Thanks for the contribution Drake
Magwells MK 46 upgrades:
The goals for this project, and reasons I picked the CA over other brands are:
1. Reliability: Reliability is foremost over FPS, RPS, weight, looks, 'cool' factor, realism, etc.
2. Weight: The MK43 M60 weighs in at around 14 lbs, and loaded up in my configuration came out at a whopping 22 lbs. Add 30 degree dry heat and you get pretty worn out at the end of the game. I'm in pretty good physical shape but found I got dehydrated extremely quickly, and wasn't as effective to my team as I really should have been. Plus that weight means I'm moving that much slower. Going from one of the fastest guys on our team with an M4 to one of the slowest was pretty frustrating lol. Where the '60 shone was wide open ground and siege type applications. Last summer I had 5 of 9 towers in a castle structure suppressed from behind a car for example, largely in part to being able to carry ~4000 bbs in the box.
The goal moving forward is to be as light as possible while maintaining a large magazine and reliability. My target weight is 14lbs loaded with all accessories and attachments.
3. Quality: Quality of parts is essential. This doesn't mean it needs to be expensive, it just has to work and not break down.
4. Realism: All aspects of the gun should either be modelled after the real deal, or could logically be added by a real life operator.
5. Cool Factor: Your goal as a gunner is to suppress the enemy so team mates can move. It's your job not necessarily to get kills but keep the enemies heads down. Your weapons system can 'open lanes' for friendly movement and 'close lanes' for enemy movement. Having the most BA looking weapons system on the field doesn't hurt
Now to the actual upgrades...
Below is the gearbox with original parts, but new wiring:
And here are my choice of parts for this build:
SHS lightweight polymer piston with steel rack
Lonex Cylinder
Lonex V2 cylinder head
SHS aluminium M4 nozzle with o-ring
SHS V2 spring guide
Modify aluminium piston head
Lonex 16:1 high speed gears
Madbull 6.03 363mm inner barrel. This may be replaced with a 6.03 380mm Promethius inner.
More parts (ie hop up) will be replaced down the road.
I'm happy with the stock motor, CA high torque.
The SHS nozzle is actually a little too long. I saw this on my ICS M4 which as it turns out has an MP5 length nozzle. I suspect this is the case here, basically the entire taper needs to be removed then re-tapered with a file and 400ish grit sand paper to smooth it out. It should be noted that the CA nozzle does include an O ring, but I didn't know this going in and have had excellent results with the SHS nozzle.
Edit: Apparently this is an SHS nozzle thing, and they are slightly longer than a standard M4 nozzle. While my ICS does have an MP5 nozzle, the M249 uses a standard M4 nozzle
With a Prommy 120 spring it was shooting at 23RPS (1380 RPM) and 417 FPS. Going to drop this a bit, the target is about 19 RPS @ 400 FPS.
Battery
Originally I was going to go to a box mag battery system; fit my 2200 MaH 9.9V LiFe batteries in the box mag, it will easily hold them and it's pretty convenient. The downside to this is if I decide to use the nutsack mags, or God forbid, I need to borrow M4 mags from a team mate since I'm out of ammo. I thought of alternate wiring to swap a battery over in this case but it's too many variables. Chances are you would get hit anyway meaning you go back and reload. At best you would be ineffective for a minute or so trying to get all the wiring sorted. I was thinking of somehow adding it to the rear which seemed to be the best location as a teammate pointed out for weight balance. Three of us had a bit of a brainstorming session last weekend and one suggested a ready mag, boom light bulb! He was really on to something here and I ran with it...
So...
1x ICS 'Canadian' Pmag high cap that came with my ICS M4, never used. I used automotive body filler to fill the holes in the bottom of the mag, and sanded smooth. Will paint later.
1x ICS Ready Magazine System (G&P would have been fine too, I could just get the ICS for less, and faster)
1x Mission First Tactical MFT Minimalist Stock (The CA has a milspec buffer tube btw)
Add a hammer, vice, vice grips, drill, and some elbow grease and you have a Pmag battery box mounted to the lightest stock on the market!
