Post by KILL on Sept 1, 2014 9:33:54 GMT -5
Pretty much a repost from my main forums but hopefully anyone out there would find this useful.
Here ya go:
Unfortunately, the front sight post on mine came broken with no available spare parts. The orange tip that was glued on also stripped away the paint
I won't go over the history because you can probably look that up yourself and my explanation will be a crappy half-arsed copypaste from Wikipedia or something
First off, it's a fun rifle. Going toe to toe with average floperators in their silly multicum molleh modern getup and slaying them with Bushido Sahmoorhai willpower is more satisfying than anything I personally ever done before in airsoft. The rifle itself is fairly good quality: Not like LCT rock solid, but more like VFC solid with some creaks around the barrel itself. Compatible drop-in parts with the real counterpart is the rear sight and the bolt stopper. Everything else is literally off spec by a few millimeters so you have to mod it yourself to make it fit.
Ironsight view. Note the broken right post that was damaged when it was shipped.
FPS is roughly 370 out of the box with green gas/propane at room temperature, any hotter and the FPS goes up, any lower and the FPS goes lower. Effective range is ~150ft (depends on your hopup adjustment) but since you can't walk your shots (bolt action hurr), you have to make every shot count, which from my personal point of view, it's a challenging and fun obstacle. My personal rifle came with the domestic gas nozzle so it shoots at a fairly low FPS with green gas. supposedly the export nozzle shoots 450FPS+ with HFC134a.... so honestly I don't see my domestic nozzle as a con because it means I don't adhere to sniper rules and have my minimum engagement distance limited to 100ft on some fields, plus it helps when I roll MOUT/CQB fields and I don't piss off other players when I shoot them at close range. I've also noticed the hopup is... "loose", meaning I suspect it has a similar issue with M4 hopups where it has trouble holding that certain degree of hopup. So far the hopup hasn't given me any problems but I wish it was a more solid system where the hopup mechanism was solidly retained in place rather than something that has the potential of moving around and messing up my hopup. Another weird issue(?) is the green gas has a tendency to shooting the silicone oil from the barrel when the rifle is pointed slightly downwards because the magazine is so damn small: Sorta like if you had a GBB pistol and fired it upside-down except you're only pointing the Type 99 slightly downwards
My rifle was caked in dirt at one point. Disassembly is easy so I was able to clean it with relative ease.
The rifle also came with one 10-round magazine and speed loader. Unfortunately, no cleaning or unjamming rod was spotted
Stripper assault clipz for ease of loading
The bolt is easy to remove with the simple tug of the bolt release. I swapped my Tanaka one with a real one hence the slight difference in finish
Disassembly is also very easy and straightforward. Pictured above is the rifle's disassembly into all her main components
Bolt disassembly
Bolt front disassembly. Take note of the nozzle: The export versions have a bigger hole for greater gas flow and FPS. Unfortunately not available as an aftermarket part for some reason.
Cons about the rifle is the metal used is some sort of.... aluminum or some other weaker metal than steel. Another con is the weaksauce metal is painted over so once you get a scratch, the paint can scrape away and expose the grey metal underneath, much unlike the real Type 99 which is blued (if I recall correctly). The stock bolt also is made of the same material, so when I first received the rifle, it was rather solid, but as I skirmish with it and break in the bolt, the looser it got. Something else I also noticed is the Type 99 ammunition pouches are a tad too small for the Tanaka Type 99 magazines, and I've already had to take apart all four of my magazines to clean it of dust and other nasty particles because it fell out of my magazine pouches into mud puddles. Another issue is the lack of spare parts. If you haven't noticed already, my front sight post's right post came snapped. Unfortunately, the only way to obtain spares is to contact Tanaka directly and this requires you to go to Japan and ask a kind retailer to custom order it and it's quite a hassle. If you live outside of Japan then you're SOL because the Japanese dislike shipping various items outside their own country
Photo illustrating a problem with the magazine fill valve - it tends to shoot all the silicone out
Also the tendency of the rifle to shoot out silicone oil vapors when pointed slightly downwards
The hopup is locating near the magazine well; unfortunately it has a tendency of wiggling around
Overall, an 8.5/10
Pros:
-It's a WWII bolt action rifle that you can shoot friends with
-AA sights for shooting... planes... or something
-Monopod which I personally never use. Maybe it'll make you shoot farther who knows
-Skirmishable with relative accuracy
-Relatively good quality
-Takedown and cleaning is very easy
-Can be caked with dirt and subsequently cleaned into working order with relative ease (see above)
-Potential to mount real parts
-Comes with high capacity stripper assault clipsz for maximum cop killing speedloading
-Banzai
-Bushido
-Hand out airsoft PTSD to allied forces like no tomorrow. Personal survivability results may vary.
