VFC AKSU - few photos and first impressions

[snorkelman]

woo arrived 15 mins ago (wasnt expecting it till tomorrow but parcel force actually delivered it today)

 

 

 

 

got it sent straight from the factory some teasing shots

 

 

 

nice colourful box (if you like that sort of thing) should look good on shop shelves (assuming they're in the shop long enough to make it onto a shelf)

 

 

well presented internally too

 

 

uses a blade fuse as standard (nice touch)

 

 

marui style hop unit

 

 

Izhevsk marking on the mag

 

 

proper AKSU style bolt carrier cover

 

 

was the twins now its the triplets

 

 

ok first impressions: well presented box, gun is held quite securely in place.

 

Finish is more in line with a real AK than with guarders version (its a harder slightly glossier coating less powdery than the one guarder used)

 

Weight - feels slightly lighter than the guarder and just a smidge heavier than the real thing with an empty mag (guarder is probably a close match to a fully loaded real steel) I've yet to dig out a set of scales though to confirm.

 

Id give guarder the edge on the wooden foregrips finish (slightly better finish to them) but nothing a light sanding, fresh woodstain and coat of varnish wont fix. Plus the VFC foregrips mimick the reald deal (sprung metal fixing for lower foregrip, proper release mechanism for the upper)

 

Attention to details verus the real steel is good (better than guarder IMO) as well as the proper foregrip retaining system you've got the AKSU style rear cover retaining latch, the properly positioned fire select notches and correct riviet patterns on the receiver and proper fixing hardware used on the rear sight unit.

 

still needs a proper AKSU style cocking lever but the bolt is exernally better match then guarders steel bolts, internally the bolt VFC use could do with a little modification as in its standard form it wont stay in place without a battery inserted in the gun - (its more or less just a side piece) A little bit of metal extending from it and resting on top of the gearbox as per the guarder one would help greatly in that respect.

 

Unfortunately Ive got work today so thats all I can write on the subject till this evening. I'll cover build materials FPS and afew more of the design tweaks theyve included etc once I'm finished with work

 

stevie

[Alex4Yu]

very nice man.

congrats and nice pics!

[Belladonna]

yeah, looks sweet...

[Onerimeuse]

damnit, don't you dare review this, I don't want to have to buy one.

[schneiderboy]

sexy..., but I still wait for a bizon

[deepsix]

LUST.

 

 

Could you include the largest diameter battery it looks to fit when you do your more in-depth look? I would like to order a few custom 8.4's before mine arrives!

[mightyjebus]

looks good. where did you get it and how much?

[snorkelman]

theres maybe two mm of OD to play with versus a standard stick battery using 2/3A cells trouble is by time you factor in a bit of room for the wiring that runs down side of the pack you'ld be back to standard A cell width

 

you could possibly/probably get away with 4/5A cells rather than the usual 2/3A cells as the battery pack can slide rigth along the length of the upper handguard (where gas tube would be on real steel)

 

7 of those would be 11.8 inches or thereabouts with no increase in OD versus the standard sticks and there just might be enough room

 

I'll try and cobble something together this evening that matches that sort of length and see if it leaves enough clearance at the rear (GP do 2000mAh cells in that format and sanyo do 1950mAh ones).

 

Personally id be tempted to go for a 9.6v 1400mAh pack using the intellect 2/3A sized cells to bring the ROF up a little over an 8.4 pack

[The_Boy_Swift]

Good call. The Intellect packs are excellent, I have the 9.6v 1200mah ones and they work very well. Might have to try out the 1400s at some point.

