Airsoft Canada - View Single Post - Tokyo Marui 5-7

lurkingknight · September 5th, 2013, 11:11

Finally got my hands on one of these, and if anyone thinks I will spare TM from nitpicking at what it costs vs what you get since I am not known for liking on other 'premium' brands like systema, you are greatly mistaken. I will #%$! on any product that does not meet expectation or what is promised.

So let's get to it.

I'll just do a quick overview of my impressions. This is the first new TM I have purchased. The pistol without the mag seems very unbalanced from the abs lower and all the metal hardware up in the slide, but with the mag in, it balances out nicely.

About that ABS... if ever there was a reason for TM to switch to nylon fiber... this would be it. The frame feels VERY thin in some places, so thin that I worry about it cracking or breaking if dropped or hit by a passing branch while running.

The seams are nice, the flashing at the join is quite visible on the frame, and in fact, I expected a cleaner join from TM. There was enough of an edge to scrape and cause some discomfort for my hand on the back of the grip and under the trigger guard. The seam is most pronounced on the frame at the rail.

The action of the slide is super smooth, it felt like butter when racked.

I have 3 mags. All of them have flaking or bubbled paint because it's not adhering to the metal of the mag... this is unexpected from TM, where people say fit and finish is everything with this brand. The paint is expected to rub off with use, so it's not a big deal, but this is against the perception of the brand.

I didn't shoot or chrono it out of the box... plenty of vids on youtube out there.

What my goal is from this point out is to install and prepare all the reliability mods I've found in order to see how viable this gun is long term.

There are tons of reviews of 5-7s out there, this will not be a typical review for accuracy and performance.

I have collected a number of techniques and parts lists from various 5-7 owners from the web to fix the shortfalls of this gun.

Problem:

The outer slide is known to crack at the front of the gun using green gas/propane due to there being a 2 piece construction, outer and inner. It's actually a 3 piece construction if you take it apart. The outer shell, the front inner slide and the blow back unit that is not joined to the inner, but just butted against it.

Solution:

RTV silicone the inner slide into the outer to make it 1 piece, so it transfers shock loading along the length of the slide, not just at the front when it blows back. I should've used a black rtv gastket maker, instead I used what I had which was permatex high temp copper exhaust gasket maker. The slide was completely disassembled and I added the creation inner slide for some more kick on the blowback. It's debated whether or not the creation inner contributes to outer slide failure or not. If you look at the front of the stock slide (and creation) you'll notice there's actually a gap between the 2. I have a feeling if you fill this with silicone during the merge, it will help distribute the shock load, as it is in stock, there's 3 points of contact, and the slide cracks at the mold seam.

The TM inner slide is plastic, and actually if you look at it, doesn't follow the contour of the abs outer slide perfectly... this is sort of bad because the more surface area you have, the more load you can transfer across a larger surface area. The TM inner just barely touches the part of the outer where it narrows, this puts more force on the now 5 points of contact that hit when blowback occurs. The creation slide actually fits flush on all surfaces and mates to all corners.

I applied a liberal amount of silicone to the creation slide and mated the outer and inner, snapping the 2 together and then further compressing the 2 with a vice between 2 pieces of wood. The excess squirted out the seams and front sight. IF you do this, be super careful and clean that #%$! as soon as it pukes and clean it well otherwise it will mark up your gun.

Problem:

the outer barrel floats on 2 posts inside the hopup unit. Recoil action pushes and pulls the outer barrel against these 2 posts and eventually the outer barrel fails and falls out of the gun.

Solution:

Replace the soft outer barrel with a steel one.
Apply rtv silicone on the posts and end of the outer barrel. To cushion and snug up the slop at the join.

Be careful not to get silicone into the hop up rubber or the inner barrel, the inner goes much farther into the the hopup unit so it's unlikely you'll get any in there, but silicone can get messy.

I put enough silicone on the end of the barrel that when the 2 halves of the hop up unit were rejoined, again it puked out the seam.

While I was in there, I installed a PDI 6.01 barrel.

I set it aside 24 hours for the silicone to cure and took it to chrono.

Shooting about 310-320fps with .2s on propane in my basement at around 18C. Blowback feels very crisp. I have a feeling though that the gas efficiency might have been effected slightly by putting in the creation slide, but I'll have to study it more closely on the field.

The slide had a tendency to get stuck at the rear position when slowly racking by hand. This is because the recoil spring is actually rubbing on the creation slide and when fully compressed will get caught at the front end of the slide. Some silicone grease from my AEG kit solved this issue. Though I may go to something a little heavier and longer lasting like a marine grease.

At 310 in cool conditions, it makes me wonder what it would shoot if I put a longer inner barrel on and installed a threaded outer barrel with a suppressor. Or installed a high output valve on the mag.

