Charles Albert "Mickey" Finn (June 21, 1938 – April 24, 2007) was an American

weapon A weapon, arm, or armament is any implement or device that is used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime (e.g., murder), law ...

designer who specialized in designing

military equipment A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

for the

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. U.S. United States Code, federal law names six armed forces: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States Navy, Na ...

, most famously the

M9 bayonet The M9 bayonet, officially known as the M9 Phrobis III, is an American multi-purpose knife and bayonet officially adopted in 1986 by the United States Armed Forces for the M16 rifle. History In 1973, the U.S. military retired the M7 bayonet, i ...

. After retiring, he focused on designing

knives A knife (: knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidenced ...

and

sports equipment Sports equipment, also called sporting goods, are the tools, materials, apparel, and gear, which varies in shapes, size, and usage in a particular sport. It includes balls, nets, rackets, protective gears like helmets, goggles, etc. Since th ...

, including the Mickey Finn T-Bar

putter A putter is a club used in the sport of golf to make relatively short and low-speed strokes with the intention of rolling the ball into the hole from a short distance away. It is differentiated from the other clubs (typically, irons and woods ...

Career

Finn worked as a

delicatessen A delicatessen or deli is a grocery that sells a selection of fine, exotic, or foreign prepared foods. Delicatessens originated in Germany (contemporary spelling: ) during the 18th century and spread to the United States in the mid-19th centur ...

owner until 1975, when he transitioned to the defense industry. Finn's company, Qual-A-Tec, also called Phrobis III, Ltd., was based in

Oceanside, California Oceanside is a beach city in the North County (San Diego area), North County area of San Diego County, California, United States. The city had a population of 174,068 at the 2020 United States census, making it the most populous city in the Nort ...

, and later in

Chino Valley, Arizona Chino Valley is a town in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. According to the 2020 United States census, the population of the town is 13,020. History Chino Valley is the site of the first Territorial Capital of Arizona. The capital moved ...

. Qual-A-Tec specialized in designing and producing weapons systems, their most famous design being the

for the

M16 rifle The M16 (officially Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of assault rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States Armed Forces, United States military. The original M16 was a 5.56×45mm NATO, 5.56×45mm automatic ...

in 1986, which was the only design out of 49 other contract bids that had a zero percent rate of failure. At the time, the company consisted of just ten employees, including Finn and his wife, Wendy. Qual-A-Tec also produced firearm muzzle devices such as

suppressors A silencer, also known as a sound suppressor, suppressor, or sound moderator, is a gun barrel#Muzzle, muzzle device that suppresses the muzzle blast, blast created when a gun (firearm or airgun) is discharged, thereby reducing the sound inten ...

flash hiders is a Fighting game, fighting video game developed and published in Japan in 1993 for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM² console. ''Flash Hiders'' was followed by a 1995 sequel titled ''Battle Tycoon: Flash Hiders SFX'', which was also released exclu ...

, and

muzzle brake A muzzle brake or recoil compensator is a device connected to, or a feature integral (ported barrel) to the construction of, the muzzle or barrel of a firearm or cannon that is intended to redirect a portion of propellant gases to counter re ...

s, including a custom suppressor for the Heckler & Koch MP5K-PDW, as well as other weapons systems, including some classified projects. In the industry he was referred to as "Q", after the special weapons supplier Q in

James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

fiction and the name of Qual-A-Tec. In 1988, after extensive research into

black operations A covert operation or undercover operation is a military or police operation involving a covert agent or troops acting under an assumed cover to conceal the identity of the party responsible. US law Under US law, the Central Intelligence Ag ...

, author

Tom Clancy Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American novelist. He is best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science, military-science storylines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of ...

used Finn's name to add an extra measure of realism to ''

The Cardinal of the Kremlin ''The Cardinal of the Kremlin'' is an espionage thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and released on May 20, 1988. A direct sequel to ''The Hunt for Red October'' (1984), it features CIA analyst Jack Ryan as he extracts CARDINAL, the agency's h ...

'', inadvertently publicly revealing his and Qual-A-Tec's involvement in classified weapons development. Following this exposure, Finn retired from the defense industry and started a business selling military and hunting knives, while also designing sports equipment. He remained active in these ventures until his death in 2007.

Notes

External links

Mickey Finn biography from MickeyFinnGolf.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Finn, Mickey 1938 births 2007 deaths 20th-century American inventors