[jackknife09]

It kind of looks like if I removed the orange tip, there'd be like 5mm of inner barrel sticking out beyond the outer one. But, like I said, I'll get some pics when I do my second round of work tonight. Gotta open it up to see if I can loosen the bolt pull, wrestle with the bipod some more, and then come back here for advice on the orange tip with picture in hand.

Oh, and I gotta name 'er. X3

 

[jackknife09]

Well, it took a little bit of jury rigging with a new sling mount, but I've managed to fix the bipod problem. My advice to anyone who buys a Javelin Gun Works M24, just spend the extra money, go down to the surplus and buy some inch-long metric sling mount screws.

I also located the problem with the chamber. Despite my best efforts, some paint seeped down and it's causing extra friction on the bolt, making the pull enough to make my shoulder ache.

Now, as for the orange tip, here's that pic I promised:



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See to me, it looks like this thing is supporting the inner barrel, so my fear is that if I remove it, the inner barrel will be exposed. The other possibility is that the tip is just glued onto the metal barrel, in which case a few cuts with a dremel tool and some careful work with a chisel might remove the thing. It looks like the internal metal would still support a suppressor attachment, if I got one in the future.

Problem is, there's no way to know until I make the cut, and by then I might have permanently damaged my gun. :c

I don't suppose I could remove the outer barrel from the gun, and dip the plastic tip into boiling water? It might loosen the glue and plastic, but it wouldn't damage the metal barrel. Maybe strip some paint, but I got plenty of that.

 

[awagg]

That's what I always do. Boiling water works the best. On my bar 10, it needed like 10 seconds and it was off! I wouldn't cut it, at least not before you try water. You probably won't get paint coming off... I never have.

 

[Cheese Man]

Blowtorch! Burn it off!

 

[blackfoot1]

If you remove the clamp and all the other mounting bits on the bipod, you should be left with a square hole in the base plate. Unscrew the front sling stud, find a bolt that fits the threads in the stock and mount the bipod directly to the gun (you'll need a washer if you can't find a bolt with a head big enough to stop it falling through the base plate).

It's a lot harder to explain, than to actually do.

 

[jackknife09]

Another long day of work down, and I think I've gotten as far as I can with the externals and basic internals:

+ Taped off the scope, crystal clear while using proper eye relief, defeats most refracted light.
+ Used a stronger braid on the sling, added buckles for easy removal and attachment.
+ Added a longer, correctly sized metric swivel to the bipod mount, now fits properly in the stock.
+ Removed orange tip and associated glue / debris.
+ Cleaned out the chamber, bolt pull is back within reasonable draw weight.
+ Adjusted butt stock, keeps my eye pretty much exactly 3.3in from the ocular lens.
+ Polished the barrel, took about 10 paper towels' worth of cleaning strips to stop seeing black residue.
+ Touched up paint job.

Once again, thanks to everyone who offered advice. When I get a chance, it'll be time to head out and do some target practice. Hopefully, I won't have to modify the hop up chamber, but if the rumors of the M24's wobbly hop up arm are true, I'll have to open her up and solve that problem too. And once it's game time, I'll add the appropriate rubber bands to the scope and body to hold on veg.

And now, enjoy some fancy pictures:



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[blackfoot1]

That really is a great paint job, and you obviously have patience judging by the work you've put into that sling (a "how to" guide for the sling would be a usefull addition to the forum).
Good luck with the target practice, post up some pics of your groupings if/when you get it shooting sweet.

 

[fuzzywolly]

Now that rifle looks much much better. Some outdoor pics would be great, so we can see how well she blends in.

Great work, looking forward to more pics.

 

[jackknife09]

Thanks for the kind words, folks. :3

I'm heading to the state park tomorrow with some targets and a bag of 0.28 bios. I'm relatively certain its the safest place I can go; iirc, state parks are legal territory for real and replica firearms, as long as you're away from trails and roads. I'm planning to fire a 25rd magazine at a target at 100, 150 and 200ft. At the same time, I'll be scoping myself in at the 150ft mark.

As for the braided cord, I found instructions from an online page, but I'll make a short how-to in the future to show how I went about it. The instructions are a little confusing on their own. >>

 

[jackknife09]

Well, unfortunately, my first day of target practice was a complete disaster. Having trekked into the national forest, I set up a paper target at 100ft, and started firing. I tried to scope in, but after a little while I figured out my bbs were changing direction mid-flight, so the scoping attempt was useless.

