Improving my Beta Project AK

[bruce]

This gun needs no external changes for me. This is what I would have tried to do. I just love the look of it.

I was lucky to find a local deal and at a great price in the classifieds. After picking up the gun, I knew that there would be some work to be done on it to get it to the way I expect my guns to feel and work.

First thing was the barrel wobble. I used 0.001" stainless steel shimming material to wrap around the area where the outer barrel connects to the receiver. 2 wraps gave a perfect jam fit with no wobble. Just beware, when you jam the barrel in, you'll need to assemble your inner barrel and hop unit separately to fit back into the gun. This is a real pain when you're tuning a R-hop system. I did this because I wanted to have a stable position when I can start to adjust the alignment of inner barrel/hop unit and the gearbox.

Hop-up unit was replaced with a Lonex AK unit. A 407mm Prometheus inner barrel and flat hop up tensioner was used with a HS5 Armory IR-Hop Z-Kit. The opening on the Promy barrel was enlarged to accept the full size of the IR patch. I needed to modify the hop-up arm to correctly position the tensioner in the right postion.

I did not like how they design the supports and spacers to position the inner barrel/ hop unit. I built a support(white pieces) that doubles as a locking tab and magwell spacer to centre the magazine and prevent mag insertions errors.




I needed to correct the angle of the hop unit support also. I was getting misfeeds from the mag. The black plastic that surrounds the hop unit was preventing the mag from fully engaging the bb release tab. This support also needs to be carefully aligned with the gearbox.

The gearbox is a Lonex complete ver3 M120 with high speed gears paired with a A1 Titan motor. Disregard the Speed Trigger in the pic. Piston has been swiss cheesed and short stroked by 1 tooth to bring the fps to 400.



There is no room to put a decent battery under the receiver cover. I had to machine out the buffer tube to be able to put a Turnigy 1300mAh 25-50C stick Li-Po battery in there. Adding aluminum tuck tape inside the stock will also give you a tight fit between the stock and tube.




With the battery now in the stock tube, I have the room to install a Gate MERF 3.2 AEG control unit on the AK. The housing for the Gate is brass sheets cut and soldered together. Held in place on top of the mechbox with 3M double sided foam tape.



The AK style pistol grip was used and needed to have 2 pins installed on the forward end to prevent the grip from twisting. 2 holes was also machined on the lower receiver to accept the 2 pins.

Almost every part that was purchased can be ordered from Airsoft Store Canada. Except for the battery, which they did not have at that time, they are a great place to buy from.

[bruce]

More pics about the mods for those that are interested.

The white piece as mention acts as a spacer and block to lock the hop unit in place. It attaches to the black exsisting hop unit support by the 2 tabs. Also notice that the angle has been changed to help seat the mag in the proper position and prevent mis-feedings. Without the new angle, the mag sits too high.

The position or height of the supports are determine by the inner barrel. Everything needs to be aligned. Gearbox to hop unit and hop unit to inner barrel. Shimming is required to do this. The white strips are the added spacers.









The 2 small pins and slot to secure the grip.


Clearance gap for the removal of the stock when battery changes are required. Remove just enough material to clear the locking stud when fully depressed.


Nice size AK stick battery can be used in the machined out stock tube.

[MADDOG]

Very Nice, I will need to take a closer look at mine now see what I can use.

Thanks,

[Stealth]

This is quite possibly the most thought-out, well-engineered AK on the board.

Great posts.