Celcius AKM

[mightyjebus]

It's been a while since I've reviewed an AEG or pistol but it's now time for me to review the Celcius AKM. The last time I reviewed a Celcius product it didn't do too well but in fairness I try to be as open as possible with anything I review so if the AKM is good or bad I'll be as fair as I can.

 

There is a little bit of general information to go through first before I start the review. The Celcius AKM comes in two flavours. You can buy a complete AKM with electrics and wooden furniture for $1000 or the other option is to buy the Expert Solution which is basically the AKM minus the motor, electrics and furniture. The selling point behind the second option is you can add whatever electronics and motor you want and stick on any RS AKM furniture. The Expert Solution costs around $488 and this is the option I will be looking at.

 

If you buy the expert Solution version or just want to have a better look at how they go together then check out these 2 videos from Celcius:

 

Video 1

Video 2

 

Ok on with the review. Let's start with a picture as we all like pictures.

 

As you can see I've stepped away from the traditional wooden furniture look and went for something a bit more modern. The main reason for this was the Expert Solution (now known as ES from now on) comes with a Sliding stock adapter as standard. This adapter is Mil Spec so normal AEG sliding stocks will be too small to fit. I've replaced the rear sight with a RIS rail so that I could add a RMR and I've replaced the gas tube with a RIS version so that I can attach RIS attachments when I need to. The only other thing I will do to mine is add a RIS lower hand guard so that I can add a torch and vertical grip. If you want to fit your own handguards, stock, etc then any Real Steel furniture should be a straight fit.

 

Starting at the front:

 

The front sight, gas block and outer barrel are all steel. They are all pinned to the barrel as per the real thing and the finish is a nice blue/grey and should look good if artificial wear is applied to them (if you want that old skool look).

 

next the gas block:

Again full steel and nicely blued. There is absolutely no wobble on any of the parts (apart from the flash hider but I'll cover that later).

 

The receiver:

 

The receiver reminds me of the phosphate grey finish that is sometimes seen on USA made AK's. It's nice and even and should wear well.

 

Pistol grip:

 

Nice and thin just like the real thing but sadly you can't use the real thing. It actually holds the motor in place and needs to be seated against the trigger guard to work correctly. It's a little fiddly getting it just right but not the hardest thing in the world to do. On the ES version you get a black pistol grip and on the full AKM version you get a brown one although I think all they have done is paint a brown one black for the ES version.

 

Stock adapter:

 

As mentioned above it's Mil Spec and houses the mosfet and battery. It's actually nicely made and a 11v 25C LIPO fits in nearly all the way.

 

Popping the top cover off the receiver is just like the real thing. You push the button at the rear and pull the top cover up and off.

 

The spring that holds the top cover in place is actually the spring that powers the cylinder. To change the FPS of the cylinder it's a quick job to pop off the top cover, remove the spring from the top cover catch and pop a new spring in place.

 

In the picture above you can see the cylinder. The large black lump is the cylinder and inside is a piston, piston head and special nozzle. I'll cover this in more detail later.

 

The Hop unit is a rotary dial type and can be accessed from the magwell or if you cock the bolt back you can get your finger inside the receiver to adjust the wheel.

 

Removing the cylinder involves removing to allen screws and the whole unti comes off to allow access to the lower part of the gearbox.

 

I added a set of Etiny electrics apart from the selector board as the ES comes with this board installed and works with the Etiny electrics. You can use whatever electrics you want but it's worth remembering that if you use the Systema type then you need to change the trigger as the Celcius boards (and Etiny Celcius version) uses a smaller switch. You can find out more about this in the videos linked above.

 

Looking at the cylinder next. The cylinder is solid lump of metal with a piston inside it. The piston looks to be a standard PTW piston so replacements shouldn't be an issue. The nozzle is a bit of a strange design but to make the cylinder line up with the barrel this was probably the only design that would work.

 

You'll notice in one of the pictures above that there is a strange little silver bit with a grub screw pointing downwards on the bottom of the cylinder. This is the cut off lever and it should disengage the ECU when the magazine is empty and when you fit a new magazine you need to cock the bolt, which moves this part down and reengages the ECU. On mine this doesn't work very well. It's either the magnet that holds it up is too weak or the spring that pushes it down is too strong. I'm not to bothered about this feature and I've padded it out so that I don't have to cock the AEG every time I change the magazine. At some point I'll have another look and see if I can figure out which part is causing the slight problem but for now I can live without the feature.

