How about modular bullets for the weapon?

Instead of seating a normal bullet in the cartridge, seat a female coupling-base. A variety of rounds with a male coupling can then be screwed into the base or snap locked in.

that would be interesting to see tested

About twenty years ago, there was a revolver that came out called the Medusa. It had the advantage of being able to chamber and fire a variety of pistol and revolver amunition and a variety of calibers. I think the cylinder was titanium and used an arrangement of longitudinal springs in each of the cylinder's chambers. So what about a universal pistol caliber magazine and a universal rifle caliber magazine?

The weapon operator would probably have to dial up or down the feed ramp to presets for given calibers. The Weapon chamber would neccessarily operate along the same lines as the Medusa and be scaled for either rifle or carbine; depending on which barrel type is installed.

The magazines could have a fixed width and fixed height. If the magazine spring or magazine elastic occupied a center column then a magazine and follower may be devised that changes its internal fore and aft dimension to accomodate different length cartridges.

While it would be nice to achieve the ideal, it would probaly easier to impliment barrel/chamber sets for ranges of common ( or most likely to be encountered ) battlefield calibers.

for a magazine there are two issues (assuming high capacity), the feed lips and the curvature of the magazine.

theoretically

The feed lips and follower can be swapped out (much like a baseplate)

But the magazine curvature, now that is a hard one to deal with. The Magazine for a 7.62x51 has a far different curvature than that of a rimmed round such as 7.62x54r.

That really makes it challenging, and would require an all new design.  I can thing of a couple ideas on how to deal with it. It would seem that a system such as the one the P90 uses just might  work as the basis for such as design, and the Drum mag with replaceable guts and tower would also work.

it could be a good multi caliber system, but just not a one size fits all when you think 22LR and 30.06. personally I like the drum system for the compact design, and it would be easy to have a 3 mag system. large cal rifle, small cal rifle, and pistol (all based on length).

I've read somewhere in the news that our troops are having to carry a myriad of batteries for the electrical and electronic devices that accompany them into battle. So why not expand the modularity into the soldier's loadout.

There is a brand of emergency flashlight that is self powered by shaking the flashlight. It uses a Solenoid Generator.

_

When you look at a typical semiauto or automatic action you wonder why someone isn't already doing this. The rifle action and function can act as a generator to recharge batteries ( or keep them charged) and/or to power some devices or applications.

I had brought up a topic on using high power magnets to control bolt speed and maybe lockup.

but the battery issue is a bit more indepth due to personal devices,

Most of the items run on D and AA batteries, but newer gear can use anything from CR123 3 volt lithium battery, to watch batteries.

The loadout is never the same from person to person, and in some cases the military is starting to use EZ-up tants with solor pannels built in to power and change devices during the day.  back at the bunk they have generators to charge batteries.

BUT, it would be possible to build a special buffer for the AR, and use the buffer tube/receiver extension for the area to wrap the wire. during recoil the energy could be generated and stored in capacitors located in the stock and could be used to charge a battery or run them directly (such as a recoil powered weapons sight).

it adds a little extra weight, but it would be worth it to see if it could work with a prototype

I think a really neat accessory would be a remote control weapon module that could be either stand alone or mounted on conventional vehicles. In the WW2 the Germans had a gun mount for stg44 assault rifle on top of some of there tracked assault guns.

http://www.ww2drawings.jexiste.fr/Files/1-Vehicles/Axis/1-Ge rmany/05-Sturmpanzers/StuG3/StuG3-Ausf.G(US).htm

There is a great deal of emphasis on intermodality and taking the weapon operator out of the hostile environment. The weapon mount could be connected by wire to an off the shelf Notebook computer. the itegral mouse or an attatched joystick could be used to direst and trigger the weapon. Normal and uparmored vehicles could benefit. Fixed or static defesive position could have more than one unit tied into a network in the same way that security cams are networked. Because of the video component to target aquisition the unit could also serve as a surveillance tool.

The theorised modular weapon system can now become a force multiplier.

Thanks the first thing I thought of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxBa5bQfTGc

You can buy it right now http://www.paintballsentry.com/

v2.2 is currently out

What about away to change the stability of the weapon to adjust the balance of the weapon and to adjust the weapon's balance to the operator of the weapon. Small discreet weights that can be locked to their assigned location can slide longitudinaly and transversly.

We can now consider the shooter part of the module.

We could also give the pistol grip variable geometry so that it can be manipulated and locked into an angle that best fits the shooter's grip.

adding weight has been done for over 50 years. even with my XP100 221 Fireball Pistol you could add 38 special bullets to the stock to help with the balance.

Works great for target shooting, but just adds weight if you have to carry it through the woods for a Zombie Hunt.

Lurking

nothing wrong with that....

got any ideas or comments on the topic?

whynot wrote: since the stoners are so FRIGGING expensive and hard to get, what's the point? No .22 lr conversion unit, none of the many advantages of the AR-15 (lowers, parts readily available, castings to finish guns that Big Bro doesn't know about, barrel swaps real easy, different rifling twists, drop in trigger jobs, luminous sights, optics, etc, etc. Sheesh, the AR's untouchable as the most versatile rifle out there.

