Are modern versions more true to Stoner's original design, like the original rifling etc as indicated in the article? And do today's civilian AR15's generally have the manual bolt closure?
Most still do, but that is just inertia that is slowly dying out, it is not uncommon for civilian AR rifles to not include a forward assist, i.e. manual bolt closure. I don't keep up with military rifle configs to know if they still continue with forward assists.
>...like the original rifling etc as indicated in the article?
There is quite a lot of variety in barrel rifling these days, 1-in-7 isn't uncommon today and with the variety of rounds available, i.e. heavy bullets/light powder(slow) and light bullets/high powder(fast), barrel twist is also highly variable depending on what works best for your barrel length and cartridge selection.
Overall the AR platform has moved far beyond Stoner's original design, from the Marines recently adopting a "light machine gun" version of it, to the very short length M4s that is the standard today for the US military. Add into that the huge variety of uses and configurations that civilians use the rifle can wear so many hats. There is actually a really interesting series if you're interested from InRange TV, a firearm YouTube channel, that takes a look at what the AR15 might look like if designed with today's material advancements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI5NPiicXjE
Civilian ones have a lot more variety. For example, with rifling twist rate, it can vary from as slow as 1:16 to as fast as 1:6, depending on whether the rifle is intended to shoot very light and very fast bullets used to hunt small game, or heavier and longer match bullets used by precision shooters.
Military versions all have 1:7 twist (necessary to stabilize long-burning tracer rounds that were adopted as NATO standard, because they're longer). They do retain the bolt forward assist design, but anecdotally I've heard from some people who have actually used them in combat, so perhaps it's not as useless after all.
The only thing I can think of that was reverted to the original design is the fire control selector, which is not discussed in the article. It was originally safe/semi/full, but M16A2 replaced full auto with 3-round burst. It's generally considered a failed experiment, and M4A1 walked it back to full auto.
Unless you can manage to keep it super clean and perfectly lubricated (which kind of counteract each other) you'll be using the forward assist now and again.
There's also a difference between perfectly clean and having used it a while where carbon builds up making it more reliable -- a lot less likely to need it after the third time through a live-fire exercise than pulling it out of the weapons room and heading down to the range.
> It was originally safe/semi/full, but M16A2 replaced full auto with 3-round burst. It's generally considered a failed experiment, and M4A1 walked it back to full auto.
We'd get yelled at if they caught us using 3-round burst because it was a waste of bullets. Each squad had 2 SAWs and each platoon had 2 M60s so they wanted the riflemen to try for precision fire (as opposed to "spray and pray").
I've spent too much of my life with an M16 it seems...
From what I heard, this even affected semi-auto accuracy, because the trigger pull would vary a little bit in different stages of the cycle, making it harder to get that perfect break. Do you recall anything like that from your personal experience?