Airsoft MG34

[kingmaker]

Hello everyone St George Armoury is back, found some metal in a skip in Boston,Decided to make it into a Reinmatall MG34.

Its basically a ak47 re-skin so i got the idea of the other builders of this gun on ww2 airsoft forums around the world without their work my job would be much harder so support the forums cus Facebook is bollox

It is airsoft component compatible and does not use any real gun parts ,and none of the parts would be any use at all in any real firearm,and is for use at insured organised airsoft sights.see it built in pics below.

[kingmaker]

[kingmaker]

I will use my usual construction style,welded and brazed sheet mild steel,some parts from heat treated spring steel and aluminium plate and bar,band sawn ,turned on the lathe and milled.High tensile socket head fasteners,i will wave some purist detail in the interest of practicality,re-build ability,lets face it if you can't strip it all down and rebuild it without making it better and not stripping all the screw threads then its not worth it

.It needs to be a practical airsoft gun,so all the airsoft parts i choose are ones i can buy from any where and cheap,but the external it is all metal and wood,and the steel will be hot chemically blacked,and the aluminium black anodised so i get a finish that stays looking good over time.So basically i am ****ing of all that cornflakes metal,plastic and balsa wood you get on the stuff you buy.It falls to bits the first time you use it I hate it.

[kingmaker]

[2nd Bat]

Wow! Fabulous work (as always.)

[kingmaker]

Thanks for the complement 
in regards to your post on one of the other MG34 builds on here as I understood from reading the now defunct Airsoft Mechanics there is no such thing as suck back and is a disproven theory,in an AEG as in the sequence of operations in the gearbox is the nozzle is pulled back from the hop rubber before the piston starts to move back,and is so unable to cause vacuum in the barrel

when the piston does go back it may be possible that the air drawn in to the cylinder could affect the air going forward pushing the BB out,but it's difficult to prove fully.

Also the general understanding is that a standard AEG cylinder has only enough volume of air to fill a 52 cm barrel and so shoot at maximum efficiency,longer barrels than that will cause reduced shooting performance.
That's all just what I have read so often I have to access what people write on the internet and judge if I agree it is true,hope that helps.
In my gun I have a 52cm barrel and this ends 4inch behind the front sight post,and after the muzzle is a rolled piece of thin aluminium that prevents the possibility of the BB hitting  the internal step where the muzzle booster sits.IT works like one of those amplifiers some Airsoft guns have
the result of this is that it gives the gun a deeper more meaningful sound,much less of a toy kind of noise some guns have,and it's not a nasty over loud noise like one of those G&G M4 fire cracker thingies.

 

[2nd Bat]

Mine likewise creates a chamber at the muzzle which noticeably amplifies the report. An effect that I like very much.

[rullow]

Hi, thats a very nice build and I completel understand your choice of metal... everywhere possible - I do use it as well
thumbs up

[kingmaker]

Here i am beginning the manufacture of the a drum mag,although in real life its actually just a belt holder.

The 2 discs at the top are just billets of metal i have for shaping jobs,I cut out 2 discs of 0.9mm sheet,,10mm bigger than the billets ,the edges of the discs can then be hammered over ,while holding in a vice,to form a 90 deg lip,the tapered cone is trapped between the 2 discs.

Could have bought a real one for maybe £40 but i wanted it to have features to work with my airsoft design so i am making one.As usual there ARE LOTS OF COMPLICATED PRECISION PARTS,it is German so it wont be quick to makeThe parts a re brazed together and many of the smaller parts are riveted.I am old enough to have been taught to rivet at school,it used to be on the curriculum,all the processes i am doing here were,turning ,drilling, forging, planishing,polishing,thread cutting,blacking,woodwork.until it was considered not need any more,

[kingmaker]

Hi I dont actually think that a support Mg is actually that useful in most airsoft game scenario,due to the close intense action,its actually a disadvantage infact. You will have the same shooting performance of an mp5k and the weight and length make it unwieldy .

A real MG is only adjusting its arc of fire a few degrees at long range ,in an airsoft game you need to shoot 360deg within 2 seconds.

I am just doing it for the grin factor.

Originally it was to re-purpose my first gun i bought 7 years ago,it was going to cost nothing and just be a simple and not that an accurate copy.Since them my design has got more elaborate and so the work hours increase also..

My first feed idea was to use the drum as a hopper and have a shoot or tube dropping the ammo into a hole cut in the side of the short

AK mag.I decided i wanted a more accurate look and have the tube going in to the mag well,i can remove the tube and magazine top in the safe zone,making the tube quick release without it wearing out is harder than it sounds.I am using the normal AK mag catch.

I do have the option of shooting with an AK mag if the drum fails,i can do that with the drum removed and have a belt on my feed tray.

