Hi folks,
A long way back, probably like 10-15 years ago, I picked up a CYMA CM.028 AK47 with the intention of adding real metal and wood components and using it as a kind of generic "OPFOR" RIF for everything from gangsters/crims, cartel, militia, Vietnam War and old Soviet loadouts. At the time I thought I wanted to run a full-stock so that's the model I got, in hindsight I probably should have got an AKM or a Type 56, but there probably wasn't as much choice around at the time and now I've got what I've got to work with.
Fast forward to now and I've spent a few weeks gathering components and working on it. I changed my mind on the full stock and sourced an underfolder and appropriate metal body. Various other bits and bobs needed to be changed to metal, including the rear sight tower, which proved very difficult for this particular model.
I also needed a real wood kit, which these days seems to be quite hard to find (I guess as most mainstream manufacturers have wood and metal readily available on off-the-shelf RIFs), and ended up going for a surplus kit from what I think was a Cybergun CO2 air-rifle.
I've managed to cobble it all together somewhat satisfactorily, however, there are a couple of problems I'm looking for advice with. My intention is to give it some weathering but I wanted to get it all sorted first.
Firstly, the rear sight tower. The original plastic setup was all one piece (like this), starting inside the receiver where it could be affixed to the hop-up unit and inner barrel with a pair of screws, and projecting up toward the front of the RIF - the metal one I managed to source from my few available options (the one I linked above, for example, woud have been a straight switch, but I could not find it in stock anywhere) is much more compact, being literally just the sight tower itself.
My somewhat haphazard solution was to saw off the portion of the original plastic component which would be hidden inside the metal receiver, and attempt to mount the new metal sight tower on top of it. For the most part, this has worked, however, in the process of fitting it I've had to remove some of the securing mechanisms which hold the front end together with the receiver.
At this point, the whole front end, including the sight tower, hanguards, gas block and outer barrel, will all slide off in one piece if I hold the hanguard or barrel and pull gently upwards, or simply allow the weight of the receiver to drag itself downwards. I can't seem to figure out a clean way of securing this assembly to the receiver. Does anyone have any ideas on how to do it?
The other issue is relatively minor by comparison; the pistol grip which came with the Cybergun kit is pretty much solid wood, with a minimum of hollowing out for whatever components it needed to house from the CO2 gun. Basically I think it'd be a lot of work to fettle it to fit.
I'm looking at alternatives, but I can't seem to find much in the way of real wood - failing that I'm also not sure if a bakelite style grip would either fit in terms of physical compatibiltiy or quite look right for the old milled receiver. Pretty open to suggestions on this one.
A long way back, probably like 10-15 years ago, I picked up a CYMA CM.028 AK47 with the intention of adding real metal and wood components and using it as a kind of generic "OPFOR" RIF for everything from gangsters/crims, cartel, militia, Vietnam War and old Soviet loadouts. At the time I thought I wanted to run a full-stock so that's the model I got, in hindsight I probably should have got an AKM or a Type 56, but there probably wasn't as much choice around at the time and now I've got what I've got to work with.
Fast forward to now and I've spent a few weeks gathering components and working on it. I changed my mind on the full stock and sourced an underfolder and appropriate metal body. Various other bits and bobs needed to be changed to metal, including the rear sight tower, which proved very difficult for this particular model.
I also needed a real wood kit, which these days seems to be quite hard to find (I guess as most mainstream manufacturers have wood and metal readily available on off-the-shelf RIFs), and ended up going for a surplus kit from what I think was a Cybergun CO2 air-rifle.
I've managed to cobble it all together somewhat satisfactorily, however, there are a couple of problems I'm looking for advice with. My intention is to give it some weathering but I wanted to get it all sorted first.
Firstly, the rear sight tower. The original plastic setup was all one piece (like this), starting inside the receiver where it could be affixed to the hop-up unit and inner barrel with a pair of screws, and projecting up toward the front of the RIF - the metal one I managed to source from my few available options (the one I linked above, for example, woud have been a straight switch, but I could not find it in stock anywhere) is much more compact, being literally just the sight tower itself.
My somewhat haphazard solution was to saw off the portion of the original plastic component which would be hidden inside the metal receiver, and attempt to mount the new metal sight tower on top of it. For the most part, this has worked, however, in the process of fitting it I've had to remove some of the securing mechanisms which hold the front end together with the receiver.
At this point, the whole front end, including the sight tower, hanguards, gas block and outer barrel, will all slide off in one piece if I hold the hanguard or barrel and pull gently upwards, or simply allow the weight of the receiver to drag itself downwards. I can't seem to figure out a clean way of securing this assembly to the receiver. Does anyone have any ideas on how to do it?
The other issue is relatively minor by comparison; the pistol grip which came with the Cybergun kit is pretty much solid wood, with a minimum of hollowing out for whatever components it needed to house from the CO2 gun. Basically I think it'd be a lot of work to fettle it to fit.
I'm looking at alternatives, but I can't seem to find much in the way of real wood - failing that I'm also not sure if a bakelite style grip would either fit in terms of physical compatibiltiy or quite look right for the old milled receiver. Pretty open to suggestions on this one.
