CatgutViolin
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Posts posted by CatgutViolin
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Took long enough, but it's finally here. I made a review for my team channel, figured those of you still hanging around Arnie's might find it useful:
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We won't go quietly, the Legion can count on that.
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Continuing the VT retro theme...
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2 hours ago, hitmanNo2 said:
Very nice. What light body is that?
This thing. Basically just a custom body made to look like a Surefire 6P, but compatible with Modlite/Surefire Scout heads and tailcaps.
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VT-based Colt 727 with a bunch of real parts and a hybrid modern/retro light setup.
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On 1/22/2022 at 2:07 PM, blobface said:
Ooof, I have always had good experience with Mafioso's kit, this sounds pretty bad. Guess anything outside of just CNC'ing something nicely is out of their comfort zone.
I found my list of things I had to do to make the gun serviceable.
-Refinishing the entire gun by media blasting with 120-grit aluminum oxide, then polishing the slide flats
-Major reprofiling of the barrel and slide to address a serious fitment issue during cycling
-Shimming the laser diode inside the housing (it didn't even work out of the box)
-Cutting down the vertical adjustment screw on the rear sight to stop it contacting the nozzle
-Securing the rear sight after the adjustment screw head stripped through the sight itself
-Shimming the mainspring for reliable function on propane
-Replacing the piston seal with a CowCow cup seal
-Replacing the bucking with a PDI W-Hold (70D)
-Swapping out the grip screws after the original ones stripped out their bushings
-Shimming the frame rails for tighter slide fitment
-Replacing O-rings in the magazine valves, as they failed to seal reliably
-Replacing the entire laser mount with the actual NPC mount, as the Mafioso mount was too poorly-designed to hold zero, and stripped out an essential mounting screw
-Gutting the toggle switch on the laser and replacing it with a homemade pressure switchAnd then after those, the replacement grip screws stripped out the bushings anyways and I had to tap them for a slightly larger size. On top of those, the magazine valves are poorly made and basic TM mags work a lot better (although, credit where it's due, the Mafioso mag bodies are nicely made and lightweight). So, yeah, not a huge fan of Mafioso at the moment.Let's just say you've really *fruitcage*ed up when I look at an actual AMT pistol and go 'ah, much better'.-
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3 hours ago, paranoiddroid said:
oh man thas gorgeous... so 3d print the laser instead then?
Or, frankly, just get one milled out of aluminum tubing, or even sleeve it together yourself.
The Mafioso one isn't accurate to the real prop, doesn't hold the laser securely (which, itself, is about a two-dollar Aliexpress probably-not-eye-safe laser), and uses a toggle switch to turn the laser on and off which is about as useless as it gets. So, there's not a lot of value there.
The Weaver ring is cheaply made and not actually Weaver spec, so it can't be replaced without also replacing or modifying the mount. Which is a good idea anyways, because instead of the mount and grip being one giant chunk of aluminum (with the paint stripped above the grip), Mafioso made the mount a flimsy piece that sorta secures to a plastic grip via a single screw, which will strip out the frame if you torque it much because the screw threads are slightly undersized for no apparent reason.
And that's not even getting into what's wrong with the gun itself. Not movie-accurate-wrong, functionally wrong. For example, it seems every single one left the factory with geometry that renders them incapable of fully returning to battery if tilted at all upwards.
Bad gun. Bad parts. Do not.
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Oh yeah, forgot to post my last project here.
Mafioso Hardballer Longslide (refinished with aluminum oxide blasting + polishing slide flats), Mafioso laser, real Weaver ring, real NPC mount, DIY pressure switch.
Don't buy the Mafioso kit or laser, it's worth maybe a quarter of what they charge. I had to fix a bunch of stupid little things with this gun to make it usable, and the use of real mounts are solely because the Mafioso parts were hot garbage.
On the bright side, since I've now reworked the laser to hold zero and mount with real-steel hardware, I was able to do this:
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"These are brand new, we just got them in. That's a good gun. You just touch the trigger and the beam comes on and you put the red dot where you want the bullet to go. You can't miss."
Okay, so it's more like squeeze the grips to turn on the red dot, but close enough.