The winding mechanism has a flash mag winder from another broken mag adapted to it,the mainspring is under a lot of pressure when pushing the ammo down that long tube so you dont get as many shots per wind of the spring.



The ideal solution would be to have hop unit 45deg up and to the left,this would shorten the feed tube ,reducing friction,and utilise gravity to get the ammo into the hop chamber,Then it would be difficult to disconnect the feed tube in the safe zone and would have no back up it the drum mechanism failed,and take a bit more time.



A guy at my local site wanted an AGM mg42 he was advised about its disadvantages but he bought it any way from Europe,when he got it it was a lemon and the club armourer did not want to work on it so he was left with a £500 display piece and no product support from 400 mile away.



The pistol grip is sheet steel welded,the flats on the motor are touching the sheet metal,when i first ran the gearbox it was fine out of the gun,but ROF noticeably went down when when in the gun,i even was getting lock ups.I have used a similar set up before,no issues.

I tested the gearbox again out the gun OK i then put pieces of sheet metal on the flats of the motor the slowing down happened only when the metal was on the right side of the motor and towards the top.So i cut a window in the steel plate of the pistol grip to clear the problem.I don't know if its because it was a neo magnet motor as opposed to the ferrous magnet motor in previous builds that caused the problem to appear.

The steel must be affecting the magnetic field.

I was making aluminium grip covers screwed on to give the proper detail and a more rounded edge,i put the groves in with a small hacksaw below.The aluminium was from a skip at a engineering company i go to, they sell tools and materials,so it was very cheap i got several pieces different thickness for a few pounds,saves buying a whole sheet.



Here are some folding sights,they have a releasable plunger inside spring loaded with a Biro spring.

I have used the ak sight leaf,mounted vertically,the adjuster has a a block loctited to it with a leaf pointing to the right,i have the sights dialled in real good at 180 foot ,i put masking tape marker on the sight leaf,so when happy i can cut my v notch,with this long rear sight elevation adjustment is more than normal so you can realy get them set well.I hit a 40mm disc hanging from the wire of my garden fence at 60 foot.Groupings are excellent at 180 foot its just a metal ak47 chambre that came with a hop rubber for a few pounds,its a cyma brand part.The barrel came with a bundle of brass 6.04's i bought on ebay,i think they were about £3 each.I have lapped the bore with a few grades of diamond paste,checked the barrel window is well de-burred,and machined an extended crown at the muzzle.Properly stabilised the barrel and hop are more than adequate.With some guarder .28g added to the set up,i will be doing a bit of semi auto sniping with this as well as hosing hopefully.

The small eye shaped part is the sling mount,i machined the 6mm thread on the lathe,using dia14mm steel bar,and then cut the flats on with an angle grinder.

The aluminium parts have been sprayed black not anodised at this stage,so i can test everything for a while,the black anodising will be a significant part of the budget,considering the budget was originally only £15 not including the donor gun.Obviously i am spending a bit more than that now.Below the parts are red oxide primed.

[kingmaker]

HI so with my above comments i wrote above, i hope i did not offend anyone with what i said about suck back(2nd Batt)I have never experimented with barrels over 52cm on a normal size aeg cylinder but i have read performance drops off with longer barrels so i never went there myself.Some have said performance decreases going over 47cm but i don't agree with that.

Most of this thread is copied and pasted from the UK WW2 Aisoft forum,i thought you may enjoy the pics and build designs over the pond.


The front end of the gun is constructed entirely from aluminium.Muzzle booster and front sight and bi-pod mount turned from 50mm bar.The main 2 pieces of ali tube are from a skip also,a place that makes upvc windows in my town was the source,the 2 diameters telescope together,pieces of it were used on the AA sight mount and muzzle too.There is an adjustable position support inside the tube for the end of the airsoft barrel which is pushed down on it to give tight support.It is a 52cm brass barrel and stops about 10cm behind the front sight.

The AA sight mount in the centre of the barrel cover is band sawn from 10mm sheet and i used aluminium solder to attach it to a piece of tube.






The mg34 was designed as a universal MG using patents from several major manufacturers to get the best design and has very useful mounts for bi pod ,AA tripod and anti infantry tripod and was adaptable for use on top and firing from inside vehicles ,the latter role meant the barrel could still be changed .MG42 was not suitable for this last role.

The drum mags seem ungainly in a mobile infantry assault roll if you were changing position rapidly,difficult to carry the extra mags.mostly infantry used belts anyway i assume,the Bren gun beats it in this area i think,Bren was more than a match for any MG of the time,my Dad used one in National service, used to proudly say how quick he could strip and re-assemble one and even was taught to do it blindfold.Luckily he Just missed the Suez affair,and got called up just after and ended up In the Egyptian dessert for 2 years.