 

VFC AKSU looks great by the way, very good value for money. Will look better after the handguards have been treated, like you say. And paint the pistol grip plum! And get a rolled strut stock

 

But seriously, it's cool and I was tempted...can't get enough of AKSUs

[snorkelman]

b]quick dry run of a part 1 of a review (this covers mainly the externals)

 

work in progress so I'll re-edit this into a better order and add images to it as i go (for the moment I just want to see how it reads on a forum) Arnies was down earlier this evening so i posted bulk of this on Red alliance[/b]

 

Expect revisions as I dig deeper into the guts of it and correct any initial impressions that didn't prove to be correct

 

throughout this review I'll compare the £340 VFC against a guarder kit fitted with Marui gearbox, KN barrel and slight gearbox tweaks putting out 310 fps (cost of the kitted out Guarder probably £750 to £800)

 

VFC AKSU-N

 

 

main points

 

lighter than guarder heavier than unloaded real steel

 

solid construction no creaks or rattles (other than bolt with no battery in)

 

good quality coating of main steel parts though likely to be more scratch prone than guarder

 

a little too glossy parts for front sight block, muzzle brake and outer barrel

 

excellent out of the box performance at a few FPS higher than this forums limit

 

plenty of room for battery permutations

 

good detailing just 3 items not fully AKSU spec

 

well thought out internals that make an effort to keep things tidy and easy to access

 

slightly longer barrel than using a spetz or car 15 barrel on a guarder kit

 

very positive mag securing

 

 

above discussed in more depth

 

weight and construction

Featuring an all steel construction (bar the outer barrel which is milled aluminium) the new VFC AKSU-N weighs in just shy of the weight of the Guarder AKSU version. This puts it just above the unloaded real steel in weight, whereas the guarder weighs in just heavier than the loaded real steel.

 

VFC have used a slightly thinner gauge of Steel (1mm) for the main receiver than Guarder used on there one (1.2mm). Real steel can vary but military AKs will often have receivers of 1mm gauge steel.

 

The thinner gauge doesnt seem to have affected rigidity - theres still no creak or flex and it feels as solid to handle as the 1mm thick real deal sat beside it.

 

Overall dimensions are identical to the Guarder kit (both feature a slightly longer receiver than that used on the real AK in order to accommodate the gearbox).

 

Finish

Finish on the VFC receiver is more in keeping with its real steel counterpart (being a slightly glossy thin black coating) and featuring contrasting fire control group pins. Guarder use a slightly heavier, slightly ‘flatter’ coating for their kits which gets applied to both the receiver and its pins.

 

main assemblies

The VFC is constructed with a one piece pinned barrel, a pinned front sight block and an allen-keyed threaded muzzle section.

 

Handguard in detail

The VFC top hand guard is held in place by a détente post on the gas block, activated by the top cover as per the original (open the top cover let it spring forward and the pin retracts; allowing you to remove the upper hand guard if there’s no stick battery in the gun).

 

 

The lower hand guard on the VFC is held in place by same method as the real steel (once upper hand guard is removed a small cam on front of lower hand guard can be flicked 180 degrees allowing the front ring of the lower hand guard retainer to draw forwards).

 

 

 

It’s worth noting that this cam doesn’t work exactly the same as the real steel…. On the real hand guard, flicking the lever causes the front retaining ring to automatically pop forward (and the lower hand guard to pop out under pressure from its spring plate).

 

 

On the VFC flicking the lever 180 degrees merely lets you wriggle the front retaining ring forward (while rotating it slightly clockwise to clear the front site block) If you do it this way it withdraws forward and allows the lower guard off no problem.

 

 

If however you wiggle it like a madman who’s used to the real one (read me) then you’ll end up jamming the cam past the 180 degree point leaving it wedged tightly inside the hand guard (and by time you lever it back out with a screw driver the black gloss finish on the alloy barrel wont be giving you much by way of reward).

 

 

The lower hand guard itself is a direct replacement with the real one as the assemblies are pretty much identical in al the important aspects as per photo below

 

 

 

 

The Guarder kit makes use of various Allen headed grub screws and interference fit upper hand guard to achieve the same results. It works well but does add to the parts (and strippable threads) count .

 

Guarder has the edge in terms of quality of finish on the front handguard. The VFC one could really do with a sand down, restain and revarnish. Neither Guarder nor the VFC lower hand guard feature a solid strip for the centre section of the grip, instead both opt for a fully laminated construction.

