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USCM - Colonial Marines


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The old USCM thread seems to have been archived, so I can't reply to that one, so I'm having to make a new one.

 

Now, Aliens has always been one of those awesome films that never gets boring to watch.

 

We do things a little on the oddball side down here at KGB, so this is the story of a little project I've been working on.

 

Prophet has been bugging me for years to make a set of Colonial Marine armour for us to muck about in, and I've to date resisted his calls on the basis that the M41A Pulse Rifle was such a large part of that iconic load-out that it would be useless to try and attempt it without.

And back then the option was a Marui Thompson and the G&P conversion kit. A tidy sum to spend on something that would be used only occasionally. A sum that I was not willing to part with.

 

And then Paul at Action Hobbies threw a real spanner in the works by selling the Snow Wolf M41A dirt cheap!! I couldn't afford to have one, but then at that price, I couldn't afford to miss it. Proph bought one too.

 

So after a quick phone call and a month of not eating anything.... I was the proud owner of a shiny (albeit Blue) Pulse Rifle.

And after a quick round with some specially mixed paint, I ended up with this beauty.....

 

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But it didn't stop there....

Paul had these downgraded at the factory so they didn't land him in Pokey, so they are woefully underpower, running about 270-280fps... Which just isn't cricket in the airsoft world, so we decided that a little revamp was in order.

 

So without further ado, we changed the spring back to an M100, put a decent hop rubber in to replace the original one made from expended chinese chewing gum, a 'Pro-Fet' AB Mosfet, and an 11.1v LiPo battery.....
And now this thing shoots like a laser! It's only pumping out 330fps, but by the gods it slings 0.25g BB's for miles and throws them all in the same place. It's astounding!

So much so, Proph sold his pimped out armalite because it just wasn't a match for the M41A.

 

Now getting the Battery in was a bit of a issue, but after a little bit of internal work, we placed it here.....

 

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It's mounted permanently inside the shotgun casing, but the 2200mAh cell size has enough juice to last even a hard day's softing and the 11.1v gives it a rate of fire worthy of Hudson rocking out!

 

Battery charging, LiPo Alarm and connection is accessed by a neat mod that allows the faux shell loading door to slide back to reveal the bits you need to get to.

 

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Sling made by Caramac (jolly kind of him) and we're nearly there in terms of screen accuracy (not exact I know... but pretty close).

 

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So where next....

 

It was Armour time.

So 4 weeks solid with a stack of paper-card, enough fibreglass and resin to build a small boat and more body filler than even the dodgiest Garage would be seen dead using, I had come up with these....

 

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And the rest of the family to keep them company.

 

Now, WTF are they you may ask.... For those who don't know, they are Bucks, for vacuum forming over.

So after a wee while with the former and enough plastic to keep Jordan happy, I ended up with something looking like this!!

There was a lot of scrutinising screen shots and Terry English's armour.....

 

file-68.jpg

 

A nice shiny set of raw Colonial Marines armour....

Now, Proph has already blagged this set the cheeky b@stard, so all the painting and assembly from here on in, is of his work.

I'm still yet to make my own set, but that comes tomorrow.

 

It's made from 3mm HIPS (High Impact Poly Styrene) Plastic and is pretty robust. Spat armour (the one everyone knows) is made from 2.5mm HIPS, just as a comparison.
It's not designed entirely for airsofting, but we thought we'd give the plastic a bit of a stress test anyway.

 

So shooting at it from point blank range (and I mean resting on the end of the barrel point blank), we gave it a good burst from my Marui Recoil M4, running at 330fps. The 20 or so round burst left a large number of good dings on it and a few associated stress marks, but it did not penetrate the armour.

We then also gave it a punt with "Old Faithful". My trusty VSR, pimped out to just under 500fps, using 0.4g BB's. As you'd expect, it went straight through with a nice small 6mm hole.
Obviously if someone popped me at that range with a boltie, I'd be rather upset.... But always good in the eyes of experiment.

But at the 20m MED, again, it just left a tiny ding with no other side effects.

 

So how does it look...