 

The fake bolt is actually 2 parts made to look like the bolt and the part that engages the magnetic switch is held in place by a stiff spring.

 

If you decide to remove the inner barrel and hop unit then be prepared to completely strip the front end. You need to knock out the pins and remove the gas block and furniture. You end up with the bits in the picture below but to get the inner barrel out of the outer you need to remove the hop unit. it's all a bit complex so I'd only recommend doing it if you really need to.

 

While I'm talking about the barrel, the inner barrel protudes slightly from the front of the outer barrel but is covered by the flash hider. On flash hider rattles a bit as the threads don't quite match with the stop catch. The easy fix is to fit a small O ring between the flash hider and the front sight to stop the rattle.

 

The Magazine.

 

The magazine holds around 100 BB's and seems well made. You can take the inner part of the magazine and insert it into a RS magazine shell without modification. This is a nice feature if you want to run Polymer, Bakelite or maybe something a bit more modern.

You can see the inner sealed unit below.

 

The part that disengaged the ECU can be seen in the next picture.

 

 

So that's the kinda technical look done. The big question is how does it fire? Well frankly really well to be honest.

 

Plug a battery in, lock a magazine in place, select fire and pull the trigger and it does. The FPS on mine without hop was about 290. I added a little spacer to the spring guide and this climbed to 320. I've ordered a M110 spring to try and push it to 345 unhopped. Talking of hop the hop unit this works really well. The gearbox sounds nice and crisp and the trigger response is very good as you would expect from a PTW.

 

So in summery.

 

It's a well designed, solid AEG and it's nice to have an OPFOR weapon that fires like a PTW. The option to buy a bare bones system is a nice idea and you can go crazy building your own unique AKM. It has two flaws that are more annoying that show stoppers. I've mentioned to cut off lever but I should mention that the selector lever moves about a bit when in the safe position. It won't suddenly jump to full auto as it doesn't move that much but there is some movement. It's probably fixable and when I get a chance I'll see what can be done to tighten it up.

 

Would I recommend it? Yes.

 

 

 

 

And lastly.......

 

If you know your way around AEG's and PTW's then buy one and stick in the parts you want. There are no surprises when you try building one if you are used to PTW's. If you fancy a really nice firing AK but don't know your nozzle from your sprocket then get your local shop/tech to build it with the parts you want.

 

[Roman]

Here is a quite different experience on Celcius AKM. It was originally posted in Airsoft AK Operators International group on Facebook, but it is a closed community and I can't add a direct link to it. There is a bunch of photos and two YouTube videos (here they are:  

 

and photos can be found below)

Anyway, here it goes:

 

Celcius Experience and CTW AKM Honest Review 

 

Disclaimers: 

 

1. this is my personal opinion based on my personal experience of dealing with Celcius directly. Your mileage may vary. 
2. I wasn't messaging Celcius daily giving them more than enough time to do the job. Even when I literally had to wait for weeks to get a reply from them, even when they basically were telling me that my order will ship whenever it will ship, I was polite and respectful. All communication was done through Facebook and I have proof of everything I'm writing here.
3. I'm not trying to promote either E&L or LCT brands, these simply are the only other AEG AKs I have experience with. 

 

Celcius customer service

 

Celcius customer service sucks. Big time. Quality control too, but we'll get to it later. Anyway, in case you watched any of YouTube videos made by Celcius, especially the ones about their "very serious training weapon" AKM, you, probably, heard them thanking "all of you for your patience". Well, be prepared to show the greatest patience you have ever shown. That's because they need time to make your gun "perfect", so standby! 

 

It only took 4,5 months (4 months and 17 days or just 139 days, to be precise) for the first part of my order to arrive. Yes, I was counting. The second part (magazines) finally got to me on February 17. Surprisingly, despite the bunch of horror stories about airsoft guns marked as training weapon getting stuck at US customs, the main part of delay had nothing to do with US customs at all. In fact, the actual delivery time for both the gun and mags was within 3-4 days since Celcius sent them to me the second time. On the first attempt, Fedex managed to lose my package. So, to be fair, three weeks of delay wasn't Celcius fault. And Celcius did not give me a hard time about replacement. +5 points to their karma for that. Nevertheless, to be honest, even not counting these three weeks somehow I didn't get an impression Celcius was trying to do things as quick and as good as possible. And considering the amount of time it took them to prepare my order as well as the quality of what I received, I really have no idea what took them so long. 