 

skeleton stock

In common with the Guarder kit, the folding skeleton stock doesn’t feature the distinctive rolled edges typically found on most Tula manufactured AKSU’s. The stocks used by VFC are of Bulgarian manufacture and rolling the edges would have added significantly to cost of the stocks (it would also have prevented the same stock being used on all their planned skeleton stock AK74 variants).

 

ribbed top cover

same goes for the ribbed top cover On my AKSU and Guarder AKSU top covers the frontmost strengthening rib is only on the left hand side of the top cover, it comes to a halt in order to allow the rear sight assembly to locate down snugly. VFC have opted for a tadtional AK74 three ribbed cover with the foremost rib extending over to the right hand side of the top cover, ending just above the shell eject cutaway. it doesnt affect the locating of the rear site assembly but doesnt look 101 percent right as it would with the other cover. A compromise? yes but as with the stocks it allows one part to fit all (and unlike the guarder the selling price doesnt really allow for a seperate run of that part just for the AKSUN's)

 

detailing

The retaining latch for the top cover does match the AKSU type (on guarder kits you’re generally stuck with using the typical Marui AK latch thats come with your donor AK)

 

 

 

the external appearance of the bolt carrier is closer to that of a real AK (a noticeable bulge in front half of the bolt carrier) unfortunately it doesn’t have an AKSU short cocking lever.

 

The bolt carrier is scheduled for revision as this original version is really just a side plate and cant stay properly in place without a battery inserted, whether an AKSU specific version will follow remains to be seen.

 

The rivet pattern and spot weld pattern matches that of a real AKSU with a mix of flat and domed rivets. The AKSU never moved over to having a grip plate re-enforcement spot welded inside the lower receiver so in keeping with this the spot welds immediately above the pistol grip have been omitted.

 

The fire select is steel and near identical to the Guarder one, it attaches in the same way with a retaining screw that also incorporates the end cap (as opposed to the marui method of covering the screw head with a separate cap).

 

The fire select notches (unlike every other AK AEG I’ve seen) are placed in the correct positions for a 74 with semi right at the bottom as usual but with the full auto notch almost directly in line with the magwell dimples (rather than full auto notch being half way between the dimples and the safe position).

 

 

The magwell dimples themselves are slightly deeper, wider , longer and more rounded than those found on the guarder kit.

 

Black is a <cough> unusual choice for the pistol grip, other than the colour it’s a direct clone of the brown guarder AKM grip, with a similar matte finish and identical internal and external dimensions. I’ve got spare guarder pistol grips so I’ll just swap the black one out, but if it was my only grip I’d most likely dye it plum.

 

 

Trigger guard and mag-fit

The steel trigger guard in common with all the AEG ones floats at the rear rather than attaching to the lower receiver. The mag catch on the VFC differs in design to that used on the marui (its slightly more beefed up and paddle shaped) and thus looks even less like a 74 style mag catch than even maruis one...

 

That said it works extremely well - magazine fitting has a very positive feel and requires a fair bit of heft to get the catch to click. Once locked in place I can literally hold the rifle upside down by the magazine with no sideways or back/forwards play at all.

 

The supplied mag shares its external dimensions to those of a G&P mid cap (rather than the slightly ‘off’ star midcaps) and G&P mags fit equally well. Any wobble issue with star mags is likely to be down to the Star mags themselves rather than the gun.

 

Unlike the guarder kit, VFC have partly addressed the issue of the open magwell with a small block that the hop unit passes thru. This should help avoid the spare bbs held in the hop feed from falling inside the gun when an empty mag is removed.

 

Muzzle brake

All three (deact, Guarder kit and the new VFC) share same threading on the muzzle-brake/expansion chamber (24mm x 1.5mm positive thread).

 

Guarder and VFC units are interchangeable thought there are slight differences in design. Externally the VFC is a closer match in shape to a real steel brake (with a straight cut bottom edge) Guarder opt for a slightly bevelled edge to the base of the brake.

