No 6
New Member
I'm so glad that people here have been able to compare this to the G&P kit.
Okay, here are my .02.
Apart from all the visual mods, I plan on doing a fair amount of structural reinforcement. The plastic on the upper receiver is pretty thin, and I can see it cracking or punching through with moderate to rough use. So the plan is to partially fill the interior with resin.
Also, a lot can be done to accurize the sound of the gun. Clearly, without adding an electronic sound system (and even then, the dB wouldn't approach a real firearm), there is only so much you can do. Fortunately, the full-metal body construction and the position of the cylinder in the Thompson body make this gun loudish to begin with. Replacing the poly cylinder head with one of the plethora of CNC cylinder heads and going with an aluminum pistonhead will enhance the mechanical sound quite a bit.
Now the rate of fire is fair-to-midlin' (400-500 RPMish). My seat-of-the-pants chrono is guessing this gun is shooting around 400ish FPS, which suggests an M120 spring. Switching to an M100 or M90 will help the rate of fire by a fair amount. But I will probably swap the motor and gears as well and reinforce the gearbox and turn this into a speed rig. The goal is a reasonable (IMO) 800-900 RPM, which I think would be close to what you see/hear onscreen. It would be hard on parts, but I think the results would be worth it.
For accuracy, the outer barrel seems plenty long to accept a longer inner barrel, but if the sensor can't be relocated, I guess I'll just leave that alone, or go with a TBB of the same lenth (probably 247mm). Hm... going with a longer inner barrel is probably a stupid idea for a speed rig, anyhow.
The magazine... they make 110rd midcaps that don't require winding. So I plan on getting a few of these and then casting a magazine cap that fastens to the bottom of the magazine. This solves 2 things--1) having to wind the magazine, and 2) listening to the bbs rattling around inside the magazine. Time to look at Rook's site to see how he got the locking mechanism to work.
The sight rail... sigh. This is where it gets difficult. A hollow trench doesn't exactly qualify as a 'sight.' This is where I may have to go off the reservation, and where I'd have to do the most modification to the body. Adding iron sights would be the most obvious and least invasive. Otherwise it would involve some surgery to allow a picatinny rail to slide in and then be screwed down through a hole in the carry handle. This would mean all kinds of work.
Lastly, the grenade launcher. I was thinking these:
Madbull Airsoft Shotgun Shell SS6 for Tanaka (6mm)
Metal body. The right size and shape. I figure a nice titanium paint job. But how to get the thing to fire... that's beyond my technical ability. I also don't want to buy a $300 shotgun just to chop it to bits. So maybe something a little less ambitious like one of the UTG tri-shot shotguns.... only the shells are too large to fit the ejection port of the PR. So... dunno. But at the very least I'll dremel out the ports, structurally reinforce the inside and build an inner structure so that you don't see the wiring, polish the ejection port door, add a functional trigger, and add a heavy spring so that the slide doesn't just flop around like it does now.
And all of this will take about 20 years.
p.s. if I don't go with a functional grenade launcher, it seems to me you should be able to modify it to take a 9.6v stick battery rather than the 8.4v--which would also increase the rate of fire. Also, swapping the fuse and installing a MOSFET would allow you to use a LiPo. Installing a MOSFET is a good idea in any case. A MOSFET should also clean up the kind-of sloppy trigger action and will keep your trigger leads from getting burned out amongst other things.
Okay, here are my .02.
Apart from all the visual mods, I plan on doing a fair amount of structural reinforcement. The plastic on the upper receiver is pretty thin, and I can see it cracking or punching through with moderate to rough use. So the plan is to partially fill the interior with resin.
Also, a lot can be done to accurize the sound of the gun. Clearly, without adding an electronic sound system (and even then, the dB wouldn't approach a real firearm), there is only so much you can do. Fortunately, the full-metal body construction and the position of the cylinder in the Thompson body make this gun loudish to begin with. Replacing the poly cylinder head with one of the plethora of CNC cylinder heads and going with an aluminum pistonhead will enhance the mechanical sound quite a bit.
Now the rate of fire is fair-to-midlin' (400-500 RPMish). My seat-of-the-pants chrono is guessing this gun is shooting around 400ish FPS, which suggests an M120 spring. Switching to an M100 or M90 will help the rate of fire by a fair amount. But I will probably swap the motor and gears as well and reinforce the gearbox and turn this into a speed rig. The goal is a reasonable (IMO) 800-900 RPM, which I think would be close to what you see/hear onscreen. It would be hard on parts, but I think the results would be worth it.
For accuracy, the outer barrel seems plenty long to accept a longer inner barrel, but if the sensor can't be relocated, I guess I'll just leave that alone, or go with a TBB of the same lenth (probably 247mm). Hm... going with a longer inner barrel is probably a stupid idea for a speed rig, anyhow.
The magazine... they make 110rd midcaps that don't require winding. So I plan on getting a few of these and then casting a magazine cap that fastens to the bottom of the magazine. This solves 2 things--1) having to wind the magazine, and 2) listening to the bbs rattling around inside the magazine. Time to look at Rook's site to see how he got the locking mechanism to work.
The sight rail... sigh. This is where it gets difficult. A hollow trench doesn't exactly qualify as a 'sight.' This is where I may have to go off the reservation, and where I'd have to do the most modification to the body. Adding iron sights would be the most obvious and least invasive. Otherwise it would involve some surgery to allow a picatinny rail to slide in and then be screwed down through a hole in the carry handle. This would mean all kinds of work.
Lastly, the grenade launcher. I was thinking these:
Madbull Airsoft Shotgun Shell SS6 for Tanaka (6mm)
Metal body. The right size and shape. I figure a nice titanium paint job. But how to get the thing to fire... that's beyond my technical ability. I also don't want to buy a $300 shotgun just to chop it to bits. So maybe something a little less ambitious like one of the UTG tri-shot shotguns.... only the shells are too large to fit the ejection port of the PR. So... dunno. But at the very least I'll dremel out the ports, structurally reinforce the inside and build an inner structure so that you don't see the wiring, polish the ejection port door, add a functional trigger, and add a heavy spring so that the slide doesn't just flop around like it does now.
And all of this will take about 20 years.
p.s. if I don't go with a functional grenade launcher, it seems to me you should be able to modify it to take a 9.6v stick battery rather than the 8.4v--which would also increase the rate of fire. Also, swapping the fuse and installing a MOSFET would allow you to use a LiPo. Installing a MOSFET is a good idea in any case. A MOSFET should also clean up the kind-of sloppy trigger action and will keep your trigger leads from getting burned out amongst other things.
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