The AR-7 Explorer

Just about every shooting sports hobbyist I've ever known has owned one of these at one time or another; I've owned three, at various times. It was designed by Eugene Stoner at Armalite for the civilian market as a semi-automatic .22 version of the bolt-action AR-5, a .22 Hornet survival rifle that Stoner designed for the USAF. Armalite sold the tooling and rights to Charter Arms, who made most of the guns that are out there now. Charter Arms had a reputation for uneven quality back then and the AR-7 was certainly no exception. The guns were often fussy about ammunition,  magazine feed lips often needed tweaking, and owners reported numerous jams. As a survival weapon it had questionable value, as the sights were crude and the waterproof stock, which was designed to hold the disassembled rifle, often leaked. I sold my last Charter Arms gun, complete with original box, for around $125.

The rights to the design passed to Survival Arms in 1990, who I don't think made very many. In 1997 Henry Repeating Arms, who do have a reputation for quality,  picked it up, and improved it, using a new ABS material for the stock, and supplying new guns with two magazines. The gun itself is Teflon coated for better moisture resistance, and the receiver is grooved for a scope. The barrel is steel, covered with a synthetic coating. All of this makes for a much more practical and reliable rifle that you might actually consider packing for a backwoods trip. For me, personally, my preferred survival gun is my customized Ruger Mk-III hunter. It's more rugged, and more accurate- but it did cost almost three times as much as a new Henry AR-7.