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They certainly aren't for everyone, but they do take away much of the unbalance.
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Bull pup SKS
- Thread starter DADI03
- Start date
They certainly aren't for everyone, but they do take away much of the unbalance.
Bullpups are naturally balanced in a non-instinctive way.
This is really the biggest problem, and the one that is hardest to solve with engineering.
The balance point on most bullpups is in between your hand and your shoulder when mounted, which is unnatural. We have a natural tendency to try to balance things between our hands, not between our hand and shoulder.
The only way to correct this is to put heavy things in front of your dominant hand, or to make the weapon short and light enough that this won't make a difference (and even then it will still be more awkward and less instinctive to point; but several modern bullpups have taken the second approach).
This balance will tend to make a bullpup tend to shift its butt under recoil, unless it is very tightly mounted to your shoulder; particularly during rapid fire. This tendency is somewhat countered by the position of your support hand so far forward on the barrel, by the fact that the overall leverage moment of the muzzle is lower (the muzzle isn't as far from either your shoulder, or your dominant hand), and by the fact that most bullpups have straightline recoil.
A conventional rifle is balanced in between your dominant and support hands, and there are good reasons for that. A human being naturally handles things that balance in the palm, or in front of your dominant hand, better, because we naturally want to balance things between our hands.
Under recoil, the muzzle of a conventional rifle rises, but just from gravity will fall into you support hand again without actually holding or pulling it down, because the fulcrum of the lever is in your dominant hand, and the balance point is in front of the fulcrum.
This is really the biggest problem, and the one that is hardest to solve with engineering.
The balance point on most bullpups is in between your hand and your shoulder when mounted, which is unnatural. We have a natural tendency to try to balance things between our hands, not between our hand and shoulder.
The only way to correct this is to put heavy things in front of your dominant hand, or to make the weapon short and light enough that this won't make a difference (and even then it will still be more awkward and less instinctive to point; but several modern bullpups have taken the second approach).
This balance will tend to make a bullpup tend to shift its butt under recoil, unless it is very tightly mounted to your shoulder; particularly during rapid fire. This tendency is somewhat countered by the position of your support hand so far forward on the barrel, by the fact that the overall leverage moment of the muzzle is lower (the muzzle isn't as far from either your shoulder, or your dominant hand), and by the fact that most bullpups have straightline recoil.
A conventional rifle is balanced in between your dominant and support hands, and there are good reasons for that. A human being naturally handles things that balance in the palm, or in front of your dominant hand, better, because we naturally want to balance things between our hands.
Under recoil, the muzzle of a conventional rifle rises, but just from gravity will fall into you support hand again without actually holding or pulling it down, because the fulcrum of the lever is in your dominant hand, and the balance point is in front of the fulcrum.
Don't do it. Hard to load, with strippers or Crapco duckbills, the right side charging handle is not very well suited to bullpup setup, and the trigger will become exponentially worse. Not to mention you'll never get your money back. If you don't like the SKS just get a good surplus stock, and resale it. Milsurps always bring more in OG setup.
