CNC Machined Halo weapons. Pure UNSC Bada$$ery. Airsoft builds :D

[DeadzManWalking]

Ok. So I may be a couple days later than expected, but that only means one thing... More content! Yay!

Alright, so on to the new stuff. The original intent for the receiver was to build each half in two pieces making a total of 4 pieces for just the body. The maximum length of material that I can get (based on my online shopping) is a 24 x 36 inch piece of plate aluminum. And each half of the body is 44 inches long. Therefore they need to be split up. However, after some hole features were added, it became evident that the body needed to be cut up some more. So now the body is in three pieces per side for a grand total of six pieces. Here's the left half apart and together:






Here's each piece:






And in the assembly:



I also worked on figuring out how to get the mag catch to work. A spring will hold back the release grip on the bottom of the receiver which will hold the piece sticking into the magazine in place. By pulling the grip towards the buttstock, the catch will slide out of the magazine and the magazine will be removed.







Other than that, I've modified some other parts. I poked some holes into the muzzle break and the barrel so that those can be machined and assembled reasonably.
The muzzle break is now in to pieces. The arrowhead and the post.





The barrel is also being held in place by two pins. They should prevent the barrel from rotating and since they're not screws, they should be fairly well hidden since the holes aren't that big.


Alright. So that's it for right now. More will be coming up soon. Need to finish a couple parts and get the scope mounting system figured out. Anyways, enjoy!

 

[Ulfhedinn073]

Holy crap, take my money. Seriously, I can't wait to see where this goes.

 

[Aiden26]

I wonder if it would have been easier to use the GBB shell ejecting Barrett

 

[DeadzManWalking]

I wonder if it would have been easier to use the GBB shell ejecting Barrett

Probably not for a number of reasons.
1) Madbull needs to get their barrett to work right in the first place. I've got a buddy that has one and he's had to do a lot of work on it just to get it to work a little bit. And that seems to be the general trend for the .50 unfortunately.
2) The .50 ejects to the right and the SR ejects to the left. And I really don't want to figure out how to swap that. And the SR BCG has design work in it that the .50 doesn't have.
3) The .50 parts most likely wouldn't fit in the SR chasse to even start with. Especially around the hop system, things get really tight and I doubt there'd be space for the parts.
4) We m4 parts are a lot cheaper than the .50 haha. I got an internal kit for $70 compared to the $1500 cost of the rifle. Granted that I will be around $800-1000 in cost ignoring machining cost which hopefully I can get as a donation.
So yeah. It's just not practical enough to try to modify the .50 parts.

This is an amazing project. I'm excited to watch this progress.

I saw you were using a 20rd M16 STANAG magazine as the base (WE brand?) WE MK17 magazines use an improved design with better gas efficiency, and have larger gas reservoirs. Their general external designs are similar (the MK17 mag is meant for 7.62 NATO so it's a little larger,) so you may get better results using one of those.

I'll take a look into those mags after I get it workin on the m4 mags. Really all I have to do is make a new housing and firing pin extension and that would work. But right now I only own a vn mag since I am able to insert it into my m4 for measurements and whatnot.

 

[Aiden26]

Probably not for a number of reasons.
1) Madbull needs to get their barrett to work right in the first place. I've got a buddy that has one and he's had to do a lot of work on it just to get it to work a little bit. And that seems to be the general trend for the .50 unfortunately.
2) The .50 ejects to the right and the SR ejects to the left. And I really don't want to figure out how to swap that. And the SR BCG has design work in it that the .50 doesn't have.
3) The .50 parts most likely wouldn't fit in the SR chasse to even start with. Especially around the hop system, things get really tight and I doubt there'd be space for the parts.
4) We m4 parts are a lot cheaper than the .50 haha. I got an internal kit for $70 compared to the $1500 cost of the rifle. Granted that I will be around $800-1000 in cost ignoring machining cost which hopefully I can get as a donation.
So yeah. It's just not practical enough to try to modify the .50 parts.

Interesting... I've never seen the SR eject from the left. I've seen the ejector compartment on the right before. Or is that just on the Reach SR? And as for fitting it. The magazine is pretty much the same size. And isn't the barrel the same size too? I've checked out field strips of the gun and it looks really similar to your setup. Anyways, great work! Are you planning on actually using this for airsoft?

 

[ScarletOkami169]

........... Not sure where my mind has gone... but this is the BEST EVER build!

 

[DeadzManWalking]

Interesting... I've never seen the SR eject from the left. I've seen the ejector compartment on the right before. Or is that just on the Reach SR? And as for fitting it. The magazine is pretty much the same size. And isn't the barrel the same size too? I've checked out field strips of the gun and it looks really similar to your setup. Anyways, great work! Are you planning on actually using this for airsoft?

