RA-Tech WE AK PMC (by Gruppa-L)

After waiting unbearable 2 weeks to receive my ordered RA-Tech WE AK PMC, I finally can hold it in my hands and call it mine. It does quite a great impression and feels rugged and sturdy.

To be honest, I find an AK 47 in the”PMC” look quite ugly – but that is my personal opinion. None the less, I think WE did a pretty good job to get the PMC look right and showed courage to bring a “western” AK to the GBBR Market. Variation is always good.

This particular WE AK PMC model is a customized one by RA-Tech and officially called “RA-Tech Custom Works WE AK-PMC Level 1″. In optical terms there is no difference from the regular WE AK PMC.

The Main differnce are in the upgraded internals and are as follows:

• RA WE AK steel CNC trigger
• RA WE AK steel CNC hammer
• RA WE AK steel CNC sear
• RA WE AK steel CNC firing pin
• RA WE AK steel CNC Valve Locker
• RA NPAS Kit
• RA WE AK steel CNC inner select lever
• RA Precision inner barrel 6.01mm
• RA Hop Up Rubber

The first thing I did after taking it out of the box and aiming a few time down the sight and charging (while grinning like a moron), was to dismount the “reload help” also known as “magwell”.

Unscrewing the 2 screws which were holding the magwell was quite a fight, since WE drizzled a drop of blue Locktite on each screw. After 2-3 minutes it was done and the AK  was free of that “dead weight”.

Another thing that I noticed while unscrewing the magwell was, that the Buffer Tube was loose. After screwing the flat-head socket head cap screw (ah…I love those long english technical terms) the tube was tight – for now. After shooting a few dry shots it got loose again. I have no Idea why WE didn’t drizzle another drop of Locktite here. Would’ve been definitley more useful then on the magwell screws…

However, the Buttstock over all is quite nice, since the cheek rest ist comfortable – until you mount a reddot and intend to use it. It is really low but for what it was intended –  for iron-sight aiming – it is perfect in its height. But this is just a small setback for me, since I already ordered a new buttstock – more  ALFA ANTITERROR style.

The Buttstock is M4/CAR15 like and has 6 positions – each 1 cm in difference to each other. Downside – if you want to mount another style Buttstock (realwood or underfolder, etc.), you will need to drill out the rivets holding the Buffer Tube.

WE did a good job in the little details, that I personally really like. The Buttstock has 2 seperate chambers for storing for e.g. battery’s, skittles or even the original AK47 cleaning kit. Also the buffer tube has a hidden and even with a O-ring sealed chamber (if waterproof, I can’t confirm for now, but I will soon check this matter an add it to the review). Both only reachable if the Buttstock is taken off from the Buffer Tube.

Another lovely detail is the intergrated Swing Swivel QD (quick detach) for your Sling of your choice. Just press the button in the middle and take it off or switch it to the other side.

Love it and saves me the bucks for getting one!

What I really like are the cyrillic leters on the Fire-selector - ДВ for Full-Auto and OД for Semi-Auto – just like the real deal. The Fire-selector itself is also “westernized” and has a “Bolt-Catch” or “Bolt-Lock” – you can charge the Bolt back and put the selector on safe and  lock it (see picture above) – so you can engange quicker in a possible “fire-fight scenario”. Switch it to to Full or Semi and you are ready to shoot – since the bolt automaticly feeds the first round. Quite cool, but quite useless.

The extra little handle on the fire selector is a great addition, because you can easily reach it with the tip of your index finger and even switch it from safe to semi and backwards.

My favorite part of this GBBR is the Full-Travel-Bolt. Full Travel in terms of that you can charge the bolt the full way back like you can on an real AK – total of 12cm!! Thanks to WE’s open-bolt system you have also the optical pleasure of shooting an real AK – not to mention the amazing blowback. The WE AK-series has an amazing kickback – it feels like shooting a real 9mm gas-operated Rifle.

On this picture you can see the easy accessible Hop-Up unit. Turning the serrated wheel to the right increases the Hop-up (bb’s shooting up) and turning it to the left does the contrary (bb’s shooting down). As mentioned before, this custom worked version from RA-Tech has already the RA-Tech Hop-Up Rubber implemented.

For me as a russian gear and weapon fetichist the debossed Star and the (same as on every other WE AK, even the shoter WE AK74UN) “ongoing” serial number is a straightforwarded slap to the face. But to stay impartial – it does not effect the GBBR’s function in any way – thankfully!

Since I live in germany and we need the “F” in a pentagon symbol on our “GBB’s and other compressed air guns” by law (to indicate to the public that this is a “Free weapon” – Free in terms of you can buy it at the age of 18 and it has max. muzzle energy of 7,5 Joule), I am quite happy that the importer did the “Law” markings decently.

The lower Receiver and the Top Cover are – again- just like the real deal made out of stamped steel. They look, feel and sound also like the same.

