Lower Rail Redesign

During my internship at Ruger, I was given the opportunity to redesign the lower rail system for the custom shop precision rifle. I was responsible for the design and manufacture of the new lower rail and had to comply with certain manufacturing constraints. The constraints meant that I had to use existing fixturing and tooling within existing machines in order to keep costs down. These constraints heavily influenced the design process and I greatly improved my DFM skills while working on this project. Once the part was designed, I had to use CAM software to generate new tool paths and implement them into the existing G-code within the machine. The project was very self-driven and I only received help from my coworkers when I had specific questions. Instead of holding my hand through every process, I was allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. I crashed the CNC machines more times than I would like, but with each and every endmill that turned into shrapnel I learned more and more. My internship at Ruger taught me more in 4 months than school taught me in 4 years, and I am incredibly grateful to have been given the opportunity to work there. The images below show the lower stock rail, a part that I designed and produced that made it onto final production on a special edition of the Ruger Precision Rifle.