In the recesses of my mind (archy would know, thus the ping) I think I remember a bullpup version of the M14, developed very early on, perhaps in the transition from the Garand, rejected for similar reasons, the ejection was too close to the face.
Their underbarrel bloopers seem to work okay, though.
-archy-/-
In the recesses of my mind (archy would know, thus the ping) I think I remember a bullpup version of the M14, developed very early on, perhaps in the transition from the Garand, rejected for similar reasons, the ejection was too close to the face.
There was indeed a bullpup variant among the various developmental offerings created along the path of the search for a Garand replacement or improvement that included the eventually successful T44E4 pushed by Colonel Rene R. Studier, Earle Harvey's T25, and the FN offering of a U.S. version of their FAL, the T48, among others. [T20, T20E1, T20E2; T22, T22E1, T22E2; and T27). Then the rest of the T series (T28; T31; T33; T35; T36; T37; T25; T47; T44, T44E1 - T44E6]
T25
And too, at around the same time, former tank sergeant and small arms designer Loren Cook came up with a straight-line bullpup .45-caliber SMG as a possible replacement for the WWII-era M3 and M3A1 Greaseguns that soldiered on until the last decade of the XX century. He was not an officer, so his uinteresting design had little chancce of acceptance among the Ordnance Corps brass.
The real gem of that period was the British EM-2 in the *.270/30* chambering, actually a .276 caliber, 7mmx45mm caliber bullpup rifle. But it wasn't chambered for that NATO-sdesired US cartridge, so Great Britain's Tommies got a pommified FAL instead.
EM-2
I believe that the after-action reports of Patton's Third Army, probably the all-time champions of house-to-house rathunts and MOUT, eventually came to the the conclusive thought that the best way to do so was with direct fire from self-propelled 155mm artillery pieces, though many of the then-existing designs had trouble maneuvering in narro European city streets. But the basic concept certainly works for me.