Sold a couple of RIFs to free up some space and ended up purchasing an AK to continue the Modern Warfare 2 LARP. I could have made it easy on myself and imported/bought the CYMA Legionnaire but I couldn't find any in the UK/EU and didn't feel like importing it from the US. I ended up buying a Specna Arms Core SA-J70 Gen 2 - mainly because it comes with an ETU as standard as uses their newer rotary 'Magnus' hop up making it a much better performing RIF - all for £160.
After some asking around, it seems that the Specna Arms AKs are VFC spec rather than TM so it made fitting the aftermarket parts easier. I had to go to 18Airsoft to find all the parts I needed in stock - APS handguard, APS pistol grip, CYMA VLT stock and the CYMA DTK-1 muzzle break. I had to purchase APS parts as they're VFC spec parts rather than CYMA which (AFAIK) are TM spec.
The handguard required only minor modification to fit the lower half - literally removing 1mm or 2mm of plastic on the very end and it fit right in. The upper half required no work and is a solid fit. The pistol grip had a small tab at the back that required removing to fit. The Specna Arms AK to M4 buffer tube adapter is what needed the most modification - for whatever reason this simply doesn't fit their Core AKs from the factory and required the whole part in the red box removing so it would fit flush against the receiver. I still need to file down the piece under the buffer tube area as this is slightly too thick and prevents the castle nut from threading all the way down.
After i'd managed to test fit everything, I removed all the parts and gave them a coat of Krylon Khaki paint and finished with a matt lacquer to seal it. Most parts took the paint fine except the handguard and pistol grip. They both wrinkled the paint the second I applied lacquer meaning I had to strip it and redo it which was annoying - it was especially annoying as I also forgot to cover the nuts on the handguard this time around so they're now also khaki rather than black.
In this time I also picked up some CYMA waffle mags and an AK picatinny optic rail to finish it all off.
The one thing that annoys me is that optic rail never sits straight when attached, it looks like it's pointing off to the right of the rifle. After some google work, this seems pretty standard across AKs in airsoft. I did my best and shimmed it with velcro and foam so that the iron sights and the optic rail mostly line up. Just need to source a eotech 551 optic and some long, thin 11.1v batteries to fit in the dust cover and it's finished.
The 11.1V 1200mAh LiPo AK Slim Battery delivers high output performance for airsoft AK replicas using narrow top cover battery compartments and Small Tamiya connectors.