Apologies for taking so long to get back. I've been running around and haven't had the time to measure the Barrett mag and the SR mag. Going off of the barrett mag that I've got from a Socom Gear m82, it's 5.625" long and an inch and a half wide. The SR mag is 7.25" long and I forget how wide but I believe under 1.5 inches. Either way, the two aren't quite the same size. Additionally, since the trigger is so low compared to the barrel centerline, it would require an entirely new bolt. The hammer can't hit the gas valve on the m4 mag, and I highly doubt that it could on the .50 cal. So it could be possible if the hammer was modified/I built a new one, but I just don't think it would be feasible. And back to the barrel centerline being so high, I don't think the .50 BCG would have enough vertical clearance to even fit. Just using the m4 profile of the BCG, I'm looking at only thousandths of an inch in some spots on the SR. And not only that, but it would still need the extension like I have since the body gets slimmer as you go further back and there's just not enough room for a big BCG like that. Realistically, it's just not worth redesigning and modifying the barrett parts. Also, since I'm in college, I don't have $1500 do drop on a doner gun lol. I'm barely gunna have enough for material cost if I'm lucky enough to get the machining for free.

And as far as the ejection goes. The model has the ejection port/cutout on the left of the body with the charging handle. You can see the BCG only on the left hand side while the right side is just a flat face. I haven't checked what side the game has the shell eject on, but based on the models, it would go to the left.

And the barrel. I will try to measure that when I get the chance. They might be diameter-wise, but I am not sure about length. I'm trying to keep everything as close to the game as possible so I'm just going to try to have one turned.

 

[DeadzManWalking]

Alrighty! More updates. This week I will be reaching out to machine shops to start discussing material purchasing and machining of the more complex parts. The more simple parts such as those used in the magazine release and the hammer extension for the magazine, I will be making those myself. The goal is to also make the magazine using a CNC on campus depending on how much help I get with the various companies. Other than that, I have made some more design changes on the rifle. I've lightweighted part of the body, changed materials around and added new components all to keep this thing as light as possible. Right now we're looking at something a little closer to 40 lbs of awesome. However that'd be like running around with a bench bar all day so I'm trying to bring it a bit closer to 30 lbs which you will see in the following revisions:

Cut out a ton of material from the mag shell. I drop about half the weight on each side. Went from 5lbs each to 2.5lbs each.

As you can see, I also added a cutout for the tension spring for the hammer extension.

There are two extensions. One in the body right next to the trigger box and one inside the magazine since the magazine needs to be removable from the body.
Externally I just modified the center rib so it's a little higher and has a guide going into the body. I still need to add a keeper mechanism to lock the m4 mag in place so that all I need to do is buy multiple vn style mags that I can swap in and out of this shell during a game.


For the body, I cut out sections in the center piece to reduce the weight. I successfully removed over a pound per half so that's two pounds total.

Cut material out of the center and out from behind the trigger box and grip mounts. Also added two mounting fins at the top for the scope mounts (see below).


Also cut out a bunch of material in the grip. There's a rectangular cut in the bottom and a circular cut in the top.


Also did some work on the chamber. I changed the material to plastic to cut the weight from almost 8lbs down to 3lbs. And since it's now plastic, I added an aluminum support piece to hold the barrel on and in place. Plastic would most likely have warped and not been able to support the weight of the barrel and muzzle break. Added a screw in the bottom to keep it in place. Two screws were added in the sides to keep the chamber attached to the body.



Lastly, I added some screw holes for the scope mount to be attached to the body.



I should be done with the designs this week so I will post those along with the 2D detailed drawings that I will be creating for all of the parts.

That's it for today! Enjoy. :cool

 

[DeadzManWalking]

Ok. So at this point, I believe that I have finally finished the designs for everything except the scope which will come along when I receive the LCD kit that I ordered. As far as the scope goes. I have the optic (a 7x magnifier), a pinhole camera with a vga output and red/black power lines. An 11.1 V battery will be ordered this weekend to power the camera and display.





There'll be a switch on the side to turn stuff on/off. In the future, I may implement a video switcher with a lower magnification video input but I'm not going to touch that now.

Here's what the scope setup is gunna kinda look like:


Made a mag catch for the we m4 mags so that they can be swapped inside the housing.






By pushing in on the bottom tab the keeper gets pulled out from the VN mag allowing the magazine to be swapped.



Added some new parts as well. Added the charging handle and carry handle. The carry handle is a steel rod with dowel pins and screws holding it in place.


The bipod is going to be simple. At the moment it'll mostly be stationary so at the moment the legs will screwed into a rod in the body.


