Think it's new? Think Again!

I always loved that title of the little section of Popular Mechanics magazine back in the day.  They always loved highlighting things people thought was new, but was a decades old idea, but likely was only made practical by modern innovation. 

Anyways, as I have said before, I have next to no interest in purchasing/owning most bullpup guns (if not all). However, I still find them very fun and interesting from an engineering perspective. The one that caught my eye lately was a prototype bullpup rifle featured on the firearm blog made by a company called Senex Arms. 

Pic of the prototype obviously swiped form TFB.

The firearm blog says it's meant to be as compatible with as many AR-15 parts as possible, and mentions it uses a slightly modified AR bolt carrier group. From the looks of it, it seems it would also use the same fire control group, magazine, and barrel. However, they do say it will feature an HK-type non-reciprocating charging handle, and will have a quick change barrel as well. It's seems like an actual good idea for people that basically want a bullpup AR with parts compatibility with the AR. 

Hopefully, it doesn't turn out to be like the Bushmaster M17S.

However, the whole thing reminds me of another decades old project that turned into the ill fated Bushmaster M17S. The concept was similar, make a bullpup AR18 action, but use as many AR15 parts as possible like mags, mag release, grips (on later models), pins, and springs. The whole thing just didn't pan out due to weird ergonomics, poor controls, heavier weight, and somehow it's not as accurate or reliable. The production run was small, and is not made anymore because most people just didn't like it. The Senex guys seem to have a much better, well thought out concept, so hopefully the same fate doesn't befall them. 

As an aside, I found while making this post, that the M17S has been re-engineered/improved by K&M Arms to fix many of the long-standing issues of the platform, and is now back in production. Here's a picture of the modernized rifle from K&M Arms' website: