Not long after Mr. L. James Sullivan designed the .223 caliber Mini-14 for William B. Ruger in 1967, a U.S. Army general officer told Bill Ruger that had the rifle been available a few years earlier, the U.S. Army would have adopted it. It’s true that a decade earlier, General Willard G. Wyman, commander of the Continental Army Command (CONARC), had twisted Eugene Stoner’s arm to design a rifle similar to the U.S. M2 carbine in the new “twenty-two” caliber.