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Sturgeon's House

OnlySlightlyCrazy

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Posts posted by OnlySlightlyCrazy

  1. I promised I would provide feedback at some point, but my brain is slow and timid. My chief thoughts are as follows.

    1. The arrangement of the bolt is one of the most peculiar aspects of the weapon. Your design certainly appears supported by sound technical reasoning regarding interplay with the rounds in the magazine. My concern is that a reduction in the number of bolt lugs will correspondingly degrade the precision of the weapon. Of course, this is in the context of military ammunition, and yet more worrisome,  military shooters. Further, it is certainly reasonable to accept some loss of precision to gain increase reliability of the weapon during feeding, given your starting premise. I would, in short, like to see the data.

     

    2. The retention of the AR-15 FCG components is an interesting move.  I always thought it odd that fewer companies exploited reusing existing components in this fashion. If I'm understanding correctly, it would also be easy to move towards a "cassette" style of trigger pack, which is of growing popularity with the AR-15 market. 

    3. Your decision to devise your own magazine is admirable, and you certainly seem to have succeeded. My friend is curious if you can handle longer ogive, possibly ~66gr range EPR style 5.56 projectiles in the magazines. I'm not sold on drums, as their weight and bulk are disconcerting, but the ability to have them is never a bad thing.

    4. I have no idea how you're going to solve the action-spring issue. I'm eager to see to what degree you can balance the forces acting on the bolt. Given you're trying to be unique, I wonder to what degree you'll end up matching the SCAR or other AR-18 descendants. Given the shape of the space you're working with, I do have my predicitions. (They mostly involve it being real goose hours, so I shan't share.)

  2. It's worth noting that many manufacturers, even some well regarded, choose to include M-Lok only on those surfaces and angles they deem most useful, using other (presumably cheaper or stronger) cutouts in other locations.

     hodge-wedge-lock-13-5_1.jpg

    Imo, this artificially limits the modularity of the rifle, which is one of the AR-15's many claims to fame. From what little I know, the ability of the rail to hold zero is - for aluminum or steel rails - determined mostly by the length and rigidity of the barrel nut. Flex of the rail itself is, if memory serves, less of a concern. That said, post 2005 any new rifle design does need to bear in mind that the laser, not the optic, is the primary aiming device for 50% of the life of the weapon, if not more, so paying additional attention or accepting additional weight in service of that fact is wise. 

  3. On 9/22/2018 at 1:51 PM, Sturgeon said:

     

     The early M16 was also too fragile. There could be a very interesting discussion of what "underbuilt" really means with regards to rifles that would almost exclusively cover AR-15 variants. They run the gamut. The first 17 AR-15s were so light and fragile that a whole host of changes were proposed during testing in the 1950s which caused them to gain three quarters of a pound by the time they hit production as the Colt 601. Being underbuilt by that much is perhaps one of the most extreme and clear examples I can find. The 601, though, was still too light and by the time development of the M16A1 was done it would weigh 0.69lbs more than that, almost a pound and a half heavier than the first 17 prototypes when they came out of Armalite's shop. Not all of that weight was to improve durability or reliability, but almost all of it was. And even then, the 1970s era M16A1 still had shortcomings in durability, which led to the M16A2 growing by another half-pound. So the total difference between the M16A2 (which was fully ruggedized) and the first 17 AR-15s was nearly two pounds - that's more than even the weight growth of the Dutch AR-10, which grew by about 1 2/3s pounds over its development! The AR-15 is a smaller caliber rifle, too to so when we compare these in terms of percents the degree to which the initial AR-15 was underbuilt becomes very clear:

    Dutch AR-10: Grew by 1.66 lbs (23% of initial weight)

     

    AR-15: Grew by 1.92 lbs (34% of initial weight) (!!!)

     

     

    What would you say was the minimum necessary amount of additional weight to soldier-proof the M16A1? Is it mostly the furniture, or were additional steps such as the new lower receiver and the accursed barrel truly needed?

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