CYMA 031 AK74M review

Fiach Dubh

The 3 AK74's I ordered from Gunners arrived last week. Here's same info on them. No pictures, need to get a digital camera.

Cost: $75 from gunners (Cost me $85, Price has been lowered)

In the box: AEG, 500 round Hi-cap black Bakelite ABS, 8.4V large battery pack, 2 prong 220V charger, cleaning rod, chuck key for front sight adjust, small bag of BB's, cheapo craptastic sling, users manual.

The AEG: Metal parts; Upper receiver, trigger, guard and mag release lever, outer barrel, front and rear sights, muzzle break. ABS plastic parts; grips, stock, lower receiver, sight block, fake cleaning rod. The body is solid as a rock, no creaking. The ABS plastic feels a bit lighter then TM but still sturdy. The upper receiver is different from TM's AK receivers, the finish is duller and the metal is of lower quality. It does the job but I'm going to replace the upper and lower receiver with Element metal parts (Gunner has them)

The muzzle break is attached by a standard -14mm and can be replaced with AKSU flash suppressors or silencers. The spring loaded guiding pin is not attached to the front sight block unlike the TM AK's and will come free. Not much of a problem but a new user might drop it and loose it the first time they take the break off. The sights work as well as any AK's, that's about average for anyone who hasn't used one The rear sight can be adjusted from neutral up to 800 metres in increments of 100 metres, a bit long for airsoft. Neutral for close range and 100 for long will do.

Performance: I haven't gotten a chance to poor man's chrono it yet. Gunners website says 330fps however Fung told me it's around 310-320, sounds about right. I was firing it at paper targets in the hall of my house. The shots were going through the target, the back of a heavy cardboard box the sight was on, hitting the front door and bouncing back at me. I got hit by some of the shots and they still had a bit of energy. To put this in perspective my TM AK Beta which fires around 270-275 fps couldn't fire with enough energy to bounce the shots back to hit me, they only make it about half way back. The 031's accuracy is slightly better then the Beta, expected with a much longer barrel. With the fitting of a 6.04mm tight barrel I'd say it would be on the higher end of long range accuracy for an AEG.

The battery and charger: The 8.4V is actually not bad, I'm getting a good rate of fire from it. The plastic cover is a bit cheap though. I was using a speed charger instead of the stock charger. 30 minutes for a 1200mah 8.4V, by the last 5 minutes the plastic cover split and peeled away some from the pack because of the heat. It now has a new duct tape cover :P The stock charger takes about 8 hours for a full charge.

The magazine: Strong ABS build 500 round Hi-cap, just as good as TM. The 031 will take TM, Star and G&P mags no problem

The sling: Rotten piece of mass produced crap. Green nylon strap, 2 low grade metal clips and a plastic (not ABS) center buckle. The first time I let the sling take the whole weight of the rifle the plastic buckle snapped and shot across the room. Useless and dangerous, fun for the whole family

Over all a very good AEG for the low price tag. With the addition of $50 of parts you have a full metal AK74M. For $52 you can replace the furniture to full wooden if you want an older style AK74 such as the Red army used in Afghanistan. The GP-25 under slung grenade launcher for the AK can be gotten for about $150. For between $275-300 you can build an nice little battle rifle. Not bad at all

o1s1n

Nice review. Seems like you got quite a bargain. As a matter of interest, would they make a good project gun? ex; taking the thing apart and reassembling to get the feel of how a gearbox works etc?

I really want to start stripping guns down to absolute pieces, but I'm a little freaked about doing that with a TM

Fiach Dubh

Yeah it's a good gun if you want to strip it. It's a clone of CA's SLR105 so the internals are the usual stuff you'll find in higher end AEG's. If you just want to get a gun for stripping though I'd go with the 028 AK47 as the internals are similar. For a $66 price tag you won't mind too much if you can't get it back together right

o1s1n

I know, $66 is really nothing alright. How come you bought three anyway? Dual wielding madness, with an extra on your back? :eek:

[--SC(+)PE--]

ill do like wise when my JG mp5 arrives,

o1s1n

So will i when my, um...ah bugger, I hate not having anything coming in the post!

