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Sturgeon's House

Designing A Rifle From Scratch(ish)


Sturgeon

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I woke up one day and decided "why not design an entirely new rifle from scratch, and live blog it?" So here we are.

About ten minutes in and we've got the beginnings of a receiver extrusion made from 7075 T6 aluminum:

 

SOJ3AUQ.png

 

Currently I think the rifle will be in 5.56mm. It will not use STANAG magazines. @Ulric plz halp design new mag?

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5.56mm is too small for most north American game. 

 

I don't see a stripper clip guide in that drawing. 

 

What type of wood will you go with? 

 

I think if you put a forward mounted optic on it and kept throwing bolt and ejection path free that would work best.

 

Tell me, will the design be compatible with our previously existing saddle mounted rifle scabbards?

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2 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

I woke up one day and decided "why not design an entirely new rifle from scratch, and live blog it?" So here we are.

About ten minutes in and we've got the beginnings of a receiver extrusion made from 7075 T6 aluminum:

 

SOJ3AUQ.png

 

Currently I think the rifle will be in 5.56mm. It will not use STANAG magazines. @Ulric plz halp design new mag?

 

I might have something lying around.

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Optimized geometry:

 

WaJEQhU.png

 

From the last step to this one reduced receiver mass by 0.12 lbs and BCG mass by 0.28 lbs, which I think really illustrates how important it is to optimize your weapon's geometry. I could have gone on from the last step and started adding details and such, but then my rifle would have ended up some 0.40 pounds heavier than it needed to be!

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Too complex, use existing structural rolls/channels.

 

Stoner had a good idea with the AR-16.  Use as many simple bits as possible.  Make it so you can whack parts for it out of scrap metal, if needed.

 

Determine your desired receiver width, and work from there so that the bolt carrier will be the sole critical component.  Then make that carrier (and the whole piece) so it will use as many AR (or AK) parts as possible.

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To add- Tubular reciever.  One for 5.56/5.45/7.62M43, one for 7,62/7,92/7,62X63.

Your bolt carrier is the sole critical component. Look at a Sterling bolt. Designed to be self clearing. Incorporate a cut for "bolt hold open".

You have two diameters of tube, with two matching diameters of bolt carrier, and three bolt faces.  Use the Johnson bolt, and the AR-16/18 gas system.

For the lower use the second gen AR-18 FCS (M-16 bitsa), and if you want to be "innovative" use a molded lower. It's taking NO stress, and merely serves to hold the magazine and FCS in alignment. For added grins you could incorporate a dovetailed section to the lower, to allow swapping magwells, for the people who think they my want to have one lower and a million uppers.( Maybe one in 6,5X55, using Swedish BAR mags, interchanging with U.S. BAR mags when sanity prevails).

 

The trick is in incorporating a "datum" line in the upper. This is your core reference. All measurements come from this.

Make this the point at which your barrel/chamber/barrel extension pins to (pins, so you can market it's "interchangeability")

 

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