Wolverine Inferno Gen 2 + Wraith + 4CRL

[Horsem4n]

What is up this Wednesday my dudes? I finished putting my sellout carbine together with an Elite Force 4CRL as the base powered by the new Generation 2 Wolverine Inferno Spartan edition complemented by the 12g CO2 powerlet adapting Wraith stock.

 

The Elite Force 4CRL is a rebranded VFC carbine. Normally an AEG M4 with a 14" M4 barrel, SPR muzzle break, unique 7" free float RIS, folding front sight, and standard A2 grip and full stock. Sort of meant and to be a shorter SPR. 
I bought the 4CRL off of Evike's boneyard. I was informed that many EF 4CRLs suffered broken stocks when shipped to umarex from VFC. Instead of sending them all back, umarex decided to sell them as is and evike must have bought a few to sell in their boneyard and I have heard other shops have bought them to refurbish. 
As a base gun, there's currently no better value as they can be had for $160 at the time of this writing. Aside from the broken stock, mine also was missing the charging handle lock. I found the spring for the lock floating in the box and I found the roll pin inside the gearbox. But aside from that, the gun was brand new and came with a sealed 300rnd magazine.

 

The Wolverine Inferno Gen 2 is pretty new on the market. The major difference now is that the nozzle is always being forced forward by a spring and is retracted when gassed up. The nozzle and body are also all aluminum now. The sprung nozzle increases the Inferno's compatibility with hopup buckings allowing you to drop it into a gun like the 4CRL without having to modify the hop up. previously, if you had the wrong bucking, you would get terribly inefficient performance with wild chrono readings. now everything is much more stable.

for those who really dont know, the Wolverine Inferno is one of the growing number of gas powered engines made to replace the normal gears and piston in a gearbox. effectively converting an AEG to a gas gun. but the point of these systems is not to just convert it to gas, but to also make the fire control completely adjustable. FPS, ROF, and select fire settings all available in one gun without changing gear sets or soldering in fancy mosfets. 

ultimately allowing you to set up one gun that doesn't need to be disassembled to configure it for whatever game you are going to.

The Wolverine Inferno is Wolverine's cost effective option for AEGs with centrally located nozzles in relation to the cylinder head. other guns like the P90 or M14 need offset nozzles, of which Wolverine offers the Hydra.

 

The Spartan Edition comes with an FCU built into the trigger board. This is also the most cost effective option for buying a new Wolverine product coming in at under $300. The cost savings come with a dwindling list of customizing options. with the spartan edition you are limited to adjusting only the ROF, FPS, and nozzle dwell time (the amount of time the nozzle stays forward and putting gas down the barrel). the ROF and dwell are adjustable electronically via a programming mode by holding the trigger down while plugging in the battery. here in semi, you adjust the dwell to your barrel length and in auto, you adjust the ROF. 

to adjust dwell, you hold the trigger down in semi and the gun automatically fires 1 shot every couple of seconds. every shot will have a shorter dwell time and you need to be firing BBs to see the adjustment take place. eventually you will see a drop in FPS and you will then have to back up to the setting before the FPS drop. to do this you double tap the trigger instead of holding it down.

if the dwell drops too low and you don't feel like double tapping back out, you can hold the trigger down until the dwell adjusts to 0 and then it will cycle back to full dwell.

to adjust ROF, you do the same in the full auto setting. you will hear 3 bursts every couple seconds getting faster and faster. just stop when you are happy with the speed.

the settings save automatically when you unplug the battery and will hold those settings until you go back into programming mode and change them.

from the factory, the dwell is set to a barrel length of around 550mm (judging from setting it to my barrel length of 363mm) and the ROF is set to 14RPS (confirmed with my chrono).

i store the FCU battery in the grip. not tooless to get it out as im just leaving the motor grip end cap in there unmodified, but these things have very little power draw and a 250-300 mAh 7.4v lipo will last all day. plus it may help some fields feel better that i cannot remove the battery and enter programming mode in the field. turning the dwell back up can increase the joule creep factor. over voluming and all that.

 

The Wolverine Wraith stock is a gas option for the line sticklers and people like me who just like 12g powerlets. the Wraith is a buffer tube with a built in Wolverine storm regulator and a length adjustable 12g adapter with a 1/3 turn QD cap to make it easy to change the powerlets.

installing the wraith is pretty involved and changes the reversible Inferno drop in engine to a permanent modification to your gearbox and your AEG M4 lower receiver. the specifications for the mod are described on wolverines website and installation video, but you can see my process in the gallery below.

the downsides to the increase in mobility you get with this compact gas system is limited shots per powerlet, a slight decrease in consistency (but still spectacular for 12g CO2), limited stock options (it's a whole buffer tube), and no provision to see the exact PSI you are running the system at.

the bottom tower of the buffer tube is rather thin for stock compatibility, (otherwise the tube is milspec) but the LE stock i got was on the larger end of commercial, so im in rattle city, but its OK. 

i have not counted my shots per CO2 powerlet as i have only done the needed adjustments so far. but i have used 5 powerlets and i can tell that i am around the quoted generous figure of 200 shots per 12g CO2.

my FPS stability is +-5 FPS and my gun has a small leak coming out of the hopup(when i fire, i feel a small about of air come from the hop up out of the magwell, it means the nozzle doesn't make a full seal against the bucking). totally usable, but i plan to get a new bucking and flat hop it which will make that figure smaller. if not, it could be due to alignment which ill have to adjust later.

my FPS was set to ~380 with .20gs out of the box for my barrel length (363mm).i dont know the low end or high end of the adjustment range yet.

 

below is a gallery of the instal process and a couple crappy pics of my rifle complete and dressed up with what i had.

 

stripped lower to start

 

have to chop this down that much

 

but gotta punch out that center nut for the AEG stock tube

 

chucked up for a good ol' hack saw

 

complete cut and drill out center hole for the tube that needs to come through the receiver (~10mm, i used a .397" drill bit)

plus wraith fully mounted

the wraith comes with that sling plate. its RS spec and not AEG spec. you can use an AEG spec sling plate if you buy the SR25 version of the wraith with a slightly longer gas outlet tube. but i would just buy a RS sling plate if you want an ASAP or something.

 

below is the modification needed to be done to the gearbox as the line running from the inferno needs to come out the back of the gearbox with enough room to slip into the gas outlet tube as you drop in the gearbox. plus, the nut and tube need to clear the gearbox.

 

and below is a few pics of the gun as i was getting it together for the first test and with it all dressed up. ill post more pics after i take better ones with some sunlight.

 

Im super happy with it and still have more tuning to do. i also want to find a nice SPR suppressor for it. 

the wraith isn't the most cost effective option to power the Wolverine kits out there, but it's definitely one of the coolest right now.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Horsem4n