I was drooling over the PDI Dragunov for a while, but since it's powered from an external source, it didn't really cut it for me. I had my thoughts of buying a PDI Dragunov and convert it to an AEG or even better, keeping the gas system and fitting an internal gas reservoir. These plans, or dreams, did however not go any further than the inside of my head. The price of the PDI SVD kept me from even trying to find out if it was at all possible to do anything about that external reservoir or not. Then there are those "Dragunov kits" that supposedly converts a Marui AK-47 into a Dragunov. These kits are fine if you want to turn your AK into some kind of Frankenstein's monster, they just felt so wrong. Sure, with a little (a lot) of work you might be able to come up with something that resembles a Romak-3, which I actually was thinking about for a while. But no, it was a Dragunov I wanted, nothing else. I contacted Trapper Industries in the UK. They had just released an air rifle variant of a SVD. I was told that they had plans on building an AirsoftSVD that copied the original to a much higher degree than their air rifle, which I thought sounded promising. They kept me up to date with their progress and the first pictures looked promising. It was being built around an AK mechbox. When the gun begun to take it's final form, it no longer looked like a Dragunov to me. They supposedly based it on a Finnish version of the SVD instead, a Valmet, but I have never been able to find any pictures of any Valmets that looks like the thing Trapper created. The finish Dragunov is actually quite similar to the russian counterpart. In hind sight, I'm pretty glad that the Trapper SVD looks like it does. If it looked good, I would probably have bought it, and considering the experience I have with their RPK kit, I'm pretty sure of that I would have been extremely disappointed. Then, right out of the blue, just as I was about ready to put my AirsoftSVD dreams aside, G&P released their version. It was exactly what I've been having wet dreams about. A gas blowback Dragunov that looked real nice according to the pictures available. Gas might not cut it for everybody, but I'm a big gas blowback enthusiast and almost fell out of my chair out of joy when I got a confirmation of that it was using an internal gas reservoir. It was expensive, but not unobtainable. I just had to have it! How is it? The only parts not made of wood or metal in the gun is a couple of O-rings and a tube in the gas system. The metal isn't of the usual "hobby quality" usually found in Airsoft guns either. It's very sturdy and will probably survive a car running it over in the woods. Ok, chances are that the long barrel will be bent, but I think you get my point.
After spending hours on the web and with a bunch of books, comparing detailed pictures of real Dragunovs to my replica, I'm more or less sure of that the G&P Dragunov is mostly built using real SVD parts wherever possible. The only parts that I'm pretty sure of doesn't come from a real NDM-86, which is the chinese built Dragunov, is the outer barrel, and, of course, everything that makes it into an Airsoftgun. I haven't pulled the gun into atoms yet, but I've looked inside the receiver, comparing it to detailed pictures of the real guns, and they look exactly the same. Same thickness of the goods, same flanges etc.
The lack of hop up makes the BBs hit the ground faster than you can say "Vodka". A good quality spring pistol out shoots it with ease. Calling it usable right out of the box would be a big lie, and since it's made in such small numbers (I have number 19) I doubt that any after market parts will ever show up for it. If you want to make it usable, it'll be entirely up to you. My next project will be fitting a tight bore inner barrel and a hop up system to it. The gas system is quite consistent, pushing out the BBs at a reasonable stable 150m/s (490fps) using green gas. Combined with a new barrel and an addition of a hop up will hopefully make it at least skirmishable and on par with a M130 tuned AEG, which is totally fine by me.
When it comes to the scope, I felt that I wanted a scope with russian markings instead of the one that G&P offers along with the gun which have markings in English, so I bought a russian PSO-1 scope instead. There are bigger and better versions of the PSO scope available, but I wanted the classic Dragunov scope for my gun. It comes with an illuminated reticle, retractable sun shade and a simple range finder and is simply put a rather nice scope.
Comment on this review in the forums Last modified: Sunday, January 26, 2003 6:05 PM Copyright 2003 ArniesAirsoft
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