Best AK74U GBB?
 

Been looking to get an AK74U, and after a week an a half of internetting, am thoroughly confused.

The main feature I'm looking for is that the gun does not fire after the mag is empty, like AEGs do; this is both for realism and so I can tell whether I'm actually firing.

At first I was looking at the Marui EBB one, but those are apparently discontinued? Or, impossible to find, at least.

Now I'm looking at the KWA AKG 74SU and the WE AK74UN. The WE looks a bit silly, but is also cheaper, enough so that a wooden handguard becomes viable.

My main question at this point is reliability, I've read both have serious issues, KWA with the hopup, and WE with the trigger mechanism. Can anyone with experience comment on this?


I've also seen that KSC and GHK make AK74U GBBs, but KSC is apparently just bad, and the GHK one does not have bolt catch (which sounds suspect to me, but I'll look more into that later)

GHK, period.

Only thing about GHK is that it's not a full bolt travel, only goes half way. Increase your ROF but defers from the "real steel" cycling part. WE has a full bolt travel.

GHK doesn't have a bolt catch, probably because real AKs don't have one either...

Are you looking for a GBB one? or do you know what is GBB means?

TM EBB one is not consider GBB rifle, it's an AEG gun

if you want GBB AK

1. KSC/KWA, you won't get KSC version in NA, KWA is not popular with no after market parts
2. WE, full bolt travel but fucking slow ROF, u can check on some youtube videos you will know what I mean. no after market parts support
3. GHK, the best. half bolt travel but HIGH ROF out of the box plus tons of after market parts support

period!

AK's don't really bolt catches by design, asides from the AK12 that I know of.

Of all the AK's you've named, only the WE has a "bolt catch" per say, but its just a notch cut out in the selector which acts to hold the bolt back. You can modify or add that style of selector to pretty much any decent GBB AK on the market yourself, though it might cause wear over time and cause the bolt handle to snap off eventually.

Also since no one has touched on it yet, are you new to airsoft?

How technically competent are you?

Are you willing to do the required maintenance and spend the extra $$ to keep a GBB up and running when parts break or wear out? I consider a number of parts within GBBR's to be "consumable" so that's an additional cost to consider.

Also, magazines. New players looking into GBBR's often overlook magazines. Gas mags are expensive and can easily add up; they also require some upkeep and maintenance so that's something to consider.

WE Has parts for it...Although some external parts need some modding here and there. FG Airsoft makes a thingy that increases rate of fire, but its like 60$. Yes mags are expensive almost like 30-40$ per mag :D

But dont listen to me, I just prefer WE ^_^

WE AKS-74UN - great kick, slow ROF, selector switch which can be somewhat considered a "bolt catch".

GHK - half-travel bolt, faster ROF, after market parts, but no bolt catch whatsoever.

I use the WE AK PMC which is just a longer tacticool version of the 74U. I replaced the whole trigger assembly with Ratech parts right off the bat though a lot of people would argue that it isn't necessary. I had bad experiences with WE pistols and their pot metal that I wasn't going to take the chance. Still going on strong for almost 2 years now. The "bolt catch" on the WE is nothing more then a little cutout off the selector switch that holds the bolt in place but this means you have to manually pull the bolt back and engage the safety to hold it back.

Quality wise, GHK is suppose to be the best of the bunch though I've never held or fired one.

GHK has bolt "stop" when it runs out of ammo

I've owned a couple of GHK AKs, including the AKS74U.

Real AKs do not have a bolt catch like AR15s, so GHK does not have this feature either. However, all second gen GHK AK (2008+) have the stop fire feature, meaning it will not fire after the magazine is empty, but the bolt will stay forward. Look up some videos of the GHK shooting and you'll see that the gun stops firing after the last round.

As others have already mentioned, the GHK AK has half bolt travel. However it still has good recoil and retains an excellent rate of fire.

In terms of reliability, the GHK AK is good to go out of the box. Personally I've only had an issue with the feed lip on the magazine being too tight which caused misfeeds, but all I had to do is file down the feed lips a bit.

I've never owned a WE AK, but from what I've heard from people who have owned both is that the GHK is still the preferred option.

I can't speak much for the KWA/KSC, but it does seem that it is not widely used as the GHK and WE AKs.

GHK MASTER RACE!!!!

BUt seriously, the great thing about GHKs is that unlike a WE you don't have to drop boatloads of cash on RATECH internals, the GHK internals are good to go out of the box.

There are also TONS of accessories now for them if you want to "tacticool" your AKS74U up;

http://samoon.com.tw/conversion-kit/zenimei

Here is my GHK AKS74U right now;

http://i.imgur.com/GfwhuIV.jpg

Honestly, lol.

I pity everyone who didn't get the Mach1 GHK 74U special on Boxing day, including me.

Was $399.99 CAD + tax.

As an owner of a WE AK74UN I'll chime in with my opinion. Here's mine after owning it for 2 years now(And accidentally making it look like the Chinese Assault Rifle from Fallout 3 for a Fallout themed event):

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.n...b6b599846e77f2

First, I'll point out the negative parts, mainly parts that broke down.

-When I first got it, I ripped apart the hop up bucking because of a cracked bb in the chamber. On the plus side, because of the sheer weight of the bolt, any bbs jammed in the chamber will get crushed and continue working like it was nothing

-I replaced the trigger unit with the RA Tech version after 2000 rounds because the hammer snapped. The trigger still works if I JB Weld the hammer back in place.

