FG42 Airsoft

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This is90% complete only there are still rough bolts and tape holding it together.I can post more pics of how
It is constructed if any body wants to see them.
It is made on sheet steel and some machined aluminium parts and real wood .

Looks authentic and accurate to me! Good luck with the rest of the build. Looking forward to hearing about how it goes.

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TM COMPATIBLE M14 gearbox,nearest to the shape i could find to get the look i want.The two ALU blocks are attatched with a steel pin at the front and a usfull thread in the caseing on the rear block,these blocks will be trapped bettween the reveiver walls and screws will hold it firmly in place.ANY gearbox movement at all will result in crap shooting,or more likely no shooting at all because it wont work.
I want to enjoy shooting this as well as looking at it,if it looks like Fred Flinstone made it and nothing comes out the end when i pull the trigger i'm waisting my time.
The g36 hop unit has been cut in half and a side feeding housing with feed tube attatched,ignore the short barrell it is just to make it easy to work on.These hop ups are known for accurate shooting,and keeping their setting while under gearbox vibration,so boo to all those m4 and Ak hop units.
At the bottom is the trigger plunger the left side of the plunger has an old gearbox bearing on the end to reduce friction.The trigger length of pull will be fully adjustable,with this design,the square part in the middle of the unit is the adjuster.On the far right of the pluger you can just see the white/black microswitch with 3 small pins.to the right of that is Gate Nano mosfet,although this is now fitted in Ar15 i have just built from bits and bobs.

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Here is the rough shape of the receiver,the rounded section at the top was formed by the 1 inch bar in the press.The L shaped part bottom right is the fillet to form the sides of the pistol grip and will be welded in place.The cut out in the grip is for access to a spring loaded pluger that will actuate my micro switch,the one i have may be designed for a computer mouse,the amperage it must take is very low, it is only the signal current for the mosfet.
the aluminium plate(2 off) will screw onto the side of the grip to get the correct shape,if i need to work in my trigger and mechanism this plate will be removable.
The bulge on the right and side is to accomadate my mechbox motorrThe plate on the left is the front plate,the bent over tabs give it strength and more contact area for the weld.this plate will have a turned
bush, with a small screw,the outer barrel will locate in the bush/ring if that is easier to understand.
Also i will have to fabrictate the side loading magwell.It will be riveted to the receiver later.

Looking great so far. How did you do the bipod?

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I used a 1 inch bar pressed into a wooden vee shape with a fly press this folded the butterfly design reciever into the u shape i need,and mp5/g3 reciever is made in a similar way.

The FG42 is famous having a number of relatively modern features for its day all in one package,even if this gun did not show all of these ideas 1st.It was a 94cm hand held gun with selective fire,although it fires a full size cartridge it reduced recoil in 3 ways,a flash surpressor with compensation ports,a tapered cartridge in a parallel chamber,the case would expand in the chamber softening the recoil,also the stock was spring loaded.A repro FG is seen on youtube and several shooters fire the gun and state it kicks no more than an AR15.Accuracy is further enhanced by firing from a closed bolt semi auto,and cooling is aided in full auto by firing open bolt.The mechanism is not overly complicated also.The model E I am making was not that durable that is why it was re-designed after only 2000 were made,only about 100 exist today.Other features include bayonet,bipod,folding sights and semi bullpup design which allows a long barrel for accurate shooting.The side load mag will allways be downside on this rifle as it makes it unbalanced,also the bipod apears to be effectively usless it just folds when you fire.
History lesson over,back to airsoft dreams,i have machined my compensator from aluminium and used one of those cheap compound vices to drill the holes,this vice will turn your drill into a kind of cheap milling machine.The sight mount next to it is sheet metal,i was going to make a former for this but got away with using a vice and hammering around round bar with a big nylon mallet.The tube is 16mm steel,any parts that fit on the tube must be a close fit or you will have problems.
Further down the barrel is the gas block and bipod mount.This has been machined(ali)in the lathe then band sawn and finished of with belt sanders,this is ideal as there will be several threaded holes that must be durable,a casting will never be as good.
The stock is 0.9mm steel to save weight,although generaly i use 1.2mm elsewhere as it is easier to weld and stronger,i have carved a piece of oak,place it on the metal and add about 16mm to the outline.
clamp it in a big vice and give it good f***ing with a nylon mallet with a 2 inch diameter face.Its not that hard trust me.The relieved detail on the stock is stamped in a die,I don't have that option,so i will braze strips of steel to get the ribs
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Hi Raffles the bipod on the real gun is a complex shape,a one piece steel stamping.as a one off I have had to improvise,and make it in
Two parts a strip of Ali for the pivot and a sheet steel lower section.
There are replicas of real steel versions of this gun in production.When the SMG Guns second model prototype was made
before they started to do a production run the guy doing the work said he was still not sure how the legs would lock
In the retracted or deployed positions..However the fg42 first model being produced on Gunlab appears the have a spring
Loaded catch on the underside near the pivot point.To be honest I don't know the exact specific details of the originals
But in the vickers tactical fg42 (first model) youtube video the bipod seems to just collapse under recoil unless the left
hand is braced against the bipod leg.So effectively it is useless.
My pivot is a 60x13x6 piece on aluminum the,a m6 bolt holds it on the gas block in front of the wood foregrip. A steel
Sleeve or bush around the bolt that is longer than the thickness of the aluminum Strip, prevents the bolt putting pressure on the Ali
strip.A cup shaped spring steel washer under the head then puts friction on the Ali strip and thus there is reduced loosening of the bolt,
this will be loctited in place.
The lower leg is hammered from sheet steel.I recommend 1.2 mm,although I have used 0.92 mm steel ,the thinness is an issue so I have used cs70 silicon manganese Carbon steel.This steel can be hardened and tempered so it will be very tough indeed and this gives me the front end lightness I need,so my airsoft experience won't be spoilt by a over heavy weapon..The grooves can either be swaged by sheet metal rollers,or you can just hammer and chisel along a felt tip line over a piece of wood.The feet are turned out by beating with a ball peign
Hammer over a piece of wood,and then,hammering over a chisel in a vice the get the lip shape.One edge is turned over by trapping the sheet between two bars of steel and hammer it,I used a nylon mallet with a 2 inch face,get one,they can work wonders and don't bruise
the steel.
Just about every component has had to be resized or re-engineered either to accept the airsoft components,or because the original production method can't be replicated with out the tooling used in mass production.This design has took many hours to think out,
hopefully my posts will help some other people with their own builds.,I do make hand made things for people under the name
St George Armoury..This project is just a hobby,although I have built guns for people before.