Fiach Dubh

Getting as many reviews up of guns from Gunners will be good for new players who want to try Airsoft out but don't want to spend a lot of money. The new clone G36C looks very nice Crap, too many guns to get

Oh and the 3 AK's aren't all for me, my brothers wanted them too. You won't see me playing with 3 AK's taped together or anything

[--SC(+)PE--]

Ya theirs alot of choices thease days, apparantly it wasnt long ago when the only choices were an ak47 warhawk and a cm027 mp5, now theirs m249's, Scar L's steyrs,p90's [yes whoopy someday ] and the like in the pipeline.
Theirs alot of reviews on thease guns on arnies and airsoftretreat.com and some on acmgames.proboards66.com if yer lookin for em

moneyman

Nice review, Fiach. How long did it take for your gun to come? And did you use speedpost??

whupass

'll do a review on the p-90 too

Fiach Dubh

moneyman wrote:

Nice review, Fiach. How long did it take for your gun to come? And did you use speedpost??

It took Fung about a week to ship them, he's snowed under with xmas orders. They arrived from Hong Kong to Ireland in 2 days by speedpost, customs held them for 10 days :mad:

o1s1n

Did customs end up getting you with any V.A.T? ten days. That's so bad. Kinda defeats the purpose of speed post.

Fiach Dubh

Yes on both counts. 80 Euro VAT, I always get it. And I agree, customs are making speedpost pointless.

o1s1n

That's feckin nasty. 80 quid. Sure that's nearly the price of a pistol. Ugh. Well, I just got another order in from ehobby V.A.T free and so did N.O.I.P.

Excellent stuff.

N.O.I.P.

Just had a thought mister o1s1n, you were charged VAT retrospectively on your first rifle, did you ever think it might have happened because youve posted so much about how you had this package and that sent through without being charged VAT. Customs are watching you

o1s1n

...so, did you make a tinfoil hat for me too? Do they also repel customs officers?

N.O.I.P.

O1s1n dont you know any better Tinfoil hats dont repel customs agents, you use quantum string theories for that scares the hell out of them

o1s1n

...and how do i attack them with these quantum string theories? Must I recite them at any who appear at my door? Or write them all over my clothing? :eek:

moneyman

Scope any idea where ur guns at? Mine still says "departed" so obviously its not in Ireland yet. Seems to be takin a long time but thats probably cause of Christmas.

[--SC(+)PE--]

ya im getting impatient to not worried yet but impatient none the less. According to my tracking my mp5's been in the air over 6 days , i think the postal service resumes 2morrow or friday so hopefully we'll know more then. maybe their in the country but the tracking just isnt updated yet. what date did your depart again?

moneyman

[--SC(+)PE--] wrote:

ya im getting impatient to not worried yet but impatient none the less. According to my tracking my mp5's been in the air over 6 days , i think the postal service resumes 2morrow or friday so hopefully we'll know more then. maybe their in the country but the tracking just isnt updated yet. what date did your depart again?

Its departed since the 19th. How do you know if its still in the air?? Did u order yours by speedpost??

[--SC(+)PE--]

speedpost aswell ya. it should only be 2-3 days to make it in2 the country so hopefully they are all in at the moment but christmas has realy arsed us all up by the looks of it

Harekin

Sorry to be mean, but I got another order from UNCompany in 2 days. This time with UPS and it was actually cheaper that Speedpost! When I made the order I selected Speedpost but UNCompany mailed me back asking did I want UPS cos it was cheaper. Get this...it departed a stop-off in Germany and then was on route to my house in the van 4 hours later!

I must slap myself for being so jammy in these orders.

But on the topic of your order. I think AnPost only went back to work today so it should be there very soon. However the more you wait the more satisfying it'll be to rip open that box...bet you'll even be "lucky" like me when it arrives and not have a scissors or anything around!

The things we do for our toy guns!