 

Internally VFC’s brake features a solid core that’s bored out sufficiently to act as a tiny barrel extension. Guarder opt for a hollow internal chamber for their brake. Both will accept a real steel brake in their place but I wouldn’t recommend using one of those (the bore is just too tight to reliably fire bbs thru it – especially on full auto when the barrel will resonate a little)

 

Inner barrel

Hidden under the muzzle break, VFC’s barrel is 269mm long so it extends 13 mm beyond the end of the muzzle of the gun. A 247mm KN barrel fitted on my guarder kit is recessed 8mm within the muzzle of the gun. VFCs muzzle supports their barrel extremely well – there pretty much zero play between inner barrel and muzzle of the outer barrel which should make for slightly tighter full auto groupings than an equivalent barrel that can rattle around.

 

Sights

Front and rear sights are true to the original design (even down to the size and shape of rivets used on the rear sight). The Guarder front sight has a better finish to it than that used on the VFC

 

VFC uses a very glossy black for these parts (most likely some sort of powder coating) its also quite thick and as a result the front sight muzzle brake etc just don’t look like they’re steel (even though my magnet knows they aren’t alloy..).

 

In long term I’d blast them and recoat them more in keeping with rest of the gun.

 

Neither guarder or VFC have the facility to drift the front site for windage. On real AK the front site is usually drifted true and stamped at the arsenal, and as an alternative to this on the Guarder you can rotate the entire site block slightly (as its held in place by a grub screw).

 

On the VFC though there’s no obvious way to do either as the sight block is pinned onto the barrel, yet lacks the elongated groove to allow you to drift the threaded barrel tha tthe front sight post screws into.

 

Thankfully in initial tests it doesn’t display any tendency to shoot anywhere than straight down the middle though Sight picture on the VFC is as good as the Guarder and the real deal (the AKSU sight set up is one of my favourites I much prefer it over full size AK sights)

 

 

side sight mount

 

cant vouch for accuracy of its dimensions (as ive nowt to fit onto it) but looks well enough contructed - held in place at three points (by looks of it with three screws fitted from the inside of the receiver)

 

 

Internal layout tweaks

In addition to the little block in the magwell VFC differs slightly from both marui and guarders approach in other respects.

 

The hop up unit appears to be spring tensioned against the front of the gearbox/nozzle with a spring surrounding the inner barrel (rather than the hop unit bolted onto the outer barrel in the way Guarder opt for).

 

 

A little bit of extra thought and attention has been paid to the wiring too

The metal strip fitted to top of V3 mechboxes has been modified to incorporate a set of grips to keep the wiring tidy and the wiring itself has been sleeved.

 

 

Wiring is attached to the motor via push on connectors rather than hard soldered to the tabs and a 25A blade fuse is fitted as standard, so theres no need to wrestle with the wiring and risk stretching it, in order just to remove a blown fuse, instead you can just pull the blade fuse straight up and out and replace with a fresh one. the battery connector remains t thr rear of the gearbox while the fuse remains in similar position to where its located in a front wired folding stock marui.

 

initial performance

Straight out of the box the VFC chronos at a few fps higher than this forums limit (and by a few I really mean just a few) using .20bbs with hop up wound off, and chronos at 306 fps using same bbs with hop up wound fully on.

 

Subjective impression of ROF on 8.4v seems slightly down versus a stock marui spetz but with an extra 40 to 50 fps to play with it’s a small price to pay.

 

Initial indoor testing at 10m shows reasonably good accuracy for what is a stock barrel - with good tight groupings both on auto and semi and sights are pretty much spot on for 10 metres straight out of the box.

 

As yet I cant actually tell if its got a vented cylinder or not! Unlike the Guarder receiver, the top edge of the lower receiver on the VFC is bent over at 90 degrees to form a ridge along each side (much like the rails on the real steel where the bolt carrier rides on – the lips even stop at pretty much same place where they stop on a real steel AK to allow the bolt carrier to be lifted out…).