On the left picture you can see the Rear Sight and the Block Assembly. The Rear Sight can be modified from 100m-1000m – like you can on an real AK. The Block Assembly has strangely a rough surface – not to mention hat it is made out of an alloy casting o0 – well at least it is metal and not some polymer/plastic stuff.

The Gas-Tube lever works just like the real counterpart – push it up to be able to disassamble the Gas-Tube.

Lower and upper Handguard seem likely, but are made out of 2 different materials. Whereas the lower Handguard is made out of a (very durable) polymer (including the lower rails – excepting the side rails, those are steel), the upper Handguard is completely made out of an alloy casting (sadly the same goes for the bolt – maybe RA-Tech will deliver later a steel CNC one).

Front Sight and outer Barrel are also made out of an alloy casting – intrestingly the Muzzle, cleaning Rod, Front Sight Rivet and the Front Sight Bead are made out of Steel. Again – thankfully it is “metal” and not some chinese plastic.

The Muzzle can be unscrewn after pushing the safety pin in (on top) – If an real steel AK74 or other Muzzle can be attached without modification, I can’t say – for now – since I don’t have any lying around (I will check and add later to the review)

Cleaning Rod can also be detached and even used like a real one! Just fiddle some cloth on the lower opening and ready you are for some barrel cleaning – but caution! be gentle and try not to scratch the inner barrel! (could probably harm your precision). The Front Sight Bead can be unscrewn like on an real AK and painted or even exchange with colored or even glowing (tritium) aftermarket beads.

Another cool thing and beside the full-travel bolt and hard blowback the reason why I decided to buy this GBBR, is the way how to dissasemble this Rifle. I know, I know, I said it already a million times – but again – its just like the real deal!

1. Press the holding button.
2. Take Top Cover away.
3. Take the recoil Spring out.
4. Slide the Bolt with Piston to the back of the Rifle
5. Take Bolt and Piston out.
6. Done!

Of course you could disassemble the triggerunit and so on – but for cleaning purposes or maintenance this is perfect, since you can reach everything important from this initial position.

On the right picture you can see the difference of the Piston length from the WE AK PMC and the (the lower one) WE AK74UN.

Sadly the recoil/blowback does not really work like a gas-powered Rifle does in real life.

Here you can see really good the Trigger Unit and the “naked innards” of this beauty. As mentioned in the beginning – most parts (the importan ones) are made out of steel (not casted!)

The Magazine which is included is a AK47 7.62×39 stamped steel style magazin. There is no technical difference between the PMC Magazines and the AK74UN (5.45×39) – both fit in the WE AK PMC and vice versa. This gives the buye the advantage to “decide” whether you want an 7.62×39 or an 5.45×39 “Poison Bullet” style AK. My persion decision is the latter one.

But there is a major difference between both Magazine types, which you will notice after a long period of using and abusing this GBBR. The AK74UN (5.45×39) Magazine are completel made out of plastic – even the hook lips and the nose (sorry, I have no idea what the correct english terms are) of the mag. You will significantly see that it wears off after time and soon or later you will have problems in insert the Magazines without wobble or problems. The 7.62×39 style Magazines have those important parts made out of Steel, like the rest of the Magazine. I don’t know why WE decided to save again on the wrong things (like the drizzle of Locktite for the Buffer tube – Oh well…)

To prevent this, I decided to buy some real steel Magazines and exchange the hull witht the WE Magazines (after some modifications) – A Tutorial will follow shortly.

On the left you can see the Gas Valve and the 2 switches which are used to change the shooting state of the Magazine. If you want to dry fire (without any bb’s), put the top switch to the back (in direction to the Gas Valve) – if not, do the other way around and you will here a classical metal “click” when you are out of “bullets”.

On the right side you can see the Gas output and the feeding lips for the bb’s. Both Magazines types hold a maximum of 50 bb’s per Magazine. (For my Taste to much, since I am a MilSim type of player – but thats ok, since I can easily load only 30 bb’s)

To be Honest, I didn’t had the time to properly test the shooting ability, but using only Green Gas (Brand: UltraAir) and KingArms Platinum Series 0.25g bb’s, shooting at ~30m with a Temperature of 12-15 degree Celsius and high humidity (after Raining) and using only Iron Sights, the GBBR shoots without any Cooldown problems (around 100 shots rapidly) pretty good. I shot at a McDonalds Coffee cup with the Size of around 11cm x 6cm (upside down on a stick) and hit around 80% of the time while standing. But this is not enough to say whether its amazing, good or something. The time will tell how good it is and I will continously update the “longtime stresstest”

I tried one mag of Devils Blaster Diamond Grade Precision 0.40g bb’s in grey – and I can already tell that those are not compatible with the WE AK series. I got heavily feeding problems with the Magazine. They kept stucking in the mag and didn’t even reached the feeding lips.

Real Contractor somewehere in Afghanistan or Iraq with an EOTech Holographic Sight.