Rotary style hop-up chambers were once relegated chiefly to the realm of aftermarket upgrades. Now it seems that many manufacturers have hopped on board the rotary train, and it’s not uncommon to see new AEG rifles coming equipped from the factory with this style of hop-up chamber.

There are some advantages to the rotary style chamber over the more conventional setups most will be familiar with. Chiefly, there are fewer moving parts; some designs entirely do away with the push-in retainer rings and all of them completely eliminate the trio of gears previously found on hop-up chambers. For pure ease of maintenance and fine tuning (especially on the hop-up arm), a rotary chamber makes a lot of sense. Continue reading “Rotary Chamber Roundup”

The Real Sword Type 56 series (56, 56-1 and 56-2) are unique in that they are the only AEG rifles manufactured with true 1:1 ratio receivers to the real steel version. Because of this, the gearbox – known as the “T2” – is not a standard (Tokyo Marui spec) Version 3; rather, it is made shorter in the back in order to fit into the receiver. This design concession also means the piston has a somewhat unique shape.

In the event that you damage your factory piston, you can always drop in an aftermarket unit with a few modifications. Continue reading “Real Sword Type 56: Fitting Aftermarket Pistons”

Since I have approximately 3 or so hours to kill while Subaru replaces a recalled airbag, I figured I could finish out a few of the draft posts I have stacked up here and contemplate taking a face load of explosive shrapnel later.

I picked up this LCT PP-19-01 in trade a few years back where it was originally home to a Polarstar HPA engine. So when I received it, it was a true “externals only” gun. I wasn’t planning on going the HPA route myself, so this would have to be converted back to an AEG. Fortunately, I had quite a few LCT parts laying around, including several gearbox shells from various generations from which to choose from.

My goal for this build was to setup a field ready gun, so it needed to shoot around 400 FPS with a .20g BB and be able to compete at range, while also having  a reasonably snappy trigger. This would also be built with parts I already had on hand, so very little of this was actually ordered in. Continue reading “LCT PP-19-01: Upgrades”

As a huge fan of H&K’s roller-locked series of weapons, I’ve always been slightly disappointed in the lack of Airsoft replicas available. While the MP5 series has always had a decent array of manufacturers and options to choose from, the G3 series has enjoyed relatively little market attention in comparison. Continue reading “LCT LC-3 G3: The Usurper Has Arrived”

One of the many Airsoft “myths” you’ll read on the internet are that Real Sword AK’s are picky about magazines. Rather the contrary, these can be adapted to function off of virtually any Airsoft 47/AKM pattern magazine in production. 9 times out of 10, this is simply a case of having to file on the back of the magazine catch until the magazine locks in place. In this customers example, I have adapted some G&P 150 round Midcaps to fit by doing some light filing on the back of the magazine catch. Testing shows that they feed perfectly.

Continue reading “Real Sword Magazine Conversions”