I have fitted a typical airsoft spring loaded charging handle .Its a piece of 3mm steel plate internally with a slot cut in it,I procured a suitable extension spring from ebay. There is a 6mm steel stud at one end for the handle which is a piece of Ali bar drilled hollow ,threaded to fit the stud and knurled,The Ali keeps stuff light i am not into lugging a piece of obsidian around the battle field all day.Just above this is the fire and safety selector it pivots of the same position as the AK selector,due to its shortness it is hard to differentiate where it is set ,i wish now i had fitted it to one of the geared quadrants at the back of the gearbox,it could be left or right hand side,i have fitted them here on other builds using a v3 gearbox from the AK.



The only non standard part is the trigger which is a g36 one,which can be bought separately from Hong Kong ,it projects much lower down from the shell which is handy,i have then screwed on a shape piece of 10mm Ali plate to imitate the MG34 trigger,however the real one is in 2 triggers in one to get semi/full auto fire,mine is not though.

My trigger guard is removable other wise the AK receiver can not be taken in or out,i wont need to do this much as i can just unscrew the hop unit and slide it towards the muzzle end to allow the gearbox to come out.

The front half of the gun or barrel shroud does have to come off to get out the hop and air soft barrel,the shroud is only held on with one screw so it comes off quick,There is a v slot that locates on a peg so when you re-assemble the front sight will go back to zero always.

The wooden stock is made from sycamore ,it is an off-cut from a table i made 25 years ago so it is well seasoned luckily I could band saw it out,bore out a battery hole in it on the lathe and turn a shoulder for a metal sleeve .All my parts are a transition fit,which means they slide together with a bit of force, and no play.The sleeve is a piece of an old bunk bed frame.The sleeve slides on to the MG receiver and is located with pin on a small leaf spring,you just twist the stock to release it, comes on and off in seconds.

Hopefully my explanations will give people some ideas for their own builds,although more Guns for WW2 are becoming available,the need to make guns is not needed as much maybe,but i certanly would not spend £1300 on an RWA MG34,its a fairly good replica but i know mine will fit in with what i want from it at a game.

The feed tray cover has a spring loaded slide ,so you can lift it, change battery or lift the door to refill ammo into the drum in a moment,so it will be friendly to work with.

So I have just had pizza for Tea and i set the polystyrene base left over up at the end of my garden.The sun has set just so i had enough light to shoot but not visibly see the line of shot.I drew a 5 inch circle in the centre.I set the gun to semi auto and just aimed at the centre of the target,i was resting the muzzle as no bipod is on the gun as it has not been made yet.I just aimed at the target centre and 8 out of 10 are in the 5 inch circle.

In my experience thats not bad for a bog standard Chinese hop set up.I have some of those SCS type nubs that are made by element.They are shaped like cotton reels,they go bet tween the hop arm and hop rubber.see if those make any difference.

I have used flat or bridge nubs made by maple leaf but begrudge paying £5 for a micro piece of rubber,they do give more range combined with the Monster rubber.

I have also cut my own bridge nubs from silicon tube,but they are a bit hit and miss.

I then repeated the test at 50 meter Out of 13 shots only 2 were in a 12 inch circle,thats the size of the white circle(12inch) in the target in the photo above.The rest of the shots were within 18 inch of the centre of target,This is just aimed shots at the target centre not walking them in by sight,its hard to see where they hit on a white target.

In the first test i did I had a dead calm,no wind, test conditions,the second test just as i was setting up my target a slight breeze started up.Obviously in adverse weather the shots may be 20ft to one side.

Initially i was disappointed with the groupings in the 2nd test,but actually its not bad.Accuracy drops off in airsoft as a massive amount of the FPS is lost in the 1st 20ft of the BB's flight.

I have fitted my SCS nub and did a few shots and it looked good,it was capable of making the ammo rise up at the end of its flight so when i back it off for a more level flight i know my hop set up is giving the max amount of back spin the BB can handle.When i get a chance i will do a more controlled test.

[kingmaker]

Hi Meet Bren ,thats right Sgt Bren Gunner,as you can clearly see he has been taken out by superior German weaponry,due to the fact that his magazine is sticking up 12 inches above his gun

and so giving away his position.
In all seriousness that piece of metal is just a target i have at the bottom of my garden i shoot at it if a get bored at work,or if i need to test a gun is working and is sighted in before i pack it away to take to a game.A metal target indictes a hit by sound.

I did read some where that interrogation of German Infantry revealed that the bren magazine could give away your position and it became part of standard training to try and set up some kind of camo to obstruct the magazine visability.Sounds feasible but i would have thought British infantry would have realised that themselves maybe,but who knows,a lot of facts quoted from the war bear no relation to the facts sometimes.