This was built from the Mafioso kit and, as cool as the final product is, I absolutely cannot recommend it. I had a bunch of problems with the gun entirely due to bad design, and the mount was so chintzy (and off-spec- they clearly had no idea what the prop they were trying to replicate actually was) that I ended up having to replace it with a real NPC grip mount, which I need to refinish a little more nicely. The laser was so poorly constructed it didn't even work when I got it and is virtually impossible to zero, and it came with a simple on/off toggle button on the back of the housing, so I had to gut it and DIY a pressure pad to make it useful. Oh yeah, and the entire gun came with the same raw anodized aluminum finish as the laser, which to my eye looks very fake, plus the controls were mirror-finish stainless; I media blasted the entire gun and controls with aluminum oxide and then polished the slide flats to be a bit closer to the real thing.
Bottom line: The kit's worth maybe a quarter of what Mafioso's charging, don't buy it. Hopefully someone else will make a decent Hardballer.
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@blobface Very nice! I'd wager that gets you pretty close to the real 12" barrel length.
Since this thread has been bumped, I figure I should give an update:
- The gun is still working great. It has become my absolute favorite APS-shell shotgun out of all the ones I've owned and built. The shell retention makes it viable without a shell catcher or having to pick up shells, and the spring-loaded revolver mechanism allows a high rate of fire. It sucks to reload, but I never have to reload under fire.
- There is no apparent wear to the internals and barrel alignment is the same as it was back in March. It appears I was correct in interpreting the barrel misalignment as a design tolerancing issue rather than indicative of wear.
- A load of 11x 0.2s on gaseous CO2 from an X-Power shell was well within 1J power limits, but the spread was too tight, resulting in both players getting overkilled at short range and me missing on snap shots. A lot of 11x 0.12s, on the other hand, doesn't hurt anyone, and they go absolutely everywhere thanks to crappy quality. No inner barrel to worry about so they work just fine.
- Octagon Airsoft now sells a black version with metal barrel, so no recoloring is needed. Two people who purchased the gun from Octagon with a metal barrel pre-installed have reported to me that it's the same design as the original plastic one, so still has the cylinder gap. My team is still producing barrels to address this deficiency.
- I have worked on two additional guns for others, and noticed some bad welds- one of which broke and had to be fixed with epoxy. The materials are great, but the production quality is not perfect.
That's all for now.
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@icolater @PureSilver Hopefully this answers your questions better than my attempts to describe the gun in text. Lemme know if I missed anything.
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On 9/1/2021 at 5:35 AM, icolater said:
question. Are viper tech worth getting. Was about to pull the trigger on one but I’m not sure if they are worth it as I’ve seen conflicting reviews. Thank you and god bless.
I'm super late to this but yes, with a caveat. You'll see a lot of conflicting info over the years because VT has improved on a yearly basis, like car models. Original 2010 guns were Inokatsus made under license; modern guns are substantially different and don't have a ton of parts compatibility with the old ones. A lot also depends on what mags you use, since they can use any WA-spec magazines and many WA-derived ones (including GHK with break-in and potentially minor modification).
Receivers are forged on original Colt dies. Internals are all hardened steel and aluminum, all CNCed. There are no cast parts, pot metal, or plastic anywhere in the gun, besides plastic furniture on the retro guns. Hop-up is good enough that this is the first airsoft gun I don't feel a need to upgrade- it uses a proprietary bucking design similar to a very thick PDI W-Hold that provides excellent accuracy and is glued from the factory for optimal seal, but it can be modded to use VSR-spec barrels and buckings instead. Tolerances are very tight; both my guns were very stiff out of the box and had an initial break-in period with sporadic malfunctions, but on the flipside they seal very well. Out of the box the gas efficiency was comparable to GHK, despite the assembled bolt carrier being about 25% heavier and the recoil spring much stronger. The more I use them, the smoother and more efficient they've gotten.
