UTG AK47 Review w/pics. REALLY!

[Harper]

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This is a review that I did a couple weeks ago on Arisoft Retreat forum. As there doesn't seem to be a dedicated thread with a review here, I am posting it for your consideratiion.

Harper.

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Well, there has been quite a bit of back and forth discussion on Leapers new AEG the UTG AK47LE WARHAWK. Some people have been pleasantly surprised by the quality and good looks of the gun, while others have been disgusted by poor build and quality control. Frankly, I was quite worried that I had dropped my $139.99 down a hole, but when my UTG AK arrived in the mail this afternoon, I was relieved to see that while it has a few problems, it isn't as bad as some people claim.

 

This review will be mostly pictures of my initial disassembly and piston upgrade. I will follow the more or less accepted convention of breaking down the review into the following catagories.

 

1. Ordering

2. First Impressions

3. Gun size and feel

4. Internals

5. Performance

6. Overall

 

 

1:Ordering

I ordered the gun online from Evike.com, cost $139.99, with free UPS ground shipping. Total shipping time was 8 days, Thursday Jan. 5th to Friday Jan. 13th. Package contained the AEG, 600 Mah 9v charger, two 600 round high cap mags, 8.4v 1200 MaH large style battery, speed loader, cleaning rod, and UTG 3pt TAC sling. Evike threw in a small bag of 1000 Matrix .2 gram BB's.

 

2: First Impressions

The gun, with the tri rail removed.

 

Well, I found all the things others have reported...

 

The infamous split stock. I was a bit dismayed that the first thing I noticed was that the stock wasn't glued together. Not to worry, I just squeezed the stock, and it popped into place with just a normal seam line.

 

The bluing on some of the metal parts didn't seem to take very well, resulting in this whitish corrosion. When you rub it off, it reveals bear metal. A bit of Cold Gun Blue or black paint will be needed to cover this up.

 

A bit more rust. These were the two major places that were bad. There was a bit of rust on the screws on the base of the magazines, but it was easily rubbed off with a bit of oil.

 

 

I have heard some bad things about the battery, but have yet to find out for myself how long it will last. The fact that it doesn't say if it is NiCad or NiMH doesn't bode well. I am assumeing that it is NiCad, and discharged it before I put it on the charger.

UTG has thoughtfully included a spare fuse in the fusebox.

 

****UPDATE****

The stock battery, fully charged will shoot about one full mag, or 600 rounds, before it is unable to pull the stock spring back to release.

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Overall, my first impression was positive. It has a few problems, but nothing that can't be fixed easily.

 

 

3. Gun size and feel

 

The gun has some weight to it. There is quite a bit of metal in the build, so it has a feeling of solidity. There is no wobble or looseness in the pistol grip, stock or hand guards. It feels like it could take some punishment. There is nothing that feels particularly fragile. The mags are plastic, but look good enough, and they seat in the mag well firmly and without any rattle. It is within the normal variance in barrel length and stock size for an AK 47.

 

*******UPDATE*********

The mags seem to fire about 150 or so rounds before it starts noticably missfireing. You will need to keep the mag well wound to get the best performance.

 

**edit**

After putting a slight bevel on the inner serface of the feed tube, and giving the magazines a good thorough lube, the mags feed flawlesly in my gun.

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4. Internals

 

The UTG AK47 breaks down pretty much exactly like the Tokyo Marui, with the exception of the butt stock. Here is a very nice guide to dissasembly from Arnies airsoft.

http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/reviews/ak47/ak47ftkfit.htm

 

The buttstock attachment. Three rather beefy screws hold the stock to the lower reciever.

 

The reciever cover is cast metal, and fairly heavy. The blueing on the outside is flawless.

 

The motor frankly looked like it had been kicked down the ally a few times. It was quite scuffed, but seems to work well.

The wires are soldered to the motor leads, makeing swaping out the motor a bit more of a hassle, but it at least insures a positive connection.

 

 

The wireing is of a small gauge, but seems to be of good quality. It reminds me of the wireing in my ICS M4.

 

*****************UPDATE**********************

The wireing is bad. Real bad. Just like the first generation UTG MP5s, you MUST replace the wireing if you want to upgrade the spring. You SHOULD replace the wireing just so that you get better preformance from your battery and motor. You'll be glad you did.

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The Hop up unit is a type I am not familier with, so I didn't take it apart.

[Harper]

 

The gearbox. It is actually nicer looking than these pictures would make it seem. It's no TM, but the casting is clean, and it fits together well. The motor is an Short style EG 700 clone.

 

The gears are actually very nice. They appear to be steel, and mesh quite nicely. The plastic parts in the gearbox are of a clear plastic. It seems to be flexible enough, but I still don't trust it. Clear tappet plates go against Nature.[]

The shimming is not great, but servicable, and the bearings are nylon.

 

 

The piston head is ported, and the O-ring *looks* good, but there was quite a bit of air leakage past it. Replace it right off. The gears on the Piston look a bit rough. They are big and beefy, but they doun't look smooth.

 

Suprisingly good compression around my cylinder head and air nozzle. The brass tube actually looks like it was lathe turned, and measured only .001 smaller than the inside diameter of the air nozzle.

 

The gears look good, but I was pleased to see that the Bevel gear has four notches for the anti-reversal latch, rather than the standard two.

 

5. Performance

 

Not bad. About the same FPS as a stock UTG MP5, around the 250 mark based on the Poor mans chrono. Rate of fire is good with a well-charged battery, but nothing particularly noteworthy. Hop up is strong with a .20-gram bb, but doesn't seem to zero out. I still get a bit of hop with the hop up lever set to minimum. I was pleasantly surprise by the accuracy. At 80 feet I was able to hit a 4-inch target often enough that it wasn't random chance. There were some radically off target shots, again I think because I might have a problem with the installation of the hop up.