Cons:
-Bolt wears out eventually and becomes very loose
-Some creaky parts like the barrel
-Paint on the metal parts wear easily especially around the bolt and receiver
-Might be a tad expensive for some
-Difficult to obtain spare parts and magazines
-Finnicky loose hopup
-Limited choice of upgradability
-Green Gas and propane nozzles have the issue of leaking loadsa silicone when filling up magazines
-Chrysantheum Mum only has 15 petals as opposed to 16 (for various Emprah copyright reasons )
Other notes:
When operating in a dusty environment, the bolt tends to accumulate small grains of fine sand and it makes the bolt very sticky and rough
I did a field strip and manages to remove particles of dust and it operated fine until more dust got in and I repeated the process. The rifle is very prone to having dust accumulating in the internal mechanisms so I found myself doing a quick field strip after each game to remove fine grains of sand to prevent breakage
Another random thing to note is I accidentally put the rifle on safety as I was about the lock the bolt
unfortunately this made the bolt stuck (I initially suspected this was a problem with fine grains of sand sticking to the bolt) and I forced the bolt to close. Luckily, despite my forcing and hitting, I realized the safety somehow came to and I undid the safety. The rifle bolt cycled with no apparent consequences.
Comparison with a semi-assembled real mid-war Arisaka Type 99
Do I recommend it to any airsofters that want to banzai charge some operatoer clowns and allied doggs?
Most definitely.
The rifle isn't quite the perfection as I expected but it is definitely a skirmishable platform with loads of fun. I would definitely choose this over any of my AKs for a fun day of skirmishing and banzaing unsuspecting players.
And here's a 6 month after review:
I got my prime bolt, but it comes completely disassembled, including the gas nozzle
You need a special metal adhesive to attach the new gas nozzle onto the bolt head. Right now I'm using the original bolt head with the Prime bolt body. My bolt is the right one.
Not that it matters too much though, since the stock nozzle already clocks in at ~420 FPS (after breaking it in now) which is pretty comfortable considering most fields around me allow 400 as their limit. I usually get an exception to run my rifle as a "sniper rifle", which is why I use the original bolt head with the Prime body.
Back to the Prime bolt, it's definitely solid, and less "loose" than the stock bolt after breaking it in, but it still has its fair amount of wobble when racking it and such. Other than that, it's an alright addition to your $800+ investment. I will mention though, that it likes to rust - have that steel wool handy if you ever decide to keep one in storage for some time. As a tidbit it racks more easily than the real Type 99.
I'd also like to cover any issues I've seen so far and point out various issues I've had with the rifle in the last 6 months:
Trigger pin:
Here, the pin is coming up by about 2 millimeters. Sometimes it completely becomes dislodged and causes malfunctions in my bbgat
Here's the pin back in its original position
Likes to come loose. Kinda sucks because every so often I have to break open the rifle to make sure the pin is in place. One of the telltale signs that the pin is dislodged is when you pull the trigger and nothing happens, but when pulling it other times, it sometimes fires. The pin probably comes loose every 300-400 shots or so, which isn't necessarily a huge issue for skirmishes because you'll rarely go through 20 rounds when participating in an hour game. Probably some DIY needed to prevent the pin from wedging its way out.
Paint:
Seems like this rifle is constructed of aluminum material with a layer of paint over it so even applying a bit of steel wool will cause the paint to wear off. Not sure if a pro or con but something to keep in mind if you want your rifle to maintain a pristine appearance.
Bolt:
one of the parts that equates to the firing pin assembly tends to wear away really quickly - here's a photo to illustrate:
Let me also make a quick indication of what's going on:
I've marked the wear in red. You'll notice the area around it is in silver because of the wear. Also that beveled area isn't supposed to be straight. It's supposed to be curved.
The main reason for this happening is because that same area comes into contact with the place I marked with a red circle.
Because the rear hook/catch assembly is also made of the same aluminum material as the receiver, it has a tendency to wear away chunks as you rack the bolt over and over. I've purposely slightly grinded that area to be less jagged to have it rack smoothly again. Also keep that part well lubricated. It allows it to function normally when it's lubricated enough. The only issue however, is it becomes a dust and sand magnet when lubricated with silicone oil. Clean that part often.
Bayonet:
Probably doesn't really matter but it's wobbly when attached. Not ideal for stabbing kids with.
Other than that I haven't had issues with this rifle so far. It's really simple to take apart and clean (albeit with a lot of nooks and crannys to collect dust), and shoots like a laser.
