Slovenian SAR80: Sterling Out-Simplifies the AR-180

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! The British Sterling firm designed the SAR-80 (specifically, their engineer Frank Waters) as a very simple rifle to sell to countries outside the main NATO/Warsaw spheres of influence. Sterling ended up getting a license to produce the AR-18 though, and didn’t put Water’s design into production. When the newly formed Chartered Industries of Singapore came looking for a rifle to produce, the SAR-80 design was a chance for Sterling to sell a production license. CIS needed something to produce domestically to equip the Singaporean Army, and the SAR-80 met their needs. After selling the rifles to their own Army, the company went looking for export clients. They found a few, including Croatia, the Central African Republic, and Slovenia. A total of about 80,000 SAR-80 rifles were made,