ZEKE M9 conversion with a twist

[twin_cam]

Most of you will think that I'm off my rocker for even suggesting any type of build up using an HFC anything as a base gun. I thought the same thing until i worked on 2 of the damn things for vipermaster, a member of the Hagibis airsoft group, up in Los Angeles.

 

I guess I should say a few brief words on the donor. It's an all metal m9, but strangely, everything about it is oversized. The frame and the slide are just a hair over normal. When placed side by side with a TM m9, it looks like the Marui's fat younger brother. When you build 1911's professionally, this simply will not do. After much deliberation with Hitman, we decided to use the fundamental goodness of the HFC internals and ditch the fatboy clothing.

 

In a few days, a ZEKE military m9 kit arrived in the mail as well as a Laylax 9 ball guide and spring set, hidakaya cylinder spring, a firefly rocket valve, KM metal m9 sear, and a KM main spring housing stop. Now the fun began. I tore down the hfc m9 and began chucking unneeded parts in the corner of the workshop a la Monster Garage. once I had it down to the frame and internals, I started making measurements and comparing the internal frame to the external ZEKE receiver. It was going to be a tight fit and it would require a lot of careful filing and grinding, but it would work.

 

The ZEKE kit has a lot of flashing left over from the casting process. All this has to be removed and all the high spots along the frame needed to be ground flat and leveled. After all this work was done, I set about mocking up the components to see if it all fit. I immediately ran into problems.

 

The internal frame dropped into the receiver, but the takedown lever did not fit in it's opening. the internal frame hole and the external hole were off by .5mm, enough to make a difference. I broke out the dremel and proceeded to match the internal opening to the external. You have to go easy when you do this type of work. It's not steel, so if you remove too much material, you can't weld in any extra. Once i finished with the dremel, i broke out the full round needle file to make all the surfaces even. The takedown lever now fit and worked as advertised.

 

I completed assembling the receiver and set about building my slide assembly. Everything pretty much slotted neatly into place except for one thing: the slide mounted safety. Since the hfc components were too large, I had to use surplus components from another TM m9. All the performance parts went in and performance tuning began in earnest.

 

The last thing to do was fit the grips. In this case, genuine checkered wood grips from beretta. These are not a direct fit, and work is required to get the internal surface to clear the m9 trigger bar, but the results are worth the work. The gun is now more accurate than a marui m9 as well as more powerful. Since all my work is green gas based, here is the seat of the pants performance. It punches happily thru both sides of a coke can, and will rip the bottom. Sometimes penetrating, but mostly tearing it and leaving a very big smile(joker grin big) at the bottom of the dimpled metal. Sounds powerful enough to me.

[hitman]

Here are pictures of the HFC Beretta 92F. Enjoy folks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Catchv22]

Why did you use the HFC Beretta as the base? Is there any advantage (seeing how you replaced most of the metal parts anyway), or was this the only available?

[twin_cam]

Why did you use the HFC Beretta as the base? Is there any advantage (seeing how you replaced most of the metal parts anyway), or was this the only available?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Here's the answer. When properly tuned, the HFC's make more power than the TM m9's and they are cheaper. I only changed the cylinder spring and the rocket valve to sweeten the deal. You'll notice that there are no other performance parts. I achieved comparable performance in my previous HFC m9 overhauls without changing any parts. Just balancing and blueprinting as it were.

 

This was also an experiment to see if it could be done, and I think that goal was achieved. You're never going to learn anything if you don't push the limits to see what can be done. As a gunsmith, it's something I'm constantly doing to keep myself from getting stale and to push my craft to a higher level.

[hitman]

To further add to twin_cam's reply regarding why we used a HFC. I'm a big fan of Western Arms pistols but the only problem is when upgrading Western Arms Berettas are that under green gas, they tend to have very poor green gas consumption. The milage is very low. In other words, you can only get a few good shots out of a WA Beretta on green gas before your gas supply is depleted. As a result, we thus decided that the best solution to this was to use a HFC. Why? cause its dirt cheap and since everything's gonna get pulled out and replaced, why not right? In any case, this was a project that was well worth the time, effort and money!

[McMadkat]

HFC berretas are better than KJW or TM ones as far I have found. My M190 was a better gun than a KJW FMV, and unlike TM could handle most gases fine.

 

Good one you for having ago at it!

 

McMadkat

[Catchv22]

Well the finished product looks very nice. Thanks for the answers.

[Vicks]

Just have to say thats a sexy beast, gonna get the zeke set for my TM m9, once the blooming HK shops get it back in stock :@