all small arms production. Between 1975 and 1978, there was a brief pause in production as ArmaLite was finalizing an agreement with Sterling Armaments Company to produce the rifle under license. From 1979 until 1985, the Sterling Armaments Company of Dagenham, Essex, in the United Kingdom produced the AR-18 and AR-180. In 1983, ArmaLite was sold to Elisco Tool & Manufacturing of the Philippines, which planned to pitch the AR-18 as a replacement for the license-produced M16A1 then in service with the Armed Forces of the Philippines. As a result, production stopped in 1985 as the tooling was sent to the Philippines. Under Elisco several modifications to the design were implemented and twenty (20) prototypes of four designated types (AR 101, AR 102, AR 103, AR 104) were built and underwent testing and evaluation. About 3,500 of these rifles, collectively designated the AR Series 100 were approved for production. Production plans for the AR Series 100 would fail to push through as Elisco would be dissolved and its assets liquidated in the late 1980s. In mid-1968 ArmaLite set up pilot production in its Costa Mesa plant producing 1,171 AR-18s and 4,018 AR-180s between 1969 and 1972. Howa produced 3,927 AR-180s between 1970 and 1974. Sterling manufactured 12,362 AR-180s between 1979 and 1985. In all, just 21,478 AR-180s were manufactured over 16 years of production between 1969 and 1985. Operational use Unlike the AR-15/M16, the AR-18 did not see substantial sales success, and was never officially adopted by any country as its standard service rifle. The reasons for this are unclear, but may have had something to do with the existing sales popularity of the AR-15/M16, as well as the need for additional field testing and evaluation of the Costa Mesa-produced rifles, which were still in the advanced prototype stage. The AR-18 was purchased for evaluation trials by various armed forces, including the United States (1964) and the United Kingdom (1966). These suffered various malfunctions during evaluation trials by various nations. During the US trials at Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1964, the AR-18's functioning was found to vary from lot to lot of ammunition. The evaluating board concluded that while the basic design of the AR-18 was sound, it required additional minor revisions and changes to improve safety and reliability before it could be considered for adoption as a service rifle. The British Ministry of Defence (MOD) tested the AR-18 in