Here's how it looks now
Excuse the lighting but definitely not as shiny as before
Here ya go:
Unfortunately, the front sight post on mine came broken with no available spare parts. The orange tip that was glued on also stripped away the paint
I won't go over the history because you can probably look that up yourself and my explanation will be a crappy half-arsed copypaste from Wikipedia or something
First off, it's a fun rifle. Going toe to toe with average floperators in their silly multicum molleh modern getup and slaying them with Bushido Sahmoorhai willpower is more satisfying than anything I personally ever done before in airsoft. The rifle itself is fairly good quality: Not like LCT rock solid, but more like VFC solid with some creaks around the barrel itself. Compatible drop-in parts with the real counterpart is the rear sight and the bolt stopper. Everything else is literally off spec by a few millimeters so you have to mod it yourself to make it fit.
Ironsight view. Note the broken right post that was damaged when it was shipped.
FPS is roughly 370 out of the box with green gas/propane at room temperature, any hotter and the FPS goes up, any lower and the FPS goes lower. Effective range is ~150ft (depends on your hopup adjustment) but since you can't walk your shots (bolt action hurr), you have to make every shot count, which from my personal point of view, it's a challenging and fun obstacle. My personal rifle came with the domestic gas nozzle so it shoots at a fairly low FPS with green gas. supposedly the export nozzle shoots 450FPS+ with HFC134a.... so honestly I don't see my domestic nozzle as a con because it means I don't adhere to sniper rules and have my minimum engagement distance limited to 100ft on some fields, plus it helps when I roll MOUT/CQB fields and I don't piss off other players when I shoot them at close range. I've also noticed the hopup is... "loose", meaning I suspect it has a similar issue with M4 hopups where it has trouble holding that certain degree of hopup. So far the hopup hasn't given me any problems but I wish it was a more solid system where the hopup mechanism was solidly retained in place rather than something that has the potential of moving around and messing up my hopup. Another weird issue(?) is the green gas has a tendency to shooting the silicone oil from the barrel when the rifle is pointed slightly downwards because the magazine is so damn small: Sorta like if you had a GBB pistol and fired it upside-down except you're only pointing the Type 99 slightly downwards
My rifle was caked in dirt at one point. Disassembly is easy so I was able to clean it with relative ease.
The rifle also came with one 10-round magazine and speed loader. Unfortunately, no cleaning or unjamming rod was spotted
Stripper assault clipz for ease of loading
The bolt is easy to remove with the simple tug of the bolt release. I swapped my Tanaka one with a real one hence the slight difference in finish
Disassembly is also very easy and straightforward. Pictured above is the rifle's disassembly into all her main components
Bolt disassembly
Bolt front disassembly. Take note of the nozzle: The export versions have a bigger hole for greater gas flow and FPS. Unfortunately not available as an aftermarket part for some reason.
Cons about the rifle is the metal used is some sort of.... aluminum or some other weaker metal than steel. Another con is the weaksauce metal is painted over so once you get a scratch, the paint can scrape away and expose the grey metal underneath, much unlike the real Type 99 which is blued (if I recall correctly). The stock bolt also is made of the same material, so when I first received the rifle, it was rather solid, but as I skirmish with it and break in the bolt, the looser it got. Something else I also noticed is the Type 99 ammunition pouches are a tad too small for the Tanaka Type 99 magazines, and I've already had to take apart all four of my magazines to clean it of dust and other nasty particles because it fell out of my magazine pouches into mud puddles. Another issue is the lack of spare parts. If you haven't noticed already, my front sight post's right post came snapped. Unfortunately, the only way to obtain spares is to contact Tanaka directly and this requires you to go to Japan and ask a kind retailer to custom order it and it's quite a hassle. If you live outside of Japan then you're SOL because the Japanese dislike shipping various items outside their own country
Photo illustrating a problem with the magazine fill valve - it tends to shoot all the silicone out
Also the tendency of the rifle to shoot out silicone oil vapors when pointed slightly downwards
The hopup is locating near the magazine well; unfortunately it has a tendency of wiggling around
Overall, an 8.5/10
Pros:
-It's a WWII bolt action rifle that you can shoot friends with
-AA sights for shooting... planes... or something
-Monopod which I personally never use. Maybe it'll make you shoot farther who knows
-Skirmishable with relative accuracy
-Relatively good quality
-Takedown and cleaning is very easy
-Can be caked with dirt and subsequently cleaned into working order with relative ease (see above)
-Potential to mount real parts
-Comes with high capacity stripper assault clipsz for maximum cop killing speedloading
-Banzai
-Bushido
-Hand out airsoft PTSD to allied forces like no tomorrow. Personal survivability results may vary.
