OB, you still might consider the GSG-5, even with the H&K (maybe) coming in the future. It's a fine little weapon, but this week I discovered some series manufacturing shortcomings that need correction before plinking away.
And that, in turn, leads me to the Sunday Supplement. First, fixing some simple problem areas inside the GSG-5 that someone intentionally overlooked. All of the modules, including the receiver, are cast in halves, and held together with capscrews and nuts. Or at least that's how it's designed. Someone, to save a few cents, went with a shorter screw that tapped itself into the farther half of the part. If that screw strips or breaks (it's not a high-strength screw), the results can be catastrophic. And that type of construction is used throughout the firearm.
Fortunately, RRAGES.com sells a kit of the proper capscrews and bolts to replace all the questionable screws in a GSG-5. This is what the trigger module looks like with two of the original screws (red arrows), and two replacements (green arrows). I resisted the temptation to disassemble the entire module just so I could look at all the guts strewn around. It was one screw out, one replacement back in.
The other side is even more scary. We can see the hex depressions where the nuts should have gone, but didn't.
The trigger module was the worst, because it had a spring-loaded sliding plate that was held in place only by jamming the whole module, plus a couple of brass spacers, back into the outer trigger housing. I launched that spring four times, but St Barbara took pity on me, and I found it each time within a few seconds. I still shudder at someone's picture of the GSG-5 totally dissected into halves, with all the little springs, slides, screws, and other unidentifiable pieces laid out for my edification. There are more tiny pieces here than in a real MP5.
While I was ordering from RRAGES, I also bought a plastic cap for the open end of the charging handle tube. Now the plastic buffer hits the end of the housing before the steel charging handle stem hits the end of its slot in the aluminum tube. One less chance for battering.
Make no mistake, I'm not knocking the GSG-5. These shortcomings can be overcome, and I wouldn't go to this effort if I didn't want to protect my investment. In fact, I like the GSG-5 so much, I'm going to replace its generic dummy suppressor with a much more realistic dummy suppressor.
I've done this with the HK94, as you can sort of see in this latest photo. This dummy is made by MFI, which also makes real suppressors, so they can make their dummies as realistic as they want.
In this case, the steel main can is replaced by a thin aluminum one, which is permanently staked to the base of the unit. BATFE considers any can that can be accessed internally to be a suppressor per se. For that reason, MFI warns against buying airsoft suppressors, which can be opened, and for which BATFE sends people to the joint for ten years.
The MFI site is a playground for dummy suppressors, and accessories for real EBRs. Unfortunately, they have a strict rule of no image links, and use secret watermarks, so they get a bit snippy about using their images. But I like their products, and will pick up a few more.
For one thing, they make a lot of "retro" parts for the Sig 556. I guess there are a lot of owners out there who would like an "old school" 550 (like I had at one time), and want to add retro parts. One part I'm looking at is a three-prong open flash hider styled like the one of the Sig 552. I have a special application in mind for that.
That pretty much wraps up MFI and RRAGES for this week. The other new item is a "clipped and pinned" navy-style plastic housing on the HK94, courtesy of hkparts.net.
Basically, all of the semiauto H&K G3-derived weapons (which are no longer made) have a "shelf" welded to the back of the magazine housing. That prevents all the police and military trigger groups from fitting. The welded "shelf" is the single major item that makes an H&K receiver legal for civilian ownership. It can't be removed without doing as much work as building a whole new weapon from scratch. It's because of that definition that we have legal semiauto-only AR15s, M1As, Sigs, etc.
Here is my original semiauto assembly, and a "clipped and pinned" four-position navy housing with FBI-type semiauto-only parts inside. Despite the four settings, the selector only moves from safe to "1 bullet", and stops there. There are no full-auto parts inside.
This is "the shelf" (arrow) which prevents the use of the unmodified military/police assemblies. The civilian housing rests on the shelf, rather than using a pushpin to hold it in place. Where the pushpin would be, the shelf blocks that area.
Here's another view, along with an aftermarket "paddle" magazine release, that simulates the regular kind, that also can't fit because of the shelf.
This is how they "clip and pin". A regular housing has a pushpin epoxied into place for cosmetic purposes, and then the lower part of the housing is milled away so it will rest on the shelf, just like the original.
Because of internal dimensional differences, a whole new semiauto trigger pack is needed for the plastic housings, even though the functioning is identical. Thankfully, H&K made lots of "FBI trigger packs", which are semiauto-only. I think they were ordered after that disastrous FBI shootout in Florida with two crooks who knew something about fire-and-movement, rather than just shooting behind a car door. That may have been the start of "the cops are undergunned" mantra we still hear today.
So why go through all this trouble? First, because it's fun, and not trouble (at least for me). Second, I've just realized that my HK91 is now a rare and collectible item, and I can spiff it up, and yet keep all the original pieces. Third, it's a fun 9mm carbine to shoot. I've shot full-auto Uzis and MP5s, and the MP5, firing from a closed bolt, is a lot more accurate, and user-friendly than a straight-blowback SMG that has this hugh bolt mass slamming back and forth on powerful recoil springs. The same holds true in semi-automatic.
Now that your eyes are glazed over about all things H&K and clones, let me pass on word that I heard from the CZ boards. CZ is discontinuing the CZ452 series immediately, and probably the CZ453 soon, and will replace them with "modernized" versions. In reality, these "old school" weapons take too much handwork to make, and sell for too little. The choice walnut currently being used doesn't help their bottom line, either.
Add to that the probably permanent devaluation of the dollar, and CZ realizes they have to have a much cheaper product line to sell in America, which is still the biggest market for this stuff, much to the dismay the leftists and the UN.
So I'll be shopping for another CZ while there is still a decent choice. It might be rimfire, it might be the bigger model in centerfire. In any case, superb walnut is on the top of the list, because all the other features of a CZ are great, already. Once these are gone, it will be beech or plastic stocks, stamped or powdered-metal parts, and almost no hand labor. The rifle will still shoot, and still be a good deal. But we'll be kicking ourselves for missing the last of a vanishing world of gun making like they did almost a century ago.