While the AR-15 has been subject to just about every modification imaginable, the quest for a belt-fed version took longer to come to fruition than anyone imagined. Way back in 1998, rumors started circulating of an AR upper that could be fed from either box magazines or M27 links, like the FN Minimi or its apple pie offspring, the M249 SAW. For anyone with an M16 lower, this would be an easy way to add a belt fed to the collection, and for those of us who had to content ourselves with semi-autos, well, a belt-fed semi was (and is) still pretty damn cool.
The concept generated a lot of buzz, but actually getting from prototype to production proved to be a long and frustrating process, taking longer than anyone anticipated. The good news is that it was worth the wait, and since achieving widespread availability, the FightLite MCR has been subjected to extensive consumer testing.
Now, it could be argued that for civilian use, a belt-fed 5.56 is both overkill and subject to the manifest drawbacks of
