SVD Dragunov - ArniesAirsoft

Author

heffalump51

Registered: March 2005
Posts: 32

Review Date: 27/10/05

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: �400.00 | Rating: 8

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	It looks SOOO nice! Very solid construction
Cons:	Poor colour on 'wood' furniture. Lack of a scope as standard.

I have always fancied the look of a Dragunov but there was never any simple way of getting hold of one. The conversion kits on offer just didn't fit the bill so I was very happy to stumble across a first impressions review of a new spring powered version at http://www.unconventional-airsoft.com/ I did a bit of digging around, found one or two places that could supply the gun and decided I had to have one.

My trusty TM AK went on sale to partly finance the purchase and within a few days was sold, leaving me able to buy this monster gun!

I ordered my King Arms Dragunov on Friday October 21st from the very helpful guys at UN Company and damn if the UPS man in brown wasn't standing at my desk at 11am on Monday October 24th!

The gun comes in a very, very long brown box with silouhettes and 'Dragunov' all over it. The inside is surprisingly sparse with just a few pieces of high impact foam to support the gun. The lads at UN had filled the box up with newspaper but it was still a small shock to the system seeing how much I had just shelled out.
Apart from the gun, you get a 25 round plastic magazine, cleaning rod, manual and a small bag of BBs in the box.

On to the gun. First impressions? The colour of the plastic wooden furniture is a bit on the bright side and on mine, the moulded 'grain' is vertical while the colour has been applied horzontally. No biggie though.
The gun itself is huge at a fracton over 4 feet long and with no scope as standard, very slender. After playing for so long with plastic guns it is a real joy to get hold of a full metal rifle. No creaks, no flexing, this gun is solid as a rock and I have absolutely no fear about skirmishing with it.

There is a rail on the left hand side of the lower receiver that will accept the usual ex-Soviet PSOP range of sights but this is where I ran into my first real problem. I wanted to mount another recent purchase; a real steel PSOP 6x24 scope, but found that the stock fouled the scope when offering it up to the rail. I had to remove the stock to get the scope on and then found that the stock wouldn't go back on. I had to either remove a very small amont from the stock or from the scope mount so that I could re-assemble the gun. I decided to mill the 2mm from the underside of the scope mount as I REALLY did not want to start hacking up a �400 gun! After fixing this annoying problem the gun went back together no problem and with the scope in place the gun looks even better than ever.

I will be taking it to one of my local airsoft sites either this or next weekend to set the hop, zero in the scope and of course to see what the gun is shooting at. Best guess at the moment is that the manufacturers claims of 450fps isn't too far off the mark.

After I get this beast up and running properly I'll give another report.#
Thx,

Heff.

Tinkerbell

Sig Limit Gestapo

Registered: December 2004
Location: Attleborough, Norfolk
Posts: 2,879

Review Date: 26/11/05

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 8

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	An accurate, afforadle SVD. comes upgraded as standard. ACCURATE SVD!
Cons:	Spring powered (Single action). can be uncomfortable to cock repeatedly in a short period of time. screws can work loose easily.

First, I must explain one thing.

An SVD has been the top on my "I must have one of those guns, at any (reasonable) cost!" list, ever since i can remember.

I'm sure you've all seen the Gaurder 'SVD' kits, that turn a normal AK into some horrible AK M76 hybrid, and i'm sure you've all seen teh G&P $1000 out of the box paper weight. (lets face it, you wouldn't be reading this if you weren't interested in SVD's in the first place.)

Right, lets start at the beggining.

I ordered my KA/Atoz SVD from Redwolf, for the princely sum of $519. i aslo ordered two spare 25 round magazines for it, all this, including express postage to the UK totalled around �400, including VAT.

I receiver the gun in a large [read: Oh my word, that box is nearly bigger than me!] box, which in turn, contained a phenomonal amount of 'packing peanuts', and a smaller, sleeker box, bearing the pictures i had seen, gazed upon, and sighed at so many times before.

The time had come.

I had a proper Dragunov.

Now, i ordered the King Arms SVD, which, is in no way different to the KM/ Atoz gun, apart from it had a KA Manual, and KA stickers over where i presume to be KM/atoz markings.

Inside the box, the SVD is supported/protected by relatively little. a peice of foam at each end, and one in the middle, to support the ridiculously long barrel.

Mine came with two spare magazines inside this boz, and they were packaged nicely in clear plastic.

Now, onto the gun.

The receiver, dust cover, and probably most of the internals (i havent properly striped it down yet) are made of metal/ a substance called "Duralim". the wood is made from plastic.

The gun is heavy, and LONG. around 4 foot of rifle.

there is a bit of squeaking on the handgaurd, particularly, as it is made in two peices, true to the real version.

one thing to point out now, is that this is the Military style of receiver, which has "lightening" cuts in it, primarily to lower wieght, but it also proved a clever way to mount a bipod, without interfering with the barrel.

The cheek pad, that was included with the gun,(although some sites charge extra for it) is only useful if you have a scope, as if you dont, the iron sites are too low profile when it is attached. the cheek pad is made from wood, leather-like fabric, and metal, at attaches very easily to the stock.

The gun fires *very* well. mainly due to the long barrel, and a very high FPS spring stock.

i found that with the supplied BB's, it was very much nearly pin-point accurate when the hop was adjusted correctly to around 40/50 meters. i am unsure of the weight of the supplied BB's, but, when used with .2g bbs, it has the same range as a Systema PTW, if not the same accuracy.