-Broke the nozzle in 2 during a CQB game, no biggie was bound to happen eventually.

-The slow rate of fire from the full travel bolt not only affects it in full auto, but also in semi because of the travel time.

-The plastic 74 magazine shells are easy to break, mainly at the bottom where the shell is screwed to the internals.

Aside from that, here are some of the positives about the WE AK74UN:

-The blowback feels really strong because of the weight of the bolt.

-Magazines are fairly cheaper than the others and doesn't have any leaking issues like the other WE GBBs

-Because it's WE, replacement parts are easily available, and there's always aftermarket parts for it.

-It's pretty durable like the real steel version as in it will work no matter what you do to it, which probably doesn't mean much compared to the other brands because of what it suppose to replicate.

-Takes the same inner barrel and hop up bucking from a Marui GBB and WE Open bolt, so upgrading that should be easy. Speaking of open bolt, it also accepts the RA Tech WE open bolt NPAS.

-Because of how cheap it is compared to other GBB AKs, you can afford to give it the weathered look naturally.

-Very little maintenance needed. I use Froglube on all the metal parts, and silicone lube from a sex shop to maintain the rubber parts.

-Hop up is easy to adjust

-The gun stops firing when there's no bbs in the magazine via a small switch in the magazine lifting the part that hits the valve that releases gas up. What that means is that unlike other GBB AKs out there, the bolt will not lock when the magazine is empty like the real steel version. For a while, only WE was able to do that until GHK did it after the WE AKs were released.

-And lastly, only WE AKs have full bolt travel atm so if you want a GBB AK that you can pull the bolt all the way back, go WE.

I haven't tried the other GBBR AKs, so I really can't compare it with the others. So hopefully this helps.

I strongly recommend the WE AK after having worked on 2 different GHK AKs.

There is a major flaw that is part of the design:
The feed ramps is plastic and allows for damaged BB to built-up and eventually break the hop-up chamber clean of (and no more feeding).

WE has the RATech trigger parts. I really recommend it, it's a bit expensive, but compare the price of both rifles and you quickly see it's not that bad.

For the slow ROF, here is the cheapest and easiest fix you will find on the internets:
150% Hicapa recoil spring.
Cut 1/4 and add at the end of the stock recoil spring, rear of the factory spring.

Alternatively, you can use the short spring from a KJW P226. They come with a long and short recoild spring, the short one is very stiff.

You can also use a "summer" recoil spring for WE SCAR. It's a drop-in replacement for the factory spring and greatly increases ROF, but not as much as the Hicapa spring.

It almost doubles the ROF and does not jam or prevent full bolt travel.

Bolt "lock" is a feature on the AK-74 "krebs" which "westernize" the AK with ambi-ish controls (other than the cutout for the bolt-up, there is a second flat to operate the fire selector with the index, making the bolt release/reload operable without going under the rifle with an inserted mag).

The "stop-fire" that GHK AKs have does not exist on real AKs, it's called "hammer down on empty chamber" WE has that too by the way, the hammer hits but does not cycle the gun or release gaz, it just goes "tock".

Wow, thanks for all the replies, guys.
Looks like I was confused with my terminology here, and called the feature where the gun stops firing when out of BBs "bolt catch".
I'm probably gonna go with GHK, because it does have that feature, also the best looks, and also looks reliable out of the box.

As a follow up question, what sort of maintenance can I look forward to?
I've been into airsoft for some time, but only ever owned my AEG (a CA SLR 105, which I've taken apart and assembled back together several times), so I'm a total noob when it comes to GBBRs.

Also as an aside, does any webstore sell replacement exterior parts? I've snapped off the threaded part of the front sight on my SLR 105, and have not seen anyone sell the original part or anything compatible.

Maintenance on a GBBR is pretty much the same as any GBB pistol. Field strip it, in all the places you have access to, remove all the dirt and sand, clean the old lube in the area of moving parts, put new clean lube in, reassemble, and you're done. It's not all that hard, but you have to do it for every outside game where you crawl in the dirt, or every few games if you play inside in a clean place. Maybe once or twice a year, depending on your usage, you might want to do a more thorough clean up job and disassemble it almost completely and inspect and clean every single moving part then re-lube them and reassemble.

+1 for what mr_nuts31 said on last page

WE FO THA WIN!

http://i.imgur.com/uuoKBRX.jpg

On the bright side, if you go WE, there's two on classifieds that are dirt cheap with mags and ra-tech internals lol.

^ He'll also sell his.

LOL! All I have is PMC to sell :( stock

Don't waste your time with the KSC/KWA models. They offer nothing over the GHKs and seem to have a lot fewer upgrade parts.

If you've got money and don't care about full travel bolts, go GHK.

If you've got money and want full travel bolt, go WE...but be sure to get the speed and durability upgrades.

GHK also has the ability to use CO2 mags. WE says they can take Red gas, but I wouldn't recommend it because RA-TEch still hasn't come out with a metal nozzle and the hop up chamber doesn't seem to be of good quality metal.

Ahh, thanks for the tip, I'll try that method on my AK.

THIS!

I have 12 mags, in 3 plastic piece that holds the shell and internal broke off completely. in 7 its cracked and might break soon..

I actually just glued them today, we'll see how long glue lasts..

I recommend the use of jbweld to hold the broken bits together