Jump to content

Initial Impressions of the TM SOPMOD M4 AEG


Recommended Posts

While fiddling about with my SOCOM recently I noticed an expected benefit of using a Magpul MIAD grip. The swappable backstrap means you only need to remove the pistol grip base to get access to the anti-reverse lever and unlock the gearbox after a jam.

 

post-285-0-36661400-1371482809_thumb.jpg

 

Edit: also useful for checking the pinion gear sits properly within the gearbox.

Edited by SixtyNiner
  • Like 4
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Replies 5.3k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Posts

While fiddling about with my SOCOM recently I noticed an expected benefit of using a Magpul MIAD grip. The swappable backstrap means you only need to remove the pistol grip base to get access to the a

Oh PureSilver, you do spoil me rotten sometimes.   PureSilver dropped half his SOPMOD off with me last weekend with some new goodies to install. Before we continue, you should note that the gun had

Posted Images

Hey Everyone,

 

I notice a lack of information on other forums regarding the TM Recoil Series and decided to create a group on Facebook as a place to discuss experiences with this specific system.  Please do a search on facebook for "Tokyo Marui Recoil Next Generation EBB Owner's Group".  The primary focus will be on TM's SOPMOD, M4A1 SOCOM, G36, SCAR, etc. recoil series AEGs.  

 

Thank You!

Link to post
Share on other sites

It's occurred to me that since I will be changing literally every component in my SOPMOD's gearbox, I might as well buy a new gearbox casing from Echigoya and sell the original, fully-working low-round-count gearbox as a complete unit. Does anyone know anyone who might be interested in such a thing? Or what it would be worth?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Arne71, my suggestion to your mate is to leave the beautiful recce rifle as it is and if they must have a diemaco then sell the much more expensive recce and use the money to buy a sopmod/socom which will be 100 times easier to convert. The rails on recces are notoriously hard to get off.

Link to post
Share on other sites

It's occurred to me that since I will be changing literally every component in my SOPMOD's gearbox, I might as well buy a new gearbox casing from Echigoya and sell the original, fully-working low-round-count gearbox as a complete unit. Does anyone know anyone who might be interested in such a thing? Or what it would be worth?

 

I am interested for the gearbox case but Echigoya has them out of  stock........

Link to post
Share on other sites

The gear box cases have been out of stock at Echigoya for about a year, so don`t count on them coming back in stock anytime soon. Echigoya is the only place I`ve seen them listed too. 

Classifieds might be the best option. That`s unless any of the Japanese members on this forum have other suggestions

Edited by arne71
Link to post
Share on other sites

My m4 socom is still purring. Gearbox shell is in tact...thanks to the ARS sorbo pad. It has spent most of its life shooting just under 400 fps. Upgraded the gears, piston, nozzle, gears, bushings, barrel, and spring. I have the bearing spring guide as well but it puts me over the 400 fps limit most fields use.

 

Add far as cosmetics go. It's still work in progress. Everything always is when you have too much stuff you want to build up. Lol

 

Posted Image

 

Top: TM M4 recoil shock. Bottom: KWA LM4 GBBR

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

PureSilver,

I think I can track you down an empty gearbox shell, or are you looking for a complete one?

 

Thanks for the offer, that's very kind! Fortunately I think I've managed to source a shell second-hand, so I'm probably going to build up my new gearbox inside it and sell my older gearbox as a complete unit, which means I won't need another 'box. If you're able to source me an ARS/Echigoya SURUS, then I'd be throwing money at you!

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

I´ve come across a guy making custom Diemaco rear sling mounts, unfortunately only for aeg and gbb. 

I use the enhanced Laylax lock rings on my rifles. Would it be considered "safe" to use a dremel on a gbb mount and attach it to my Marui ebb based Diemacos?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah the ASAP for GBB definitely works.. although looking at it in hindsight perhaps the real one would have worked with even less modding, they're practically the same price .

 

20130606-192512.jpg

 

 

A file would do the job, or dremel if you got one as pointed out. 

 

(although, mine is front wired, so you'd have to take a little more off for the wires)

Edited by blobface
Link to post
Share on other sites

That problem I mentioned earlier does appear to be shimming, at least in part. Now, having destroyed my piston, I understand a lot more about it than I thought I did before. I suspect the original issue, before I started messing around, was probably down to power transference and slightly poor shimming. The trigger contacts were tan all over with dirt, and when I cleaned this away I can actually see through it in parts, so I suspect that's part of it. That with the shimming meant that at random points during the day there wasn't enough power to fully turn the box and you effectively got the "semi lock" even in FA.

 

Another issue I discovered was incorrect motor height adjustment. I hadn't realised that unlike a lot of other aegs, the motor height adjustment disk/plate (that sits between the grub screw and the motor and pushes the motor up when you adjust height) has a small square of plastic that sits underneath it. This has obviously come out at some point as I found it an stored it away when I found it without knowing what it was. Its absence meant that the plate sometimes fell into the hole at an angle and gave inconsistent/no/full adjustment, which would have been putting a lot of strain on the bevel gear. I may also have trapped the motor wires on occasion, causing similar issues.

 

In my most recent attempt to resolve all this, I had managed to incorrectly shim the sector gear. This meant that it sat too high and the half teeth on it engaged with the piston when they shouldn't have. This sometimes pulled the piston back using the half teeth and then released it early into the full teeth, or possibly meant the full teeth released the piston correctly at full tension, but the half teeth picked it up as it was flying forward, before it had expanded properly. Do this for a few hundred revolutions and it wears down the teeth at the front end of the piston, then the next tooth, etc. Eventually the mangled piston jammed.

 

I've now cleaned the contacts as best I can and reshimmed it. This time starting from the bevel gear. I hadn't understood that if the gear is shimmed too low you'll either have wobble/slipping or adjust the motor a really long way down and that if you set it too high the motor will either be pushing it down and generating resistance, or if it's really bad only be able to have part of the motor (pinion) gear touching the bevel gear. Previously I had just been trying to get little play using roughly equal spacing each side, and I had never actually put the pistol grip on and realised that you can still have play in "gearbox only" but have no play when the grip/motor is in place and correctly adjusted. I suspect in my case that being too tight combined with poor motor height adjustment due to missing plate was giving me a situation where only the top half of the pinion teeth were engaged *and* there was a lot of resistance. Not a good combination. Then I shimmed the sector gear due to the critical height relating to piston/pickup lever and did the spur gear last as of the two it's the most flexible in terms of position.

 

So, contacts clean, gears shimmed (bevel, sector, spur) and PTFE round the cylinder head with the o-ring then put over the top of that, rather than the other way round. Hopefully when I replace the piston, regrease everything and put it back together it'll do a little better than before. It also explains why the problem manifest itself more (blowing fuses) with a higher powered spring - too much total resistance overall compared to standard spring, even though the rest of the setup wasn't great in both cases. 

 

I may actually revisit some of my older AEGs now just to see if I can improve them.

 

- Edited to add - I also hadn't realised it was possible to view the pinion/bevel gear interaction with the gearbox closed up and the grip on through holes in the gearbox, which helped a lot in working out what was wrong and getting much closer to the correct motor height from the outset.

Edited by Hatchet
Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and the use of session cookies.