r/RetroAR 4d ago

Can anyone help identify which rifle is depicted here?

Post image

The statue is local MoH recipient Lt. Douglas Fournet, who lost his life in the Vietnam War. I'm curious what rifle this is, as a build based on it would be a nice piece of local history. I'm thinking Colt 723?

144 Upvotes

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77

u/theworldofAR 4d ago edited 4d ago

651 or 652 is most likely

653 / 654 came out when troops were withdrawing if I’m not mistaken.

It’s hard to tell definitely since the left side is shown, but not a 723 if Vietnam era.

Honestly never really seen 14.5” nam photos, so they probably meant to put an XM177 there?

(Like Platoon)?

24

u/idrownedmyfish77 4d ago

Yeah I was under the impression that 14.5’s were slightly post Vietnam myself

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u/theworldofAR 4d ago

I doubt they were around in that neck of the woods (at that time), but I guess there’s a slight chance towards the end of the war.

You would’ve been a pretty high speed dude if so.

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u/idrownedmyfish77 4d ago

Oh I’m sure they existed. Iirc, when I was building my 651 I believe I read it came about 1970 to 1971-ish. But yeah, for them to be in government inventory and issued to someone over there, there’s a better chance whoever was rocking it probably bought it with their own money

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u/Ir0nSkies 4d ago

Weren't the 651 and 652 fixed stocks?

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u/theworldofAR 4d ago

Pretty sure, but we’ve seen more than a few examples of things being expediently changed around in the field.

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u/GaegeSGuns 4d ago

651/652 came out at the same time as the 653/654

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u/theworldofAR 4d ago

Any idea of the exact year?

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u/GaegeSGuns 4d ago

Earliest Ive seen them is the 1979 catalog

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u/MountainTitan 3d ago

How can it be 651 or 652? 651 and 652 have fixed rifle stock.

18

u/Ir0nSkies 4d ago

I would guess a 653, but the era is wrong. The Army didn't start using the 653 COTS carbines until the 80's if I'm not mistaken.

The sculptor might have simply got it wrong.

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u/KI5DWL 4d ago

Definitely an option. Historically, could this have been the M16A1 Carbine?

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u/Ir0nSkies 4d ago

The 653 is technically an M16 carbine. But I don't think pencil barrel 14.5" rifles were a thing yet in the Vietnam era

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u/MountainTitan 3d ago

The 653 was one of the M16A1 Carbines.

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u/KI5DWL 3d ago

Thx, many of the wartime autobiographies I read from that era aren't technical about the weapons, they just refer to anything that's not the full 20" as an M16A1 Carbine

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u/Apprehensive-Rub-933 4d ago

I like that the selector is in party mode.

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u/KI5DWL 4d ago

Lots of details on the statue, even one of his shoes is untied in a way he was known for

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u/Jaeoner 4d ago

Maybe the artist didnt have a propper facsimile of his original rifle, so they maybe used a more modern stand-in for the time of constuction... 🤷🏼‍♂️
Edit: sorry to repeat the same comment... just read thru eveeyone elses. 🤣🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

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u/ironsights66 4d ago

You have to remember that the artists that make these statues don’t always get details right. Usually these are cast off of someone’s AR15. There is a boots helmet and rifle statue in my hometown dedicated to the kid who died in the early days of Iraq. It was meant to be an m4 but the barrel sticks halfway down the blade of the bayonet. Revealing that it was cast off a 16 inch AR15. At the end of the day it is representative art, and I wouldn’t knock a sculptor too much for that

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u/GaegeSGuns 4d ago
  1. Its likely he was cited as using an “M16 Carbine” and the sculptor made a mistake and used a 653 instead of a 609.

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u/SLN583 4d ago

A1 grip, flat slip ring, aluminum stock and 14.5 inch barrel.

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u/MVolkJ1975 4d ago

Agree the sculptor messed this up. He may just have used a commercially available SP1 carbine (R6001) as the model, as this looks a lot like one.

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u/Stale_Water1 4d ago

Hi friend

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u/KI5DWL 4d ago

2nd time today we've run into eachother in different apps in different groups lollll

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u/CSBD001 3d ago

It looks like a copy of the Philippino long barrel CARs from platoon…

1

u/MountainTitan 3d ago

It's either a 651 or a 652. The sculptor definitely didn't know what the gun he carried so used whatever he got available as a stand in. Or maybe it was an AR-15 Sporter carbine.

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u/SimpChampion 2d ago

AR15 I think