Mk36 – AR and M1 Collide

In the coming weeks we're going to give you a unique opportunity. We're going to show you how the MK36H rifle comes to life, from concept to reality, with the focus on a new rail design by Mechanics Hill Marketing.

What is the MK36H rifle? It is — or will be — a new rifle platform combining features of the M1 Garand and the ubiquitous AR-15 so many of us are used to. It'll feature a new muzzle brake and a modular rail system with a single, uninterrupted Pic rail for an extended sight plane. The basic concept for the rifle has been around for a while, and you may have seen prototypes out there, but as you'll see the project is now evolving.

Let's back up a bit first and provide some background.

Mechanics Hill – A Background

In the late 1700s, a gun manufacturer by the name of Alexander Kennedy left a British occupied Philadelphia and set up his factory in the town now known as Robbins. Upon founding one of the largest gun factories in the region, the town was thus christened “Mechanics Hill.” Kennedy also established what was reputed to have been “the largest gun factory in this part of the south” in which he worked as many as seventy-five hands.

Alexander’s son, David, carried on the factory legacy well into the nineteenth century. David also established the first Baptist church in the area, Mechanics Hill Baptist Church. The roots of that church are locally and physically present in both the Flint Hill Baptist Church and the Acorn Ridge Baptist Church. Robbins is still a small, country town, and is once again the location for unprecedented firearms innovation at work. The Robbins, NC area is very well known for it’s craftsmen, from world renowned pottery to firearms manufacturing this section of North Carolina still represents the “salt of the earth” approach to innovation.

Osprey MK36H

Osprey Armament, based out of Hutto, Texas, had their sights set on a new rifle platform. The company wanted to take the M1A receiver and action and redesign it to fit into an AR-style lower which would offer similar controls as those found on AR platforms. A few gen-1 prototypes were built in 2014 made from carbon re-enforced polymer; in early 2015 gen-2 prototypes were built out of billet and tested. The demand grew from there. All Osprey needed was to commercialize the rifle and unleash it on the market.

Mk36 – AR and M1 Collide

Knowing his familiarity with product development, Osprey reached out to Joey Boswell of Mechanics Hill for help developing a new rail system for the MK36. The initial product from the MK36 family will be the MK36 Hunter, a weapon designed specifically with the hunting market in mind. The MK36H, as it will be named, will have a .308 Winchester chambered barrel and an ambitious final weight of less than eight pounds, unloaded. The rifle will also feature a new, unreleased muzzle brake and a modular rail system that's currently being designed. This rail system will feature a single, uninterrupted Picatinny rail for an extended sight plane mated to a lower hand guard section and connected with user selectable panels featuring either Pic rail, M-LOK, or KeyMod sections.

Future members of the MK36 family will be chambered in .30-06 and other popular hunting calibers. The MK36 platform will be box fed via 20 round magazines and all versions will support the platform's MK36 modular rail architecture.

Check back in with RECOILweb.com and watch the process with project updates every Friday as the MK36 is transformed from an idea to a completed weapon.

Mechanics Hill is a marketing and consulting company, located in Robbins, NC, owned and operated by Joey Boswell. You can find the company online here or follow it on Instagram (@mechanicshillmarketing). It's also on Facebook.