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Lima Company, 3rd Battalion 1st Marines testing the new Stoner 63 & 63A rifle variants in Vietnam - 1967.
The Stoner 63 platform was designed by Eugene Stoner, designer of the ArmaLite AR-15/M16 assault rifles among others. The concept was for a modular weapon that would be built around a common receiver and certain interchangeable components. This would transform it into a rifle, carbine or various machine gun configurations by simply fitting the appropriate parts to the basic assembly. The Marines were impressed but the Army’s requirements were too varied which led to the weapon not performing to their standards.
The Marines got their hands on it for the first time in August and September 1963. The Stoner 63 was sent to the Marines Corps Landing Force Development Center at Quantico for evaluation, where it made a positive impression with its light weight and high ammunition capacity. It was later field tested by the Marines for a short period during April to June 1964 by a recruit company at MCRD Parris Island, SC. It wouldn’t be until 1967 that the weapon would be tested under battle conditions in Vietnam by Lima 3/1. Riflemen were issued the weapon in the Rifle configuration (in both 63 and 63A variants, while officers and certain other personnel received the Carbine version. The Automatic Rifle configuration was deployed on a limited basis in the squad automatic role, while Lima's weapons platoon received both the LMG and MMG configurations.
The weapon would be plagued with various problems in design and performance over the coming years and ultimately it was rejected as a service wide weapon. Its only real success was with the Navy SEAL’s who adopted the LMG and the Commando, a derivative of the LMG. However by the late 80’s they too dropped it in favour of the new M249 SAW.
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