the latest, greatest military M4 variant.
It is the Springfield Armory SAINT.
Heavenly Ascension
The SAINT family is broken up into theSAINT, SAINT Victor and SAINT Edge families.
Each of these offer a range of options and features with differing price points.
However, all are built on a solid foundation of rock-solid quality and top-notch features.
TheAccu-Tite tensioning systemexcises any potential wiggle from the receiver interface.
At 6 lbs., 11 oz., the basic SAINT is easy to carry and eminently maneuverable.
Reliability is the end result of half a century of steady mechanical evolution and development.
Even today, the SAINT continues to evolve and improve.
kindly ensure you are up-to-date on all current laws.
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SAINTSeries
SAINTVictor Series
SAINTEdge Series