 

I started trying to get in touch with Celcius asking when do they expect to ship my order out after about 20 days after I placed it. Celcius website announced (and still does, I believe) 10 days waiting period on AKM orders, so I thought I gave them enough time to figure things out. By the way, if you need to get at least some response from them, use Facebook. Going through Celcius website is a dead end. None of the messages I sent them through the site were answered. Also, if you have any issues with them and are trying to get your money back, do it within 6 months after the purchase, otherwise PayPal will not be able to help you and Celcius won't be responsive since you won't be able to take your money back from them.

 

Anyhow, around 20 days after my order was placed, Celcius asked for 1 more week to finish the job. They said they had issues with wood supplier and couldn't make and install the hand guards and stocks because of this. Other than that, according to them, the gun was ready. I had no intention to rush anything, so I was fine with it. All I wanted is my AKM to be perfect as they advertised. The only thing I asked Celcius to change in my order was to swap the stock pistol grip and butt stock with Magpul ones. I was planning to replace the furniture anyway and I didn't mind paying someone to properly modify and install it for me. Celcius asked $216.50 for this service (parts included) and I sent the payment right away trying to avoid any delays. I was still hoping it was you get what you pay for situation. 

 

In another 2 days, Celcius messaged me on Facebook saying they finished matching the stock and pistol grip. They even sent me a photo of AKM receiver with installed Magpul pistol grip and Magpul AK butt stock, for some reason laying next to the receiver and not attached to it. Being naive, I started hoping my order will arrive soon, because, according to my calculations, it should've been almost ready to be shipped. Celcius' calculations were, however, different, because it took them 10 more days to let me know that my order was going to be shipped out in another 2 days. 2 days after these 2 days passed Celcius bothered to inform me they were "waiting for" some "confirmation from Fedex". I was still being patient, although things were starting to become quite annoying considering how much money Celcius wanted for their products and how incredibly "fast" and "accurate" communication on their end was. But I was still hoping that quality will be there and I will have nothing to be upset about. 

 

5 days later Celcius was still on standby regarding the shipping situation. In 2 more days I was promised the tracking number will be ready the next day and only 3 days after that I finally got it. Lightning fast, right?.. That was not the end of the story, however. 

 

Fedex managed to misplace the package with my AKM and 7 additional magazines for it. The box magically evaporated after becoming available for clearance in Memphis, TN Fedex hub. After that it was back and forth messaging between me and Celcius, during which we went over the details of the new gun they were going to build for me. Fixed Magpul stock I originally asked for was going to be replaced with M4 stock adapter (Celcius didn't have the Magpul AK butt stock readily available and I didn't want to wait any longer). Black Magpul furniture was unavailable as well, but I had an option of getting it in OD. I agreed on installing the OD furniture thinking it will speed the process up. Apparently, Celcius was thinking something else, because it took them 46 more days to get me the tracking number. Funny thing is, I still received a rifle with black pistol grip and stock. WTF?..

 

Celcius quality control

 

Remember that "We are working hard to make your gun perfect" statement made by Celcius?.. I must say it was a bad joke that cost me over 1K including the Magpul furniture installation and additional mags that I purchased. By the way, Celcius decided to play it safe the second time and send the gun and mags separately. Also, I received the tracking number for the mags only after I contacted Celcius through PayPal asking to refund my payment for them. Mags finally arrived on February 17. Once again, do not expect them to play fair, by waiting more than 6 months since the moment of purchase you simply are giving them advantage of responding to you whenever they feel like it. 

 

Now let's get to the gun itself. It is pretty solid, has no wobble and is straight when assembled properly. "When assembled properly" is the key phrase here. The rifle I got required maintenance right out of the box, which, of course, made me thank Celcius for "making my gun perfect".

 

Basically, what I received was Celcius AKM expert solution that someone very loosely slapped together. The only difference between expert solution and what I've got, I believe, was the installed motor, ECU, Magpul pistol grip and a crane butt stock. 