The caveat is that VT has apparently had production issues in 2021 and the QC has dropped. I've had no problems with the LMG (despite much higher round count at this point), but one significant breakage in the carbine (a nozzle component). VT's response was basically 'that shouldn't have happened', they sent me a replacement at no charge, and have modified the design to prevent breakage in the future. Others I've seen have had issues with anodizing or fitment, but VT has also sorted them out. They seem willing to stand by their product, but I'd prefer not to deal with that sort of issue in the first place given the price.
I think if you just want a skirmishable GBB AR and plan to keep it mostly stock, you may be better off with VFC if you want realistic internals and real-steel compatibility or TM if you want performance. It's when you start pricing out upgrades (forged receivers in particular) that VT starts to look like a bargain in comparison. If you want basically a real AR that shoots BBs and needs no upgrades, and are willing to risk the QC problems, I'd recommend it. I do hope VT can sort out that QC problem because it's a pretty big caveat for a gun that costs as much as they do.
Well, a number of folks have asked about VT now, so light of how little English-speaking content there is about VT in recent years, I'm putting together a video review that will go through one of these guns in-depth. Hopefully that should help.
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I've been doing a little iteration on some Viper Tech builds.
VT Colt 733, real A1E1/C7 upper receiver, real furniture and charging handle, muzzle shims in lieu of the anachronistic crush washer, and a front sling swivel. This combination of features gets it screen-accurate to the one used in the film Heat.
Second, a Colt 727 upper for the same lower. This was built from VT barrel parts mounted to a real Rock River Arms A2 upper. Optic is an Aimpoint 3000 courtesy of eBay, and the sling is a DIY 'silent sling' setup styled after those used by SF in the 1990s. I also have an M203 for it but that'll be a temporary addition for games where I can effectively use grenades.
Next, an M16A2, using real Colt furniture and an issued sling, and a Bushmaster-made A2 upper. The receiver is marked as an FN-produced M16A4 on the left side, but that doesn't particularly bother me.
And lastly, because my Colt LMG package is based on the above rifle, it's now slightly reworked to use the fixed carry handle and a Norinco replica of a Colt 3x scope. The upper now isn't quite historically accurate, since fixed carry handle ones used in the USMC trials didn't have forward assists and to my knowledge weren't tested with optics, but I find the higher axis of the scope makes it much easier to get a sight picture with headgear, and more importantly the scope is designed to still permit the use of irons at shorter range, unlike the Elcan I was previously using. I might see about making some HPA-tapped STANAGs to better fit the retro styling.
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GHK AK-74 with Bulgarian plum furniture, W&S steel bolt carrier, and a homebrew plum magazine.
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4 minutes ago, PureSilver said:
Interesting. What mods did the upper need to work with the VT?
- Carving out channels for the gas firing pin (valve knocker), which protrudes slightly into the upper.
- Filing down the barrel nut threading to allow the barrel extension to sit farther into the receiver.
- Filing out a shallow channel on the side of the receiver for the bolt catch.
- Filing down the detent housing on the dust cover door (the bolt is a touch wider than a real one in the recessed area so it can't fully close otherwise).
- Filing out the rear takedown pin to align with the VT lower (rear pin on the VT is very slightly lower than the real thing).
So not a drop-in fit by any means, but overall nothing too involved either.
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1 hour ago, PureSilver said:
Honestly this is so good it's unreal.
I actually have a G&P M203 coming to replace this crappy S&T launcher, which will have the proper U-shaped barrel lug rather than the M4-style QD, and then the gun should be spot-on. This kit was my whole reason for buying 727 parts for my Vipertech (including significantly modifying a real A2 upper to fit), so I definitely wanted to get the gun right.
I also want to see if I can rig the backpack directly to the suspenders to replicate the lack of double straps they have going on-game. And, if I can ever find them, get a set of the green laser ballistic outserts. And maybe adapt my Smalltalk voice amplifier to work with the M40. That'd pretty much do it.
It was a pretty easy kit to put together considering basically all of it is common surplus or readily available civilian gear. The M40 is by far the hardest part to get, and even that's optional.
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Come in, Cooper, do you copy? Cooper, do you read me? Forget about Freeman, we are abandoning the base. If you have any last bomb targets, mark them on the tactical map. Otherwise, get the hell out of there. Repeat, we are pulling out and commencing air strikes. Give us targets, or get below.
