straight-pull actions?

Not many rifles have been made as straight pull actions.

It occurs to me than an AR-15 is essentially a straight pull action, that part of it just isn't very ergonomic. With a different operating handle, maybe a side pull handle, it could be an easy straight pull action. Change the upper receiver and bolt carrier and you could have an easy straight pull action.

Then it occurs to me that this would be natural for a linkage to operate like a Glock trigger- the charging handle pulls the bolt back then at the end of the travel it steps out of the way and lets the bolt travel forward with the recoil spring, ready to go. There could be a separate spring to return the charging handle. I wonder why nobody has ever done something like this.

To further this you could swap the lower receiver too, to a form that wouldn't accept a standard AR upper, take out the gas tube, and plug the hole in the front gas block. That way those of you with ARs would be able to keep them after January 2021. If it's not automatic, if it doesn't have the AR lower, if it won't accept an AR upper, then it would no longer be an AW.

New business opportunity for someone- design and manufacture these conversion kits, manufacture as many as you can in the next 3 months.

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I’m going to bypass the part about not being able to own AR’s after the first of the year as a joke, but....

I built up a 300 blk a few years back with a side charging upper and an adjustable gas block. I think it was the Gibbs upper, it used a non reciprocating charging handle and let you use a standard BCG. I built it to be able to use it like a normal AR or to be very quiet, like a bolt gun with the gas shut off. It worked very well, I just adjusted the block to function like I wanted to and then counted the turns to fully closed. With My suppressor and subsonic loads, it was Not much louder than a Suppressed 22, but had a lot more thwack on the receiving end! You could do it with pretty much any caliber to have a switchable gun, but other than really being quiet, I don’t see UCB of an advantage. The AR is such an accurate rifle to begin with, cutting off the semi auto function wouldn’t really improve things.

I have also herd of folk doing similar things with other military rifles that have adjustable gas systems like the FAL or the SKS’s with the grenade launchers.

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I had not heard of them so had to look it up.

They have an interesting method of putting the charging handle on the lefhand side, but they are not intending it to be for primary operation. I was thinking charging handle on the right just like the bolt of a traditional bolt action. But I was also thinking of a method where you don't pull back on the charging handle and then let go of it before it will close.

The people who modify ARs for high power match rifle competition have side charging handle modifications but they aren't optimum because there isn't much in the bolt carrier to attach the handle to.

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Yep, that’s it. It is still set up to be a semi auto deal. With the non reciprocating handle, you can’t use it to push forward, the buffer spring takes care of that. Most of the right handed setups basically just have a slot milled in the upper and a bolt handle screwed into the carrier somewhere. I assume could remove the buffer and spring and manually run the bolt forward and backwards, but not sure.

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DPMS sold a pump action AR during the 1994-2004 AWB era.

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I have a right side charging upper receiver from Bear Creek, which I am pretty sure is sold by a few other retailers under different names. I bought it because I am left-handed, and can hold the rifle in my left paw whilst charging with my right. No reason in the world why you couldn’t build the rifle with either an adjustable gas block or kluging up some means of closing the barrel gas port permanently. I imagine a barrel could be ordered with no gas port whatsoever without too much difficulty.

There is a lower on the market that moves the trigger group to the rear of the receiver, and has a conventional buttstock that was adapted from a Remington 1100 (I believe). Combine the two and hey, presto, a straight pull rifle that doesn’t have a “black” rifle appearance.

By the way, I’m not sure if you caught it, but I replied below to your post about a sci-fi novel. It really sounds like The Moon Colony might be what you were referring too.

Otony

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