[--SC(+)PE--]

However the more you wait the more satisfying it'll be to rip open that box

obviously as it is at the moment i just cant agree with that :rolleyes: .

im actually waitin 4 an untrackable order from Ehobby[never happend before but i wasnt the 1 who ordered ] aswell which dispatched some time ago theirs nothing fancy in it but we badly need it just gunbags extra goggles drop pouches and mag pouches and stuff.
And as soon as i get the mp5 im going go ahead and order myself another m190 as im going to get 1 sooner or later,sure i might aswell get it sooner

Oh ya nice beretta Harekin no pistol can compare in looks to one

[--SC(+)PE--]

well i got the ehobby order just now. so ive a box of mags for the mp5 i havnt even seen yet :rolleyes:

moneyman

LIGHTNING wrote:

Sweet my MP5 just arrived this morning, god its sweet. Ill write a review of it as soon as I can!

Lucky day for us! I got my CM-031 ak74! its sweet, its charging now though and wont be fully charged til about 10 i think. I had a few shots with it before i charged it and the only thing i wasnt used to was winding it as I've never had a gun like that before. You have to wind it for ages before it works! But then again I only put about 20 bbs in there and it holds 500. It seems strong but it wasn't at its strongest cause I'd say it had bearly enough charge in it to shoot, can't wait to see what it does fully charged! Scope I thought u ordered before me, is yours not here??

[--SC(+)PE--]

Ya i did order a fair bit before ya but gunner only shipped it on the 21st so ive yet to hear anything about it, What date was yours shipped do ya know?

moneyman

[--SC(+)PE--] wrote:

Ya i did order a fair bit before ya but gunner only shipped it on the 21st so ive yet to hear anything about it, What date was yours shipped do ya know?

I think he sent it on the 19th and it departed on the 19th, thats all I know. It didnt say it had arrived when i tracked it so I'd say yours is only a day or two away. Good luck! PS I didnt get caught with customs!

moneyman

LIGHTNING wrote:

Yea I`m slightly confused about actually firing, how much do you have to wind the screw on the bottom of the mag?

Well once the bb pops up into view, keep screwing! it gets stiffer and u might hear a little click, if not then just keep goin for about another 30-40 seconds after the bb comes up. If it still doesnt fire then do it again except screw it for longer. Just experiment with it, u'll get it. It took me a while too I was scared of doing it too much and breaking it. But i'm just after destroying an empty can of coke so I'm happy

Skatedude

most seem to say, wind till it clicks a few times, but also give the mag a tap as well to make sure the bb's have settled

o1s1n

moneyman wrote:

But then again I only put about 20 bbs in there and it holds 500.

You really need to fill the mag a good bit to get it to wind properly. I think when wound, my firing section on my high cap mags has about 60 bbs ready before another wind. Once it starts getting low on bbs, the winding get a little odd. Just dont get *too* low with them.

Fiach Dubh

My advice would be to get some Mid or Low-caps. You can get a box of 10 star mid-caps (105 rounds each) for $60 from UN company.

[--SC(+)PE--]

glad ill never have to put up with this nonsence . got a box of 8 90 round mp5 mags meself and im most likely going to discard the 2 high caps im getting with the gun.

o1s1n

Seriously, not the kinda advice you can be handing out till you play a game!

You p1ss through rounds. I used a 60 round mag as a backup just in case my high cap ran out. At one point, about 3/4 through a game, this happened. I was dug in somewhere with two guys trying to shoot me out. Went through the 60 round in a flash. Was left with no ammo.

Even if i had another ten mid caps on me, the annoyance of having to constantly change mags during a firefight would have been a right pain. Could possibly have been shot mid change. Plus not to mention having to carry them all. Some of that gorse and bush can be hard to get through!

Basically, mid caps seem to be okay if you're in a game with people who only have mid caps. Everyone conserving ammo.

But there are some hoses out there! I'd love to see you up against a S.A.W with 3000 rounds in his autowinding mag :P

[--SC(+)PE--]

i didnt mean it as advice at all i know 95%of peeps are likely to be spraying white hoses everywere i just prefer not having to wind em and the lack of rattlings a plus.I like reloading underfire to