Custom WE Glock 17

A few weeks ago I built a TM G34 race pistol. In the past couple of weeks I managed to acquire enough parts to build a WE G17 counterpart which is more practical for skirmishing. It started life as a cheap WE G17 however, I have now fitted parts to it (and admittedly butchered it a little bit) to create what I feel is quite a good looking pistol.

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.

JC's Custom Tokyo Marui SOPMOD Lipo Batteries

Recently I bought a Tokyo Marui Recoil Shock HK416 from Airsoft World as they are on sale and I've been looking for a recoil shock AEG for a a couple of years. The finer details of the HK will be included in a separate review as my focus in on the batteries themselves. After receiving the HK, I was quite bereaved to have to spend nearly £100 on buying and having delivered a pair of SOPMOD batteries. These are usually quite heavy NiMH 8.4V 1300mAH batteries that slot into the stock in a way that is unique to the SOPMOD and HK416 recoil shock series. If you are eager enough and have the time, you can comb the forums to find the modified 9.6V 1300mAH for around £30 each plus postage. If you need two batteries for an airsoft day, you've nearly paid the same are a mid-range GBB pistol! The main issue with the 9.6V batteries comes from the extra voltage. Certain retailers and technicians will tell you that the higher voltage battery will damage the recoil mechanism and the motor. Personally, with a £550 rifle... I'm not going to take the risk.

Photo taken from Eagle6 webstore

I spent a while looking for battery alternatives for the HK416. There were several options involving re-wiring the stock tube or paying for an adapter. Both options didn't appeal to me as the battery solution TM have developed is very efficient and clever, ideally I was looking to keep the same system. Baton Gunsmith produce lipo adapters which allows the lipo to sit in the stock whilst the adapter plugs into the stock tube. Unfortunately this design only allows for a small 2 cell lipo so you'd still need to spend a fair amount of money on enough batteries to last you a full game day. Some tutorials on the forums have modified the Baton adapter so that you can plug in two batteries in parallel however, this isn't an off the shelf solution and it doesn't look pretty. The final option is butchering a SOPMOD battery and re-fitting with lipo cells.

After having a chat with a friend at my local site, I found out that he had been trying this idea and was now on his generation 2 of his version of the lipo quick change battery. The resulting battery was a 7.4V 1300mAH lipo which worked as a quick change and was supported well enough so that they could be transported in a kit bag without worrying too much about damage. The battery itself is lighter than the original when balances the gun a little better as the NiMHs can make the gun stock heavy. The batteries work on the same principle and the NiMH versions, you open the stock, slide in the battery until you feel and hear a click.

The balance port is on the right hand cell and requires a balance lead extension to charge. The charging adapter is also needed to charge the battery due to the Tokyo Marui quick change design. An alternative would be to buy a smart balance charger that charger solely from the balance leads, this would elevate the need for a quick change charging adapter. The balance port is still accessible enough to use a cell monitor when the battery is not in the stock.

Each battery drops in with no issues and is finished a lot better than some of the examples you might see on the forums. The batteries will usually last about 4 hours (so half a day) of use before needing to be recharged. With the upcoming of the BTC Spectre FET for next gen AEGs, you could probably run the battery right down to the limit as the MOSFET would protect the battery and the motor. When the Spectre FET is released, a 11.1V lipo may be attempted.

Overall, I am very pleased with this product. It is somewhat a one off custom job but given the availability and demand JC will be doing them in larger quantities. The batteries themselves work brilliantly and have seen me through nearly 2 months of games with no issues what so ever. The batteries themselves are finished very neatly and provide a very elegant solution for a clever yet exclusive system invented by Tokyo Marui. I'd strongly recommend any interested SOPMOD or HK416 owners enquire with JC about the batteries as they don't require any modification to the gun and work like a dream. I will leave his contact details at the end.

John Currie
Email: jcurrie1979@gmail.com
JC is also a Marshal at ZED adventures "The Mall" so you can contact him on a Sunday Open day.

OhShiBoom Shock: Impact BFG Review

Until very recently the BFG market has been dominated by the Dynatec brand of BFGs. They are a great novelty and a sometimes a very useful tool in skirmishes. BFGs generally come in two types; Impact and Timed. SWAT have been making efforts to produce great BFGs however, with this quality comes a price. The OhShiBoom Shock is an impact grenade which has recently hit the market at a price and quality that I needed to see for myself!

The OhShiBoom Shock can be bought directly through OhShiBoom or through other retailers such as SOCOM Tactical. They retail for £65 which is about £20 cheaper than the RRP for SWAT BFGx's and nearly £30 cheaper than the VTG timed grenade. The grenade itself weighs in around 460g which is noticeably lighter than the VTG or BFGx. There were no specific details for the BFGx so it was hard for a comparison based on specs.

