Has anyone tried this? I mean on an AR15, it’s extremely common in other light autoloading rifles.
It would of course require some pretty big design changes. I feel like one of the biggest potential reliability problems with the AR is that it runs the round bolt carrier inside of a round tube and there’s limited space for dirt and fouling to go.
this is definitely not one of those “teh AR15 is unreliable!” threads, a properly built AR is very good.
it just seems like running the bolt carrier on rails could potentially improve the reliability of DI guns, and alternately mitigate the whole "off axis force’ due to gas pistons.
There’s plenty of space for dirt and crap to go. The carrier has bearing rails on 4 sides of it with several thousanths of gap between the carrier and the receiver everywhere else.
Stoner went on to develop the 63, which used a stamped steel receiver and gas piston. It saw limited trial use by the USMC, but saw quite a lot of use by the NSW guys in it’s beltfed mode
Exactly what rail system/style were you proposing? A simple raised area in the upper? Somthing that utilizes the bcg dimensions, and captures an area of it?
You wanna make something that already runs on rails…run of rails instead?
There’s a huge “Yo, Dawg…!” Xzibit joke floating around in here, somewhere, just waiting to drop, so you might want to take a moment and re-think how you want to articulate this.
I think we can all agree that compared to something like an AK the AR15 has quite a bit less clearance for dirt.
I’m thinking redesigned carrier and upper. It’s just a thought… compatibility with as much existing hardware as possible seems to be the route to success in the AR game. This platform is definitely not going away.
Given how many piston guns sell (which tend to be poorly thought out hacks) … I’m hesitant to completely dismiss this idea.
The AR-18 is the father of most modern designs and it is awesome, they thought it would crush the AR-15 but it was too late, Look at the G36, SCAR, ARX 160.
The AR has a good manufacturing process though, CNC machines are a dime a dozen, no tooling required, simple boring and on axis alignment, but it really makes all the sense in the world when you consider the gas system and how it doesn’t provide the tilting moment. So there is no need for a perpendicular surface to cancel the moment.
There is good and bad with all, but the true piston AR was the AR18, I wonder if it could be brought back by a good name and get any real military sales.
i don’t think anything that can’t be slapped onto an AR lower is going to see serious sales. The ACR proved that.
I looked into ar18’s when i was new to the whole EBR game… they’ve got some durability problems i guess, and parts support isn’t anywhere near where it is with the Ar15.
those daewoo rifles are neat, but hard to come by also.
Have you looked at a M&P 15-22 it uses seperate rails for the bolt to ride on. Something similar could be done on a full caliber AR but would only be usefull or needed if making a piston gun, at that point why not just buy a SCAR?
i was kinda hoping for a meme free dialog here but ok…
if you think the AR is perfect you’re delusional and this thread isn’t’ for you.
bottom line is something like an AK is a lot more likely to function when full of sand. Something i haven’t really seen addressed in any alternative AR upper is the whole round peg in a round hole situation with the bolt carrier and receiver. It’s a design not really found anywhere else.
Instead of making it run on rails, maybe on air bearings. Sure you would have to carry a compressor on your back but think of the improved reliability!
I think its perfect. Its perfectly killed more people than small pox. That being said you are out of your fucking league junior. Every half baked design you can dream up has already been tried at least twice. If you want a bolt group on rails, there are a dozen rifles to fit your needs. Unfortunately the AR-15 isn’t one of them. Now do us all a favor and go away quietly…
If you study it closely, you will see the design is given generous clearances to allow the BCG to float inside the upper. Eliminating tilt with rails means the clearances at those points need to be reduced. If more clearance is needed to assure reliability, this defeats the purpose.
Guide rails do not eliminate bolt/carrier tilt in other designs. Designers just reduce the amount of tilt by keeping the bolt/carrier short and/or controlling where the tilt vectors happen. With the AR BCG, tilt happens at the rear of the carrier where it can rub the receiver extension. This isn’t a problem with the original design because little tilt is induced. With the AK, the tilt happens at the front (the AK bolt group is longer in front of it’s guide rails than at the rear) and the tilt rubs nothing