 

Now, I realize that some parts I'm going to talk about below might not affect performance and are purely cosmetical, but we are talking about an AEG worth 1K having issues that its way more budget counterparts don't. Starting from the butt stock, the exciting features of the AKM I received were as follows:

 

• Crane butt stock. Special thanks to Celcius for sending me a butt stock from the dustiest part of their shop. Considering this is the replacement for a brand new Magpul AK butt stock they charged me $127.80 for, I am very grateful. To be fair, the butt stock feels comfortable when you shoulder the rifle, but it was full of dust that no one before me bothered to wipe out. Come on, Celcius, did you assemble my order with the lights off?..
• Buffer tube. Why simply follow the pre-made threads and screw the buffer tube in as intended? Not this time! Let's give this buffer tube a nice right side angle, it helps with general rifle appearance!.. Unfortunately, I fixed this part before I thought of taking a picture and, to be honest, I didn't feel like replicating the problem just for the photo shoot, because I thought it could permanently damage the adapter or buffer tube. There were, however, a few stripped threads on the buffer tube itself, so you could clearly tell it was forced in at a wrong angle. Interestingly enough, the buffer tube went in the way it should with no problem. What kind of a genius it took to force the buffer tube in at an angle is beyond my understanding. 
• Buffer tube adapter. Needed to be tightened right out of the box, otherwise my AKM was wiggling its butt stock the same way my dog wiggles his tail when he's happy to see me. I take it as my AKM was happy to see me too. Seriously though, was it such a big problem to tighten the goddamn screw, Celcius?! My E&L and LCT AKs were much more solid right out of the box and still are after a period of extensive use and way less expensive at the same time. The externals on them look better too (we'll get to this part later)
• Rivets. In their videos, Celcius is emphasizing the effort they put into making their AKMs. One of the things they point out is how they work on installing rivets and how perfectly they sit. Despite this statement, the gun I received had a problem with one of the rivets that holds rear trunnion in place. This rivet was loose and and simply fell out from vibration when I was test firing the gun. As a temporary solution, I put some glue in there in hopes it stays in place (update: it didn't, I went loose again and I was able to pull it out with my fingers)
• Motor. Apparently, not everyone in Celcius is aware that in order to make a motor work, you actually need to solder BOTH wires to it, not only one. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how can Celcius charge this much, make a client wait for this long with so little communication from  their end, still not deliver a product that would at least work right out of the box and have a nerve to state that product they sent "was carefully inspected" before being sent out. "Carefully inspected" is a quotation from my correspondence with Celcius, by the way. I see it this way: either they have a huge problem in their QC department or they knowingly lied to me. By the way, after I sent the list of all problems my CTW had to Celcius, I received absolutely no response.
• Fuse. It blew. The second one blew as well. Third fuse survived. I think I figured out why and please correct me if I'm wrong. Apparently, the way particular AEG I received was wired, red and black wires were swapped. Maybe this is some kind of PTW/CTW thing to make sure only their batteries are used and maybe I should've looked closer. But when I plugged my brand new LiPo 11.1V 1200MAh battery in the first time without checking the wires, the fuse blew. It took me one more fuse to take a closer look at the wiring. I also checked my other batteries to make sure the swapped wiring was really the case and I can confirm it was. Not a clue if this wiring is intentional or no, but after I rewired the batteries I planned to use with Celcius AKM, they worked fine and didn't burn fuses anymore. Note for those who might need the replacement fuses: these are 30A green automotive fuses with mini blades, $8.99 for a pack of 25 in your local Auto Zone. Compare with $3.99 a piece plus shipping from airsoft related websites. 
• Motor. The motor and battery used to get pretty warm even after moderate shooting. I heard this could indicate wiring or soldering issues, but I  didn't take the gun apart to confirm.
• For some reason, the CTW AKM I received was shooting only three-four round bursts. This would happen with fire selector in auto, semi and safe position. Sometimes the gun kept shooting even after the trigger was released. Very serious training weapon indeed, well worth the money. Just in case, yes, the little plate responsible for pressing the firing mode buttons on the gearbox moves when you move the selector, and supposedly should be pressing them. The problem is either buttons don't do anything or they are not being pressed for some reason.
• Despite the advertisements, my particular CTW AKM didn't need to be cocked in order to start shooting. This step was absolutely unnecessary. The gun was firing with and without inserted magazine, with magazine loaded with bbs and magazine emptied out. Why? I have the same question. Apparently, this training weapon was so serious that I don't even get it. The latter two issues described above definitely have to do with the gearbox, but to tell for sure, a warranty sticker had to be removed before taking the cylinder and gearbox out. Frankly, I was kind of hesitating to do it out of the fear to void the warranty. On the other hand, after I mentioned to Celcius that I had to solder a contact wire back to the motor right out of the box, they replied that, since it wasn't done by an authorized dealer/repair center, it voids the warranty. However, they agreed to fix my gun for free, I shipped it back to them and as of 08/04/17 still waiting for it to be delivered back to me. 