 

On the right hand side this lip then bends upwards to form a small vertical lip that the fake bolt can locate in, making it next to impossible to see the side of the cylinder, so info on the cylinder itself is going to have to wait until I strip the internals on Wednesday.

 

Note that while the inclusion of those lips might raise a few eyebrows no ones going to adapt this or any other airsoft AK lower for use on the real deal as the dimensions on airsoft AKs lower receiver are off (too long, a mm or 2 too wide and a mm or 2 too deep)

 

battery options

A standard intellect 1200 mah stick battery slides straight down the fake gas tube in the upper handguard leaving bags of room behind it. A typical 200mm 8.4v stick built from 2/3A sized cells would have 100mm to spare which leaves folks with the choice of trying a 9.6v 10.8 or 12v pack of 1100/1200/1400mAh capacity, or trying an 8.4v custom stick built using 2000mAh 4/5 length A cells..

[Titleist]

Awesome, it's nice to know that this is as good as the guarder kit. And I'm sure they learned from what Guarder did right and what they did wrong. Am I sorry that I have the guarder kit and not this? No way, the VFC one looks fantastic, but Guarder beat 'em too the punch, however VFC is obviously able to keep the cost down by making more of these than guarder. Guarder's stuff is good, but they build stuff in limited runs so the cost is usually outrageous.

 

Thanks for the awesome review. As one AKSU owner to another, I tip my hat to you, and rep you for it accordingly.

[snorkelman]

cheers titleist, was your aksu review that got me into laying out the cash for the guarder one would i give up my guarder one now ive got this one?

 

Hell no I'm keeping them both lol fit and finish (and extra heft) means the guarder one still has something to offer As the one that set the standard seemed best to do compare and contrast with Guarders when assessing the VFC

 

boards brain-fasrt last night means I cant edit above post, version on Red alliance is more uptodate and has more photos to break up the reams of text

 

Dual weilding AKSU FTW

[tcl]

Great review! Thanks!

 

Hope to see the detail of the AKSU internal.

 

 

[snorkelman]

a look at the internals

 

tools required:

 

1 5mm tipped philips screwdriver

1 1.5mm allen key

1 pair of pliers (wrap the jaws in insulating tape if you want to avoid scratching the finish on the fireselect levers' bolt)

 

to strip the gun:

 

select semi on fire select and let off a couple of shots

 

set fire select on safe

 

remove mag

 

open top cover and remove battery

 

 

remove fake bolt carrier

 

 

unlike marui the bolt carrier guide rod attaches to the top cover latch using a 1.5mm allen head grub screw rather than just a push fit) undo the grub screw a little and remove the guide rod

 

 

unlike marui the fire selector lever is spring loaded (a neat touch as it should keep the retaining bolt from working loose yet not require you to tighten the bolt like a crazy man) apply some pressure on the lever around the retaining screw and loosen the screw with the pliers

 

remove the fireselect lever and the spring underneath (theres no brass spacer as found on the marui)

 

 

remove the pistol grips screw (philips head rather than slot head)

 

 

The hop unit is spring tensioned against the gearbox, so the only thing now left to do in order to remove the gearbox is to turn the hop fully on and then push the entire hop assembly forwards towards the muzzle of the rifle

 

 

the hop unit will then clear the nozzle and gearbox can be tilted forward slightly and lifted out.

 

 

the gearbox follows the general marui layout with a few minor changes

 

1 the motor wiring is push fit rather than hard soldered so the motor wiring can be disconnected at this stage

 

 

2 the wiring is clipped along the top of the gearbox shell using extensions to the sliding plate attached to top of the gearbox that act as wiring clips. Unclip the wiring from these.

 

 

3 the selector plate is permanently wired rather than using brass contacts

(theres no real need for them - safe is governed by the trigger lock, auto is the default setting and semi is governed by the disconnector)

 

 

4 all screws for the gearbox halves are standard phillips head so no need for a Tor-X screw driver to remove these

 

5 7mm nylon bushes are fitted as standard

 

 

Other than the changes above the externals of gearbox is a typical V3 unit.