 

*****************UPDATE**********************

This gun has turned out to be the most accurate gun in my possesion, even better than my ICS M4. A Burst of three .25 gram bbs will usually hit within two inches of each other at 50 feet, and within 6 inches at 70 feet.

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6. Overall

 

The UTG AK47 is a fairly solid gun. It shoots okay out of the box, and I personally think it looks good. There are a few problems, but for the most part, they can be fixed easily. It's solid, and the gearbox looks like it can take upgrades well. The version 3 gearbox is said to be stronger than the version 2, and I think it is much easier to work on. The trigger doesn't want to spring across the room while you try to put the box back together. []

 

The only real limiting factor out of the box is the battery. It works well with the stock spring, but it will not pull an M100 consistently.

 

7: Upgrades

 

I re-shimmed and replaced the nylon bearings with steel bearings, and installed an SRC Polycarb piston with ported piston head. This fixed the most obvious air leak. It makes a noticable difference in Fps.

 

The can on the left is stock, about 240 fps, the one on the right is with a new piston/piston head, about 290.

 

*******************UPDATE*********************

After a complete re-wiring, the motor and battery will pull an M100 spring with ease. The two cans below were shot with .2 gram BBs from a range of 2 inches. Based on this I'd say Fps is in the 350+ range. On the left hand can, the divot is cracked around 60% of its circumference, and the right hand can shows the exit hole.

 

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I'd have to say to all of you out there that have been waffleing about buying The UTG AK47, don't worry. If you are not afraid of opening the gearbox, it's worth the money. The gearbox is easier to work on than a version 2, and I think it will take upgrades well, as long as you get a quality battery.

 

I hope you find this review of some help.

 

Harper out.

 

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Battle report by SgtWilTan

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I took mine out for a test run today and surprisingly went through 3 mags worth of BBs. Gotta stop that. No real problems in performance whatsoever besides an unexpected 30-40 FPS drop from advertised( it was overcast so may have affected the readings but it was the same on my Chrono at home).

 

There was that bit of hop even when I turned down the hop-up dial like Harper65 said but it's easy enough to adjust by Kentucky windage. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to step out the distances to tell accuracy but mine was not anywhere near Harper65s. More like a 3 times the size of his at equivalent distance(bear in ind there was quite a bit of wind ~15-20 almost constantly). Good enough for a man sized target but not good enough for an arm or bit of head sticking over logs ands trees(Hence the accuracy by volume usage out of normal semi shooting pattern for me)

 

I didn't notice any probs with the mags but that was because I would wind 4-5 times after each engagement or long burst. I didn't use the stock Battery since I forgot it along with another I was going to use at home. I did try to use a 2800Mah large bargain Battery from Jungletoy and it kept acting like it was out of juice. Even after recharging it it acted dead or dying. I'll see if it actually is and retract my statement of how crappy it is if it proves me wrong. A friend lent me his 1700Mah battery and I put all three mags through it I may just buy that off him!!

 

It is very sturdy as a whole but I'm still not impressed by the externals in comparison to the "Matrix" AK. I will eventually put the guts of the UTG into the Matrix and do without the TM collectable due to the two looks and performance combinations of these 2. I will get another for play with Harper65's upgrades since mine was only in the 230s-240s with the hop-up turned all the way down. Going up against stock TMs, wasn't a problem but a couple ~400 sniper guns made me beat hasty retreats as soon as I saw them sighting in on me. I would be able to get a few bursts on them and skidaddle. It was reported back to me from the sniper that my rounds were pretty much dropping to about30-40FPS by the time they got to his position which was 150Ft and 35-40 in elevation above me. Harpers fix-ups should net me a further 30-40 FPS and with a stronger M100 should get me in the 290-300s range.

 

Overall, as far as play, it will allow you to go toe to toe with stock TMs, but you'll have to make up in volume what they have over you in superior hop-up arrangements. There was also a ~390-400 .20 G3 there but since we were on the same team, I never got to see how much of a disadvantage the UTG's performance would go against me in that type of mismatch.

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[jjj]

Good review, nice pics. Nothing against you, but how come so MANY people are postion reviews the wrong section lately?

Edited February 8, 2006 by jjj

[Harper]

Can you tell me where I should put this post?

[ChiefLouk]

This is a good place for reviews.

 

Good job.

[elrey]

Thread moved to the reader review forum.

[Destro]

I have just done the same thing with my UTG AK47, however my air seal on my stock piston/piston head was excellent. My air nozzle on the other hand is a bit loose...

 

The gears do look nice, and mesh well- however on my UTG AK the gears were completely dry when I disassembled the AEG. Dry to the touch for the most part, and the actuall teeth of the gears was just a bit "tacky". Almost no lube whatsoever. Same with the piston/piston head.

I am waiting for a spring guide and I will be installing an M100 and bushing. The shimming on the stock gears was marginal- a lot of play, and combined with the lack of lube I would doubt the aeg would have lasted long... With some propper tuning I don't see where this aeg will have any problems though.

 

Cheers and excellent review- mine is posted over at airsoftforum, and the pics will be up tonight.

 

~Kevin

[Erestheux]

Fantastic review! Looks like you just sold me on the UTG AK. Been waiting for a review like this...

 

Thanks a lot!

[mannerofliving]

Anyone know if the NEW UTG commando ak47 uses the same parts as the regular utg/tm ak47 or does it require the parts for the beta spetz TM???

[Quik1]

Harper did the AK-47 get different versions now that's it's been a couple months? And do you think with the time that the wires have been found as a problem and fixed?