S&W manufactures its own AR-15s and Colt had nothing to do with inventing it. They just bought it because Armalite couldn’t produce them in the numbers DoD wanted.
Only when I had a real M-16 in fair condition did I learn I was exceptional. "We have to use up all this ammo or lose our budget for enough next year". So I saw the guys in both right and left lanes weren't hitting the 300 meter targets so I timed my shots to make them believe they were hitting them..while nailing my own half consciously. Zen true moment but that was officially off record so I pushed for Sniper school. Got through the the first week excelling on windage, drop and such and starting on practical field when dragged out because I needed to wear glasses.
Despite some excellent snipers in history using corrective lenses that time's policy said my needing them was a disqualification despite my near-perfect qualifications otherwise. Loner, self-sufficient, purposely silent, able to bide motionless for hours while attentive - born for the purpose. But some REMF officer who never lived it said I wasn't qualified.
Ten years later I learned that service members got Lasik surgery free of charge to correct their eyesight - and allowed the previously eyesight-disqualified into sniper schools. "Great" I said bitterly, knowing I would have stayed in until retirement had they let me go the path I wanted.
But they probably would have booted me anyway, being a patriot standing for Constitutional principles and Christianity...the "right wing radical" they're determined to crucify now days as an example of undesirable. All the ideals I was brought up with are now wrong? How does that bring recruits in at all?