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Viper Tech based C7A2, an alternate build for the Colt LMG / Diemaco LSW above. Not quite clone correct (needs an ambi selector and the markings are all wrong) but the broad strokes are there.
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20 hours ago, blobface said:
Is that thing for controlling airburst distance for your dystopian future homemade ammo...?
Could be. Could also be an aiming system for a CIA paramilitary unit attacking an offshore oil rig under the guise of a UN inspection. Or just channeling the future of yesterday.
It's an Imatronics LS45 helium-neon laser sight from the 1980s. Still works, surprisingly.
Edit: And yeah it might be time to buy an AKM. Maybe split the difference when TM's Saiga comes out...
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Grail gun completed.
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It was missing something. That deficiency has been rectified.
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On 7/19/2021 at 6:39 PM, blobface said:
Nice! Are these original mags or are you planning to GHK mag them? (are they even compatible with work?)
EB-Tech mag in the M16, GHK stanag in the 733. And as for compatibility, well...
GHK mags are slightly wider than the other WA-derivative-family mags. It's an issue with stanags because, unlike with pmags, you can't just remove a millimeter off the shell and call it a day, so I had to remove some material from the inside of the VT magwell on the 733 (not looking forward to this on the M16...) to make it fit, in addition to filing the mags and bending them to square up the shells (GHK's bends are sloppy, and most bulge out a bit in the middle).
Additionally, GHK mag springs are a bit weak, so reliable lockback requires either removing the detent pin from the bolt release on the rifle, or replacing the GHK mag spring with a stronger alternative (AEG midcap 'superfeed' springs work fine)(EDIT: Superfeed springs take a set and then stop working, avoid). This can cause the guns to lock open a round early due to the design of the GHK follower (it starts to actuate as the last BB comes up), so then they need a little bit of trimming so as not to actuate the bolt catch until actually empty.
As well, the gas router rubber is just a bit too tall- it doesn't cause any obvious problems at first, but gets torn up over time and compromises the seal. There's a 3D printable jig in the Viper Tech Discord server that allows trimming them to the right height with a razor blade.
All in all I like the design and price point of GHK mags, but I'm not sure it was worth the time and effort to make them work. EB-Tech's lightweight stanags are a bit more expensive but are a solid design and require zero modification. And if I were building a more modern AR I'd probably just buy VT's own pmags and be done with it.
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5 minutes ago, TheFull9 said:
Lovely. I did some thinking recently and came to the conclusion the lower is just about the optimum AR setup for bb warz.
I never used to be a huge AR fan but this gun has changed my mind. Even with the full steel parts it's light, with minimal weight up front so it points easily. The carry handle optic felt excessively tall at first, but it's growing on me, as the heads-up shooting posture feels very natural, particularly for CQB. CAR-15 furniture is slimmer than M4 furniture and I find is easier to use.
I'm still waiting on a repro of the Kley-Zion micro dot mount, which will let me attach the red dot directly to the carry handle rather than needing the rail, but then I think it'll be basically perfect. Could see myself adding a flashlight, Gothic Serpent style, but that's it.
I then pick up the A4 with its 20" gov profile barrel, and it feels like someone took my handy little carbine and taped a boat oar to it. I've been spoiled.
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Second Viper Tech acquired, so now my big project can proceed.
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MOA Show 2022 - VFC M249 GBB
in Airsoft News
Posted
Oh hey, thanks for sharing it. Totally forgot to post the video here.
In the two months since I uploaded that video the guns have still been going strong. There are currently four M249s in my local community, and the two most frequent users have both surpassed the 20K mark with no apparent signs of degradation.
I'm quite disappointed that the cassette mags are so half-assed, and the gas box has all the normal problems with using gas guns on full auto, but converting to AEG boxes and HPA is really, really easy and massively elevates the gun.
I should also share that since uploading the video, I've found that a Maple Leaf Wonder bucking with the stabilizer ring slightly shortened and re-bent smaller- just to create a bit of constriction, so that the BB has to be pushed through the bucking- both significantly improves accuracy and renders the nozzle standoff mod redundant. I'll probably be doing a follow-up on that.