The airgun you can never own

[autoair]

Five years ago I designed and developed a semi-automatic air rifle that used Standard 0.177 TACs. It gave 8 ft.lbs and could empty its magazine as fast as I could pull the trigger. I approached Brocock who asked me to produce a prototype and a set of engineering drawings so that they could put it into production. Thus the M16 auto air rifle was born, After many problems had been resolved Gary Silcock collected the final prototype from me days before the Brocock ban became law. The first two prototypes now languish in my gun safe. I don’t know the fate of the third, ain't life a b*tch.

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[Murphy]

Dont show it me!!!!

[theboymike]

Very nice - fair play for designing it

Where did you get the energy to cycle the action - AFAIK the rearward force on the cartridge generated by the air pressure on firing is nowhere near enough to run a semi-auto action..

Very intrigueing...

[Geordie]

Impressive - how did you go about getting the action to cycle using the recoiless TACs?

IIRC the Valtro series used a crown air cartridge with a rear section that popped out specially to provide the 'kick' - what was your solution?

Thanks for sharing

Dan

[Geordie]

Very nice - fair play for designing it

Where did you get the energy to cycle the action - AFAIK the rearward force on the cartridge generated by the air pressure on firing is nowhere near enough to run a semi-auto action..

Very intrigueing...

lol - great minds.....

[boltaction]

Now now lads, it could have been using a blow back system, but then again thats more AK then M16

Looks like we could be in for a treat again.


jim

[Lee G]

How many tacs did the magazine hold?
Can they still be made for export to europe?
And if so what would the price be?

[JJSTEALTH]

couldn't you just convert it to use air ?
i mean...how difficult would that be ?

JASON..

[Pad. E]

Thats very nice

What would have been the expected retail price??

I would definately saved up for that one!

Shame brocock had to suffer the firearms legistration

[theboymike]

lol - great minds.....

Come on the autoair, spill the beans

[PHOBUS]

I remember my Brocock Auto Pistol using micro-Tacs had to be cycled manually because there was no way to channel off any power to cycle the slide . Would be interesting to know how you got around this problem - as I see others have asked .

I remember it was quite powerful for its size if the Tacs were fully charged & surprisingly accurate , but the Tacs would be flung out of the action to land who knows where , and usually sustain damage on hard surfaces

I know I would have loved something like this rifle , & short of a .22 Rimmy the nearest thing until Blair has his way is an Airsoft Assault Rifle .


Carl.

[Lee G]

The pistol your thinking of, is the para
http://www.emwleisure.co.uk/page_10.htm

If memory serves me right, some of the early versions did have working blow back, but were to easily converted to full auto

[gaazzz.t]

I always thought a S/S TAC shotgun style air rifle would look nice, with slightly angled (inward) barrels, so the pellet would strike the target though the sights at the given zero'd range

[autoair]

Hi all,

Thanks for you interest, I’ll answer most of your questions:
The Valtro design used the Crown air-cartridge conversion system for firearms, was very clever but only fired a plastic bullet with low power and questionable accuracy I wanted a full power, accurate rifle that would use the std. TAC.

There is nowhere enough force on the TAC for a simple blow-back to work, my design employs a piston co-axial with the barrel which amplifies the 200 bar pressure wave generated when the pellet leaves the end cap of the TAC. The design of this is the key to successful operation and must remain confidential. The best clue I can give on this would be to suggest you look at a Czech VZ52/57 assault rifle which has a similar co-axial layout. I settled on the M16 layout because it lends itself to a cylindrical receiver with the recoil spring extending into the butstock also the plastic parts were readily available and I love the look! There was an SA80 and a colt 1911 auto pistol on the way, but these were sadly stillborn.

The magazine holds 15 std rimmed TACs in a single stack, getting them to feed reliably was very difficult because they were designed to replace a 38 cal revolver round with no thought to auto feeding. The sectional view of the Mk 2 shows how it was done. (The operating system is obscured by the cross hatching on this view.. sorry)

As to the cost, I have no idea but it would not have been cheap!!

Any thoughts of further production for export would require a section 5 licence which is not practical.


A sectional view of the Mk2:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ir/overlay.jpg

A detail of the extractor of the Mk2:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...air/eject2.jpg

Mks 1 and 2 which I still have:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...r/Mks1and2.jpg

The pre production prototype mk3 delivered to Brocock:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...side_1crop.jpg
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...arts_1crop.jpg
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2.../rh_rear_1.jpg

[PHOBUS]

Wow . Thats really nice .


I remember just around the time of the Brocock ban someone was building an AK47 which fired TACS ( Kalashnikov.us.com ? ) although not sure if it was manually cycled or not , I do recall it used none standard TACS which you had to buy from them but could use original ( or near original AK mags ) I really wanted one but they were very expensive and the Brocock ban was imminent .

Also , Jean,s Military Memoirs in Blackburn sold converted Derringers that fired TACS , and also converted semi -auto rifles which somebody converted to fire TACS . These were advertised for sale in their GUNMART AD,s but seemed to sell to collectors very quickly .

Carl.