We had the privilege of spending a couple days last week in Florida, attending the first of many seminars to be held by the Institute of Military Technology on firearms history and design. This particular seminar focused on two topics; Dutch trials rifles from 1800-1900 (presented by Mathieu Willemsen, curator of the Dutch Army Museum in Delft) and development of the AR-10 (presented by Reed Knight, who had firsthand experience with that subject). Both classes were informative and very enjoyable – we learned a lot and got to meet some other great people as well. Thanks for organizing the event, Mr Knight!
The Institute of Military Technology is an organization created by Mr Knight and his family with the mission of preserving important pieces of firearms development history and educating people about them (pretty much the same as our mission here at Forgotten Weapons). The Institute is based on Reed Knight’s personal gun collection, which includes a great number of experimental, trials, and unusual designs.
After the seminar, the IMT’s Director, Joe McClain, took a moment to speak with us about the mission and future of the Institute:
We don’t have a recording of the seminar presentations, but Mr. Knight did a good short runthrough of Eugene Stoner’s designs for American Rifleman TV a couple years ago, and you can see it here (after their 30 second commercial):
History of the M-16 Rifle: Stoner’s Armalite
That looks like a really interesting collection and seminar.
I tried the American Rifleman video, but have to confess that I gave up on it.
Adding background sound is bad enough, but adding meaningless sound at greater volume than the interview, and for an intended audience likely to have poor hearing.
perhaps I’m getting old.
Thanks for giving us the chance to try it 🙂