Tokyo Marui Ak47 Original Airsoft Aeg Rifle

The Tokyo Marui AK-47 is an age-one-time workhouse among AK AEG's. While it has perhaps been superseded by more avant-garde designs, information technology continues to be establish in many an airsofter'due south arsenal for a very good reason. Tokyo Marui has built a reputation on creating airsoft guns that give the Energizer Bunny hives; they just keep going and going and going….

Recently Rob of Pegasus MilSim fame handed me a newly acquired TM AK-47 to piece of work on. This gun was a Timmy Chang special with upgraded internals and a G&P metal body kit on it with a broken buttstock that sported a large vi″ crack running down the length and a missing buttplate. The goal was to see if I could install some existent steel piece of furniture on her and revitalize the beast.

Initially I approached the projection with the idea that I would be strictly modifying the existent steel furniture to fit the TM. In the finish it wound up being a footling bit of both….

Lets examine some disquisitional weakness of the TM design:

Being a dependable workhouse does not hateful it's without faults. One of the major design flaws I see with regard to the TM AK-47 is primarily with the buttstock construction itself. It is a large hollowed out infinite with very thin walls throughout. Essentially this is so information technology can house a decent sized battery. The TM can of course be wired to the front, as is found on their underfolder versions. I would certainly recommend that most folks wire to the front as yous tin brand meliorate use of stick batteries such as viii.4v – nine.6v NiMH, or 7.4v and eleven.1v LIPO's.

Equally y'all tin can run across from the photograph on the to a higher place correct, the surface area'due south specifically where the tang stock screws affix are very sparse – even more so than the vertical sidewalls. By rough measurement, it'southward virtually a one/four″ thick, albeit less so in the bottom portion. It'due south not uncommon to come across these areas stripped out or cracked. In this case, two of the screws had stripped the forest out. In the words of the old Soviet saying: "This is weakness!"

Somewhat odd on the TM is the utilize of what I would call a "reverse tang." This is a large rectangular piece of hollow metal that extends into the buttstock and acts every bit a aqueduct for rear wiring. On a real steel AK, the buttstock has a substantial amount of forest that sits within the receiver, thus facilitating an incredibly potent buttstock. The design of an AEG allows for none of this, however, as the gearbox takes upwardly all available infinite in the receiver. The reverse tang blueprint means that y'all can merely have very thin amounts of woods for the stock screws to bite into. Rather than repeat this effort simply to have information technology break at a latter date, I decided to instead mill off the reverse tang. The option, of course, exists to rear-wire this by only boring a hole into the forepart terminate of the stock so the wires can laissez passer through.

I was out of stock oil, so I was unable to refinish the cutting areas.

Affixing the buttstock required that the underside have a slot milled into information technology to accept the lesser tang and the slot on the superlative lengthened slightly to accept the acme tang. All told there are iv screws attaching the receiver to the buttstock. Contrasted against the beggarly 1/4″ or less of material on the old buttstock, each screw at present has over ane.five+" of fabric to bite into. In other words, information technology's very strong now.

The Forepart

Modifying real steel forearms to the front also required a fleck of applied science to figure out. Again, another critical weakness of the TM pattern is that forearm has a very small corporeality of wood (or simulated wood, depending on what you lot accept) that fits into the butt trunion area.

Over a menstruum of heavy use, this can break off or become wore down to the indicate where it is just a nubbin'. Equally you lot can see from the photo of the original forearm, it'due south barely there at all. In truth, at that place is practically aught except the front mount and the dummy cleaning rod keeping this forearm in identify.

Over again, rather than repeat the problem, I chose to modify the body kit slightly. I milled off a small-scale clamper of metal to create a hollow space that would exist filled with a properly fitted wooden tang that wouldn't be easily broken.

If you lack a milling machine, this can be modified by cutting on the vertical and horizontal axis with a hacksaw and finished out with a file to clean upwardly your cut. You don't desire to go too far as it will affect the integrity of mounting point for the body screws.

The modified butt trunion assembly about finished.

Ready to accept some wood. Yep, that was dingy.

Pocket-sized thinning of the rear forearm tang is necessary to make it fit into the metal body kit equally it has slightly thicker dimensions than a existent steel AK. The front end requires a bit of hand plumbing equipment too. Essentially yous have to thin it down enough to fit within the retainer cap. Aforementioned concept applies to the wood that fits over the gas tube.

Most completed. The pocket-sized slot in the handguard is for a piece of bound steel that applies pressure level confronting the receiver to remove handguard wobble. In the case of the TM, there's no mode to make it fit properly, and so it has been removed. Rather, fit the handguard in a style that it's not too loose, only fits snugly. No wobble.

Battery Considerations and Modifications

The TM has a large plastic tray that fits on top of the gearbox that likewise helps retain the fake charging Unfortunately the design of the tray restricts a lot of the room available inside the receiver for a bombardment. Attempting to install an 8.4v or 9.6v NiMH, for example, proved impossible as it prohibited the battery from sliding into the gas tube. Removing the tray is every bit like shooting fish in a barrel as taking out 1 screw and lifting it away. With information technology removed, you can at present hands slide in 8.4v or nine.6v sticks in addition to the larger diameter 7.4v and xi.1v LIPO sticks.
handle.

Removing the tray ways you will have to figure out a way to retain the charging handle assembly somehow. This is easier than it sounds, even so, and if you have a few odd's and ends' laying effectually you tin solve it in brusk guild. Simply remove it from the plastic battery tray, taking care to retain the long spring it comes with. At present you can either replace this spring with a slightly shorter i or simply cut it in half. You volition need something to prevent the leap from slipping over the crook of the guide rod that the charging handle rides on (it's also important to annotation that this assembly keeps the dust embrace in place likewise.) I used a threaded nut with a flange scavenged from an old K-Pot harness to keep the spring from slipping. Basically anything will work as long every bit it keeps the jump from slipping backwards. If it slips backwards, it can come up off the guide rod and return your charging handle useless.

Get together your spring servant over the guide rod, then the bound, and then the charging handle in that order, taking intendance to ensure the guide rod slips into its socket on the front of the receiver. The caveat to this modification is that you won't be able to retract the charging handle back as far as before. It'southward about equivalent to what y'all get with a Real Sword, though, and you can nonetheless access the hop up adjustments.

Modified guide rod and charging handle associates.

The Finished Assembly

The last touch on was the installation of a existent steel AK-47 rear sight. This is a drib-in fit and requires no piece of work to brand it fit. The main advantage to this is that you are replacing the cast pot-metal synthetic TM sight with a hardened steel assembly that'southward designed to carve you an igloo from the frozen Siberian tundra. Overall the feel and fit of the real steel article of furniture is leagues above the factory offerings, and certainly enhances the overall impression and handling of the burglarize.