Unicorn Aks74u Review

[greatwatermelon]

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Table of Contents
First Impressions
Real Steel History
Appearance/Feel/Build Quality
Internals
Function
Performance
Accessories and Modifications
Pros & Cons
Ordering
Conclusion


First Impressions:

I ordered the Unicorn AKS74U from gunnerairsoft.com over 5 months ago for $210 with a 9.6v stick battery. To begin with, gunnerairsoft took 2 weeks to ship out my aks74u and then customs held my aks74u for 2 more weeks. The Aks74u was wrapped with a very thin layer of brown paper and then pretty much chucked into a very ordinary brown cardboard box with a pink unicorn logo sticker ontop. The unicorn aks74u had the top cover tapped down and the bolt/cylinder/(missing spring) was throw into plastic bag. Gunnerairsoft never responded neither sent me a new spring for the bolt nor did they ever replace the defective 9.6v Firefox stick battery. ComradeMP kindly sent me his TM bolt with spring, and I had to go to Airsoft Extreme to spend another 30 bucks buying a stick battery. First thing that came to my head when I pulled the Unicorn AKS74U is, nice and heavy but it had so many ugly gaps and shakes/wobbles.

Real Steel History:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The AKS-74U (nicknamed the Krinkov[1],) is an ultra-compact assault rifle designed in the Soviet Union that was in production from the early 1980s until circa 1991.

The AKS-74U ("U" for "???????????"/"Ukoro?ennyj" [shortened]) was developed in the late 1970s from the AKS-74, a folding-stock variant of the AK-74. The earliest known models were produced and dated by the Izmash and Tula Arsenals beginning in 1981. The AKS-74U is the size of, and has the effective range of a submachine gun, due to the shorter barrel. Only a few parts are interchangeable with the AK74, although it does utilize the same 5.45 mm ammunition. A notable distinguishing feature is the conical gas expansion chamber developed to control recoil and muzzle flash as well as to facilitate cycling of the weapon given the shorter barrel.

The rifle was intended for vehicle and artillery crews, as well as for special forces soldiers needing particularly small, lightweight weapons. Today the AKS-74U is found primarily amongst police, private sector guards and rear-echelon military units, being superseded among front-line military units by the compact versions of the AK-100 family.

The AKS-74U is capable of being fitted with the detachable PBS5 suppressor, as well as the suppressed 30 mm BS-1 "Tishina" grenade launcher firing high explosive dual purpose (HEDP) grenades. The grenades from the BS-1 are launched by blank cartridges stored in a pistol grip box magazine; the launching cartridges are cycled by bolt action. It has a flip-type U-notch rear sight and a cylindrical post front sight. Variants with a side-mounted optics plate can fit night vision scopes or other compatible optics, and have an added "N" designation to signify the existence of the optics plate. These AKS-74UN variants are rather rare from the factory, as most were produced without an optics plate.

Appearance/Feel/Build Quality:

The AKS74U looked sexy and felt great. The bakelite-colored mid cap worked flawlessly even though it looked a bit too glossy (not in the picture). But when you closely examine it, it had tons of shakes/wobbles. I followed what was said on Arnies to tighten screws and such which helped a bit. But I had troubles flushing the top cover with the body. Unicorn actually welded the top cover crookedly to the rear sight! I ended up twisting the cover and using pliers inorder to flush it with the lower receiver. I later received the bolt spring from ComradeMP, sadly the Tokyo Marui bolt did not work. I poped in the spring and finally a complete aks74u, but the bolt on the unicorn aks74u completely sucks. Onwards to another part of the gun, I filed the metal part of the top foregrip inorder to get rid of the weird triangluar gap. Since this is a kit, the edges on some parts of the Unicorn AKS74U was still sharp, had to sand those edges down after cutting myself multiple times. Parts that remain loose/wobbles are flashider, selector switch, bolt, mag in magwell, stock, and top foregrip. Overall, not bad I guess, I could live with these cosmetic issues.

Externals:


The Unicorn aks74u is built mostly out of blue steel with oak wood foregrips. Overall, externals are great, just the construction was lacking. Pistol grip felt smooth with a nice griddy diamond cut outs.

Internals:

The Unicorn aks74u has a cyma ak gearbox/element ak hop up (v hop up bucking)/Unicorn 6.03 tightbore installed. I have not opened the gearbox and neither do I plan to because the gun performs great/sounds great already.