I bought my scope from www.posp.ru , and would reccomend them to anyone wanting russian optics, as they were very very helpful, and remained in contact all through the transaction.

It is worth saying, that it is highly un likely the 'scope' that it comes with from certain companys (*cough* Zero One *cough*) is a 'real' scope. that is to say, made in russia, with cyrillic markigs, and the correct Recticule.

Even the new King Arms scope, although it has the correct cyrillic markings, does NOT have the correct recticule. it has one similar to it, but, fundamentally, its not correct.

Now, this may not matter to the average-joe Airsofter, but to me, and others, who like our guns to be as accurate as possible, its a reasonably big deal.

the correct scope is designated as a "4x24 M" scope, and the correct recticule is http://www.posp.ru/image/1,7x1000.jpg seen there.

teh King Arms scope is actually a 4x24 T scope, with a recticule like this:

http://212.24.137.166/by/optic/posps/prt.gif

not much of a difference, but enough to make me want a differnet scope.

skirmish test:

I first used my SVD at a "Cold War Three: Return to village 172" special game, at gunman airsoft not too long ago.

first thing i noticed, was how far it 'reached out' with .2g BB's. although i did not get any confrimed kills, i did have the range to hit them. unfortunately, as the OpFor were using Systema PTW's, they had the range to hit me, and they had Full Auto �_�.

It IS a very sturdy gun, but DO remember to tighten the screws frequently, the grub screw that holds my entire front section (gas tube, outer barrel, front sight etc etc) has a tendancy to work loose, and that therefore means that occasionally, the whole front section literally slid down the barrel.

Dont let this put you off though, it is a VERY nice gun, and, for around �400, you will NOT get a better Dragunov replica.

Atoz are rumoured to be making a Semi Automatic electric version of this gun, but they are as yet, just rumours.

conclusion:

A damned fine gun, but dont order it from the UK.

will stand up to skirmish useage perfectly, but do be careful of things working loose.

dave

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The one and only Tink Tank!

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Delfi

A mean streak a mile wide

Registered: October 2006
Location: Birmingham
Posts: 1,161

Review Date: 5/1/07

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: �300.00 | Rating: 8

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	The looks and the sight. Accuracy. Easy to modify/upgrade
Cons:	The damned spring, the release pin for the spring and cocking. Cost of spare mags. Quality of mags

I picked this up s/h recently from these very forums. The guy I dealt with had honestly pointed out some minor problems and missing bit. I wasn't concerned at all. Ever since playing Americas Army (a free shoot em up that I'm sure you all know of) I have always fancied laying my hands on a SVD.

I haven't used this in a skirmish yet but I'm used to the sniper role so I know what to expect.

This is a simply wonderful looking gun ... there's no getting around that ... but then you knew that because otherwise you wouldn't be looking here right?

I'm convinced that a lot of being a successful airsofter is about 'looking the part' This is a very special looking gun. Anyone that knows its reputation and accuracy would be well advised to stay away from me too.

The feel is great ... it's reasonably well balanced and, with the cheek pad and rubber eye shield installed, it's comfortable to use. It's heavy too ... even copies of Russian gear SHOULD be heavy I guess :-)

The hop-up is easy to get to and is the best looking hop unit I've seen. No finger based adjustment here!

On the downside 'out of the box' it is very tough to cock. Replacing the spring (to within forum limits) is an extremely easy thing to do but I'm initially a little worried about the security of the pin that locks the spring housing in place. Wear a glove on your right hand. That cocking lever can hurt!

One further problem is that if you fail to pull the spring back you get multiple BB feeds (from a 25bb mag). The mags are also crappy plastic and cost �25-�30 a pop. Could do better here KA!

The big plus ... the POSP sight. There are plenty of websites out there that detail these. This is the 'real gizmo' with the rangefinder graphics with distance and windage.

Even cooler is the fact that a really chunky 'hidden' switch uses two small lithium cells (in a separate unit) to illuminate the reticule (via a separate unit) in ... get this ... red! It really feels the part. I understand that other colours are available at low cost but for now red seems to be the colour that is just 'right'. It all seems very haphazard until you start thinking about the origins of this 'technology', the theatres of operation and the Communist Soviet mind-set.

The switch on the sight is also SO typically Soviet and makes me chuckle as I write. It's all very ... erm ... 'functional'. Everything about this sight screams a foreign technology, and a different mind-set, to me. That's why I'm going to enjoy using it. I'm also going to have fun testing out that cool ranging system that the reticule employs.

So how does it perform? After a little sight zeroing (dead easy too!) it was spot on time after time. The coke can on a stick (ok ok I was in a hurry) took an accurate pasting with some 0.30's at 25m or so.

This is a LOT of money to spend on an airsoft gun but I'm guessing that it will pretty much hold its value. And besides, all hobbies cost money.

I have some repairs to do to my new baby and already have a 'real steel' strap and bipod. Oh and 2 spare mags (how much???? ... grrr!).

What else might I add? Well, apart from a few repairs, I might add a laser in the vertical plane but not if it spoils the look. It may well work with this combination though. Great optics combined with a visible straight line and range info.

I won't be adding a barrel extension of any form even though it looks like it has a 14mm adapter ... if I need a silencer with this thing then I'm waaaay too close to my target.

Delfi.

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