G&P Wood Kit for AK-47

[spleen]

I just got this kit from Jugglez on his last group order. It's a hell of a value, and includes not only the wood handguard, grip, and stock, but a full metal front end as well.

First impressions:

The packaging is great. Each piece comes packed in cut out foam inside a decent cardboard box. The pieces are prevented from bumping into each other and scratching, which is better than many airsoft products.
The wood looks very nice. It's a dark colour, which to my eye closely matches the colour of the original TM AK "wood". The finish is decent, though not perfect, with a few bits of unevenness - though this just gives it that communist country QA feel, lol.
The metal is a super dark super flat balck colour. Really looks like an applied finish unfortunately rather than bare metal, though I'm not sure if this is true, that's just how it looks.

Installation:
It was pretty easy. This was my first time taking down an AK, and in under 2.5 hours I had put this kit plus a metal body onto the rifle. The only issues I had were that one of the screws that holds the front end to the receiver wouldn't line up well enough to hold, so it's currently only held on by 3 of the 4 screws. Finally, the wood set is missing the indentation for the mock cleaning rod that normally appears on the front face of the metal piece which holds the lower handguard in place. I had to dremel down my cleaning rod to get it to fit in place, and now it's a bit lose. I'll have to do something to make it fit tighter now.

Conclusions:
The pistol grip is not as nicely shaped as the marui one. It has a shallower indentation on the back side for the web if your thumb, and therefore your hand tends to move up and down a bit on the grip instead of fitting tightly to the shape of it as with the marui grip. The stock is slighly longer than a marui, as well, but this doesn't cause any problems. The real problem with the stock is the idiotic way in which the butt plate attaches. Two flat steel pieces slide into cut outs inside the stock and the screws for the butt plate screw into these. The plates might be ok if they were securely attached to the stock itself, but they're not. They are held in place supposedly by the tension of the screws and the wooden cutouts they fit into, but there is so much play it is almost impossible to tighten into place well. Maybe this is just mine and not a design flaw with them all, but it's a real pain in the ass. One of the things I was looking forward to was not being able to lose the plate ( as often happens on marui Aks), and with the way it's actually attached here, I'm just as worried as I was before. The pistol grip also feels a little flimsy and creaks just a bit if I apply some pressure to it. I'll update this thread if it ever gets worse or god forbid breaks on me.

Overall:
A great kit for the price. Very little fitment work to be done, looks gorgeous, and feels much more solid than the stock AK. If you can live with the few problems I mentioned above, go for it!

I may add some pics later, if there's enough interest.

[Wolfgang]

Cool!

Got any pics?

[littlerobz]

Like to see some pics, and price.

[spleen]

Here are some pics.

First the stock and grip:


Next the handguard:


And the metal front end:


And the finished AK:

[spleen]

I paid $185 CDN. Damned good price...

[Wolfgang]

It looks very nice :tup:
I like the color.

For 185$ CND, that's very good deal.

[Skruface]

Originally Posted by spleen

I paid $185 CDN. Damned good price...

I got that same set last year from Tru....a bit cheaper, but in the ballpark.

As an aside, I had a hell of a time fitting the pistol grip.....I got so pissed off I binned it and slapped on a Guarder grip from an AKSU kit. The color is almost identical to the Guarder kits, so it matches. It also matches my modded real-steel AKM foregrip.

It's worth noting that the interior finish of these grips is nowhere near as nice as the Guarder kits, though. My pistol grip looked like it was routed with a hole saw, and the inside of the foregrips and stock were pretty ghetto, but no one sees that anyways. As a bonus, the buttplate screws in to metal tabs inside the stock, so you'll never lose the buttplate, but you need a screwdriver, multi-tool, or a dime to change the battery .

I also had some trouble with fitting the rear sight. The paint on the metal was thick enough that the sight wouldn't fit....nothing 10 minutes with a dremel can't fix.

[MrEvolution]

that is one sexy gun mate.

[hearty]

very nice.