Supposely the cyma gearbox's internals are made up of:
-cyma gearbox shell
-china steel gears
-plastic piston/piston head/spring guide/cylinder head
-plastic bushings
-brass cylinder
-china motor
-NO FUSE

Performance:

When I was at sequoia airsoft for a holloween game, my ca aug failed within 5 minutes of the first game. Really nervously, I was pulled out my Unicorn Aks74u, not even expecting it to be used. Got it chronoed with the staff member's eyebrows raised. The unicorn aks74u put out a fps of 370 with a very impressive ROF with the 9.6v intellect. Throughout the day, I got kills ranging from 3 (yes, ouch ) to 150 feet. The gun was pretty accurate (hop up was very effective) but no where as good compared to aeg dragunov ak that I got into a fire fight with. lol. The performance the unicorn aks74u really changed my view on the reliability/performance of china clones by saving my day at Sequoia airsoft.

Accessories & Modications:

There is not too much to add on for the small aks74u. For Mods, just sand, twist, bend, file, and tighten up stuff on the aks74u and it should be more solid.

Here are the few assessories that could be added:
-side mount for scope
-tactical/wooden aftermarket foregrips
-silencer/suppressor
-rubber absorber butt stock cover

Pros & Cons

Pros:
-good fps
-good rof
-blue steel
-real wood
-accurate enough (has a V hop up bucking)

Cons:
-flashider wobbles
-loose selector switch
-bolt is a piece of >
-stock wobbles weither folded or extended
-clone gearbox
-stock can be folded without pressing the button by knocking it from one side.

Ordering:

Gunnerairsoft.com has more to live up to, imo. To be safe, I would order elsewhere.

Conclusion:

The Unicorn AKS74U was very much below my expectation externally; it was no where near solid. If I were to take it and shake it violently from the pistol grip side, it would wobble, shake, and flop like a fish.

The aks74u did excede my expection of the performance by firing 370 fps & 1000+ RPM.

I really don't have the money to buy a 50 dollar guarder bolt, time to revarnish my woodgrips, and the ado to really care about all the wobbles here and there. But overall, I believe this Unicorn aks74U has a potential to become a beast by touching up the externals and letting the performance fire like no end.

Edited February 23, 2008 by greatwatermelon

[rolling-thunder]

I'd pretty much agree with your assesment of the the Unicorn AKS74U.I fix the wobbly flash hider by the application of plummers tape to the thread & that stopped the wobble.Some people have reported problems fitting other magazines but seeing as i own more than one type of mag{in fact i own two}i tried my Cyma highcap mag in the Unicorn & it worked a treat.I intend buying Star or MAG midcap magazines so i have enough to skirmish with.I have to say that i got my gun just before the VCR bill came into affect in the UK.My gun was probably rushed out of the door to make sure i got it but when it arrived 3 days after ordering it the gun was in good condition with all the parts & a 8.4 1500MaH Firefox battery & there was enough energy in the Battery to empty a couple of mags straight away.

My gun shoots 96 feet with no problems & i reckon it would shoot twice that {possibly further}.

My only real issue which i'll have to look into when i get the time,is shooting from semi to full auto,changing the rate of fire can be tricky with the gun sticking on semi auto

My gun with my Cyma AK47

Edited February 23, 2008 by rolling-thunder

[greatwatermelon]

ah, i tried couple tapes, and it didn't work out very well, it was not thin enough... so the adatpor started turn even though i tightened the grub screw pretty tightly. I should try plummers tape sometime tho.

 

I know for sure though, that CA mags work cause that's a CA AK mag, pretty tight cause i bought it off some guy for 20 dollars and it had 600 bb's already loaded in it. Found out that the spring kinda loss tension, but not to worry, i had an extra hi-cap spring for some odd reason, that i ordered off Ehobbyasia along time ago. So it works like a charm now.

 

O yeah, D-boy ak hi-caps also work in it

 

Mag mid-caps should work perfectly from what i hear . But, man, changing the selector switch is a little tricky especially since it's loose. I got killed a couple times cause i rushed, and i left the gun on safety at that time. so i ended up running around trying to change the selector switch. XD ended up getting killed cause of it.

 

Overall it performs great, you should definitely try a 9.6v sometime, it's fabulous.

Edited February 23, 2008 by greatwatermelon