Project XM16E1 and a How-To (56k warning)

[Jackson]

The goods (still a WIP) (How-To includes many pics, hence the warning):








LAPCO Grey Ghost with 14" barrel for size comparison.  The M16 is I think 39 inches in length (about 1/2" shorter than real steel).


Opinions needed: Duracoat: Solid black or a Vietnam tiger stripe pattern?


So back in July we had a Vietnam scenario game.  And I don't know why, it just hit me that I wanted to go sort of all out for it.  I decided to go for the early Vietnam era M16 with the three-prong flash hider.  I think I was watching We Were Soldiers when the idea hit me, so I wanted to recreate the M16s in the movie, which had the three-prong and the forward assist making them XM16E1s (M16A1 had the birdcage flash hider).   

You see a lot of Tippmanns made into M4s/16s but IMO Tippmanns make a HORRID base for any kind of M4/16.  The body is too long.  The magwell is supposed to be up against the trigger guard and line up roughly with the front of the receiver.  Tippmanns are just too long, so either there's a gap between the trigger and magwell or there's a gap between the magwell and foregrip.  Secondly, the grip is always all wrong.  The grip is/was unique to the AR series.  They were (as far as I know) one of the first guns to use an ergonomic grip like that.  It's something that just makes the look complete.  A 45 frame (98) or MP-5 grip (A-5/X-7) just KILLS the whole look.  I'm sort of OCD, it's all about the details.

What I wanted to do was create what I thought would be the most realistic/accurate conversion.  The perfect base marker, IMO, was a Spyder since the body is shorter, the older grip frames had interchangeable grips (i.e. an M16 style grip can be attached), and I had an extra MR-1 sitting in a box, unused.  And this is where it ended up.

Overall, I'm happy with where it is.  It's not perfect, not as good as I had intended, but pretty good.  I still need to get a new mag for it (straight 18 round mag).  The sight rail is a bit small and the Spyder body is still a bit big (I think, don't have any AR to compare it to).  The barrel is a touch short.  And it needs some duracoat.


Comments/Questions/Suggestions?  Post up, I'm happy to answer.

[Jackson]

My camera sucks. Please excuse the slightly blurry pics.

How-To:

STEP 1: Parts

Materials: Spyder MR-1 base marker
Vietnam M16 handguard from RAP4
18" Tactical barrel from RAP4
Pronged flash suppressor tip RAP4
Carry handle from RAP4
M16/4 front sight RAP4
BT A-5 M16 stock
X-7 magwell
X-7 G36 short mag (not pictured)
Spyder Classic single trigger frame
VM-68 Lonestar II grip
3x male-female 1/8NPT extensions
45° 1/8NPT elbow
QD nipple
Custom work done by O'Lane

First thing first. I ordered all the parts. But there's virtually no good mods for Spyders out there. So I was stuck ordering parts for other markers and modding them myself to fit on the Spyder platform. RAP4 has a lot of stuff. I was leery of RAP4 because you hear so many stories about junk products. They got the nickname cRAP4 for some reason. I decided to take a chance, and I'm actually glad I did. Their stuff turned out to be of decent quality. Not the best, still priced high for what you get, but with no other real easy options, it will suffice. The carry handle, front sight, barrel, flash suppressor, and foregrip all came from RAP4. The foregrip actually looks to be real steel converted to fit on paintball markers. It still has a metal heat shield inside.

My biggest issue here was I wanted to go for accuracy/realism. Early M16s had a different carry handle/sight than modern ones.
 


The top is an M16A1. You can see the difference in the rear sight. It's simpler. It doesn't really have an elevation adjustment. RAP4 was the only place that sold a carry handle of this variety, all others were the more modern version. The RAP4 carry handle was designed for a M98/A-5 and attaches with a 3/8" dovetail.


STEP 2: Flattop

Issue #1. The MR-1 has a picatinny rail on top. And the top cocking travels down the middle of the picatinny. This makes the rail 100% useless. So I needed to find a way to somehow move the cocking mechanism so it doesn't interfere with the carry handle while simultaneously mounting a dovetail rail. Enter O'Lane. I remembered seeing him do some work making a flattop A-5. I kind of let him in on what I was trying to do, and he just ran with it. Flattopped my MR-1, made a dovetail to go on top, and rear, spring loaded charging handle like a real M16.









