TO SEE AND TO TOUCH


I quickly pulled the gun out of the box, laid it on my bed, extended the stock, inserted the magazine, and took a step back to behold the beauty that is my AK47-s.


The first thing that you will say upon looking at it is, “Is that real wood?” Sadly, the answer is no, but until you tap your knuckles and hear that plasticky sound, you will never know. If I were you, don’t tap on it, and it will always seem real, but once you tap it loses just a little beauty. Nevertheless, it still looks wondrous.

Then the next thing I did was reached down and touched the stock. Oooh, coldness. Now that’s what I like to feel. If you feel the same way, then you will be happy with the AK47-s as long as you don’t touch the wood or main body of the gun, you will be rewarded with the soothing coolness that is metal. As I said, everything but the wood and main body is metal. The trigger guard, the bolt, the selector switch, the outer barrel, the magazine release, the rear sight, and the entire battery cover: all metal.


You know that metal is more durable than plastic don’t you? Well you should. If you don’t, I’m telling you now. Well why is that important? It’s because all of this metal makes the AK47-s that much more durable. It feels extremely solid with no shakes, creaks or rattles. The front sight, however, is a little wobbly, but if you’re shaking the gun you can’t aim anyway. All in all, this is feels like it is built like the real thing, and it is, as some have dropped theirs in the mud and pavement, and then gone out for some test firing.


One of the factors that makes me like the AK47-s is the sheer simplicity. No fancy rails, selector switches, sights, or engravings; it’s just the basics. Disregarding the customary maker and place of building, the AK47-s is basically devoid of any markings. A 14, 7, and K near the bolt, AB and OA in Cyrillic to tell you whether you are on semi our full-automatic, and a serial number EP 93726M. That is all the engravings on the AK-47, just the bare necessities.


A nice cool factor is the scratching that shows up on the body. Where the selector switch moves up and down, the movement carves a line, and there’s another carving by a switch near the rear sight. Also, a mock cleaning rod is shoved under the barrel that just begs to be taken out and used, but don’t try because, as I said, it is a mock cleaning rod. To make up for that, you can have fun playing with the bolt as it is movable and has a secret behind it that I will explain later.

Now pick it up, but use two hands please. With all of the metal it is bound to weigh a bit, and it does. Remember, this is old-school children, no making the gun light with carbon fiber and other things of that nature, it has a lot of metal, as stated before, so it’s quite hefty. Fully loaded you have a weight of ten pounds, so go to the gym and get buff if you wanna play with this bad boy. Also, get a sling, but not some cheap thing you picked out of the garbage, as you don’t want the weight of the AK to snap it, and then have the gun come tumbling down. That’s a no-no, so spend the money and get a decent sling. Remember, it’s cheaper than a new AEG. Anyhow, while it’s in your hands, lets go do something with it.


READY, AIM, FIRE!


As I got this off of E-bay, slightly upgraded, all of these statistics may be just a little off. As the only upgrade is a PDI 130% and metal gears and bushings, it shouldn’t make a huge difference.


My first test, as always, is thirty foot accuracy. To make sure I got groupings based on the gun and not me, I set up a little contraption that let me pull the trigger without aiming or moving the gun.


Using this homemade clamp, I set the gun up thirty feet away and took ten shots on semi. The first one was an outlier, but the next nine were under an inch from each other.

Next, I did the same test, but on full auto. Again, the first shot was an outlier and the next nine were an inch away from each other.

Now on to fifty foot accuracy with semi. I did this during a slightly windy day, and I was unable to use the contraption, so the results are a little off. On semi I had five inch groupings, and on full, six inch groupings.


The effective range (I classify this as being able to hit a non-moving, human sized target half the time) test next. I went into my woods, found a tree that was about my width, and measured out distances of 140 feet, 150 feet, and 160 feet. At 140 feet I was able to hit the tree 75% of the time, so I went back to 150 feet. Here, the accuracy went down to only 60% of the time, but I was still above my percentage so I went back to 160 feet where I managed only 40%. This leaves the effective range somewhere between 150 and 160 feet.


Finally, maximum range. I set the hop-up to my ideal setting for when I play in games, which is about five millimeters in or so. I then measured distances of 190 feet, 200 feet, and 210 feet. At 190 feet and 200 feet every shot soared past the marker (the same tree used for effective range), with about 25% of them solidly hitting it. At 210 feet the BB's just hit the bottom, making the effective range around 210-215 feet. Remember though, I do have a PDI 130% spring, and upgraded gears.

Skirmish Debrief: My first game with this was a lot of fun. None of the people I play with has ever played with or used an AEG, so they didn't know what to expect. The first round, I took out three players, and we play three hits to a death, in thirty seconds. The next round they wised up a bit, as it took five minutes this time, but one kid came within twenty feet, and when he popped out from behind a tree, he was hit twice in the chest, and once "where it hurts." He hit the ground and started rolling around. The main reason it took me so long to kill anyone else was because I was laughing too hard to aim. The next day in school he was still hobbling around.


The folding stock of the AK was very helpful. When I went in a fort I folded it up so the stock wouldn't get caught on the wood, and so I could move it more quickly. When I got on the run and went behind trees, I quickly folded it out for more aiming support.


