WE AK-74U - was good, now bad
 

You know how with many things, you develop a love-hate relationship with? Let's take the WE AK-74U for instance. The moment I got it, I fell in love. When I first shot it, I loved it even more. I carried it around the house as if it were my baby. I even slept beside it every night (comon...I know you all do the same thing!).

Now where's the love today? Gone...gone....gone. Take a look at these pics.

http://tapatalk.com/mu/63eda20b-0f97-4467.jpg

http://tapatalk.com/mu/63eda20b-0fa6-797c.jpg


The hammer snapped in half!!!!! I was shooting a few rounds in the garage in semi. Then the bolt wouldn't cycle back. Opened her up and made the dreaded discovery.

You'd think that with such a high impact part, they'd use steel or at a minimum, cnc'd aluminum. But not this brittle, pot metal, dog shit piece of crap!!!! I mean, comon We-tech!! I know you are trying to keep costs down, but please....not at the expense of a basic level of quality!!!

Not all is lost I guess. We have companies like RA-Tech around to fix the mistakes of WE. Problem is, I wanted to game the damned thing tomorrow. But alas, the waiting game I must play.....

You're right. My other WE guns are all upgraded with RA-Tech parts in order to work reliably. From the entire trigger set to the steel bolt carrier and NPAS. But it's ridiculous to always have to resort to that just to use the product within normal operating parameters.

Just a note to all you would-be WE rifle owners out there. Always factor in the cost for all the RA-tech upgrade parts when considering your purchase. Rest assured, you WILL be buying them.

Or buy a GHK AKM, all steel out of the box.

Fired at least 40 mags worth out of my SRC AKS74U, never had so much as a misfeed. I just wish it had 3rd party support and steel mags :(

Of the 4 WE Rifles I've had, all were completely stock except for NPAS and lately a new barrel and nothing has had to be replaced except a nozzle in one gun smushed. Mind you these were closed chamber ones.

Are you guys replacing certain parts first and THEN having breakages or shoot till something breaks and then replace?

If you replace a part before it breaks it will likely cause faster than normal ware on the other parts. Think hard surface smashing into soft ass pot metal. Something is bound to give. I believe the rule of thumb with these WE guns is don't upgrade to RA tech until one thing goes. Do everything all at once.

My gripe is with the damn mags. Anyone who owned their G36 will know what I mean.

Right, because they have SUCH a good reputation for reliability :P

As with GSK88 and many people I know, I've done NOTHING to my WE, except add an NPAS, in the time I've owned it (I bought it back when they were still new).

Some people jsut seem to have bad luck. RATECH that gun if you can

here's the thing about pot metal, it's an aluminum/zinc alloy. the reason why it is used so much in our airsoft guns is really simple, it's cheaper to cast. plain aluminum is tough, light and considered soft (thats why it's tough), but to cast parts out of it, only a few options are available. alum can be sand cast, plaster cast, or injected into a steel mold (die casting).
where as zinc is much lighter, but also much harder (really brittle) and has a much lower melting point than aluminum. so it can be die cast in aluminum molds instead of steel (much cheaper to make).

when you mix the two together, you get an alloy that has a much lower melting point than the aluminum alone, so it's much easier to cast. so instead of using steel molds for casting parts, they can make the molds out of aluminum and save big $$. the draw back to using pot metal is that it's more brittle than aluminum so it is prone to breaking in high stress applications.

one of the advantages of alum/zinc alloy is that is more wear resistant than aluminum, which makes it good for certain mechanical parts, mainly where parts will be sliding/rubbing. it should be avoided anywhere where parts would be hitting each other.

They've actually completely turned their boat around with the new gen AKM's, rock solid.

But I do agree that WE's are not bad across the board, some people are lucky and some not, but there are design mistakes internally that just don't make sense. Players would be willing to pay 20-30% more for a GBBR that required NO replacements/upgrades out of the box.

How are the mags though?

If that was true then GBBr would be selling well over $800 with CNC internal parts. But in the real world, customers are cheap and buy on price and expect quality at the same time. Thus the reason the metal parts are casted to keep production costs down so they can sell to the masses.

If you are the few that truly appreciate quality then buy the GBBr along with the CNC parts at the same time. Why wait for it to break down when you regard CNC parts superior in the beginning.

Externally the shell is top notch, not plastic like the SRC or WE.

Internally if the o-rings are shot in the gas tube just use loctite or plumbers tape and it will not leak.

Just because aftermarket parts are available doesn't meant they will drop right in and function 100% this is true with RA-TECH stuff.

Ideally it's better to select a product that's had quality and attention put into it from the beginning.

I'm a full on WEtard

and I am a believer in their products.. and Every one of them has at some point failed and required fixing and maintenance .

And I'm still a believer.

It's a Toy that Shoots.. it's not made to last forever.. and the cost per use has always been in line with my expectations.

I look at it this way..

If I have a mag .. if I got 10 uses out of it before it leaked and needed fixing, That mag is $5/ use ..

But I've generally got 100 or more uses.. that is 5 cents a use.. that is good value

Same with the gun .. say it cost $500 .. and I use it 20 times before it goes down ,, That is $25 per use..

If I use it 40 times that is $12.50 per use.. again good value.

I've used WE guns for professional training contracts.. because they provide the right mix of value to reliability.. I can make money with them.

in my books .. that is a good product.

Don't get me wrong....I'm still a big fan of WE products and am thankful they are around to produce new products and to produce them so frequently. It's just some the common sense stuff that lacks. For example, for high impact parts, why not just provide better material to resist wear or breakage? The brittle hammer on the AK is just one example of how it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this part really needs to be steel and not pot metal. Or the aluminum bolt carrier on the M4.... seriously, it doesn't take long to see real material damage from the hammer contacting the bottom of the carrier. The list goes on and on.

Maybe I'm just frustrated because I bought a brand new rifle ($500) with 9 extra mags ($400) that might as well be paper weight until spare or upgraded parts become available which probably won't be until spring next year. I was hoping for some serious indoor CQB action over the winter and the AK was my ticket.

You know, I am more than willing to pay $200 to $300 more for the gun if it meant reliable service without spending $200 in third party upgrades and needing to have another $150 in parts readily on hand because you already know the parts will be used in very short order.

Oh well. Now to figure out where to put the paper weights.....

Do you actually think a lot of quality control for airsoftgun that have a 30 day or less warranty?

You realize your guns are not just assembled but more than likely hand fitted at the factory.

If anything aftermarket CNC parts are very precise and they need to be fitted into these guns which themselves don't even sometimes work with their own parts.

On the other hand, you can disassemble ten Tokyo Marui M4's mix up all he parts and reassemble ten guns and they will all work.