I also took some of my 1000grit sandpaper and cleaned up the seams on the front of the slide. This will help me spot any cracks that may develop over time, hopefully the rtv will do its job and it will hold together... cause if it breaks, there's little chance of repair... splitting the inner from outer may not be possible without destroying the outer slide.

On a side note: the Guarder kids are of less quality than the TM abs, those frames and outer slides are known to fail faster.

My parts list:

creation inner slide
PDI 6.01 tightbore
MAG steel outer barrel
tube of permatex exhaust gasket maker (I'd recommend a black gasket maker if you get the black 5-7, it's less visible. You can see copper/bronze seams in my slide if you look closely.

or with the power of megapixels.. it's quite obnoxious, but I don't care, as long as it holds it together.

You can see the gap between the 2 slides in the front here, I'm thinking of trying to pack more rtv into that area to help cushion it. I was a little worried about getting silicone into the barrel opening so I didn't go overboard on the front of the inner slide when applying the gasket.

since taking the photo I've reworked and packed more silicone into the gap at the front so it's solid now.

In this shot you can see how the creation slide fits into the outer. The step where the outer gets wider is where the creation slide actually fits much tighter than the stock marui one. I think this is a bit better as there is more front facing surface area on the creation slide to put force into the length of the slide, rather than the front. The stock TM inner has a step that is not as deep and it's more tapered along the middle of the slide.

In this shot you can clearly see what the hopup unit is doing on the underside of the creation slide. It's rubbing the powdercoat/anodizing right off the aluminum. And in the front end you can see where it all impacts where it's rubbed clean in the top corner. This was the spot it would bind without the grease I've applied.

These shots were taken after the first game day, after maybe 14 or so mags put through the gun.

edit: 2013/11/24

I lost a mag during a game and replaced it with a new mag ordered from ehobby (plus an additional) both mags came packaged differently than from canarmo where I purcahsed the gun and mags originally. The mags themselves from ehobby were in sealed plastic bags inside the tm packaging and the paint was much nicer this time around. Not sure what to make of that, probably just a different batch.

I've also secured some spare parts: second outer slide, and 2 more complete hop up units ordered from a parts broker in japan that volunteers his time to order factory parts for donations. I should be set until the hammer/firing pin assembly separate out of the lower frame... when that happens the frame will be useless and I'll have to try and secure either a new lower frame or a whole new gun. That shouldn't happen for a while though, in a matter of 1000s into the 10000s of rounds.