I fiddled with the hop up, but no matter what direction or to what extent I changed it, my bbs started dropping at the 50 or 75ft mark, bouncing along the ground. After 50 rounds, they started curving left and right at random, as I'd feared.

Long story short, out of 100 rounds, I missed every shot even with a target well within the range of this rifle. I'm thoroughly crestfallen at the moment. =_=

To add insult to injury, one of the legs on my bipod is stuck in the sheath, and the paint has already chipped around certain parts of the rifle. So, I've got a lot of work on my hands.

For the life of me I can't figure out what's wrong with the hop up. Since the rifle came with no manual, I'm not even sure which direction raises or lowers the nub. So it appears the next step is to take the som'bitch apart yet again, and this time disassemble the hop up chamber as well. I'm not even sure the lever arm is engaging the hop up at all, considering how little affect it had on the bbs' flight paths. If it turns out the hop up chamber is beyond a teflon tape fix, I'm not even sure I can get a replacement APS2 one. The problem could just as easily be the bushing, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Well, at least she looks pretty in the sunlight:



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[2echo]

Sick paintjob! Great job, man!

 

[fuzzywolly]

Judging by the symptoms it sounds like it could be a upside down bucking. No hop no matter how you adjust the arm sounds like that could be your problem. Perhaps it came assembled incorrectly?

I would take her apart like you said and see what could be the problem. Hopefully it will be an easy fix.

Also, paint chipping is sexy. Let it chip, as it adds to the look.

 

[blackfoot1]

Sorry to hear your first outing went so badly...
It does look awesome though

 

[jackknife09]

Proud to hear my first sniper's camo job is up to the standards of the vets.

I'm willing to bet practically anything here. The hop up could have been installed upside-down, the plastic might be really low quality and already damaged, the whole chamber could be messed up... or, maybe I'm lucky, and it just needs a good cleaning with some white lithium grease and a bit of teflon tape on the bucking and hop up arm. We'll see what happens.

Worse come to worse, my load-bearing gear won't be getting here until the week of June 12th. So if I have to order a new part or something, it ain't like I'd be playing if this hadn't happened. I could use that time hiking around the park, too. It seems like the area ASCO plays in is made up of two pretty steep ravines and thick brush - which means lots of overwatch. >

 

[newbie]

sorry to hear about the bad luck, been there before, I hope you get it up and running

 

[jackknife09]

Eh, I expected there to be a lot of work involved. I'm happy to have something to tinker with.

As a last resort, my local airsoft supplier carries these:

http://www.airsofttitan.com/p040m.html

Looks like just the thing, if I need to replace the whole chamber. This is luckily one of the upgrades I can make without having to drop $200 on a Zero Trigger.

 

[dutton]

APS and M24 hop up are one of the few parts that are NOT interchangeable, assuming this gun uses the same hop up as the CA M24.

 

[jackknife09]

Well, this is the hop up chamber internals. They don't look like anything else I've seen, so I'm starting to wonder just who made this thing in the first place...



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I can't find any inherent problems, except for the fact that these plastic parts wiggle quite a bit even while they're installed. The arm in the lower right part of the picture jumps left and right with the slightest pressure. The metal arm on the chamber isn't thick enough to fully hold the sliding piece, either, which I'm guessing is what makes the external lever so squirrely.

The bucking doesn't seem to be fractured or ripped or anything, but it doesn't feel very solid. Maybe a teflon tape mod would do th trick, or just a new bucking, since the air seal might be nonexistent...

I think I'm gonna be at this for a while. If anyone has some advice, or the veterans need some extra pictures or info before they make a verdict, please let me know! Thanks again for your continued assistance, people. :3

** Tiny update, I removed the barrel from the bolt cuff and went at it with white lithium again. Turns out there was a 2 inch section way at the back that I hadn't been able to reach with my first polishing attempt. Took another 20min to clean it all out. Might have been contributing to the accuracy problem.

 

[fuzzywolly]

Perhaps simply cleaning the barrel will offer a solution. Stock guns sometimes come with a crap load of well, crap in the barrel. There is a chance a simple cleaning will offer you a more accurate rifle.

 

[newbie]

looks like the same hop up that is in the UTG m324