I finally caved into my deepest desire to own anything relatively close to an XM16E1, seeing they are remarkably rare to find, in airsoft (unless you get lucky and score a CA, or you're rich and and can afford a VT) and especially in deact form.
I always wanted to have one of these seeing I reenact and enjoy the histoy of the vietnam war, and me having focused on 1967, using an M16A1 for that is pushing it a little bit, and even then, the XM16E1 can be seen all throughout Nam!
I've had my MGC for a while, picking up dust in my closet, so after much meditation, I decided to give it a go.
Things like this are particualrly stressing since you never know what will go wrong, and if it does, where to find spare parts and the likes, but I put my fears aside, and got to work.
I worked using a run of the mill set of hand files seeing I literally do not own any powertools, took me about a good 4 hours of work to get the fencing and the shape of the lower right, particularly of the area below the magazine release. Once I was done, I went-sanded the area to smooth it out and hide the bigger scratches before I went out and painted the whole thing.
Results were quite satisfying, even at this stage.
Before anything, I was also particularly stressed about the fragility of the plastic lower after modifying it, and to put my mind at peace, I went out and reinforced the inside with 2 part epoxy, as to prevent the thing from cracking and snapping in two. Either way I'm not quite planning on having it fire much, if any at all, more to own as a display/kit accessory, will certainly look awesome in pictures!
Once that was cured, I painted the whole thing with Fosco paint, including the upper, as well as giving the bolt carrier a chromed look, and made a little hole at the very back of the lower receiver, as to simulate the hole these guns would have, which would allow a rolled pin to be installed and hold the buffer tube detent in place. I didn't go too crazy on it as to not fragilize the lower.
Took me about two days, but the results speak for themselves:
Find it a little hard to believe that the thing is pretty much plastic, finish came out quite good. Will note that the stock on the gun is an original early D type stock and the dust cover is also a real one (both working and fitting more or less fine.
I had sent out the barrel to a buddy of mine as to get a new one machined (out of aluminium) seeing the original drooped in a way that made it look quite terrible, as well as making a new extractor for it since the original was quite dented and failed a bunch (gun was second hand!). May try something siilar with a Marushin at some point (If I can afford it), but we'll see about that.
I'll update this thread as time goes by, and hopefully have a finished build soon enough!
Wed Jul 07, 2021 12:37 pm