 

• Cleaning rod. I never thought I'd make a separate paragraph out of this, but never say never, right? The forepart of the cleaning rod (that little cap with a hole in it) came right off. To clarify, it didn't snap off, it didn't unscrew itself. Apparently, it was simply put on the rod without any intention to keep it in place. I've never seen or heard anything like that happen even on cheapest airsoft AKs, and 100% not on real steel, so I really don't know how to comment on that. But I could definitely see perfection in every little part of this rifle.
• Front sight base. It had a weird blob of metal on it. Clearly, a casting leftover that was overlooked and not removed. It's not huge, but big enough to notice. Again, way less expensive AEG builds do not have things like that, so why a 1K AEG does?.. 
• Gas tube locking lever. This part had clear marks of rough filing with finish taken off. Another Celcius master's touch on a 1K gun, apparently. 
• Lower hand guard lock lever. This part used to fall out as soon as lever would get in the open position. The problem is, Celcius simply put it in and didn't bother to make sure it stays in place. F%^king A!..
• Muzzle brake. I understand why it was painted orange and it wasn't an issue for me. But when I removed the paint (came off VERY easy if you care to know), this part had no black finish at all. Imagine all black AKM with shiny metal muzzle brake?.. It looked weird when installed and definitely didn't look like it belong to the rifle. That's besides the fact the brake itself was very roughly made and looked like a piece of a pipe made to look more like a muzzle brake. Sure this could be taken care of (and I did make it look right), but why do I need to spend time and extra money on it if I paid this much already?.. 1K quality, ladies and gentlemen. 

 

Performance:

 

In short words, performance was below standard. When I field tested this AKM with .30 bbs, I was unable to reach further than 30-40 feet away from where I was standing. Unfortunately, hopup didn't seem to have any effect when I was trying to adjust it. Every few shots I would get double feeds with crushed bbs, plus bbs were noticeably curving to the right. Very disappointing and way worse than many budget AEGs. Once again, 1K quality, someone worked real hard to build this rifle, ladies and gentlemen. 

 

Overall, my impression of the Celcius CTW AKM is this: very interesting concept that allows you to use this gun on any field with any fps limit without having to take it apart to change the spring. However, QC was way below acceptable. All issues I described above were NOT the result of abuse or improper handling, it was OUT OF THE BOX condition of the item. These issues would not be acceptable even for entry level AEG and definitely should not exist on a gun in this price range, especially positioning itself as a training weapon. I highly doubt shipping service had anything to do with the gun condition, because the box I received was completely intact. Also, please keep in mind that CTW AKM images Celcius posts on their website might be showing a really perfect product, but there are chances you will find some differences with the photos in the actual gun you receive. 

If you are looking for a good AEG AK, you might as well get a Gen 2 E&L or LCT. These options will be WAY cheaper, more solidly built, replacement and upgrade parts will be readily available plus these solutions will definitely save you months of waiting and tons of frustration. I sent my AKM back to Celcius for repairs and will update my review as soon as I receive it back. As of now, I got myself a Gen 2 E&L AKMS and can't be happier. Unless Celcius will surprise me with the product quality of AKM they will send back to me, I don't think I will ever consider using their products at all. 

 

I should mention that even if you combine the cost of a regular decent AEG with the cost of upgrades and additional accessories you might want to install on it, you still probably won't go over 1K. And you will have a rifle customized according to your needs in this case. But I can assure you that you won't have such amount of frustration I had while I was dealing with Celcius. 

 

Update: on 07/11/17 Celcius sent me a message on Facebook (last time I ever heard from them) saying that original package was delivered by Fedex in the end of March and left at the front door. That was it. I had enough and replied with everything I thought about their product and my experience with this company. Worst part is that I can't do much at this point since end of March was quite a long time ago, I live in apartment building and only God knows where the package went and o can't get my money back from Celcius, because original PayPal payment went through way more than 6 months ago. But hey, I should be positive, I have 7 x CTW AK magazines, at least I got something out of this deal, right?.. What a scam!!!