The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - if you could design a rifle, what would it be?...

jason41987 · April 21, 2012, 09:05 AM

its so hard for me to think of a garand in anything but a .30-06 though... i have a 3D CAD program on my computer i use for engineering different things... ive designed musical instruments, fishing reels, furniture, and various mechanical devices... ive converted a 1500s era wheellock rifle into 3D, fixing some of the miscalculated dimensions here and there to improve the fit and finish of it... and ive also converted blueprints for firearms before....

so, ive actually designed a couple rifles with this thing... my first design was a long-stroke gas system with a rotating bolt, in this design i made the extractor and ejector components level with the bolt carrier itself, so that the bolt could be removed, flipped upside down, and reinserted into the carrier, causing it to eject out of the left side rather than the right, making my design ambidextrous and left-hand friends, with a closable guard over the ejection port on either side and for low cost and simplicity, availability of parts i designed it to take the AR-15s semi-auto trigger group

for my next design id like to go with a delayed blowback system, and try to achieve 1000-1400ft/lbs of energy from the muzzle using a rimless, necked down .357 mag (made from .223 brass)

heres one thing to remember about kinetic energy, which translates into ballistics too... if you double the weight of a bullet, you double the kinetic energy, however, if you double the velocity, you quadruple the kinetic energy, so by necking down the rimless .357 i was hoping to gain back the energy lost by the case capacity lost from necking it down and using a short, 110 or so grain .308 bullet with enough energy and accuracy to take a deer 200-300 yards out, essentially allowing me to replace a .223 in a shorter, lighter package... but of course, i have no test bed for this i would feel safe firing it from, so i may take a barrel blank, ream it for this round, then have a simple screw on breech i can use to test the round without actually putting it into a functional rifle (yet)

April 21, 2012, 09:05 AM	#21
jason41987 Senior Member Join Date: April 19, 2012 Posts: 479	its so hard for me to think of a garand in anything but a .30-06 though... i have a 3D CAD program on my computer i use for engineering different things... ive designed musical instruments, fishing reels, furniture, and various mechanical devices... ive converted a 1500s era wheellock rifle into 3D, fixing some of the miscalculated dimensions here and there to improve the fit and finish of it... and ive also converted blueprints for firearms before.... so, ive actually designed a couple rifles with this thing... my first design was a long-stroke gas system with a rotating bolt, in this design i made the extractor and ejector components level with the bolt carrier itself, so that the bolt could be removed, flipped upside down, and reinserted into the carrier, causing it to eject out of the left side rather than the right, making my design ambidextrous and left-hand friends, with a closable guard over the ejection port on either side and for low cost and simplicity, availability of parts i designed it to take the AR-15s semi-auto trigger group for my next design id like to go with a delayed blowback system, and try to achieve 1000-1400ft/lbs of energy from the muzzle using a rimless, necked down .357 mag (made from .223 brass) heres one thing to remember about kinetic energy, which translates into ballistics too... if you double the weight of a bullet, you double the kinetic energy, however, if you double the velocity, you quadruple the kinetic energy, so by necking down the rimless .357 i was hoping to gain back the energy lost by the case capacity lost from necking it down and using a short, 110 or so grain .308 bullet with enough energy and accuracy to take a deer 200-300 yards out, essentially allowing me to replace a .223 in a shorter, lighter package... but of course, i have no test bed for this i would feel safe firing it from, so i may take a barrel blank, ream it for this round, then have a simple screw on breech i can use to test the round without actually putting it into a functional rifle (yet)