Rethinking the rifle
03-01-2002, 02:01 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Minneola, Central Florida, USA
Posts: 246
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
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
03-01-2002, 02:14 PM
#2
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Minneola, Central Florida, USA
Posts: 246
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
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
03-01-2002, 05:12 PM
#6
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Schenectady NY USA
Posts: 108
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
Edited by - bobgifford on 03/01/2002 18:14:58
Edited by - bobgifford on 03/01/2002 18:16:57
03-01-2002, 09:41 PM
#8
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Minneola, Central Florida, USA
Posts: 246
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
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
03-02-2002, 11:21 AM
#10
Fork Horn
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: roulette,pa usa
Posts: 349
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.