Lever Action AR-15 .44 Magnum
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 5 months ago
Or something like that. This video comes from TFB, and I confess that I’ve never been able to become a fan of the bullpup design. Don’t like the looks. Don’t like the explosion occurring near your ear. But linked at the video was his first design.
I’d spend money for something like this. I hope he licenses his design to someone and it becomes massed produced. But I’m not sure why he’s got the scope turned around like that.
On July 12, 2020 at 9:55 pm, Dan said:
Very nice and well done modification. Problem of course is that the Model 96 is no longer readily available and when you find one it’s usually overpriced.
On July 12, 2020 at 10:36 pm, ambiguousfrog said:
What am I missing regarding the scope and its mounting?
On July 12, 2020 at 10:38 pm, Longbow said:
But… It makes me FEEL bad when I look at it! It MUST be an “assault weapon”!
On July 13, 2020 at 12:49 am, AZM said:
Scope is backwards
On July 13, 2020 at 1:52 am, Nosmo said:
It looks awkward, but it may not actually be; I’d have to handle it In Real Life to see. We’ve been doing “RestoMods” on cars now for a while, it’s good to see the concept showing up on guns.
It does resolve two basic issues with lever rifles: round capacity and reload speed. There’s not a thing wrong with a good lever rifle for intermediate distance defense, especially the 44 Mag. A 20″ barrel version holds 10 in the mag tube and one in the chamber, and a trained hand can easily attain aimed shots in well under 2 seconds, especially when the rifle is equipped with good sights (I suggest the ghost ring setup from Wild West Guns in Anchorage as a high quality and sturdy example, but there are others).
The time between shot #11 and #12, however, is where the problem lies. Henry has only recently discovered that lever rifles can be reloaded by other than the “point it up and drop rounds into the tube” method, while Winchester and Marlin have had side loading gates forever (welcome to the back half of the 19th century, Henry! Glad you finally made it.).
Side gates are slow to reload, compared to box magazines. but box magazines over about 6 cartridges capacity get in the way of the lever. I’ve wrestled with the problem for ages, and there’s really no solution, except….this design resolves that.
I’m with Herschel – I’d like to see someone make these in quantity. I suspect a not terribly large check could pry the specs and plans from this guy’s hands (all the development work is already done, thanks to him), Ruger – probably – still has the tooling for the Model 96 collecting dust on a shelf somewhere, and with 3-D printing, MIM and CNC the per-unit cost could be decent enough to permit profitable mass marketing (side thought: I’ve been wondering why no one in the gun industry has seized on “manufacture instantly to demand;” Nicholas Negroponte at the MIT media lab coined “ship bits not atoms” back in the ’90s (see: “Being Digital,” N. Negroponte, Vintage, 1996), DARPA was looking closely at the idea in the late ’80s, and the Japanese taught us all about efficiently manufacturing with “lot size of one” in the mid-’80s).
On July 13, 2020 at 2:00 am, Nosmo said:
I need to clarify something about my comment above – I looked at the video Herschel embedded on what – I’m guessing – was “Mod 1.0” with the box magazine, NOT, the Bullpup design, which I’m assuming was “Mod 2.0.”
I didn’t look at the Bullpup video until after I submitted my comment; I’ll concur with Herschel’s opinion on Bullpups.
And, I’m confused, too – in neither video did i see any problem with the scope mounting or orientation. Herschel, what did you see that we don’t?
On July 13, 2020 at 6:58 am, Wes said:
What issue with the scope? It looks fine. That’s what a typical 1-4x or 1.5-4.5x looks like that has a 20mm objective lens. Looks like a Leupold.
On July 13, 2020 at 9:54 am, George said:
What Wes said.
On July 13, 2020 at 1:34 pm, ensitue said:
And the lever action Ruger 44 Mag is a common item in gun stores? How many ARs could one buy for the same money? The days of Kool Gunz is rapidly nearing it’s end, one must now think in pragmatic terms; if you have a Kool Gun, sell it and buy food/ARs.
On July 13, 2020 at 5:37 pm, Chris Mallory said:
“Side gates are slow to reload, compared to box magazines.”
You are using aimed fire from under cover? If so, top off your side gated loaded tube mag before you run out of ammo. The same as if you are armed with a pump shotgun.
As for side gate vs box magazines. Watch this video by Paul Harrell, he is demonstrating a difference between revolvers and semi autos. Under some circumstances, remember everyone has a plan till the shooting starts, the revolver is faster than the semi. The same principle applies to the side gate vs. box mag rifle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puRcVxXeQ4Q
Like Paul or not, he is a serious man and usually proves the point he is discussing.
On July 13, 2020 at 6:33 pm, George 1 said:
Looks like a good choice for a survival rifle. It would have to be light enough and reliable enough. If it were light and reliable I would like one in 357 mag.
On July 15, 2020 at 2:26 pm, Sanders said:
Interesting. I’m a huge .44 mag fan, but I find this to be more of a novelty than anything else. But I do enjoy such novelties, so don’t get me wrong.
When you have the .458 SOCOM on an AR platform available. But I bet it wouldn’t be very difficult to create a rimless .44 Mag – oh yeah, it was already done – the .44 Automag. If I recall, the .44 Automag was made using .308 brass cut down? Not completely sure, though. It was something like that. If it does use cut down .308, then you can probably use .300 Blackout mags. Then it pretty much just becomes a barrel and chambering issue to make sure the pressures are handled safely.
How come I haven’t seen a .44 Automag AR, yet? We have the 350 Legend…how about the .444 Legend or something like that? Damn, there I go again…..
On July 15, 2020 at 2:34 pm, Sanders said:
Well, Starline already makes 44 Automag brass…. https://www.starlinebrass.com/44-auto-mag-brass
Now I’m really wondering…..