Aliens M4a1 Pulse Rifle

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It is generally agreed as one of the most famous science fiction rifles of all times. Its the 1986 James Cameron movie prop the M4a1 pulse rifle. In the film the pulse rifle fires 10mm armour tipped caseless rounds and has an underslung 30mm grenade launcher. To make the film as realistic as possible, and because he is a stickler for attention to detail, Cameron had a short M4a1 history written about it. This was later added to by enthusiasts, there was even a full manual on the rifle and variants produced. This is a much sought after book as it is long out of print. The gun was made in England and was originally supposedly to be built around the mp5. There is 2 stories about this: the first one is the mp5 had too small a flash and Cameron for the big shootout with the only hero model (aka- a working model for closeups and live fire) wanted a spectacular flash for the famous lab scene and the other is probably just as likely, he didnt have a lot of money (the film makers fox were reluctant to pay for Aliens) and mp5's were not cheap then. So they picked something readily available with a big flash-- hence the ww2 thompson. The hero model had a modified remington 870 shotgun with franchi shotgun shrouds slung underneath. You see this used by all the main actors, Hicks in the 'shoot it out' scene, Hudson and Vasquez in the 'other one is toast watch out kid' scene, Hudson/Hicks/Vasquez in the lab sequence and the air vents. As an other aside there is one glaring error in the film, in one scene when Vasquez is firing, you can see shell casings ejected, kinda a big problem for caseless ammunition, nit picking i know, but there you go.

So why all this crap? Well so far i have gone in my life to see 3 movies in back to back days, star wars (yes when it came out first), aliens and more recently the matrix. Of the 3 of them i would have done aliens 3 nights in a row except the friggen cinema wasnt showing it. Off all science fiction movies Aliens is my favourite, i have gone through 3 vcr tapes and 2 dvd's of it, as in i wore them out...

Over the years there has been many attempts to produce kits, mods, models and indeed i have bought a few of them. Then an airsoft version was produced based around a TM thompson. I bought the kit and the thompson but could never bring myself to mod the thompson as it is such a stunning TM model. Finally i decided enough was enough.

Steps
you need to take (just like the movie) the receiver and the barrel, stripping off everything else. All the woodwork goes, the outer barrel. you do need to keep 2 of the bolts as they are used in the model.

The rear stock is built first and is actually quite simple with 3 stages. You also need to rewire the aeg to move the battery from the rear to the front. The model fits together very nicely. There is quite a bit of metal pieces but all of the main shrouds are plastic. The only glaring exception is the shotgun. That is fake. The main reason is there is not a lot of space for a battery. There has been many many many attempts to put a remington with TM franchi shrouds in the front but the tolerances for the plastic are all wrong and it doesnt fit. There was only one model that used the internals from another shotgun and had an external battery bag by a company called Monsters in Motion. Nice on the shotgun, yeuck on the battery bag and from memory the price was around 3grand.

the only tricky part i met was the front shot gun housing, this is the opening for the battery. it didnt appear to fit, it was an hour later before i realised that it unscrews off. This leads me to the first issue with the kit...the photo guide looks good when you start but you quickly realise that it is quite poor. It is not clear which screw is used where and it can become a bit of a lottery on which one you pick. I am also aware in the stock, there is one piece vulnerable to failure, its a plastic grommit at the rear where the stock exits...more on this later.

It took about 5 hours (namely because of the screws) before i finished it. It is nt a complicated mod.

I am seriously thinking of getting a cheapo acm shotty and modding it into the model.

The shrouds clip together and are bolted. It is quite robust, a lot more then i expected it to be. It fires, well, it fires like a TM Thompson, because thats what it is.

Things to be aware of:

you need to get a small TM magazine. These are hard enough to find, i had one from when i originally bought the kit a few years back.

If you are picky like me, the colour is all wrong, The shrouds on this one are olive drab and indeed if you look at the film they look olive drabbish but in fact they were a brownish/OD colour, humbrol matt 170 (apparently). More good news, thats no longer made either. I have a few pots of it i will spray this model with.

The bullet counter works..which i will be honest, is incredibly cool. When you install the small magazine the counter goes to 95. There is a receiver unit in the barrel that counts the bb's as they travel through. From memory the mag takes 3 times the 95 rounds, so the counter reduces for every third bb fired...quite cool i think. the counter uses a 9v battery mounted in the base by the mag.

the mag cover is very poor design and is only clipped on. There is a guy making replacements for this and i think i will buy a few of them as they are built for the hi cap mag and winding, allowing you to really use this in a game.

Is it viable as an aeg?
in a word, probably not, okay thats 2 words. if you were part of a whole aliens thing, and as i have the body armour, the uniform, the shoulder flashing, etc etc , well then this is your only option. You could toughen it up a bit with little or no effort, but in its base form you would be risking damage i expect.

Overall, i am very happy with it. One or two small changes and it would be very robust. It is a good copy of the m4a1, apparently for the really anal retentive types, there is one or 2 minor errors (the number of franch indentation on the shotgun shroud from memory, yes, some people count them!)but 98% is good enough for me. It is expensive tho. the TM aeg is gutted (anyone wants to buy stock parts, give me a shout), the model was about 400 dollars when i bought it. So its the guts of a 1000 dollars to make. The recent chinese thomson since it is a copy also works for the model as its a 100% copy.

Coolness factor :10/10 (if you like aliens)
Ease of build 7/10
Cost 2/10

pictures to follow....once i can get the camera to upload!

ps...you can replace the grommit with anything more robust then plastic. Anything tougher then plastic is better.

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here is some with the aliens nades...full alum button press ones no less and the uniform





thats the same type shotgun box from the movie..