[snorkelman]

Remove screws and top plate and you can seeprate the box trip the anti reversal latch if you havent fired the gun in semi before stripping to take as much tension out of the spring as possible.

 

 

The spring is an irregular pitch one and pretty long so even with tension out of the box expect the spring to start bending upwards as soon as you start to seperate the gearbox halves

 

Internally the gearbox is pretty well lubricated and in addition to the long irregular pitched spring features:

 

A standard lightweight plastic spring guide

 

 

A nozzle made out of what looks to be the same material

 

A clear plastic piston with an aluminium ported piston head This seems quite ligthweigth but strong enough and the teeht are well defined

 

 

A clear plastic tappet plate (not as flexible as classic army ones, but on a par with stock marui)

 

Reinforced gears - these look well made, with well defined teeth and good meshing

 

 

Some sort of autoshimming on the sector and spur gears. While the base of both gears use a conventional shim, the upper shafts of both gears feature a spring placed on each shaft with a small cap on top of the springs to act as a shim. The bevel gear is conventionaly shimmed.

 

 

A white plastic trigger switch the trigger Performs fine but theres not a lot of metal on the contacts.

 

 

 

One odball thing which i have to put down to a slip up at manufacture is that gearbox IS a vented cylinder one Even though all photos above show it as the an unvented one.... It was only when I stripped it that i realised there was a vent in the cylinder (hidden away because it wasnt lined up with the slot in the side of the mechbox!)

 

Overall Im quite happy with the gearbox, but the spring looked a bit awkward..

 

I'd planned to drop spring down to stock Marui, but for this review I thought Id give it a try reassembling with the spring as originally fitted

 

All I can say is it was a pain in the butt.

 

I've fitted guarder SP120 FTK's onto AKs before (one just last week or so) and never hit any hassles reassembling, but although this spring isnt any stronger, its extra length makes it determined to pitch up in the middle so its a real three handed job

 

After one aborted attempt where I managed to launch the spring guide within 6 inches of the plasma in the living room (could have been expensive LOL) I managed to get it all together with a fair bit of cursing and swearing.

 

Popped rifle back together for a quick check over and confirmed it was working as previously, then tore it down again to pop a stock marui spring in. Unlike the default spring, the marui one fitted in without any struggles

 

Overall FPS with the marui spring is 270 FPS but the rate of fire is much improved and turns the gun into a buzz saw.

 

For close quarter that i plan to use it for, I'm going to leave it on the lower FPS and get benefit of the silly ROF. The only downside from the low FPS high ROF is that the gun isnt quite as tight on its full-auto groupings as before.

 

Ive actually striped the gun again now and fitted yet another spring, this time a 1 joule spring I had knocking around. This one puts out 313 FPS on .20g bbs so theres little in it in terms of spring strength versus the stock one VFC use, but as its only slightly longer than stock marui was just as easy to fit.

 

rebuild follows reverse of strip down, but I ought to mention stripping the inner barell and hop unit out.

 

Remove the two screws that secure the hop unit to the plastic block below it. (photo below shows a view of the plastic block from magwell side the holes for the screws that go in from above are visible just to left of the hop feed tube)

 

 

Once screws are removed, slide the hop unit and inner barrel towards rear of the receiver (make sure the sidefolding stock is folded to side of the rifle) When you reach the rear of the receiver, rotate the hop unit thru 90 degrees so that the feed tube is facing the right hand side of the receiver.

 

The feed tube will be just a mm or two too long to rotate clare of the sides of the lower receiver so you need to use just a teeny biyt of force to get it past the lip at rear of the receiver. Once its tilted/lifted past that point you're free to pull the hop unit and inner barrel up and away from the rear of the rifle

 

the plastic block can be left in place If you really want to remove it then it can be slid along the rails inside the lower receiver towards back of receiver, and when it reaches end of the rails a little bit of extra pressure should free it from the rails (allowing you to lift it up and out the rear of the receiver)

 

The hop unit is similar to a marui one but features gradiated markings along the adjuster. The adjuster feels quite loose (and still hangs in mid air making it prone to bending as you try to adjust it) but once set it keeps its position as well as the normal marui style parts

 

Photo shows the spring that normally sits just in front of the hop unit having been slid over the inner barrel.

