About a month ago, i had an opportunity to purchase a brand new and never fitted Daytonagun M240b kit and a Golden Eagle M240b that a good friend of mine had converted into a GPMG.
He'd been unable to find anyone that would fit the kit for him in the uk, I told him id give it a go and ended up buying the lot from him when he decided to call it a day with airsoft.
So having managed to buy the lot including a bottle, reg and line that had never been used for 1/3 of the retail price, i figured "ehhh how difficult can this be? these are drop in kits anyway"
WRONG
so it turns out that there are minor differences internally with the Golden Eagle M240b when compared to the A&K M240b, the kits are made to fit the A&K... however these "minor" internal differences are a significant issue when fitting the Daytona Kit. When looking on the daytona website for instructions (very vague) i noticed a section that said "will only fit Golden eagle with extensive modification"
these modifcations turned out to require the following.
1) filing out areas of the reciever where the AEG gearbox sits
2) the removal of approx 1mm of material either side of the aluminium block that slides in the rear of the reciever and supports the back of the daytona kit
3) measuring out, drilling and counter sinking the holes in the lower that hold the daytona kit in place - these holes are present on the A&K and are used to secure the gearbox, not so for the golden eagle.
before we go any further at this point, im not a trained or qualified engineer or modelmaker, i'm definitely an amateur in this sense.
after much careful measuring, scoring, countersinking and filing down here and there i finally managed to get the aluminium block to slide comfortably into the rear of the reciever.
following this the holes were measured and drilled in the lower reciever to hold the Daytona Engine in place.
the kit is a work of art in terms of how well it fits, and the quality of its manufacture! once it was fit, i concentrated on the barrel and hopup mechanism for the daytona engine, not an obviously intuitive task either. had to knock some pins out to remove the original hopup unit, then sand about 0.1mm from the inside of the outer barrel casting to get the hop unit to properly fit. however after a lot of trial fitting and careful alignment, everything went in perfectly.. .
coming down to the first Test firing she had today.
video-1606658560.mp4
I've been told that these guns need approx 4k rounds putting through them to bed them in properly. so far ive put about a thousand rounds through it, since disassembled and checked all the components for uneven wear or signs fo metal shavings.
locktited every screw and fitting in the gun as it went backtogether
im Not happy with the magazine as it stands, it will definitely need some more work before im happy with it.
overall - the daytona kit is an incredibly well made and beautiful piece of engineering. i cannot say yet if the cost of the build is worth it in terms of performance, but the sound of the mechanism makes me giggle like a little girl..
Updates to follow as the build progresses!