Pull back to cock, the spring returns it to the forward position. Like an A-5 cocking handle. Completely sealed. So beautiful. O'Lane does phenomenal work.


STEP 3: More flatness

The next issue was the ends of the marker. In front, a bit sticks out for the plug that holds the valve spring in. In back, the RVA sticks out a bit. The front interferes with mounting the foregrip flush. In back, the RVA prevents the stock from mounting flush.



(Not mine, didn't grab a pic before the mods)

Luckily there is a lot of extra material on the front plug. It's not drilled out at all and the part that sticks out the front was just solid aluminum. Little hacksaw, little file, done.



The RVA was a little more involved. Luckily there was threads for the screw in the part that remains in the marker, so I just hacked the extra sticking out the back off. I also cut some off of the screw so I wouldn't have to have the RVA turned in all the way for clearance. Dremeled a slot in the screw since I cut the allen key part off. The slot allows me to change velocity with a flathead. Done.



After:



CONTINUED IN NEXT POST

[Jackson]

STEP 4: Stock

I bought an A-5 M16 stock from BT. Seemed to be a good solid stock. I had no idea how it really mounted to the A-5 and just figured I'd fly by the seat of my pants and make it work one way or another on the MR-1. I knew I'd use part of the MR-1 stock. The stock attached by replacing the A-5 backplate. The replacement back plate had an extension out the back that fit into a tube with a rolled pin. The stock itself fit over the tube and a long bolt running the length of the stock secured it all.



(Tube with MR-1 stock part above, replacement back cap below)

Then I cut the MR-1 stock down to a stub and filed it to fit inside the tube, drilled a hole through and put the rolled pin back in.





Now the tube fits on the MR-1, slide the stock on, thread in the bolt and snug it up. The bolt makes the stock VERY sturdy. It is totally solid, no wobble, perfectly straight. The only minor issue is that since the stock slides over a round tube, it can rotate if you torque it a bit. As long at the bolt is sufficiently tight, normal play won't rotate the stock at all.




STEP 5:  Foregrip

The foregrip I bought was for a BT-4.  The rear ring on the foregrip is designed to fit over the barrel adapter (like on an A-5) and snug up with a set screw.  The problem is that the MR-1 obviously doesn’t have that adapter and the barrel it has to mount to is much narrower than the adapter. 

I decided to remedy this by drilling and tapping 3 more holes on the ring all the way around.  This way I would have 4 set screws evenly spaced around the barrel.  Holes 1 and 2 went fine.  The final hole, not so much.  Use lubricant went tapping.  And good taps.  That’s what I learned.  The tap snapped off in the hole.  And you are not getting it out.  So, I gave up and decided that I’d just use 3 and put the side with the missing screw on top.  Over the length of the grip (15” or so) you aren’t going to notice the back being off by less than an eighth of an inch.





The barrel is 18 inches plus 2 inches for the flash hider tip.  The barrel came with a birdcage tip, but me being a perfectionist and wanting to create an XM16E1 as best I could, spent another $15 on a pronged tip, which unfortunately has 4 prongs, not 3.   Close enough I guess.  The barrel has straight rifling the whole length.  I didn’t expect much out of the barrel in terms of accuracy, being a RAP4 barrel.  But I actually was surprised.  Not incredibly accurate, but enough for my tastes.  Get closer if you can’t hit them.

The front sight is designed for the barrel, no issues there (I think it was the only bolt on part of the build, LOL).

As an aside, the sights are 100% usable with a mask on.  And they are actually accurate.  They zero in about about 60 feet!  I was amazed.

[Jackson]

STEP 6: Magwell

The next project was mounting the X-7 magwell.  Again, me being the perfectionist, wanted it to be somewhat accurately lined up with the trigger guard, this meant making some sort of spacer between the body and the magwell.  The only material I had on hand at the time was a block of nylon.  Yeah, not the best idea, but this was two weeks before the event and I needed to get it done.  Nylon is a pain to work with.  You can only cut it with a hacksaw.  You can’t file it, sand it, dremel it, nothing.