 

 

Once inner barrel and hop are back in place (dont forget the spring that goes over the outside of the inner barrel, and sits in front of the hop unit) fitting the gearbox back in is straigthforward enough -pull hop unit forward with one hand, tilt gearbox at a slight angle downwards and fit motor mount thru hole in receiver

 

just as the gearbox is almost fully in, you need to push back on the nozzle to allow enough clearance to get past the hop unit, then kick the back of the gearbox down into place using the heel of your hand and release the hop unit allowing it to spring back against the gearbox

 

dry fit the fire select lever, confirm selector works as normal and set it to semi

 

Fit the pistol grip and tighten it down

 

remove the fire select (still set to semi)

 

place the fireselct spring in place

 

place the lever back on top (with rifle in semi it should be easy enough to judge position to place selector in) then pop the screw thru the hole

 

apply pressure on the selector to get the spring compressed and then tighten up the screw (with the spring behind it it doesnt need torqued to 100 foot pounds lol) hand tight, and then a little more with the pliers should be enough to hold it securely

 

the clip that holds the inner barrel into the hop unit has a typical amount of slop to it, so if youve stripped the hop unit down theres a godo chance you wont have the inner barrel totally true on reasembly.

 

Easiest way to sort that is to rebuild the gun aply some hop and see if the bbs hook to the left or the right

 

If they do then remove the muzzle brakeexposing the end of the inner barrel and mark the inner barrel and the outer barrel with a very fine marker, then just lightly rotate the inner barrel a couple of degrees in opposite direction to the hook of the BBs Test fire again to confirm its firing stright down the middle and your all done

 

stevie

[snorkelman]

conclusions - Id say its well worth the cash

 

Internally the gearbox might not be everyones cup of tea, but it should last a fair while in its stock form so folks might as well run it into the ground and get use of the stock parts before upgrading/altering anything

 

$120 will buy you a guarder tune up kit, an M100 spring and a set of 7mm metal bushes that replace the entire internals of the gearbox making any question marks/dislikes over the choice of internals academic.

 

I wouldnt keep the self shimming gears if the box was getting a major upgrade to its power output or mega increase on its ROF as the spring loaded shims design just looks a little delicate for that sort of thing (but the guarder FTK has a set of shiny new gears in with it anyway).

 

Externally the only noticeable things letting it down are the 'wobbly bolt with no battery in place', and the bit too glossy finish on front sight and muzzle brake assemblies, both easily fixed.

 

In the short term the grip being black isnt quite what people expect but can be sorted with a lick of paint and it would be an obvious thing for VFC to take care of at a later date.

 

Theres soo many details on this gun that hit the nail right on the head that its easy enough to forgive the ones that dont (I've checked it over three or four times now in process of taking it apart and each tme I find something else that they've got absolutely spot on - even down to things like the magazine sitting at precisely the right angle for a 5.45 calibre AK, and the cone on the muzzle brake being exactly the right diameter).

 

If folks buying one dont already have a stick battery consider getting an 8.4v 2000Mah pack made to suit it using 4/5A sized cells as it fits in with room to spare (Ive knocked together a quick one to test fit)

 

if you dont mind a bit of farting around you could probably make a 9.6v version of those cells fit in there too provided you had the wiring of the stick battery come out from side of the stick pack and kept the wiring very short (ie wiring exits one cell down from the end rather than straight out the top)

 

stevie

[HaVoC]

I was looking at these on WGC the other day - very sexy indeed, and the only AK variant that really does much for me

 

I'm suprised at the markings on the box they shipped it in, so that must have caused some interesting looks from the customs officials and delivery men alike!

