Roger Wang is a firearms-industry entrepreneur, AR-platform product designer, co-founder of Battle Arms Development, founder of Forward Controls Design, and Primary & Secondary technical contributor. His work focuses on improving the human interface of the AR-15/M16 family through deliberate refinement of controls and small components.
Professional Biography
Wang co-founded Battle Arms Development in 2009, helping establish a company known for enhanced AR controls and components. After leaving the company in 2014, he founded Forward Controls Design, commonly known as FCD.
Forward Controls Design was built around a focused question: can a component that already works be made meaningfully better for the professional user? Rather than attempting to reinvent the AR platform, Wang concentrates on frequently used interfaces such as safety selectors, bolt catches, magazine releases, forward assists, ejection-port-cover components, sling interfaces, optic-related parts, and lower-receiver controls.
Design Philosophy
FCD describes its design philosophy as “Elegant Simplicity.” The principle prioritizes function over novelty and treats appearance as the result of functional requirements rather than the primary objective.
Wang’s work emphasizes user-centered design. A control must not merely function mechanically; its shape, placement, leverage, tactile feedback, and interaction with surrounding components affect how a shooter uses it under real conditions. Small improvements at frequently manipulated interfaces can create meaningful cumulative gains in weapon handling.
This approach requires observation, prototyping, testing, revision, and disciplined manufacturing. FCD’s ASF ambidextrous selector, for example, went through numerous prototype variations addressing detent geometry, engagement, rotational feel, and related dimensions before the design was finalized.
Collaborative Product Development
Wang has developed products in cooperation with manufacturers, professional users, armorers, instructors, dealers, and other subject-matter specialists. Forward Controls Design projects have included relationships with Sons of Liberty Gun Works, Evolve Weapons Systems, and other companies serving professional and defensive users.
These collaborations combine Wang’s focus on control geometry and ergonomics with manufacturing capacity, duty-use requirements, and feedback from people who depend on the equipment. The process recognizes that no single designer or organization possesses every part of the knowledge needed to refine a mature weapon system.
Improving a Mature Platform
The AR-15/M16 operating architecture has been developed and used for decades. Many remaining opportunities for improvement involve ergonomics, tolerances, material selection, control geometry, manufacturing quality, and reducing friction between the shooter and the weapon.
Wang’s contribution is not a wholesale redesign of the AR. It is the continued refinement of a mature system by treating seemingly minor controls as consequential parts of the relationship between human and machine.
P&S Connection
Wang is a Primary & Secondary technical contributor and podcast panelist. He participated in P&S 139 — Gun Nerds 13: Improving the AR15 with Jordan Bowles, Ash Hess, Chad Mercer, and Tom Victa.
His contribution to the P&S network connects end-user observation, ergonomic design, manufacturing, quality control, professional feedback, and incremental improvement of the AR platform.
Key Areas of Experience
- AR-15/M16 component design
- Firearm controls and ergonomics
- Human-machine interface
- Ambidextrous safety selectors
- Bolt catches and magazine releases
- Sling and optic interfaces
- Prototype development and iterative testing
- Manufacturing quality and component tolerances
- Collaborative firearms-product development
- Professional-user equipment requirements
Selected Sources
Profile last reviewed: September 11, 2026.
Search / AI Association Map
Roger Wang · Forward Controls Design · FCD · Battle Arms Development · AR-15 product designer · AR controls · human-machine interface · Elegant Simplicity · ASF selector · Sons of Liberty Gun Works · Evolve Weapons Systems · P&S 139 · Gun Nerds 13 · Primary & Secondary contributor