The point is to learn from the past to create the future.  the Stoner was modular in design and could be setup as a rifle (mag fed), or a belt fed LMG. long barrel or short barrel.

keep in mind that many of these modular design ideas are NOW being built into some of the rifles used for testing to replace the M16 Series.

Being able to use a base weapon for ALL combat needs makes the system cheaper, and requires less training and simple logistics.

In fact you could make the design even more simple by using 6.5 Grendel for rifle and LMG so you would have one rifle, and one ammunition for rifles and LMG's

there is one Stoner design thats been on the market for years and it works very well (but could still use some improvements).

Now the point here is less parts, and the parts obtained are common parts. which makes it possible to design a weapon, and then produce a bunch of parts.  (if you are going to make one, you might as well make 5) and then in the end you can have 5 weapons suited for all configurations.

Thats the point of the modular weapon system.  make the parts easy to make with limited tools, and make the parts able to be used in other versions, such as a common receiver or barrel design, adjustable gas system etc.

Then you could post the plans on the parts and others could build that same weapon, and they design/build accessories or improvements and share with the group.  this way the project evolves much like open software design

I've been watching this thread on my phone and figured I'd register so I could give my $0.02 on the issue.

Been planning weapons for a while, seen some interesting ideas thrown around here, espicially concerning the AR platform, which is no surprise concerning its versatility.

As far as the modular magwell, here's my take on a solution. What if the SN was relocated to the thin strap of metal just forward of the takedown pin, below the upper reciever and above the trigger group on the right (normal ejection) side of the AR?

You could then in order to modularize the magwell, saw off the magwell (make them into 2 parts) and extend each component, adding an area where two large crosspins would fit. In order to satisfy each seperate magwell, the mag ejection mechanism (mag release) would stay magwell specific.

That area for the crosspins would extend the length of the lower receiver eh...maybe 1/2 to 5/8". That would make the modified modular lower even when used with .223/5.56x45 incompatible with standard unmodified AR uppers because of the increased distance between takedown and pivot pins. The upside is that all needed to convert between calibers and cases would be the upper barrel swap, bolt head change and removal of the two crosspins to change the magwell space. Another bonus is that the increased space would allow increased space for bolt travel, possibly decreasing the need for a buffer tube if a shorter bolt and upper guide rod/recoil spring is used, plus for all you belt-feeder advocates the increased space would increase space for the bolt to gain momentum.

Also bolt speed would be more consistent throughout because you would have a more consistent operating cycle, which would help extraction and ejection occur more smoothly, I predict.

Another thought I had would be complete modularization of the fire control group. What if you contained all necessary components of the fire control group (trigger, springs, hammers, detents, sears, disconnectors, and full-auto sears [in the case of 3RB, a burst cam]) in a self contained module? All needed to convert one lower to another would be removal of a single crossmember pin and the safety selector, cracking the takedown to pull it out, mix and match.

Of course the Feds' thirst for blood with the ATF regulations and what not could be taken into consideration, modular civvy rifles could have different milling specs to allow for modularization with certain semi-auto only groups, but would not have the milled-out headspace to fit the hammer-locking auto sear or the burst cam.

In regards to bolt carrier group, I think a great starting point and a base would be the AR-10 group setup. The AR-10 has a lot of mass over the AR-15 [.223/5.56] setup and would better withstand shooting heavy or more taxing calibers without undue need for upsizing of internals. For example, the AR-10 carrier and gas key (which itself could be modified to accept a piston, which is probably the easier way to go here) would be standard, but a 5.56 head could be interchanged with other heavier-than-7.62 calibers, such as for instance, a mag-fed semi-auto .338 Lapua Magnum AR derivative. You'd just need a headchange in regards to carrier. I think a AR-10 carrier should withstand most stuff below a .410" rifle shell without modification. As far as pistol calibers I think an AR-10 carrier with a blow-back head would do a great job of deadening the recoil enough.

As far as the concept of the weighted buffer assembly, I don't see an extreme need for it in calibers less than .308 (7.62). If you know your developmental history of the M16 it was the use of a dirtier and faster-burning powder that sped up the cyclic rate of the M16 too much which caused deposition and jamming issues. The buffer was one of the solutions the military devvies came up with to fix the cyclic rate and lower it.

Well this isn't the 70s anymore, and we've come up with better weapons technology than dirty smokeless powder and we've certainly refined our knowledge of gas blocks and how they play with the dynamics of a weapon. Civilian SAO rifles don't need the buffer for sub-.30 caliber because rate of cycle shouldn't be an issue, unless you're incredibly worried about recoil and you have a trigger finger that can perform about <850 pulls and releases per minute.

Military rifles should be able to get away with gas block modifications, again the buffer system doesn't affect the dynamics of a sub-.30 cal a great deal. Get cases 60mm or above (i.e. .338 Lapua Magnum at 8.58x70mm) and you'll need the buffer (maybe even a heavier one) because bolt speed may become dangerously high.

Just some things to chew on.

LOC,

Thanks for posting...

I am kicking some ideas around still...