Rifle 6mm, No.9, Mk. EM-2

[MSSNAFU]

 TL:DR - This is the working prototype of my Airsoft EM-2 rifle. I designed and made this, mostly by CNC machining solid Aluminium and Walnut. I've only made one. I'm posting it here for the great Airsoft Hive mind to tell me what they think one might be worth if I were to make any for sale.

 
Longer but still briefly 🙂

  The story of the Janson 'Automatic Rifle, .280 in, E.M. 2'  is a relatively minor but interesting bit of British Firearms history, and the Bullpup design and 0.280 inch / 7mm calibre choices were way ahead of their time. The rifle was actually adopted, briefly, in 1951 as the UK's new standard Service Weapon to replace the aging Lee Enfield's and Stens after WW2. But Politics, and especially American insistance on what would become the NATO standard 7.62mm round, saw it un-adopted only a few months later (by Winston Churchill no less!) and no 'Rifle 7mm, No.9, Mk1' was ever actually produced. 

   I started trying to make myself a reasonable Airsoft version of Stefan Jansons EM-2 around 4 or 5 years ago, before the OTT videogame versions appeared btw 🙂. Teaching myself a bit about hobby scale CNC machining and 3D CAD/CAM as I went along . . .  I'll let you imagine what my first attempts looked like! and how much wood and metal I wasted, and how many tool bits I've broken!

I began making my Airsoft version based on a copy of one of the original blueprints for the 'Rifle 7mm, No.9, Mk1.',  and later on corrected it a lot after I had the rare and utterly invaluble privilege of being able to compare my initial efforts with a real steel example, courtesy of Mr Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. Jonathan is also the Author of the definitive 'Thorneycroft to SA80. British Bullpup Firearms 1901-2020', which has two chapters on the E.M.2 and its history. Without Jonathan's book and his help answering questions on a most memorable day in Leeds my version wouldn't look anything like the real thing does.
  The major parts of the prototype are made from CNC'd solid Aluminium and solid Walnut planks with a steel outer barrel and real Walnut veneer. It is fitted with a Wolverine Inferno HPA engine as there just isn't room for a gearbox inside the EM-2's frame and the inner barrel is 600mm long stainless steel.
  This project has taken a lot longer and cost a lot more than I imagined it would when I started. Obviously the thought of selling them, if only to make some of my money back(!) has crossed my mind, and I've spoken to a couple of people about the idea. But the consensus seemed to be there wouldn't be enough demand to justify having a batch of them professionally manufactured, even if I have already done most of the R&D, and  without professional production and their economy of scale savings, the unit price and the time needed for me to make each one makes it almost certainly uneconomic to do so.
  But just recently while corresponding with a user on the forum I thought hey, I may as well ask what other Airsofters think a realistic price for it would be? and if anyone would want to buy one if they could?

So, over to you Hive mind 🙂

[jormguh]

I'd absolutely buy one! I'd pay upwards of £900 for something so unique, ideally for a gas blowback version but if not possible I'd still definitely pick up an HPA one. I know several people who'd be thirsting for a GBB one too!

Edited 4 hours ago by jormguh

[mightyjebus]

A couple of thoughts, You are in the Shoei or Trigger happy price doing these as they are very custom with a lot of work to produce. The other thing worth mentioning is that it's most likely a collection piece so a way to remove or hide the HPA hose would be a good idea.

[ButcherBill]

Well... my rubber prop EM-2 cost £230, your 1 off working Em-2 should certainly be worth asking 4-5 times that. I agree with mightyjebus regarding the HPA tho.

[MSSNAFU]

1 hour ago, jormguh said:

I'd absolutely buy one! I'd pay upwards of £900 for something so unique, ideally for a gas blowback version but if not possible I'd still definitely pick up an HPA one. I know several people who'd be thirsting for a GBB one too!

I would buy a GBB version! Way beyond my very limited engineering skills sadly.

 

1 hour ago, mightyjebus said:

A couple of thoughts, You are in the Shoei or Trigger happy price doing these as they are very custom with a lot of work to produce. The other thing worth mentioning is that it's most likely a collection piece so a way to remove or hide the HPA hose would be a good idea.

Going way back, the original design was for a self contained CO2 system, so the hose is/was to be a temporary testing only thing. It's since been mentioned, pointedly, that high pressure gas systems of any kind might need a bit of testing and regulatory approval if they were to be put on sale!

(If you look at the top of the trigger group in the last picture, you can see a section of copper pipe. That is/was part of the CO2 system)

 

So yes the position of the HPA connection would very definitely change. I haven't thought it through but 1st idea would be to make a connection at the rear sling attachment point, very preferably flush with the butt.