Rethinking the rifle
 

I was stuck on the bus the other day and all of the jostling got me thinking about rifles.

If you were to completely redesign rifles (or pistols), what changes would you make? Technology has come a long way in the last 100 years, yet 90% of our firearms are using the same 100 year old designs.

For example, what happens if you use a much more powerful explosive to get hyper velocities with much less case volume. Maybe a 45 caliber that holds 20 rounds in a magazine stacked front and rear.

How about more electrically ignited weapons? Too easy to make full auto with a soldering iron?

People have been trying to make effective caseless rounds for many years. How would you do it?

How about a rifle that didn't kick the muzzle up because the barrel was perfectly balanced down the center of gravity of the stock and that was equal to the sholder stock area. No more muzzle climb.

Electrical (solenoid operated) mechanisms for auto reloaders?

Electrical scopes that were programmable to bullet load and used laser rangefinding to auto-compensate for bullet drop?

Dream on. Then, let me know.

Chubber

Chubber

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

Some other things I forgot to put on the first list:

How about round storage? Anything but a box full of bullets pushed up by a spring. Maybe taped together? Stored under the barrel, side to side, fed from within the stock, or what? Assembled before firing?

Pneumatic recoil buffers for recoilless rifles? (They are starting to do this with some shotguns stocks.)

Long distance electrical shock delivery? (Like a tazer, but good to 100 yards?)

Gotta have something to occupy the mind until next season....

Chubber

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

i kinda like rifles just the way they are

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

I'm with DenClark, I like my rifles just the way they are. I don't see that you could improve much over one of todays good bolt guns!

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

I'm with the other 2 guys

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

alot of your feeding ideas for repeaters have already been done, side to side(staggered) for pistols, montgomery ward used to make, and browning still does a autoloading .22 wich feed through the stock, nearly all lever guns are under the barrel. Electronic ignition is starting to happen. Alot of your ideas are good for range or target guns, but the way i think is that electronic anything is unreliable in the field for hunting, if my auto programing scope messed up and decide to to shoot a 220 grain load instead of the 150 i would be sol. water and electricy dont go good together no matter how much sealing is done, it will fail evenuatly then ur outa luck. Browning machine guns and many other guns in world war two and plenty of machine guns today are "tape fed" ,but the small arms that were fed by a stripper clip were often a pain, and very cumbersome so the idea went away. hight pressure explosive would need more steel, or space age materials to keep the gun from exploading, wich would either make it wiegh more or much more expensive. nice thinking tho, dont mean to put you down or anything, just my opinion on things

Edited by - bobgifford on 03/01/2002 18:14:58

Edited by - bobgifford on 03/01/2002 18:16:57

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

If I were to design the perfect rifle, it would probably look alot like a mauser 98.

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

I have a couple of Mausers. Nice rifle and very typical.

And I collect military arms, so I understand that some people yearn for things to stay they same.

But, they can't be the same forever or we would never have many of the things that we take for granted: Cartridges, semi-auto actions (blowback, gas operated, etc.), optics, synthetic stocks, etc. All are different, "unnecessary", more prone to failure, etc. But, all get you something that someone decided that they needed while hunting, on the battlefield, etc.

I am an engineer. It is a curse to go through life questioning how things work, how they could work differently and how to go about making that happen. Not all designs are improvements. There are a lot of failures along the way to any improvement. But, without questioning the status quo and trying designs on paper and in steel they would never get done.

I know most of the things I have discussed have been done. But, what HASENT been done? What is just a dream now, but high tensile polymers could make a reality?

Come on. As much as I love ramming lead balls down the muzzle of a pipe with a little hole at the other end, it isn't the be all and end all of firearm design.

Chubber

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

Best to keep well enough alone.Ruger Redhawk

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

I tend to go backwards in my rifle technology.Although I hunt with modern rifles and handguns, 90% of my deer hunting is with traditional ML. This year i killed 3 deer, 2 with a flintlock and 1 with a caplock.

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

I wonder if a ceramic bore liner would work?
If you had a bore that was made out of an extremely hard, smooth ceramic material, accuracy should improve. The rifling would never wear out and due to the heat resistant nature or ceramics, the throat should never erode making a gun last virtually forever.

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

I think the limit has pretty much been reached with smokeless powder. Maybe in the future we'll see some kind of rifle where you'll just stick a bullet in there and the propellant will be injected through the breech? Maybe gyro stabilized sighting systems and no more rifling, instead saboted bullets like the projectiles out of the M1 tank gun. Zero lock time ignitions like are coming about with the electric ignition guns. All in all I think the biggest advances are to be had by increasing velocity to 3-4 times current levels by some alternative propellant, lightweight alloy saboted bullets, and smoothbores. Imagine the kinetic energy of a 50 grain tungsten projectile at 12000 fps that has a ballistic coefficient around 3.0. Essentially you'd be shooting a needle with greater energy than a .375 H&H and virtually no drop over the ranges you can see a game animal. Of course, if you hit a deer with that thing you'd probably splatter parts all over the hillside.

I tend to agree with the others, I'm satisfied with the bolt action rifle in it's current incarnation, but it's fun to wonder what might happen.

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

I am no engineer or riflesmith, but I am fascinated with guns and weapons. For a military style weapon or one where you need to have reduced muzzle jump, why couldn't you build one with the barrel and action suspended below the handgrips? Imagine a Thompson gun turned upside down with two pistol grips above the barrel. Biomechanically, aren't the muscles in our arms/shoulders/backs stronger when we are pushing down rather than trying to pull down?

With an electronic ignition system, it wouldn't matter where the trigger was located.

The Mouse

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

the only thing i'de change is makeing them all full custom rifles ( better factory tuneing and handwork done on the reciever and bolt,better target quality triggers, better stock fit and finish,better quality on barrels such as muzzle crowning and other acurracy enhancements.) and all of that for an economy model price

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

Hey, I like the idea of different bore linings. Chrome lining was a good first step. How about Teflon jackets on bullets? 100 times better than molly.

Also, I have contemplated moving the barrel down under the ammunition source to lower the thrust angle and keep the barrel down under auto fire. Safety might suffer, but I was thinking more of a balanced system where the muzzle would neither sink or rise.

I guess the secret to low diameter, high cross sectional density rounds (needles in sabots) is keeping them spinning (they have low angular momentum) and making sure they expand on impact.

Powder needs another quantum leap. Higher density of power would make cartridges much smaller, if not much lighter. But, some wahoo would load a 30-06 with it and blow themselves to kingdom come.

Airguns have been making big technical strides. How about a chemical reaction in the stock that would generate a high-pressure gas to launch a bullet?

Just noodling things through.

Chubber

RE: Rethinking the rifle
 

rail gun? 3miles per second?