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Post by 2ndbat2 on Jan 11, 2022 18:51:44 GMT -5
In a casual walk through on EBAY i came across an offering I had never seen before. There were a buncb of inexpensive STG44 springer replicas. They had a cheezy scope, lazer pointer and really hokey bipod but otherwise looked pretty decent. I have actually kind of become a fan of cheap springers since I've had such great luck with the little UKARMs/AGM M1 carbine springers. I thought "what the heck?". At $41.00 how wrong can I be? These STG44s looked pretty decent and according to the listing and the reviews are pretty good shooters. The cocking bolt like on a real STG is on the left so for a right handed shooter is convenient and facilitates faster cocking. The listing said the magazine held 200 rounds but in reality the spring loads about 15 rounds and then you shake in a reload from a large reservour of loose BBs. The listing said 300 FPS (w .12 gram) but in reality it put .20 grams at just about 220 FPS so quite pathetic. The hokey add ons were all easily removable and in the parts bin would find homes somewhere? The removable magazine looks like a modern AK plastic mag so visually wrong. The price was so cheap I was expecting it to be awful but its not. There is no weight at less than 2 pounds. distractingly light but loose bolts and bondo took care of that. There is no adjustable hop up and it shows. It hits myneighbors garbage can every shot at 80 feet with an audible bing. The main surprise and really only cautionary note is that it is NOT full scale. The real STG was about 8 inches longer than this offering. For me once I added some dimension is not as distracting as it sounds. For indoor or backyard games this is marginally okay. Its definitely not going to hurt when it hits you.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Jan 16, 2022 19:52:23 GMT -5
I have now had this little guy for a week and am still pleased with it. I wish the mags looked right and that spare mags were available. It would be fun to host and all springer game with the US carbines vs these little STGs. I removed all the hokey do dads, cleaned the barrel, added about 3 pounds of weight and shot about 300 more rounds through it. The FPS is slightly up with the cleaned barrel and additional cycles. It shoots Sort of straight. The same as the undersized M14s that I turned into Garands. Not as hard as my favorite little M1 carbines.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Jan 26, 2022 16:23:32 GMT -5
With a near total lack of weight these are very toy like but I added some weighg bringing them from under 2 pounds to a liitle over five. I also applied a thin layer of resin paste outside the stock surfaces and created a more convincing faux wood. The end result vastly improves the first impression of this little gun. It would be a perfect loaner for someone on the smallish size. For the cheap price I remain pleased with it.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Jan 28, 2022 20:32:07 GMT -5
In the past when I ran out of my converted BAR10s to Kar98s (I have 5 now). I would loan out the little carbine springers to my Germans who needed weapons. The US M1 carbine was a very popular captured weapon by the Germans so not as outrageous as it may seem. Now with these little STG 44s I can hand out German weapons. I wish they were full sized, had spare magazines and shot a little harder but at the price they suit my purposes just fine. A lot of times there are a dozen or so youngish players (12 to 14) at local events and these will work well. The cocking effort is much easier than the "Bar 98" conversions. I think I will order some more?
I am trying to set up a WW2 indoor event at a local airsoft arena down in Tacoma and most of my guns exceed their FPS limits. The carbines, tiny home made Garands and these STGs would be fine.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Feb 7, 2022 17:56:59 GMT -5
To enhance these undersized STG44s I added 3 inches in barrel lenth and fabricated a real wood stock purposely adding 3 inches to the stock as well. Its still undersized but adds to its acceptability and appearance in pictures. I also added weight as there is no weight at all when it arrived. Very minimal effort. As received its too toy like. Fun little shooter although strictly back yard or indoor.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Feb 9, 2022 22:03:19 GMT -5
Airsoft Gi had them at just $18.00 (plus shipping). When I have some slush fund money I'm tempted to order a couple more UKARMs full length M14s to convert to Garands and add several of these so I exceed $150.00 and can get free shipping. I wish they were full scale, had better looking and spare mags and shot a little harder but at under $20.00 how picky can I be? With the bolt charging handle on the left and undersized they actually can be cocked and fired quite quickly.
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Post by volkssturm on Feb 25, 2022 12:14:08 GMT -5
Does the magazine have the usual Airsoft mag feed set up or is it a weird set up like the springer carbines?
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Feb 25, 2022 18:12:02 GMT -5
By weird set up do you mean the elevated feed box where the rifle plunger pushes the BB into the chamber horizontally as opposed to the more common verticle feed up into the chamber? Perhaps you mean the strange shaker box magazines that hold a bunch of loose BBs in the rear of a hollow magazine and then there is a straight spring up front that pushes up x numbers (usually about a dozen) of bbs and then when empty you pull the spring down, lock in place, shake the magazine till the loose BBs fill the spring channel and then release the sping?
Lots of weird magazine set ups I'm discovering. Incidently the upside of the elevated feed lip that horizontally introduces the BBs is there's no BB drop.