The OhShiBoom is packaged very well and comes in a cardboard tube that is foam lined and a very snug fit. Arguably, the packaging is far more snug than the SWAT designs which could be seen as a pro given the grenade is well cushioned and wont jump about in the packaging in transit. The grenade comes with a pin (as you'd expect) and a very easy to read instruction manual. The manual is a bit of a novelty for me because it reads almost as if they were instructing you as a friend as opposed to either and idiot or a formal customer. The manual is very informative and doesn't waste any time, within the first page you will work out all the does and don'ts with this BFG. I should say now (even being a man), I strongly recommend you read the manual BEFORE you play with the grenade. It is very easy to use once you know how however, brute force and ignorance can damage the firing mechanism!

The OhShiBoom Shock has three noticeable parts to the grenade: The pin, the main body and the lower body. The pin does what all pins in grenades do however, the novel design splits the body into two and has the lower body (which houses the blank) made of hardened polished steel and the main body (which houses the firing mechanism) made of anodised black aluminium. The main body as you can see from the photos the main body has a thin silver part and a black knurled thick part. The silver thin part is the impact sensitive detonator, when it is released the firing pin is read to fire at the drop of a hat (so to speak).

The design itself is very appealing and OhShiBoom had the forethought to knurl the main body so the grenade is secure in your hand. The anodised black finish doesnt wear of easily and even after 25 blanks, I still haven't put a scratch on it! Replacing the blank only requires unscrewing the lower body from the main body. The placement for the 9mm blank is counter sunk which allows the entire unit to sit very close and tightly.

In terms of performance, I haven't been able to do a metric comparison against the BFGx and the OhShiBoom. Instead I have been testing the grenade as much as possible and commenting on stuff like noise output, sensitivity and convenience. I've now had the OhShiBoom for 3 weeks and used them in 5 games however, the games have been limited to Zed Adventures: The Mall due to time and accessibility. In future, I would like to try on woodland but impacts are notorious for poor performance on soft ground.

Testing the OhShiBoom at The Mall showed some really promising performance. They were quite evidently louder using 9mm than the BFGx on 9mm. The increase in noise wasn't deafening but was definitely more notable. The grenades themselves were adequately sensitive with detonations being trigged as low as boot height (about 6" off the ground) onto marble. In carpeted rooms, the detonation needed a slightly larger drop height. The grenade could also be skimmed across the floor kind of like curling but with the intention of hitting a wall or a curb for detonation. I did find that the impact of the drop did affect the consistency of the detonation. On the shorter drops, they would sometimes mis-fire or fail to fire completely given an ankle height drop or less.

The priming of the grenade is very easy, at the beginning of the day, use a coin to press the pin back into the body then push the silver and black part of the main body together and secure them with the pin. After this, you can simply re-prime the grenade off the spent blank. Its very easy and with a little practice you can get it reloaded (pin, blank and all) in about 30 seconds. At one point after a little practice, I was able to clear 3 consecutive rooms with the same grenade in the space of 2 minutes, reloading as I moved to the next door way! Although it's not possible at the moment, I am hoping to produce some game play footage of the OhShiBoom in action!

At the moment, the OhShiBoom has no accessories. However, last time talk I talked to the guys they had a good set of ideas for extras (i.e. paint jobs, different calibre bottoms and preloaded bottoms). Once OhShiBoom get these out on the market, they'll have a really useful and really appealing design to just about everyone! Different colours will definitely attract a spectrum of people whilst the preloaded bottoms would allow operators to reload in a matter of seconds. The different calibre bottoms would open their BFG to sites that may not allow 9mm blanks.

Over all, for the cost I am very impressed. The OhShiBoom Shock is a new and pleasing design that is lightweight. Usually the lightweight design would be a con due to the impact detonation however, this didn't seem to cause problems in regards to performance. The OhShiBoom Shock was capable of detonation from ankle height as well an extremely quick and easy re-prime. Its a very convenient BFG at a competitive price that might make other manufacturers rethink their RRP when they realise the OhShiBoom is a serious contender in the market!

The only problems I have found with the OhShiBoom are related to the nature of impact grenades and the pin for the grenade. The impact is still not sensitive enough to go off on soft surfaces (as one might expect from an impact) which makes it solely suitable for CQB or FIBUA but not woodland. I also found about about 30-35 uses, the pin started to degrade slightly which made the pin pull very difficult at times. My suggestion would be a better quality split pin but theres nothing that can be done about the nature of impacts short of making them unstable in the operators hand!