THE POWER SOURCES


The three features that will be covered in this section are batteries, the magazine, and hi-caps. All right let’s start with the power source; the battery. The stock battery is an 8.4v 600 mAh Ni-Cd stick battery. Now many people bash stick batteries, but it’s not that big of a deal, especially if you spend the $20 and get a 1100 mAh Ni-Mh (like I did), as that will give you just as many shots as a person with a full-size battery. The stick battery, for those who don’t know, is called so because it is smaller and cylindrical, and kind of looks like a stick, hence the name. The stock battery should get you, on a full charge, anywhere between 900 and 1200 shots.

That’s two hi-caps, but I’ll get to those later, and unless you severely pray-and-spray, that should last you quite a while.


The battery goes in the main body. Push on a square-ish button towards the back, pull up, and off comes the battery cover. Then pull out the green, male connector from inside the gun enough so that you can attach it to the female part of the battery. Match circle-to-circle, square-to-square, and then push until you hear a click. The difficult part is getting the battery cover back on. It takes quite a bit of finagling to get the battery in such a position so that the cover can go back on. I do it like this: Turn the white and green part sideways, and then slide it in as far as possible. Next, place the back of the battery against where it is supposed to go, but make sure the point of the battery is facing AWAY from the bolt, and then push down. You can flip up the rear sight to get a better view for this next, last step. While still pushing down grab the cover and push hard down, but make sure it is level. While pushing with it, slide it into the hole until you hear a click and see the button that you take off the cover with, pop into place. Make sure not to force the cover in, and if you see to much stress on the plastic under the cover, STOP PUSHING. You don’t want it to break. All right, good job, you have your battery in place.

Next, to the pain source: Your nice, metal-cased magazine. Yep, more metal. Loading this 70-round magazine is easy. Take the included loading tool, place it in the hole at the top of the magazine, and load up your BB’s into the top end of the tube. Now take the jammer and push down until all the BB’s are in. It’s probably best to only do 20-30 at a time. Now you have a fully loaded magazine. Loading it into the gun is simple, as you first put then front part of the magazine in, followed by the rear half. (It should curve towards the front of the gun.) To take it out push the magazine release towards the magazine and pull.

One huge upside to the AK47 series is the hi-cap. (Hi-capacity magazine). The AK’s have the largest capacity of any TM gun, at 600 rounds. That’s a lot of BB’s, and for $40 it might not be a bad idea to pick one up, but for you mil-simmers, stick with the STAR 30-round low-caps. In-betweeners can pick up a mid-cap, for 150-rounds and no winding. Whatever floats your boat. Now that we have our power sources down we can fool around with some of the other AK47-s features.


THE REST


This is the section for all of the wonderful information that isn’t big enough for its own category, but can’t be left out.


First, the deciding factor that makes your AK47-s an –s and not an AK47. The folding stock. The stock is all metal as mentioned before. It folds two ways. First, the butt-stock. It goes from a position almost level with the rest of the stock and is folded to a firing position perpendicular to the stock with just a quick downward flick. Hear the click? It’s locked. Push it back up when you are done firing.

Then there is the entire stock that folds. In resting position it goes right under the bolt and the butt-stock is flush with the “wood.” To open just pull down and around, and you don’t have to worry about hitting the magazine; it goes right around it. In this position the stock moves up and down two inches for some versatility. To fold it back up press on a button opposite the side of the bolt, and push the stock down into the folded position.

Next, we have the selector switch. It is a little different from most other switches so this is important. The topmost position is “safe”. Move one down to AB and it is FULL-auto. Down one more to OA and you have semi. Don’t confuse the two in battle as it might cost you your “life.”

Now to the sights. The rear sight is, I think, very cool. In addition to being able to fold to a 90-degree position, it can also fold to a 160-degree position. There are ten positions of elevation on the rear sight, and the front sight is elevation adjustable too. The way to move the rear sight’s elevation is to grip a button on either side, and to then slide it up and down a ramp. The sights are pistol-esque as the rear has a slit, which is then lined up with the front sight.

Finally, we have an important piece of the gun called adjustable hop-up. (Hop-up is the amount of spin put on a BB that makes it go farther.) Pull back the bolt to reveal a sticker saying Hop and some vertical lines as well as a bar. Slide the bar towards the back to increase the hop-up and towards the front to decrease.


SUMMING UP


If you skipped the top part and all the reading and just came for a quick overview, or if you want a re-cap, here we go.


This is said to be one of the best TM AEG’s around and it certainly shoots that way, as well as there being a lot of metal. The hi-cap is a big bonus, and the stick battery is the price paid for the folding stock, but an 1100 mAh Ni-Mh battery can fix that problem. This is definitely worth the $250 I paid for it.


Pros:


* Lots of metal and weight.
* Large hi-cap (600-rounds).
* Adjustable hop-up.
* Version 3 Gearbox.
* Folding stock.
* “Wood” looks real.
* Simple look.
* Easily adjustable sights.
* Great accuracy and range (even if it is a little upgraded).


Cons:


* Stick battery.
* You may not like the simple look.
* Battery a little hard to get in (bad in a game).
* Not really a con, but it’s too bad the “wood” isn’t real.