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Post by volkssturm on Feb 25, 2022 21:09:53 GMT -5
I meant the vertical feed as opposed to horizontal. Just wondering if there's a way to adapt another kind of magazine.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Feb 26, 2022 17:53:59 GMT -5
The STG 44 mag is a mystery. It has the upright nub like the DE M14 mag similar to the springer carbines and like what you see in the VSR bolt action magazines but it is NOT identical. (None of them are the same . It is unique onto itself. The other bizarre aspect is there is clearly a hole leading from the spring channel into to te hollow inerts of the magazine but no loading access other than that into the reservoir. The result is you pull the spring down, load your 15 rounds and hold it at an angle so none of the BBs will find their way into the inerts before you release the spring. I have several rattling BBs currently I will have to dissasemble the mag remove the loose BBs and seal the hole then reassemble. I'd love it if I could find some other magazine that would work or could be modified to work in those DE M14s. To work the top channel shape would have to be identical.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Feb 26, 2022 20:06:13 GMT -5
Incidently I had several PMs asking just how bad these STG44s are. They are surpisingly good for $18.00. That's like saying for a fat girl she doesnt sweat much. These are way undersize and have no weight to them. They shoot on parr with the cheap cheap shotguns. If you arent careful about cocking them smoothly they double feed.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Feb 27, 2022 18:29:18 GMT -5
I took apart one of the mags and in fact there is a slide to poor about 100 BBs into the hollow of the magazine. I hate that so i blocked off the hole leading into the spring channel. As I spend more and more the time with these I am less and less impressed. They really are $18.00 toys. Considering there was a time when I bought a dozen of the little carbines for $25.00 each they aren't in the same universe. I have 3 of them and I wont be buying anymore.
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Post by volkssturm on Mar 4, 2022 23:36:04 GMT -5
Just for gits and shiggles I bought one of the Ukarms STG-44's. Yeah, it's basically just a toy. You're right. The magazine is a unique lollipops . I haven't seen anything similar.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Mar 5, 2022 14:07:22 GMT -5
Tiny tiny tiny. I added several inches to the butt stock and extended the barrel and gas tube just to give them a little more credible look. If I thought they could manage it I'd add a stronger spring but truthfully I dont think they are worth the effort. I wish they did a 1:1 version that shot in sync with their full scale M14! Obviously lose the hokey bipod, scope and lazer pointer and shape the magazine properly.
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Post by volkssturm on Apr 2, 2022 14:24:05 GMT -5
This is just an odd thought that occurred to me as I was messing around with the 3/4 size STG-44. If you took the real STG-44 and shrank it down to 3/4 size, chambered it for the .30 Carbine cartridge, lengthened the butt stock and slightly enlarged the pistol grip, you'd have a pretty handy little .30 carbine. Anyway, having said all the above, today Forgotten Weapons puts up a video about the CEAM 1950B. The follow on to the STG44 would have been the STG45 if the war continued. The STG45 was the first of the roller locking designs. German engineers in Spain after the war continued working on the idea, which became the Spanish CETME rifle and later the H&K G3 series. However, some Mauser engineers ended up in France where they worked on the concept, developing a .30 carbine version. A little a=hard to tell, but it looks like it's downsized a bit, so maybe not that much bigger than these little springer STG44s. www.forgottenweapons.com/ceam-1950b-a-roller-delayed-missing-link-in-30-carbine/
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Apr 2, 2022 15:42:21 GMT -5
I took one apart, reinforced the trigger/seer with thin ABS and JB weld. Added a stronger spring and am going to abuse the heck out of it to see if it holds up. So far, so good but at this early point I dont expect it to last. I attempted a similar upgrade on the little carbines a couple years ago and within 200 rounds it broke. This however is only upgraded to about the level the carbines started at. It does make them skirmishable (barely) if they prove durable. Even with the added demensions they still look quite small. Volks desribes them as 3/4 scale but outta the box they are more like half scale.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Apr 16, 2022 14:36:03 GMT -5
So the one modified STG with the stronger spring has survived 300 rounds so I am going to modify the other two. The JB Weld added to the interior plastic bits seems to be robust enough? With the added length to the stock (4" and added extension to the barrel the magazine now looks too tiny so I am considering how I might lengthen them a bit (and add mag capacity) as well as make them a bit wider. In the process I can improve their exterior appearance to be more correct for the STG 44.
I havent chrono'd my revised upgrade but its over 300 fps with .20 gram. It's a real short pull so pretty limited as to what they are capable of. The removed bipods might be good shapes for the heat vents Up by the muzzle.on a custom made SVD40? I cant help myself I am a scrounger! I never have held a German Soviet game so never had much interest in Soviet weapons other than Nam era. SVDs probably found their way into the hands of the VC along with every availabls weapon on the planet at the time.
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Post by 2ndbat2 on Apr 29, 2022 13:38:37 GMT -5
I upgraded all 3 of the guns I bought and modified them to look more correct. The front sight was above the gas tube instead of a longer more elevated sight up by the muzzle so a crafted that and fabricated a slight forward extention of the gas tube. I still havent done anything to enlarge the magazines so they look a little off. I will keep plinking away with them to test their durability. Since there is no functional adjustable hop up, even if they could endure a larger spring there would be no point. These are strickly last ditch loaners.
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Post by hardslack on Jun 27, 2022 13:03:10 GMT -5
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