VFC/GB Tech Mk43/Mod0 Support Thread

[[VT]Mofo2000]

Since there's a support group for CA M249, I feel a similar thread is needed to discuss issues with the VFC/GBTECH Mk43, because information regarding this gun is near non-existent (i'm sure Titleist is sick of me bugging him by now ).

 

Please share any information regarding to any unforseen issues, upgrade questions/problems, troubleshooting and how to's.

 

I'll get the ball rolling:

 

1. Other than the parts that was included in the Airsoft Elite FTK, Are other aftermarket parts compatible with the gun? I'm talking about gears, piston, non-AE piston head, tapplet plate, and especially the air/feeding nozzle, I know it's longer than the standard one, would u replace it with the one for the SR25?

 

2. Is the 12V battery from the FTK really necessary? I was running it on 8.4 and it worked fine, and hi ROF w 9.6. I guess one must have a really heavy spring or having the need to replace the piston every month to run on the 12V.

 

3. Gunrosen informed me that the stock gun already comes with a tightbore barrel, can anyone else please confirm/deny this?

 

4. Other than the carry handle, what are some other weak points on the body that I should be careful with?

 

5. Since we are on the carry handle, I've seen GB-tech sells a steel carry handle for TOP. Is this the same one that comes with the gun or is it more durable? And what about Isokastu? Where can I get one of its carry handle?

 

That's all I have for now, please feel free to post other information.

[Clot]

Right now, I can answer number 1 and number 4.

 

1. Piston: My piston gave in around 40k rounds, the last tooth popped off. I had replaced it with a systema polycarb piston. It lasted less than two days, and the last tooth popped off again.

 

Im going to be putting some crazy max torque piston into it when it arrives. Looks good. ( running with an m100 now ).

 

4: Carry handle, its alright for me, so long as you dont pick it up sideways and twist it when you carry with the handle. If u do, it WILL bend. Keep it straight and its fine.

 

The other weak point I found is the front sling hook, mine snapped right off. I only ever carried it there before and after a game, so no real stress was put on it.

 

 

As for tight bore I have no idea. but the grouping is extremely consistant at distance. It also outranges almost all guns ive went up against.

( notably in a game, my team were against the wind shooting at others, other teams bullets were falling short. Mine were consistantly outranging my team and the other teams to kill most of them )

 

Lets keep this thread alive. There arent many ofthese guns in the UK, never mind the world. Lets get some support and stuff goin

[[VT]Mofo2000]

Appreciate your input, Blood_clot.

 

As far as the piston goes, have you tried the "second tooth removal" trick?

 

Ever since I got my gun, I haven't had any luck with it. As I mentioned on the User Review thread, after I took it out for the first time, the box mag started having trouble winding and feeding BBs (AE 0.25g). I kept dumping the BBs out of the mag to check for jam, and it would turn w/o the BBs. But when I put BBs back in, it would jam again. And after doing that multiple times, both of the super-thin boxmag wires broke off the mag motor (not the solder, but the actual wires). I was pretty disappointed with the quality of the wires VFC used in there. Once I had them soldered back on. I kept trying to get the boxmag to feed. In order to do that, I had to keep dry firing the gun to supply power to the mag. After awhile, the motor locked up. I first thought it was the battery running low on juice, so I replaced w a new batt and still no luck.

 

At that point, i was too frustrated to mess with the gun, so I gave it to my friend, who is also a local airsoft dealer/smith. Later in the week, he told me that the motor was pushed so far into the gearbox, the pinion gear was getting stuck on the bevel and finally broke off the motor's spin-shaft. And we haven't looked at the boxmag yet, trying to solve one problem at a time.

 

After a couple email to VFC from myself and my local dealer, they finally responded. They wanted me to send the broken parts back to Taiwan (didn't mention who will be responsible for the shipping fee). After I told them that I would wait on the technical evaluation from my local dealer, they emailed my local dealer asking them to send them pics of the broken parts and they will "access the situation". From there on I haven't received any msg from VFC, only been getting info from my local dealer. As of now, VFC told him to contact AirsoftGI (where the gun was bought), and AirsoftGI would then contact VFC for the replacement motor. It's the typical runaround.