After fitting of the concave SCS nub i cant see any major improvement in groupings and not In range either in fact that may have reduced .It gives a a trajectory like r-hop where as you increase hop it just keeps going up at a steeper angle,throwing of the elevation setting of your sights then the BB at the end of its flight it just drops out of the air,suddenly,into the ground.

So it did'nt work for me but other people swear by it,reviews that appear like random reviews are often secret biased marketing in my opinion.

As the gun did'nt seem to have a problem there was not that much room for improvement, i shimmed out the last bit of side to side play in the hop arm,although that was already ok as well.

Here are some bipod parts under construction.The legs are made from square tubing that was part of a pop-up gazebo.

I also never made the gun with a mind to ww2 games,i did for the crack although the last week and half of finishing off has been less fun than sticking pins in my eyes.

Also i know support weapons are restricted at many games ,and not many people would want the job of loader any way.

However i have turned something old into something new using some free re-cycled material,some of the sheet steel is new and many billet ali parts are made from aircraft grade aluminium,that i get from a steam rally that goes of every year near me,You can buy small lengths of quality aluminium from ebay,its just quick to find and get ordered.

Bi-pod is now in place wish i had done that earlier,that thing is a hand full when you want to rest it down.

The bipod is just blued with a flame,let it cool a bit and then apply oil. 
If you want all your proportions exact then an ak47 re-skin is not the way to go,doing it the way I did saved time and had more guarantee of a working air soft gun,I do know a guy who has 2 mg34 but he lives a long way away so getting dimensions would have been a full day trip.

The drum magazine has needed development,although my conversion of the short Ak mag into a flash mag does work now,,originally it had parts from a broken flash mag,but they were giving some problems,I may have over wound it, does'nt seem to give any warning of over winding.

Luckily I had already sourced a new flash mag ,for less than £5 and transferred most of the internals to my build.

Generally knock off flash mags are listed as one of the top 10 things to avoid in air soft,even the lonex originals wear out,you can get spare internals from the WGC Shop for them.

Also I was going to use an old cyma v3 gearbox,but I already had a new G&G v3 knocking about,it was only £40,normally a new one is $180.

It does look better finished than the cyma,but I don't consider G&G that special to be honest,The full auto stopped working,I have seen that before on a G&G v3 gearbox.Its due to the trigger sear being too short,the part that goes between the trigger the switch trolley,luckily I had about 5 v3 Sears in my spares kit,one of them had a longer sear by 0.75 mm and this cleared the problem.Internaly I have not done anything,just added more shims to the gears,it already had a metal spring guide with bearing.

You don't need a expensive gearbox to get good shooting ,it's more about durability,,accuracy mostly comes from barrel and hop ,and having it securely mounted and well lined up.I am running sub 350 fps and only 12 maybe 15 rpm for safety,and durability.The German guns were known for their high rate of fire ,so at 15rpm on my gun it will give it a bit of zip sound rather than a thud thud thud like on a Bren or on a Yank support weapon. :shock:

To be honest a high rate of fire can mean you have blown your load before you have got the the job done,that goes for air soft and real combat,so it's not always a good thing.

Also I have soldered on a Deans electrical plug I gave up on the Tamiya connectors,(real name for those is Kyosho connector)they can have intermittent connection when worn,

To be honest I think there is a lot of hype around some airsoft teching mods,and after market parts,it's about marketing,sometimes they don't do anything if make it worse,and you can spend a lot of money ,some parts and mods can be essential also though.

[kingmaker]

So i took the gun to a normal skirimish at a site called Hunting Ground near Boston UK.
i was lying prone in the dense Forrest,and who comes running into our position at full speed,a speed-softer in beetle mask,pistol in one hand and spare mag in the other,i let him have it,with a good burst.
The warm glow rising up inside my body was great
I used it till lunch without issue an got some good kills. Generally is was used in a constantly mobile role,and to get a line of fire in woodland the bi[pod was not much use only to set the gun down between games.
When i did go to a smaller rifle later after hefting the MG when testing over several weeks and during the morning game a 37 ich assault rifle felt like nothing was there ,to manipulate and aim,so using a big mother of an MG is actually good training.

[norseman]

Awesome! In the past I have given LMGs higher FPS limits to give an advantage to the guy packing 15 lbs around out there.

Great job!

[DRK]

Nice man, I am also eager to see VIVA arms Mg-34 coming eventually.

[2nd Bat]

To make a crew served weapon make sense on one played in a squad are allowed to fire on full auto and everyone other than the MG have low cap magazines. Otherwise you're right the MG is actually less effective than the main players. Though I havent gotten buy in Im also pushing for the sub macine guns to function with hop up dialed to non existant or below 290 FPS.