After much labor, I got what you see here.  I mounted it to the MR-1 using the existing tapped holes that would normally hold the stock fake mag/foregrip to the body.  I also made a small piece to fill in the gap between the magwell and trigger guard better.  But Dos Equis amber and dremeling don't go together well, so it turned out sloppy LOL.  Also ground down a little nub on trigger guard to get a better look and make it easier to make the filler piece (you can see the missing paint).



The magwell sits over the air input.  Which luckily for me is NPT threaded and not metric (a rarity to find non-metric on a Spyder!).  I wanted the air to be routed as cleanly as possible and still allow me to “use” the mag (i.e. eject and put back in).  I decided to get some male-female extensions and a 45 degree elbow from Palmers to mount my QD nipple right at the back of the magwell aiming down and back.

To get through the spacer, I drilled a hole, but couldn’t make it large enough for the fitting without making the spacer too thin to be stable.  So I rounded the flats on the fitting with a file.  I didn’t go any further than the “lows” on the flats, just took the corners down.  Should be just as strong as an unmodified since the weakest (thinnest) spots were unchanged.



For reference, on the left is the modified, right unmodified.

The way everything is put together for the magwell (brackets hold the X-7 magwell to the spacer) assembly is difficult at best.  In order to get everything together I have assemble it in this order:

1. Mount the spacer
2. Thread in the modified extension and 45 degree fitting
3. Mount the magwell to the spacer
4. Create a sub-assembly of the remaining two extensions and QD nipple
5. Screw sub assembly into the 45 degree fitting using the QD nipple to get a wrench on

I had to do it this way because there is no room to get a wrench in the mag well to screw the extensions in individually.







Lastly, I had to cut the mag up a little bit for clearance around the air routing and the brackets/bolts for mounting the magwell.







STEP 7: Finishing touches/Last remarks

All that was left was to put the Lonestar grip on the frame (easy bolt on) and get some paint on the flat top/cocking mechanism (came from O’Lane bead-blasted aluminum).  A friend of mine has a small airbrush and duracoat, so we quickly got some on.  Not the best, but it will do for now.  I still need to get the rest of the body duracoated.  Hopefully I can get that done over the winter at http://www.customguncamo.com (plug for dbug).

I still need to order a short mag to complete the look.  Just haven’t gotten to that yet.

Overall, I’m really happy with how it turned out.  There are a few minor things: the carry handle is a bit small and/or the body is too long, the whole broken tap in the foregrip thing, the nylon looking not so great, needs a short mag, four pronged flash hider instead of three, the barrel is about 1-2 inches short (but the overall length of the marker is only 1 inch short than real steel...).  But I think I did a pretty good job creating an accurate XM16E1 replica.

This thing is so much fun to play with.  The barrel only has porting on the last two inches so it is LOUD!  It really cracks with every shot.  Because the stock is inline with the internals, you actually get some kick back.  Not firearm level, but more than I'm used to in a paintball marker.  During the 'Nam scenario, I had many people doing double takes.  I had at least a couple people comment that it looked real and sounded close to real and that except for the large barrel and hopper, they might have thought it was real.

Link to my Photobucket gallery for more pictures: http://s80.photobucket.com/albums/j166/PvtDBJackson/XM16E1/

[Crimson]

BOOM! EPIC!

[Enhander]

Love it! With your permission, Id love to put this on the Mod shop on the FEAR website!

[Jackson]

Love it! With your permission, Id love to put this on the Mod shop on the FEAR website!

Go ahead!

[Varnel]

BAT SON!

[BLACK MAMBA]

very slick 

[Enhander]

Jackson, this will be updated on the site this evening. Ill let everyone know when its up.
I would have Will duracoat it Solid black.

[Jackson]

Jackson, this will be updated on the site this evening. Ill let everyone know when its up.
I would have Will duracoat it Solid black.

Yeah, that's what I plan.  Hopefully shouldn't be much, I just need the body, mag, and carry handle done.  The barrel, stock, and foregrip are all fine as is.