Also did some work on the piston guide in the BCG. When the gun is fired, gas goes out first through the front of the gun to propel the bb and then through the back to cycle the bolt. Now, during the cycle, the bolt travels backwards. The bolt has to travel far enough back so that the seal is broken between the piston and BCG. (you can see the gasses being expelled out the back in this video:

)



Originally I was thinking about having a guide on the bottom however that would prevent the full cycle stroke required to release the gasses when the BCG made a full stroke. So I made one on the top that is flush with the BCG. Cut out a slot in the top of the BCG:




I'm now working on the 2D detailed drawings so I'll start uploading the assembly and part drawings as I start getting a pile of them ready. Also going to be talking with machine shops tomorrow to see what we can work out. Anyways, here's some finished assembly pics.







Enjoy!

 

[Aiden26]

Amazing! You are literally solving every problem I ever had with attempts of a Halo SR lol. Say, since you are great at engineering, Is it in your capabilities to engineer fully firing real Halo Weapons? Just to satisfy my curiosity.

 

[DeadzManWalking]

Amazing! You are literally solving every problem I ever had with attempts of a Halo SR lol. Say, since you are great at engineering, Is it in your capabilities to engineer fully firing real Halo Weapons? Just to satisfy my curiosity.

Haha. Well that's good lol. I really wanna try to get it right in the first shot since materials and labor are quite expensive, and with trying to get the stuff donated, I don't want to be wasting anybody's time. As far as the real halo guns goes, I've seen people make a .22 Ma5c before. It's on youtube somewhere. However personally I wouldn't even touch it unless I had gunsmith training. That stuff is a whole different ballpark. I'm sure some of it would be possible but we have to remember that everything is from a video game and those weapons don't necessarily have to be 100% feasible lol. But I'm sure they can be done but not by me at the moment. The original Halo 1 SR is actually based off of a bolt action rifle.


So at heart it exists lol. And in a couple months, in airsoft it will exist in all of it's proper glory.


On another note, I'm going to start posting these in batches since there's a pic upload limit per post and I've got a bunch of these pages. As I said before that I'll be working on making 2D detail drawings for the parts. Well, I have been and needless to say, there's a lot of detail in them. More than I remembered adding. Haha. So some of these parts have one page detailing, and others have 4,5,6 pages per part. I'm hoping that I don't miss anything lol (and that the machining companies have a good CAM package ).
So lets get the party started. These are for the most part the final versions. I know that I have some minor tweaks to make and a note here or there but those won't be worth updating on here.

Muzzle break post:


Muzzle break:








Barrel:


Bipod Leg:




Chamber rod:


Chamber:




Gas tube block:


Gas tube:


Handle:


Receiver block:


Magazine (Left):






That's it for the finished parts. And I've started on the Left buttstock piece so I'll share the current progress for that as well.
Left Back Body (buttstock):








There will be at least one or two more pages for this specific part. I will update this one when I'm done and when I have more pieces to upload. Gunna be a busy weekend

Don't think I've done a full assembly pic transparency in a bit. So here's some more eye candy haha.

 

[Aiden26]

That's insane! Do you actually play Airsoft? Also, what sort of program are you using? I always wanted to learn 3D modeling. Especially if that means I can get a Halo Reach SR in my hands lol.

 

[DeadzManWalking]

That's insane! Do you actually play Airsoft? Also, what sort of program are you using? I always wanted to learn 3D modeling. Especially if that means I can get a Halo Reach SR in my hands lol.

Lol Yup. I'm on a sponsored team in the Chicago-land area. The 69th STG. We do anything from normal open games to milsim events. I'd love to take this thing milsimming since it's got a real-cap mag and just sit on roof and go pew pew haha.

I run mostly sniper rifles which is one reason why I wanted to make this project a reality. These are my babies (I've got another barret not in this pic).



And my collection:

I've added some more since when I took that picture lol.

And I'm using Solidworks. I've got a student license through my school. Solidworks is pretty much the industry standard for my field of work. Autodesk Inventor is free for students and is a good starting point if you can't get Solidworks. I've been cadding since highschool but I didn't really get exposed until college when I started working with CAD packages professionally.

 

[Aiden26]

That's awesome. I'm hopping to go to my first Milsim soon. Just need to get a little bit more gear. Maybe I'll make a Reach Military Police loadout as well. It would compliment my future SR quite well lol. Well, I'm off to learn this program. It's gonna take me ages before I can actually start my build lol. Looking forward to seeing further work!

 

[DeadzManWalking]

That's awesome. I'm hopping to go to my first Milsim soon. Just need to get a little bit more gear. Maybe I'll make a Reach Military Police loadout as well. It would compliment my future SR quite well lol. Well, I'm off to learn this program. It's gonna take me ages before I can actually start my build lol. Looking forward to seeing further work!

I've got to the Lion Claws ones with our team and some of the team has tone to a MSW event. They're a ton of fun but are definitely a completely different beast than normal play but totally worth it. Good luck on learning CAD. There's tons of youtube videos so make use of those. I learned through a manual and youtube and just playing with the software. It'll take time but you'll get a hang of it.