September 5th, 2013, 11:11	#1
lurkingknight "bb bukakke" KING! Trader rating Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Ottawa	Tokyo Marui 5-7 Finally got my hands on one of these, and if anyone thinks I will spare TM from nitpicking at what it costs vs what you get since I am not known for liking on other 'premium' brands like systema, you are greatly mistaken. I will #%$! on any product that does not meet expectation or what is promised. So let's get to it. I'll just do a quick overview of my impressions. This is the first new TM I have purchased. The pistol without the mag seems very unbalanced from the abs lower and all the metal hardware up in the slide, but with the mag in, it balances out nicely. About that ABS... if ever there was a reason for TM to switch to nylon fiber... this would be it. The frame feels VERY thin in some places, so thin that I worry about it cracking or breaking if dropped or hit by a passing branch while running. The seams are nice, the flashing at the join is quite visible on the frame, and in fact, I expected a cleaner join from TM. There was enough of an edge to scrape and cause some discomfort for my hand on the back of the grip and under the trigger guard. The seam is most pronounced on the frame at the rail. The action of the slide is super smooth, it felt like butter when racked. I have 3 mags. All of them have flaking or bubbled paint because it's not adhering to the metal of the mag... this is unexpected from TM, where people say fit and finish is everything with this brand. The paint is expected to rub off with use, so it's not a big deal, but this is against the perception of the brand. I didn't shoot or chrono it out of the box... plenty of vids on youtube out there. What my goal is from this point out is to install and prepare all the reliability mods I've found in order to see how viable this gun is long term. There are tons of reviews of 5-7s out there, this will not be a typical review for accuracy and performance. I have collected a number of techniques and parts lists from various 5-7 owners from the web to fix the shortfalls of this gun. Problem: The outer slide is known to crack at the front of the gun using green gas/propane due to there being a 2 piece construction, outer and inner. It's actually a 3 piece construction if you take it apart. The outer shell, the front inner slide and the blow back unit that is not joined to the inner, but just butted against it. Solution: RTV silicone the inner slide into the outer to make it 1 piece, so it transfers shock loading along the length of the slide, not just at the front when it blows back. I should've used a black rtv gastket maker, instead I used what I had which was permatex high temp copper exhaust gasket maker. The slide was completely disassembled and I added the creation inner slide for some more kick on the blowback. It's debated whether or not the creation inner contributes to outer slide failure or not. If you look at the front of the stock slide (and creation) you'll notice there's actually a gap between the 2. I have a feeling if you fill this with silicone during the merge, it will help distribute the shock load, as it is in stock, there's 3 points of contact, and the slide cracks at the mold seam. The TM inner slide is plastic, and actually if you look at it, doesn't follow the contour of the abs outer slide perfectly... this is sort of bad because the more surface area you have, the more load you can transfer across a larger surface area. The TM inner just barely touches the part of the outer where it narrows, this puts more force on the now 5 points of contact that hit when blowback occurs. The creation slide actually fits flush on all surfaces and mates to all corners. I applied a liberal amount of silicone to the creation slide and mated the outer and inner, snapping the 2 together and then further compressing the 2 with a vice between 2 pieces of wood. The excess squirted out the seams and front sight. IF you do this, be super careful and clean that #%$! as soon as it pukes and clean it well otherwise it will mark up your gun. Problem: the outer barrel floats on 2 posts inside the hopup unit. Recoil action pushes and pulls the outer barrel against these 2 posts and eventually the outer barrel fails and falls out of the gun. Solution: Replace the soft outer barrel with a steel one. Apply rtv silicone on the posts and end of the outer barrel. To cushion and snug up the slop at the join. Be careful not to get silicone into the hop up rubber or the inner barrel, the inner goes much farther into the the hopup unit so it's unlikely you'll get any in there, but silicone can get messy. I put enough silicone on the end of the barrel that when the 2 halves of the hop up unit were rejoined, again it puked out the seam. While I was in there, I installed a PDI 6.01 barrel. I set it aside 24 hours for the silicone to cure and took it to chrono. Shooting about 310-320fps with .2s on propane in my basement at around 18C. Blowback feels very crisp. I have a feeling though that the gas efficiency might have been effected slightly by putting in the creation slide, but I'll have to study it more closely on the field. The slide had a tendency to get stuck at the rear position when slowly racking by hand. This is because the recoil spring is actually rubbing on the creation slide and when fully compressed will get caught at the front end of the slide. Some silicone grease from my AEG kit solved this issue. Though I may go to something a little heavier and longer lasting like a marine grease. At 310 in cool conditions, it makes me wonder what it would shoot if I put a longer inner barrel on and installed a threaded outer barrel with a suppressor. Or installed a high output valve on the mag. I also took some of my 1000grit sandpaper and cleaned up the seams on the front of the slide. This will help me spot any cracks that may develop over time, hopefully the rtv will do its job and it will hold together... cause if it breaks, there's little chance of repair... splitting the inner from outer may not be possible without destroying the outer slide. On a side note: the Guarder kids are of less quality than the TM abs, those frames and outer slides are known to fail faster. My parts list: creation inner slide PDI 6.01 tightbore MAG steel outer barrel tube of permatex exhaust gasket maker (I'd recommend a black gasket maker if you get the black 5-7, it's less visible. You can see copper/bronze seams in my slide if you look closely. or with the power of megapixels.. it's quite obnoxious, but I don't care, as long as it holds it together. You can see the gap between the 2 slides in the front here, I'm thinking of trying to pack more rtv into that area to help cushion it. I was a little worried about getting silicone into the barrel opening so I didn't go overboard on the front of the inner slide when applying the gasket. since taking the photo I've reworked and packed more silicone into the gap at the front so it's solid now. In this shot you can see how the creation slide fits into the outer. The step where the outer gets wider is where the creation slide actually fits much tighter than the stock marui one. I think this is a bit better as there is more front facing surface area on the creation slide to put force into the length of the slide, rather than the front. The stock TM inner has a step that is not as deep and it's more tapered along the middle of the slide. In this shot you can clearly see what the hopup unit is doing on the underside of the creation slide. It's rubbing the powdercoat/anodizing right off the aluminum. And in the front end you can see where it all impacts where it's rubbed clean in the top corner. This was the spot it would bind without the grease I've applied. These shots were taken after the first game day, after maybe 14 or so mags put through the gun. edit: 2013/11/24 I lost a mag during a game and replaced it with a new mag ordered from ehobby (plus an additional) both mags came packaged differently than from canarmo where I purcahsed the gun and mags originally. The mags themselves from ehobby were in sealed plastic bags inside the tm packaging and the paint was much nicer this time around. Not sure what to make of that, probably just a different batch. I've also secured some spare parts: second outer slide, and 2 more complete hop up units ordered from a parts broker in japan that volunteers his time to order factory parts for donations. I should be set until the hammer/firing pin assembly separate out of the lower frame... when that happens the frame will be useless and I'll have to try and secure either a new lower frame or a whole new gun. That shouldn't happen for a while though, in a matter of 1000s into the 10000s of rounds. __________________ I futz with V2s, V3s and V6s. I could be wrong... but probably, most likely not, as far as I know. Last edited by lurkingknight; November 24th, 2013 at 01:18..