Assault Rifle Idea

N

Nightcrawler

New member
I know this technically belongs in the Full Auto Forum, but almost nobody reads that one.

I have an idea for a compact assault rifle for urban operations and CQB. Basically, it would have a 12" or so barrel, retracting stock, and ghost ring sights. It would be chambered in .30 Carbine, though ideally it would use newer ammo with slightly higher pressure, hopefully driving a 110 gr. bullet to, say, 2100 fps instead of 1900.

The reason I chose .30 Carbine is because the cartridge is small, and compact. The magaine well could be in the pistol grip, like an Uzi, which would reduce the overall length and better balance the weapon.

Put a good muzzle break and a decent cyclic rate, and I think you'd have a handy alternative to a submachine gun. JMHO, of course.
 
Even on steroids, a 30 Carbine isn't going to give you great performance out of a 12" barrel. I'll admit, it is a great way to carry a lot of 30 cal ammo while taking up less space, but I think its days for new firearms are pretty much over. Another point is that a 12" barreled rifle with a retracting stock would be a LEO/GOV gun or a lot of red tape for a person that wanted one. I think you would be better off sticking with 223 Rem for urban operations. If anything shorter than 16" is needed, something is very wrong.
 
Chamber it for a hot-loaded 7.62x25mm Tok cartridge, and you will have my most assuredly undivided attention. :cool:
 
There is a czech or yugo smg that is VERY much like that 10 in bbl, sliding wire stock, 7.62 tok select fire and 32 rd mag, i forget the designation of it.

Similarly the BIZON smg was made in 7.62 tok, 9mm, 9mm mak its a SHORT ak action witha 66 rd helical magazine and a side folding stock.
 
There's going to be three problems here: Two ammo related and an acceptance issue.

First, the Carbine round is long enough the weapon will have to have a rather long pistol grip to accomadate the magazine. This can be moderated by careful pistol grip design. With modern manufacturing methods and materials, it's possible to design a weapon with nothing in the grip BUT the magazine. The ill-fated Colt All-American 2000 comes to mind.
You may have difficulty working in an kind of grip safety, since anything that lengthens the grip even more will need to be eliminated.
However, the pistol grip magazine is THE way to go. Nothing works better than the "hand-finds-hand" reload method.

Second, the .30 Carbine round has FEROCIOUS muzzle blast, and more recoil than you would think.
Since muzzle breaks direct even more blast toward the shooter, you will need to weigh the muzzle device more toward a flash hider device than a break.

The original versions of the Colt Commando, (CAR-15) used a muzzle device that was actually a "mufffler". It reduced the huge muzzle blast of the 10 inch barrel to that of the standard rifle barrel. It has been called the "world's loudest silencer". It had problems with fouling, and after export of silencers was banned during the Carter administration, Colt discontinued it and increased carbine barrels to 14 inches.
Although there were problems, you might investigate this as a way to hold the blast to manageble amounts.

The real problem with new gun designs is getting them accepted by your target market, in this case Police and military users.
Your new gun must have features that the users want/need. It will be a hard sell to convince them that a gun that fits between the CAR-15 carbine and the H&K 9mm submachine gun is necessary. A lack of potential customers kills most new gun designs in the prototype stage.

I'd suggest staying with standard ammo. Trying to introduce a new gun, with new non-standard ammo is next to impossible for any other than a government introducing a new service rifle.
So difficult is it, that off hand I can't think of any in recent history.

With that said, there was/is a 5.7mm round based on the .30 Carbine, designed by Melvin Johnson. I think is is called the 5.7 Spitfire. It can be used by simply replacing the carbine barrel.
I'm unsure of the ballistics, but a smaller caliber bullet might be an advantage.
I would stay with you're original concept of a .30 Carbine range caliber. Most other calibers, such as the 7.62x25 would be seen as "just another submachine gun".

Personally, I'm still waiting for someone to develop the ORIGINAL German assault round idea. Something around 25-27 caliber, with a case about the length of the carbine round.

If you can solve the muzzle blast issues, and find a market, it sounds like a good idea. Good luck, and let us know how you do with it.
 
The .30 carbine bullet is basically a pistol bullet with a very poor wound track and substandard "stopping power"-It would be better suited to a rifle like-bullet that yaws on impact. The 30 carbine does have decent penetration though.
If memory serves me right awhile back Iver-Johnson made a very short weapon based on the M-1 carbine with about a 12" barrel, some had telescoping stocks? and some were designed for full auto fire also-I believe the model was called the "Enforcer".
As for assault rifle research you may see something here in the next few years-depends on how good the spies for the gun mags. are.
 
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