Alchemy Arms Trigun revolver review and (slow) build

I just received my first order from Alchemy Arms, their Trigun revolver. I gotta say I'm pretty damn impressed, doubly so for the cost - $65 US plus 12 shipping, So what did I get? One extremely well-casted set of three parts, with exceptional surface detail. They've also been sanded down some in spots which is appreciated, but none of the early finishing work seems to have damaged the fine detail. Apologizing right now for my camera; it's a very dark black resin and even the flash didn't bounce much off, but once I start cleaning and painting better pictures will come.




There's a little bit of flash, and on the muzzle some fairly tiny pinholes that won't be a problem at all to solve. No bubbled spotted anywhere else in the kit. There isn't much depth in the barrel, so you may want to drill that out a bit - a 7/16" drill bit will get you to 0.4375 inches, and smoothing it out with a little sandpaper should get you spot on to a nice .45 caliber muzzle. Just be careful centering!



Which, admittedly, is my only complaint with the kit. The aluminum(?) post for the cylinder is a very nice touch, and appreciated, but the cylinder itself seems slightly undersize and on mine the hole was drilled just a touch off-center. This leaves a bit of a large gap between the cylinder and frame, either at the top or the bottom.




The kit can probably be made to actually open, though not in the 'proper' way - the frame release lever is cast as part of the rear grip, and isn't a separate piece. The way it comes together, it wouldn't be hard at all to mount a couple little neodymium magnets perhaps, just to hold it together. You'd need to drill out the center of the frame hinge and put a proper axle in there for it to rotate on, but that's simple enough, and the fit is very nice and flush in the area. It'll open this far, because the arm on the end of the frame piece goes up into a recess in the barrel.



I admit I was surprised at how small it actually is, though that's not a complaint against the kit - it's pretty damn precise compared to the original and related single- and double-action revolvers. What threw me off was the grip size, it's proportional to the classic 1873 SAA and not the more modern styles of DA revolvers, especially equivalent size monsters like the Raging Bull family. That said, how big IS it?



Pretty darn nice! And much more comfortable than I'd expected for the grip, as long as you ignore that highest 'finger groove' which is far too small for anyone. My middle finger rests nicely on the large second groove, my ring and pinkie wrap clean around the lower swell, and the web of my thumb doesn't ride up into where the hammer would be. It's not got the bulk of the Blade Runner gun, but it's definitely a gorgeous piece on its own.



Definitely got my eye on some more stuff from Alchemy Arms in the near future, that's for bloody sure.

FYI, this is a recast of the old DNG/Poseidon kit. It was designed to be built with the guts from a Tanaka M29 cap revolver which gave it a functional trigger/hammer/cylinder, and that's why some of the sizes and tolerances on the gun are the way they are.

You can check out their old order page for the gun which is still up and view some other completed builds of this kit (links at the bottom) if you need inspiration. http://www.poseidon.co.jp/5F/vash_a/vash_1.html The first link actually shows how they built the master for the original kit which is pretty cool.

It's been a while since i've seen one of these real or otherwise (un-built original kits are very hard to find now) so i'm looking forward to the finished product. :thumbsup

That explains the cylinder issue then. I should specify that the misalignment is definitely in the cylinder, not the post on the frame. It's a good cast on the back end with the cartridges, but is just a hair undersized in all the usual dimensions. Was thinking of getting some sheet styrene and adding a little layer to fill in that gap and building it with a fixed cylinder, but maybe I'll go find an airsoft gun's cylinder instead. The fluting looks better, IMO, though it might be tricky to find the right fit. Thanks for the info on the source!

Yeah, the original kit was not supplied with a completed cylinder, instead you were given 6 strips to plug the flutes and an extension to elongate the M29's cylinder at the front. You'd put it all together and then bondo and smooth it out, this allowed them to keep the original cycling mechanism intact so that the cylinder could rotate with the trigger pull.

This is unrelated but DNG also made a kit version of the manga gun, this one was designed to make full use of the Tanaka M29 and even included some pretty complex instructions for modifying the airsoft gun to fire from the bottom cylinder. http://www.poseidon.co.jp/6F/vash_o/vgv_1.html

*The anime kit used a Tokyo Marui cap gun, the manga kit used a Tanaka airsoft gun, both were M29's. I got that mixed up.

Huh, neat. Poseidon's doing overseas shipping after all. Wish I could get my hands on the OOP stuff; I'd love one of Deunan's handcannons.

As for the Vashvolver, got the flash cleaned up, no real visible changes so no photos. Now to decide whether to go chrome or black chrome...

I think that one was a special case, you can see how the export version had orange tips. I've never seen one myself.

Chrome would be more accurate but black chrome would look really cool. Always thought it would be neat to see a nickel plated version, I know it's possible to do on plastic, though not as common.

Gonna hit the paint aisle tomorrow and see what kind of miracles Krylon and Rustoleum can pull off. It did well enough on that Blade Runner watergun! Wondier if they've got a good nickel finish, that'd be very nice indeed.

Shimmed up the recoil shield and the bottom of the frame on the grip piece. The cylinder indexes very well to the barrel with it rotated high on that off-axis mount, so I attacked the bottom to thicken it up a little and match the gaps. Visibly, it's pretty close! The back of the cylinder has a small stud that sticks out, which IS properly centered, I had to spend a while making sure it was lined up right before I put a hole for the post to anchor in the back. Now it's got proper support front and back, and fits slightly better.

I'm just gonna stop sounding like I know what I'm doing at this point and admit I cut up a paper plate to do it. No seriously, that's 3 layers of paper plates trimmed with a chisel. It works, it's smooth, the backside of the plate will absorb the paint nicely, I just am covered in fine paper shavings this morning. Don't be me. Also included, my giant hand demonstrating the grip size; it's actually comfortable with that grip despite what it might seem, and it lines up nice with the thumb and trigger finger.

Finally got around to painting Vash's revolver. Needs a little muzzle piece, but I'm iffy on the coloration. It doesn't seem AS sparkly as it is in pics, and I was wondering how it'll look buffed out some. Any suggestions, other than repainting it completely? Meanwhile, WIP!

Yeah they seem to sell a few Poseidon recasts, like the GITS Seburo and Vermillion. Kind of nice to see those still kicking around.

Grey said:

It's been a while since i've seen one of these real or otherwise (un-built original kits are very hard to find now) so i'm looking forward to the finished product. :thumbsup

Click to expand...

You can find them here and there on some Japan auction sites but they cost like $200-400 tho. Still got an un-built kit from like 3 years ago.

Oh hey look what I finally got off my butt and finished the past couple days. Wasn't quite happy in the end with the satin-nickel finish; it was just a little too speckly (I call dibs on this word!) for my taste. Hit it with an overcoat of metallic silver, right over the nickel, then sanded it ever so finely to take the texture off the paint, then hit it again with a light coat of metallic silver again. After that, just some gold for the cartridges, flat black for the inner barrel and vents, and uh...well, I guess it doesn't look like I spent $$60,000,000,000 on it, but it does look pretty damn shiny to me. Seriously, did not expect the nickel undercoat to boost the glow so much.



Mid painting to show scale again and get the only good look at the cartridges I'll ever see. Shiiiiny.






Thanks guys!