 

I've tried to address most of the elements of the screen used suits, the chest/back plates clam-shelling up at the sides, the return ridges on the edges of the armour, the greaves clam-shelling, and being big enough to suit the 'taller trooper'.

 

Well, after a bit of sloshing some paint around.

Proph's armour ended up looking like this....

 

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Pretty swish I think...

 

Yes I know the BDU's are not the correct pattern (that's being looked into, but I don't feel like having my bottom felt to the tune of $300 + shipping + import duty + VAT for any of the current ones). Vegetato Desert or Polish Desert BDU's are high on the list at the moment.

 

I've done the helmet, but no pictures of that one yet.

 

I've got myself a real Gerber Mk2 just for the hell of it (although I probably won't take that out with me that often!) and a few other bits are in the pipeline.

Shoulder Lamp is next, but this won't probably get taken skirmishing so is a bit of a side project.

 

 

And there we have it!

 

BadASS!

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Colonial Marines you say? ;)

 

Here's my set up- I can't take credit for anything except the paintwork: the armour is made by Spatcave and the fatigues are the 1st Pattern Screen Accurate ones.

Weapon is a G&P M41a

Jungle boots (as per the movie)

I'll normally be running an OD boonie and faked up headset.

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Some shots of the 'graffiti' and paint before I black-washed the whole thing- better lighting too:

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  • 5 months later...

Here's my little contribution.

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Just picked up the pulse rifle from Habakure and the pistol has been sitting around for years.

 

 

The Chef do you still have the bucks for vacuum forming? If so would you be willing to make another set and what sort of price would you be wanting?

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Hey bud, I certainly do...

 

The kit is £350, + postage (about £15, PF48). And that's for a rough trimmed kit of all the hard armour parts barring the lid. Buckles, webbing, rivets and stuff.

You just need to do some final trimming and paint it to your choosing.

 

 

Here's some of me and the crowd with our finished armour.

 

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Always been tempted, though I would probably take the plasticard armour route over fibreglass and resin at least at first.

 

That would leave the only real kick to the bank balance being getting an M41 on the go. Pretty much everywhere is out of stock of the snow wolf ones and most annoyingly of all some of the stores still have them listed at discount prices they once had them for so I've seen them ranging from £380 down to £220...but all sold out so doesn't really matter.

 

Then you have the kits, prices on those seem to be all over the place too, and then at the highest price you've got the already built kits which I've seen being listed at up at over £600.

 

Hell I could tear apart a PKM and build a smartgun if I was going to spend that much money.

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I saw this in the for sale section. It's from June but it may be worth PMing the guy just in case.

http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/209908-snow-wolf-m41a-pulse-rifle-two-tone/

 

They are a pig to take to bits for spraying and any internal work but it's worth it.

Speaking of spraying. After a week and a half of it being in bits I've finally got mine back together with a new paint job and some mods.

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And with its friend.

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The mods are:

sling loops front and rear

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tinted ammo counter

Before

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After

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This has made it so the counter isn't that visible in daylight unfortunately but on the plus side it no longer over saturates its self in darker areas. The next time I have it in pieces I'll probably put a lighter tint on it.

 

and a painted shotgun shell to more closely resemble the grenades with the red cap in the movie.

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One day I'll try and track down a replica grenade and replace the shell with it.

 

 

All I need to do now is track down a few more magazine base plates.

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I stumbled across a store that had a couple of the Snow Wolf guns in stock, naturally they are in tan not green so would still be a "take apart and respray" job so trying to find a two-tone for cheaper is just the same in terms of work needed.

 

They do look amazing but as things go my selection of guns are all currently somewhat tempermental (full metal ww2 guns) and part of me thinks my next purchase should really just be something basic and reliable to have when I inevitably break all my other guns trying to take them to bits and get them fully working.

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  • 2 months later...

Hopefully some of you guys can help out a friend of mine. He's just got his hands on a second hand M41a (the G&G kit he thinks) BUT it's minus the endcap on the magwell (the one that covers the mag) .

 

Does anyone have a spare/source for new ones as he want to skirmish the thing. I know someone on here used to make/source them but can't for the life of me remember his name.

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