L119A1 Pictures

Guarder Colt Canada Metal Body (click images for full size):




Before (more or less bog standard Tokyo Marui M4A1RIS):




In Progress:





After:

L119A1 SFW Project

The gun is all back together again and working. Hopfully, I'll get some before and after photo's on the blog over the weekend. Just the outer barrel, stock pad and ACOG to add now.

Events Calendar Added

Just added - events calendar in the sidebar. I'll endeavour to keep this updated. If anyone wants me to add their site dates in here, drop me an email.

Killbuckets Custom Guns & Paint Jobs

If you haven't done so already, check out Killbucket's forum over on Airsoft Pacific. There are some crazy (yet very cool) custom guns and some incredible tips for painting techniques such as water application and a how to on doing a 6-colour desert pattern. Haven't checked out the rest of the forum yet, but this section is well worth a look.

L119A1 SFW Project - Problems So Far

The build got under way last night. Stripping down the doner Marui M4RIS was a doddle, following the instructions on 858 Airsoft and the booklets that originally came with the gun (the instructions from 858 are for the M4A1 and don't tell you how to get the RIS forend off, which the Marui manual does). All in bits and safely lying in the lid of the M4's box, time to get to work putting the bits back onto the metal body.

1. The base plate on the grip won't go back on. The holes in the Guarder large grip don't quite line up with those in the Marui base plate. Coupled with the fact that the screws for the Guarder grip are very short means that this is a right bastard to fit properly. I currently only have one screw holding the base plate on, which doesn't strike me as being a very good idea. It all has to come to bits again due to a reason that will become apparent in a moment, so I'll have to try and find a longer screw that fits, or do something else about the misaligned holes.

2. If you follow the instructions on 858 Airsoft (which is for the standard M4A1), you will find that the gun comes apart very nicely - excellent instructions guys. If any of you have ever read a Haynes car manual, it usually says somewhere that reassembly is just the disassembly instructions backwards. Not so in the case of the Guarder metal body. As it turns out, you have to fit the mechbox back into the top part of the receiver and not the bottom, which is the way it comes apart. That was where I got up to last night, with the mechbox installed into the bottom half of the receiver, and not being able to get the two halves back together. As it was ten o' clock, I thought it best to leave it before I got cross/tired/destructive. A quick look on the internet, and I find a set of instructions on the Guarder website about how to put it together properly. I'll do that tonight. Why they don't ship the receiver with a set of these instructions, I'll never know.

More tomorrow, hopefully with pics of a much more complete, half finished L119A1 SFW assault rifle.

L119A1 Project

I recently found a link on ASCUK to a site called 858 Airsoft with an excellent article (well, I hope it's excellent, it's the one I'll be following when taking my M4 apart) on disassembling the mechbox and receiver of an M4.

The Colt Canada metal receiver and large grip are now sat under my coffee table waiting for me to have time to fit them. The SFW build is almost under way.

Four More Killed in Afghan

The first servicewoman to be killed in Afghanistan has been named as 26 year old Sergeant Sarah Bryant. She and three male colleagues, reported as being from 23 SAS were killed when the Snatch Landrover the soldiers were in was hit by an explosion near Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, on Tuesday afternoon.

A full report can be found here on the Telegraph website.

Rest in peace.

L119A1 SFW Project

The Colt Canada M4 metal body and the Guarder large grip are now bought and paid for and ready for collection at Fire Support when I'm over in Peterborough on Saturday. Hopefully this is a step forward for the L119A1 project that I've been trying to source bits for for nearly four months. I'll get some pics and a review up sometime next week.

Charlton Heston's Basement

Long time head of the NRA and legendary ape-fighter, Charlton Heston was well known for his love of firearms. Even so, I would never ave expected anything like what is shown in the pictures taken of the 1600 square foot vault under his 1860's manor house. So beatiful. Check out the pictures here.

Airsoft International Magazine

I have no idea why, but I have never had a link on my site to Airsoft International Magazine. The situation is now remedied and the link can now be found on the airsoft links page.

Colt Canada Body at Fire Support

Must have been the power of the blog. Only a couple of days ago did I blog on these very pages how bloody long I'd had to wait for the bits for my L119A1 build to arrive. Last Saturday (7th) I got a call from Mark at Fire Support to say that the Colt Canada body I'd ordered had arrived. Having dropped Frank an email today, not only has it arrived, but it's also £30 cheaper than I originally thought. Result. That and the Guarder Big Grip will be winging their way to Nottingham in the next few days. Come payday, the rest of the bits will be ordered (having waited for three and a half months for the main bit, I didn't bother with the rest in case it never happened).

On the down side, I emailed Tokyo Model Company today about the Army Code barrel (Army Code still having not answered a single email from me). Unsurprisingly, Army Code have still not manufactured any more, so I'm still waiting for that. The CQB version seems ever more likely.

The next step is actually taking my Marui M4 RIS apart to fit the new bits. Something I've never even thought about doing before. I'm hoping to include that as a photo-blog as the project gets going. Stay tuned.

Tokyo Marui 1911 MEU(SOC)

There is currently a picture and a few rumours going round about a Tokyo Marui MEU pistol. If it's true then there are gonna be a lot of happy airsofters out there, especially if it's anywhere near as good as the last few models of TM pistol such as the SIG226. Western Arms have definitely got some major competition with this one.



From Wikipedia:

The MEU(SOC) pistol, officially designated Pistol, Caliber .45, MEU(SOC), is an air-cooled, magazine-fed, recoil-operated, single-action, semiautomatic handgun chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. It is based on the original M1911 design by John Browning, and has been the standard-issue side arm for the Force Recon Element of the United States Marine Corps' Marine Expeditionary Units from 1985 to today.

Read the full article here.

Centrepoint Update

I've just changed the buttons on my Airsoft Index page so that one of them points to this blog. Same sort of buttons as before, only now it's a pic of an HK416 rather than the front end of an XM177E2.

Not much of an announcement. Sorry.

Demonstration of HK416 Action

Just found on the Military Times website (which in itself is a new discovery for me), a graphic showing how the action of the HK416 works.

Another new site I've come across is Military Spot. Haven't had much of a look at it yet, but will do in the near future.

The ongoing saga of the L119A1 build

It all started back in March (the 20th to be precise) when I placed an order with Tokyo Model Company and made a payment for $120US for an Army Code L119A1 SFW outer barrel. I'm still waiting for the bloody thing, which is not the fault of TMC at all, they have always been incredibly helpful. Army Code on the other hand, the company that manufacture the barrel, are possibly the most evasive company in the world. I must have emailed them ten times to see when the barrel would be back in stock. I've emailed them from different email accounts to two of the three email addresses on their website. I've never heard anything back - Army Code, if you do happen to read this, please let me know if I'm ever likely to see one of these barrels. I think I might make the L119A1 a CQB version now and just go with a 10.5 M4 barrel.

Still waiting for the Colt Canada receiver too (ordered around the same time from Guarder via Fire Support who, like TMC, could not be more helpful. Will this build ever come to fruition ?

Stay tuned.