AKS74U bits and pieces

I wanted some nice wood for my new VFC AKS74U STD - which has fake wood handguards - and I was originally going to buy the VFC wood upgrade kit from UN Company of Hong Kong ($54) but after some advice from the Red Alliance forum I began to look elsewhere.

Obviously the ideal upgrade for my '74U would be a set of real original Soviet wood handguards, but these go for several hundred dollars now (don't be tempted to believe places like EbairSoft which say they have 'real' Soviet handguards cheap - they don't). So after that the next best alternatives are - according to the Red Alliance guys - either the LCT wood parts or the laminated DBoys wood set.

Well, as I have a bit of a thang for LCT at the moment I decided to go for the LCT wood...

This beautiful lower handguard piece is just $25 from WGC Shop in Hong Kong. Of course, I still need an upper piece, but I actually intend to having a go at making one myself to match my LCT part. I have a bit of a dislike for the way that a lot of AKS74U handguards don't pair up well - the vents on either parts being misaligned - so I want to make a custom piece to align and fit exactly on top of the LCT lower handguard.

Aside from the wood I also treated myself to a new 9.6v  1600mAh stick battery for this AEG from the Component Shop for just £13.95.

And finally, because I want to try and go for authenticity with my VFC I am looking into how I can make my plastic MAG fake bakelite magazines look more like the real thing. I managed to find an excellent video tutorial on how to do this on YouTube, and while this looks a little dodgy you have to bear in mind that the real Soviet bakelite mags really did look this shoddy! :)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxlOfw6FXoU&w=500&h=405]