 

Ever since i bought the gun, I had it im my posession in working condition for less than 2 hours. For a ~$1300 gun, I am very dissappointed with some of the part's quality and VFC's custom service beauracracy. I hope the situatoin will turn for the better.

[Clot]

Ill admit, my feeding hasnt been the best, its jammed twice but a poke with a stick through the 6k has proved efficent, seems jus to be a simple bb jam, had to happen sometime with a reservoir feed.

 

I have also soldered the box mag connections back on, seems very thin for what its worth.

 

Thats me just replaced the piston, and wow it sounds good.

 

Then.. the pinion has given in again, epoxy job..Ill be upgrading to a systema beast soon.

 

Im not bothered with faffin about with sending stuff back, im quite happy to fix anything tha breaks or work around it.

 

still tho, what a gun:)

[Clot]

Right update time!

 

I had the gun out at the weekend there, feeding problemz are ZERO, none now, it feels amazingly well.

 

Although that bloody feed tube bit kept falling out at the worst moment, Ill rig something up for that tho.

 

The new piston held up amazingly well, its the prometheus max hard torque piston. It sounds great and copes with the high rof very well ( close to 12v when batt is peaked )

 

I sealed my cylinderhead off with teflon tape, as its completely shattered and wont hold out much longer ( alloy one en route ).

 

The m100 spring thats in it is very nice, shoots hard well within my site limits, but well above forum limits

 

How many people actually own this rifle? lol

[ardrummer292]

Well, I'd certainly like to...

 

Keep the info coming. I plan on buying one of these beasties over the summer.

[[VT]Mofo2000]

Blood, is 12V kind of a overkill? My gun had a satisfying ROF even w my 9.6V. Is the cylinder head CNC'ed by AE, and it still shattered? BTW, which aftermarket parts can you replace that's not VFC proprietary, especially the extra long feeding nozzle?

[Clot]

12v is probabley overkill, I probabley wont do it, but it would be nice to try.

 

The rof is nice, but i want more

 

The current cylinder head is the standard vfc one, its plastic, and buffered with rubber.

 

Aftermarket parts.. Im not sure, but its definately a standard cylinder, piston and piston head. The noozle is longer than all ive seen, so I hope this doesnt break. Also the tappet plate is definately vfc only, as the spring is placed in its own channel.

 

The main problem I have now is that with the use in bad weather, the box mag is slowly melting. lol.

 

I shall make my own for the next game, a larger one which will keep my batteries on the inside.

 

We gotta post some pics

[[VT]Mofo2000]

The current cylinder head is the standard vfc one, its plastic, and buffered with rubber.

 

Aftermarket parts.. Im not sure, but its definately a standard cylinder, piston and piston head. The noozle is longer than all ive seen, so I hope this doesnt break. Also the tappet plate is definately vfc only, as the spring is placed in its own channel.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Then it looks like there's no need to get the AE FTK except getting the CNC spring guide. As far as the nozzle goes, I was wondering if the one for SR25 would work in this case.

 

Here's the pic I took when I first got the gun, the following day was its "funeral".

It's still at the local shop waiting for AsGI/AE/AAS/VFC to send in the replacement part.

 

[Forze]

Another two problem parts are:

 

1) the connection piece between the front & rear gas tube. the thread is too small & the metal is too brittle, so it breaks very easy. Mine broke off a couple of weeks ago & i'm having a part made for it to fix it.

 

2) The sling mount broke off at the second skirm i used it in: bad quality metal is also the problem here

 

Other than that it's a fine piece

[Clot]

I feel sorry for your american orange nozzles

Here is my baby, obv you cant see the internal upgrades and changes.

 

I got the materials today to remake the box mag, so the material pouch will be totally filled out now, no space for battery at the side, the battery will beon the inside.

[[VT]Mofo2000]

actually, the duckbill flashhider was supposed to come w the package was missing w my stuff. I'm still trying to get AAS/Monda/AsGI/AE/VFC to replace it.

