Charles Albert "Mickey" Finn (June 21, 1938 – April 24, 2007) was an American weapon designer who specialized in developing military equipment for the United States Armed Forces, most famously the M9 bayonet. After retiring from the defense industry, he turned to developing knives and sports equipment, including the Mickey Finn T-Bar putter.
Career
Finn originally worked as a delicatessen owner until 1975, when he began working in the defense industry.[1]
Finn's company, Qual-A-Tec, also called Phrobis III, Ltd.,[2] was based in Oceanside, California,[3] and later in Chino Valley, Arizona.[4] Qual-A-Tec specialized in designing and producing weapons systems, their most famous design being the M9 bayonet for the M16 rifle in 1986, which was the only design out of 49 other contract bids that had a zero percent rate of failure.[5][6] At the time, the company consisted of just ten employees, including Finn and his wife Wendy.[2] Qual-A-Tec also produced firearm muzzle devices such as suppressors, flash hiders, and muzzle brakes, including a custom suppressor for the Heckler & Koch MP5K-PDW, as well as other weapons systems, some of which were classified. In the industry he was referred to as "Q", after the special weapons supplier Q in James Bond fiction and the name of Qual-A-Tec.[7]
In 1988, after extensive research into black operations, author Tom Clancy used Finn's name to add an extra measure of realism to The Cardinal of the Kremlin, inadvertently publicly revealing his and Qual-A-Tec's involvement in classified weapons development.[8] Finn retired from the defense industry after this public mention and started a business selling military and hunting knives, while also designing sports equipment, until his death in 2007.[7]