Upgrading an L96 AWS platform

Hey folks,

I recently finished my L96 AWS platform, and I thought I'd share the process with the forum, this may help some people looking to upgrade this type of rifle.

In this case I'm looking at a WELL L96 AWS (mb44xx).

The main differences between an L96 AWS and a conventional VSR or type 96 is the way the feeding system works and the design of the hopup chamber. There's a loading ramp and fin which push the bb's from the magazine to the chamber and it requires all sorts of different parts. The cylinder, trigger, barrel and bucking are fully upgradeable, but the chamber is not. You can however use the TM chamber which is fairly decent, but you can also do with the stock WELL chamber, you'll just have less consistency and worse airseal.

The barrels and buckings are VSR compatible, which is a good thing. Everything else is unique to this gun. Taking the gun apart is not as straightforward as a VSR or type 96, I'm going to refer you to this guide on how to do it :tup:

http://www.airsoftsniperforum.com/44-others/2398-tm-l96aws-detailed-hop-up-spacer-fix.html

Cylinder/trigger group

There are three brands that I know of making L96 AWS parts: PDI, Edgi and Airsoftpro. I went with airsoftpro. The first thing I upgraded was the trigger, because 45 degree triggers suck. I also swapped out the rest of the cylinder and added a metal loading plate, but you can do with the stock cylinder and cylinder head if you want. All these parts were procured from airsoftpro.cz:



This covers the entire cylinder & trigger group. Installing it is fairly straightforward, but I have found that the airsoftpro cylinder is wider than the stock one. The same seems to be the case with the PDI cylinder. In order to get smooth cycling, I removed the guide rings from the receiver. Take out the screws on the side of the receiver, remove the entire assembly, remove the guide rings and put the rest back in again. It should look like this:



It does wear your cylinder quicker, but in my experience that's not much of a big deal, the steel cylinder can take it and it'll last long enough, even an aluminium cylinder does fine for thousands and thousands of shots, it just yields a lot smoother cycling so I'd recommend doing it.

Another part causing poor cycling is the little metal ring that the screws go into to secure the outer barrel:



Simply take it out and widen it a little by pushing it out by hand. It should have a little play when you slide it over the cylinder. When you've done that you're good to go and you can put it back in :tup:



One more important thing to note when using the airsoftpro trigger set is that the piston benefits a lot from proper lubrication. Poor lubrication of the piston head results in tough bolt cycling, so make sure you put some grease on there. For the outside of the cylinder I just used a bit of silicone oil.

Barrel group

For the bucking I went with a maple leaf monster (diamond) 70 degree bucking along with a ML concave nub. As for the barrel, the gun has a cylinder volume of about 28000 cm^3, so I went with a VSR G-spec barrel, yielding a ratio of 3.3:1. I used a 6.03x303mm AA VSR barrel. Do not use the stock length, it is way too long for pretty much all bb's other than .2's.



Installing this is not as straightforward, so I'll explain it here. Take the barrel. Put the small part of the hopup chamber over the barrel first, then slide the arm assembly over, slide the inner chamber over the barrel and then put the bucking on:



You will then want to teflon tape the bucking and slide the inner chamber over it so it's a nice & snug fit:



Next, put the nub on the bucking and put the nylon spacer over that, it can only really go in one way:



Put the arm over that and insert the pin to keep it in place. It helps to shim the arm because the stock WELL arm has a bit of play, but considering there is already a spacer in between the arm and the nub I don't know how much influence it really has.

You also need to put the little nylon C-clip on. It helps to trim down the outside diameter of this C-clip a little, it makes the installation of the outer chamber a LOT easier. You can use some sandpaper for that, you don't need to take a lot off, it just needs to be flush with the rest of the assembly:



Put the spring in between the nylon ring and the inner chamber and slide the part of the outer chamber towards the assembly. Again, this can only go one way:



Slide the outer chamber over this and secure it with the two screws. Adding barrel spacers is also advised.



Put this back into the outer barrel and screw the two pieces back on. You're now done. You will have to repeat this process every time you take the gun apart to clean it, which is a lot of work. Again a reason why this platform isn't as good as a VSR or type 96 when it comes to practicality, but it works, it just takes a bit more time and effort.



You may also note that I have left the two little spring-loaded spacers or whatever they're called out of the hopup chamber. This is because they interfered with the airsoftpro nozzle when chambering bb's. I have not yet had any loading issues because they were gone so I'm not going to put them back in yet, but if you use the stock nozzle and they don't cause any trouble, you might as well keep them in :yup:

You can screw the outer barrel back in and reinstall everything. Don't forget the little metal piece that the screws screw into. I've also found that it is best to not over-tighten these two screws to allow for smooth bolt cycling:



A few more things...

-If you're getting too much hop, trim down the white spacer in between the hopup arm and the nub, that should solve your problem.
-It's a good idea to drill out the end cap of your barrel a little to prevent bb's from hitting it. My barrel is 300mm, which is 200mm before the end cap, which means the bb's can deviate from their path a little and hit the end cap rather than going perfectly through. If you drill it out to 8mm or so the bb will have 1mm play on all sides which is perfectly fine. Besides, 8mm is closer to the bullet size of a real sniper rifle so it looks better. If you use a different muzzle device (like me) then you can also just completely take the end cap out :tup:
-The loading fin requires you to pull the bolt all the way back (beyond the locking of piston by the trigger), otherwise you won't chamber a bb. This means you can't pull the bolt back, put a new mag in and push it forward to chamber a new bb, you NEED to pull it all the way back to chamber a bb. Not really an issue during normal operation, though. It also means it is pretty hard to get a double feed.
-If you get a jam, DON'T force it. The metal loading fin won't break but you can still break your loading ramp. Just try to figure out what exactly is jamming (most of the time the loading fin isn't aligned properly or something like that) and fix it rather than forcing it through. In a type 96 or VSR brute force would just smash a bb and carry on, in this platform brute force will break parts and render the gun inoperable.
-You could TDC mod the gun like any other BASR:
http://www.airsoftsniperforum.com/32-general-sniper-talk/4634-top-dead-center-mod-tdc-guide.html
It would yield better consistency but a screw on top of the gun isn't very realistic. The stock hopup adjustment isn't half bad so I've opted not to do it, since the whole point of an L96 AWS is "looks". If you want a practical gun, this is not the platform to go with in the first place.

I'll be taking it to a game next time I get the chance, eager to see how it'll perform. I hope these pictures helped some people who are looking to upgrade this platform, and if you have any questions regarding the L96 AWS platform, don't hesitate to ask!

Cheers,
Reliku