Firstly, I got my hands on one of the RA-TECH G17 barrels with the "Smile... Wait for the flash" engraving. Fitted this and all thanks go to RA-TECH for making such a beautiful and easy accessory. The barrel is a "drop in" upgrade and required no fuss to fit. Because the barrel is made of solid brass all scrapes and scratches can be simply polished out. The barrel itself is a much tighter fit which means you have to unscrew the barrel to remove it. This is a slight pain however, the barrel leaves so little space between the slide, I can justify the hassle. I ended up fitting a PDI 6.01mm tight bore barrel and used a maple leaf monster hop rubber. I am still not sold by the maple leaf rubber however, it is proving to be good enough for skirmishing and engaging targets inside of 20m which is perfect for CQB at ZED Adventures: The Mall. When considering the cost, I am not too disheartened by the performance, Maple leaf made many promises on these prototypes and as far as I can tell... They haven't delivered. On the counter side to this, I sourced these maple leaf hop rubbers for £1.50 (~$3) including shipping which is cheaper than a replacement TM hop rubber and about 1/10th the price of a nineball hop rubber (which I used to swear by). With the hop set correctly, I have managed 20-25m engagements with ease. At the moment I am looking at modifying a TM hop unit to fit the barrel as the WE hop units are brittle and I have broken one already!
The next step was to fit a matching spring guide. I ended up installing the same Action smooth bearing spring guide as I used in the G34. In terms of performance, this was surprisingly effective. The kick is noticeably harder but with absolutely no hanging when the slide is travelling. After this, a SAI guns modify trigger was fitted. This is by far one of my favourite upgrades due to the look and the feel. The trigger pull is adjustable and the trigger safety is much more functional than the stock trigger safety. My only issue came when fitting this trigger. I ended up having to buy a DOA TM G17 to fit the trigger housing so that I could fit the new trigger. Not a cheap solution but it worked perfectly. I used a 5KU golden magwell flare which was again a drop in piece of kit. The flare is very secure but does need a little bit of bending to fit snug against the body with no gaps. A guarder extended take down lever was installed however this was somewhat stiff and troublesome due to the difference in dimensions of the WE G17 and the TM G17. After a little bit of fiddling it was fitted and I had to move the takedown lever up and down for a couple of hours to wear it in until it was smooth enough. I ended up fitting the guns modify extended slide release as well however the rubber has fallen off which takes a little of the aesthetics away from the pistol! I found that Ebairsoft sell a pair of tritium night sights for the TM G17 which fit well on the WE slide. I had to use some weak adhesive to keep the foresight in place wobble free as it appears the front mount for the WE foresight is thinner than the same spot on the TM slide. These sights have an operational life of 14 years however, the sights are about 1/3 the price of the competing brand which leads to me believe they may not last as long.
Finally, Action internals were fitted however, I wanted guns modify internals but couldn't acquire them due to a lack of availability. I fitted Tritium night sights to the slide and some grip tape to aid in gripping the slide when racking and reloading. My final plans will be to fit a set of Guns Modify internals and the Guns Modify SAI slide (when they release it). I will still keep the RA-TECH barrel but drop the new slide on top of that. Money allowing, I will get an RMR countersunk into the slide.
The base G17 was provided my Mad Badger Airsoft. The barrel was kindly provided by Milspec Solutions whilst the internals were provided by a combination of ehobby asia and WGCshop.
wear did you get the barrel with the engravings?
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