 

[DeadzManWalking]

Ok. Gunna do another installment since I've got a good number of pics. I don't necessarily intend to upload the right half of the body pieces since they're nearly identical to the left half unless someone specifically asks. But Here's the left half drawings.

Back:












Center:


















Front:








Mag release handle:


Mag release linkage:


Vertical Mag release arm:


Mag catch:


Ok. That's it for this batch. Most of the dimensions probably aren't set to tolerance yet but I'll go over that all tomorrow before I send since I need to make .pdf's of these for my machine shops. I've got a handful that I contacted Friday so hopefully they will be able to help out. I'll have more parts for tomorrow. So see you all then!

 

[DeadzManWalking]

Ok. Got another quick update. So today was a long freakin day. I had to get a package sent out to these companies today so that they can start reviewing and picking parts to machine. So I had to compile every solidworks part, assembly, and drawing. Make a STEP file for each part, and make PDF's of each drawing. So today was pretty full of cramming work in. (Total package size: 60 Mb)

I finished the drawings for all of the parts (minus those in the scope assembly). Went through all of the drawings over again, re-toleranced them saved them to PDF format. Going through all of them was actually a pretty good exercise in making sure my mirror components were right. Some of them needed fixing so hurray to being thorough! I then assigned all of the parts a material so I could check the estimated weight of the rifle with everything together. And... um, it was 52 lbs of holy crap that's heavy. So that spurred a crazed weight-saving attempt on any parts I could cut down. I redid the magwell and chopped off some other weight in the receiver center pieces.



I decided that the muzzle break also had to be made out of plastic. It's currently 1 lb. In aluminum it's about a 3 lb brick. It should hold up fine though.
I also decided that the barrel had to be made in two pieces. There's an outer sleve with a 1 inch inner diameter. The part that normally just connected the barrel to the hop unit I made run the entire length of the barrel. It has a 1/2 inch inner diameter and there are spacers along the length.



Using this technique I was able to shave over a pound of aluminum. There's not really a whole lot that can be done to cut weight off of the gun. In the end, these things were carried by Spartans who could lift really heavy ****. So in general there's not going to be an easy way to avoid it. The weight will also go down some more when I refine the scope designs. so that'll help. Right now I'm shooting for 45 lbs or as close to 40 as I can get.

As you can see, there's plenty of room to cut material out of the scope pieces.


I'm hoping to cut out at least two pounds between the two halves. Also, the weight of the purchased parts is hard to determine but I'm expecting that they're less than what the modeled versions are displaying as so we'll see how close to 40 lbs we can get.

I currently have 5 companies that I have assisting with this project and will be reaching out to more shortly. Hopefully we'll get somewhere with this!

Up next is some FEA on the components. We will be using Hypermesh and Abaqus to analyze the impact loading on the BCG with the receiver wall.

 

[Fllschrimjager]

I love that your building this rifle. I have been planning on starting to go to some of these milsim event for i just love airsoft and the events look like so much fun. It also good to know there are more people in the chicago land area doing these event for that is where i would be coming from. Oh not to mention love that sr-25 just got one of my own and love the thing. Hope this turns out how you think it will.
Also I have been planning on trying to 3d print a drm shell to convert into an airsoft gun but i would have to just make a shell and not all the internals to but i am exited to see how this turns out.

 

[Aiden26]

I love that your building this rifle. I have been planning on starting to go to some of these milsim event for i just love airsoft and the events look like so much fun. It also good to know there are more people in the chicago land area doing these event for that is where i would be coming from. Oh not to mention love that sr-25 just got one of my own and love the thing. Hope this turns out how you think it will.
Also I have been planning on trying to 3d print a drm shell to convert into an airsoft gun but i would have to just make a shell and not all the internals to but i am exited to see how this turns out.

I was also planning to make a DMR. Not sure how the shell would work out because bullpups buttstocks reaches to far behind the Magazine and the DMR buttstock is literally right behind the Magazine. Not to mention, all the bullpups I've seen are chambered in 5.56 and the DMR is 7.62.

 

[Fllschrimjager]

I was also planning to make a DMR. Not sure how the shell would work out because bullpups buttstocks reaches to far behind the Magazine and the DMR buttstock is literally right behind the Magazine. Not to mention, all the bullpups I've seen are chambered in 5.56 and the DMR is 7.62.

I have been trying to figure out myself what rifle would be good to convert since I can't build one from scratch(but I can 3d model a body). What i have found is the British armed forces rifle don't know the name off the top of my head has the same kind of design and I believe they have a version that shoots the 7.62 round(could be mistaken though). Or else for me I was planning on using a m4 version 2 gearbox but just mounting it in the back to make it a dmr since the halo dmr has that huge stock that I could also mount the motor and possibly a battery too.