[snorkelman]

I'm suprised at the markings on the box they shipped it in, so that must have caused some interesting looks from the customs officials and delivery men alike!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

hehe ironically it got thru into the UK from taiwan without anyone even bothering with it!

 

Straight out international hub and sent on thru to the local delivery branch. Bypassed customs clearance, customs charges (awww what a shame lol), and even the national hub.

[deepsix]

snorkelman,

 

Great review, most comprehensive!

 

Question: I'm buying some custom batteries, and this is my first electric gun in ages. I assume the connectors are mini, right? Also, the wire off the gearbox, is it 18 or 16 guage? I'd like to match the wire from the battery to the gun, unless I should (if I have enough room) go with something larger.

 

Suggestions anyone?

[tcl]

Wow... This is best review I never seen.. Quick and detail! Nice Job!

 

The VFC only selling conversion kits in Japan.....

 

It is nice to know the stock gearbox also good as Marui.

 

Thanks again !!! snorkelman!

 

[snorkelman]

snorkelman,

 

Great review, most comprehensive!

 

Question: I'm buying some custom batteries, and this is my first electric gun in ages. I assume the connectors are mini, right? Also, the wire off the gearbox, is it 18 or 16 guage? I'd like to match the wire from the battery to the gun, unless I should (if I have enough room) go with something larger.

 

Suggestions anyone?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

yep, tis standard mini connector.

 

wiring on the gun is 2mm across including sleeving (which looks to be the thin type) though how that translates to the US awg system dont ask me as I always come a cropper with it

 

for a 2000mAh config then a 7-cell 8.4v version is only one I'd trust to someone else to make (or a 9.6 using the intelect 1400mAh cells) as cells dont need to be that tightly stacked and wiring can exit the end of the pack as normal

 

the 9.6v version of the 2000mAh pack should be OK if you're making it yourself with rifle there in front of you (the 9.6 needs absolutely no slop between cells, and the wiring adjusted to just the right length/exit point for it to fit - and adjusting the wiring is far easier if you have the gun sat there )

[snorkelman]

no probs TCL happy to oblige

 

The VFC only selling conversion kits in Japan..... 

 

yeps bit of a shame that (and from what i can see the kit price in Japan is more or less same as full gun price in hong kong)

[tcl]

no probs TCL happy to oblige

yeps bit of a shame that (and from what i can see the kit price in Japan is more or less same as full gun price in hong kong)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The price for the VFC AKS-74UN conversion kits is $59800 Yen(around US$505.00) in Japan.

[HKG36]

snorkelman do think this battery fit

http://airsoftglobal.com/product_info.php?...b24a47ece117c91

[snorkelman]

as couple of folks have asked now I'll do the leg work and come up with a few configs

 

go to cheapbatterypacks.com

 

choose custom packs build anything option

 

number of cells: 7

 

type of cells:

KR1500AUL (1500mAh sanyo for old time NiCd fans)

HR1950FAUP (1950mAh sanyo NiMh)

GP2000AFHR (2000mAh GP NimH)

 

configuration: Stick

wire 18AWG

connector Small Female Tamiya - Airsoft

upgrade yes

in the special instructions field, when you generate the quote, ask them to limit the length of exposed wire with the connector on it to a couple of inches max (you dont want loads of wire dangling from the stick battery needing tidfed away)

 

prices will vary between 32 dollars and 44 dollars depending on which of those cells you opt for

 

9.6v 4/5A packs

Monda list the 4/5 sanyo KR1500AUL NiCd as a suitable battery in 9.6v (8cell) config, so any of those three would work as a 9.6v pack (all three of the cells are same length) but as per previous message Id steer clear of 9.6v using 4/5A cells unless building your own with rifle in front of you, so you can keep spare wire to a minimum etc.

 

Otherwise you risk getting a 9.6v pack made for you and find that yes, it fits in but you're trying to find somewhere to stuff the extra wire, or find the top cover latch gets stuck, or the bolt is a pita to draw back to adjust hop up etc.

 

stevie