Cons:
-Bolt wears out eventually and becomes very loose
-Some creaky parts like the barrel
-Paint on the metal parts wear easily especially around the bolt and receiver
-Might be a tad expensive for some
-Difficult to obtain spare parts and magazines
-Finnicky loose hopup
-Limited choice of upgradability
-Green Gas and propane nozzles have the issue of leaking loadsa silicone when filling up magazines
-Chrysantheum Mum only has 15 petals as opposed to 16 (for various Emprah copyright reasons )
Other notes:
When operating in a dusty environment, the bolt tends to accumulate small grains of fine sand and it makes the bolt very sticky and rough
I did a field strip and manages to remove particles of dust and it operated fine until more dust got in and I repeated the process. The rifle is very prone to having dust accumulating in the internal mechanisms so I found myself doing a quick field strip after each game to remove fine grains of sand to prevent breakage
Another random thing to note is I accidentally put the rifle on safety as I was about the lock the bolt
unfortunately this made the bolt stuck (I initially suspected this was a problem with fine grains of sand sticking to the bolt) and I forced the bolt to close. Luckily, despite my forcing and hitting, I realized the safety somehow came to and I undid the safety. The rifle bolt cycled with no apparent consequences.
Comparison with a semi-assembled real mid-war Arisaka Type 99
Do I recommend it to any airsofters that want to banzai charge some operatoer clowns and allied doggs?
Most definitely.
The rifle isn't quite the perfection as I expected but it is definitely a skirmishable platform with loads of fun. I would definitely choose this over any of my AKs for a fun day of skirmishing and banzaing unsuspecting players.
And here's a 6 month after review:
I got my prime bolt, but it comes completely disassembled, including the gas nozzle
You need a special metal adhesive to attach the new gas nozzle onto the bolt head. Right now I'm using the original bolt head with the Prime bolt body. My bolt is the right one.
Not that it matters too much though, since the stock nozzle already clocks in at ~420 FPS (after breaking it in now) which is pretty comfortable considering most fields around me allow 400 as their limit. I usually get an exception to run my rifle as a "sniper rifle", which is why I use the original bolt head with the Prime body.
Back to the Prime bolt, it's definitely solid, and less "loose" than the stock bolt after breaking it in, but it still has its fair amount of wobble when racking it and such. Other than that, it's an alright addition to your $800+ investment. I will mention though, that it likes to rust - have that steel wool handy if you ever decide to keep one in storage for some time. As a tidbit it racks more easily than the real Type 99.
I'd also like to cover any issues I've seen so far and point out various issues I've had with the rifle in the last 6 months:
Trigger pin:
Here, the pin is coming up by about 2 millimeters. Sometimes it completely becomes dislodged and causes malfunctions in my bbgat
Here's the pin back in its original position
Likes to come loose. Kinda sucks because every so often I have to break open the rifle to make sure the pin is in place. One of the telltale signs that the pin is dislodged is when you pull the trigger and nothing happens, but when pulling it other times, it sometimes fires. The pin probably comes loose every 300-400 shots or so, which isn't necessarily a huge issue for skirmishes because you'll rarely go through 20 rounds when participating in an hour game. Probably some DIY needed to prevent the pin from wedging its way out.
Paint:
Seems like this rifle is constructed of aluminum material with a layer of paint over it so even applying a bit of steel wool will cause the paint to wear off. Not sure if a pro or con but something to keep in mind if you want your rifle to maintain a pristine appearance.
Bolt:
one of the parts that equates to the firing pin assembly tends to wear away really quickly - here's a photo to illustrate:
Let me also make a quick indication of what's going on:
I've marked the wear in red. You'll notice the area around it is in silver because of the wear. Also that beveled area isn't supposed to be straight. It's supposed to be curved.
The main reason for this happening is because that same area comes into contact with the place I marked with a red circle.
Because the rear hook/catch assembly is also made of the same aluminum material as the receiver, it has a tendency to wear away chunks as you rack the bolt over and over. I've purposely slightly grinded that area to be less jagged to have it rack smoothly again. Also keep that part well lubricated. It allows it to function normally when it's lubricated enough. The only issue however, is it becomes a dust and sand magnet when lubricated with silicone oil. Clean that part often.
Bayonet:
Probably doesn't really matter but it's wobbly when attached. Not ideal for stabbing kids with.
Other than that I haven't had issues with this rifle so far. It's really simple to take apart and clean (albeit with a lot of nooks and crannys to collect dust), and shoots like a laser.
Here's how it looks now
Excuse the lighting but definitely not as shiny as before