 

BTW, have u guys tried to use 0.25g in the boxmag? Appearently, Monda told me that for 0.25, the mag might have trouble pulling it, or try to change the o-ring on the bottom of the spin feeder. I think it's a very poor design.

[Clot]

I havent tried .25's, they are too expensive for me. Got a good supply of .2's cheap.

 

I can imagin that little motor having trouble pulling it. The band slips easy enough when you pull it yourself.

 

Im going out tomorow with 10k of ammo, Gotta use it all

[Forze]

Works fine with 0.25g here (with a 12V).

 

Even used complete ###### bb's & different brands mixed, w/o a problem.

[Clot]

Does anyone know what size of bearings this beast takes, I need a new set of bearings.. One of mine wore out ( after 50k rounds ) and a gear moved and killed my piston

[spartan490]

Well my motor gave out after my second day with the gun, so I just bought a Systema Magnum to replace it. I went to install it, but was dissapointed to find that the motors pinion is to long. I tried installing a my buddies Systema Torque up and had the same problem. It looks like vfc uses an abnormally short motor. So after a little filing and adjusting the motor all the way back I got it to fit without touching the bevel gear. So I pull the trigger and nothing! It seems that the tip of the wire that attaches to the motor is extremely weak and has broken off. Anyways after some quick soldering i replaced the tips and was able to retest her. She sounds great!! The ROF is even higher than before and it now gives a much more crisp report compared to the original whining sound you get from the VFC motor. All that's left is to take her out to a game and see if she holds up.

[Clot]

Im very tempted by a magnum, I use too much ammo as it is. I think it would strip even more pistons with one of those

 

Jus measured my now stripped box, its 7mm bearings, Im gonnay grab some bearing ones as my new piston arrives.

 

Ill post a pic of it exploded tomorow. Show the masses how it all goes together.

 

Prometheus max torque pistons rock btw! lol

[[VT]Mofo2000]

Finally got some good news. I've made contact with Advance Action Sports (US VFC distributor), and had a chat with Steven Chang, the designer of the gun, who's currently visiting in the US, about the problems the guns had and the ###### AirsoftGI has been feeding me(more on that later). He told me to send it to AAS and will personally repair it for me without charge. I'm keeping my fingers acrossed on this one.

[spartan490]

Well, I installed my friends Systema Turbo to see if I prefered it over the magnum. The ROF witha 10v was CRAZY!! That was until my Systema polycarb piston stripped and the AE piston head broke in half. So I replaced the piston and installed the original piston head and tried shooting it with a 9v and it lasted about 200rnds longer before the piston stripped again. I'll probably buy one of those prometheus max torque pistons you've been talking about Blood and try the turbo out one more time just for the heck of it.

[Clot]

Dont forget to take out atleast one tooth from the piston, Id reccomend two if you are going for that silly rof setup

 

Forgot to say last night, my cylinderhead finally shattered into about three pieces, the teflon tape held it together one more game but tis a wreck

 

Alloy one shall be installed along with the 7mm bearings and another new piston

[[VT]Mofo2000]

Steven Chang from VFC fixed my gun, but he said the motor in the box mag has burnt out, while there isn't any replacement parts in Taiwan to replace it. Does anyone know what kind of aftermarket motor might be compatible, like from RadioShack or something.

[Clot]

Sounds good!

 

Any short airsoft motor will* do, you really want a high torque /speed one tho

 

*should, read reports of motor length dodgyness.

 

I dont think my new piston will arrive on time for sundays game , need to order those bearings too!

[[VT]Mofo2000]

oh, i wasn't talking about the motor in the gun, it's the motor in the boxmag winder. Any idea what kind of RadioShack replacement I could get?

[Agent47]

wow this is all good information guys keep it up I might need it for my M60 project I'm working on...

[Clot]

Ahhhh in that case, just rip it out, go to any electronics place and get a motor with the same shaft size. A small one should operate between 3-9v okay and sort you out:)