DougCxx
Member
I have wondered this for a long time, and pondering one of the XM8/new mil rifle threads it came up again--why are there no centerfire blowback semiauto rifles? Or are there? I have not ever seen any....
The main reason I see quoted is that "the weight would be excessive", but somehow in my imagination that isn't true: if you can build a locking pistol like a 1911 that fires a ~450 ft-lb caliber, then to achieve the same buffering, a rifle in the 1300-ft-lb area would need a slide about six-to-eight times as heavy as a 1911's barrel and slide. That sounds like a lot, but it's not when you consider that you would be able to take a gas-operated rifle and remove all of the gas-system components, and the receiver could be built far simpler and less-costly as well. And even if it did turn out to weigh a bit more than its gas-op counterpart, you'd still have a large reduction in parts count, considerably cheaper/simpler manufacturing and (as I see it) a considerable boost in operational reliability as well. Does anyone build such guns at all? Have they ever tried?
The main reason I see quoted is that "the weight would be excessive", but somehow in my imagination that isn't true: if you can build a locking pistol like a 1911 that fires a ~450 ft-lb caliber, then to achieve the same buffering, a rifle in the 1300-ft-lb area would need a slide about six-to-eight times as heavy as a 1911's barrel and slide. That sounds like a lot, but it's not when you consider that you would be able to take a gas-operated rifle and remove all of the gas-system components, and the receiver could be built far simpler and less-costly as well. And even if it did turn out to weigh a bit more than its gas-op counterpart, you'd still have a large reduction in parts count, considerably cheaper/simpler manufacturing and (as I see it) a considerable boost in operational reliability as well. Does anyone build such guns at all? Have they ever tried?