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Here you can see I have carved the stock former from oak,I am using 0.9mm steel for lightness.
Place the former on the metal and add 19mm around the outline,cut out the sheet metal and clamp the sheet and
the former in a bench vice,and hammer the metal with a nylon mallet to get the shape.The raised ribs in my case are made by cutting
Strips of steel and brazing them in place.
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On the left is an almost finished fire selector lever,below it is a band sawn blank that it was made
from ,it is then machined in a lathe.

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Here I am machining the cooling slots in the foregrip .The rounded shape would make the use of
a router difficult,A milling machine is the obvious choice but I had to improvise with this
heath Robinson set up instead.The cutter is in the lathe chuck where the metal component
You are machining normally goes.
As long as it works and I have not had to pay any body to do it for me.

Hi been away from here for a while,I managed to actualy make it to some WW2 games and test the gun,before I got it all blacked,colour anodised aluminium and hot chemical blacking which the latter is very scratch and wear resistent on my other guns that have extensive use.
Spec as follows

weight with mag and lipo = 3.4kg,balance is good, its around the pistol grip due to the gearbox mostly being behind this piont.

RPS =13with mosfet and 7.4 lipo,it has a cyma grey motor with black endbell,not the greatest of nmotors but they do the job,have had no lockups due to lack of torque.

Gearbox -cyma V7 TM COMPATIBLE.This brand is very very dependible considering the cheapness,£32 from Tiger111.I have added shims to the gears as normal otherwise it is stock,it is is 345-350 fps although i have seen 368 from it but my nozzle may not now be so well aligned or the spring has been left compressed as there is no cut of lever to help park your piston all the way forward.I have drilled a hole in the bottom of the gearbox and reciever so i can poke a wire in and pop my AR latch.
Also it seems to have a medium length motor(unconfirmed) and not a short,AK MOTORS DO NOT FIT,BUT IT IS LONGER for sure.Also my bevel gear had a tight spot,due to one of the teeth so i changed it,only the spur gear is non standard i think.
The tappet plate spring seems to be not that powerfull due to friction so feeding with the mid caps seems to stop once the mid caps are fully loaded.Not sure what to do about that.

Angled Grip - This is generaly ok but if you hold the gun one handed when doing lots of mag changes my wrist does start to ache,i dont get this problem with any other guns so i hold the gun differently
when mag changing which partly negates the advantage of a pistol stock grip on an assualt rifle,well in my opinion.

Disassembly - A dream compared to most TM constructed guns.
I just press the spring button on the stock slide it off,pull off the motor connectors,undo the 2 m3 allen screws on the side of the reciever slide out the gearbox.the barrel wont quite slide out the back after the gearbox,so i split the forestock and outer barell from the reciever,by removing the long m6 bolt that sits bettween the bipod pivots,so less than 2 minutes all together.Also the gearbox is much easier to work on as all that m14 crap is removed externaly.I dont even need a screw driver to change my trigger micro switch,it just slides on to two pins,although i do have to undo the screws on the grip side plate,also i can get at the trigger mechanism,and do any repairs or change my length of trigger pull.

Looks -- type 1 Fg42 so say no more most awsome looking assault rifle on the planet-EVER.

Accuaracy and Range when i poke it out my workshop window the bb's are in the hedge on the other side if the field,so i know that is 230ft,dont tell the farmer.Also hits can get a grouping the size of a head at 80ft so i am happy.It just has the cyma firefly clone bucking that came with the cyma g36 hop unit i am using, that cost $4 all in.Bargain,Tiger111 again.The hop is adjusted by a drum the best design by far in my opinion,stays where it is set,is not too sensative like on an m4, and is just inside the ejection port and you dont have to touch anything to get to it and you can do it with gloves on.

Magazines they are MAG brand,i had them blacked with the other parts,i did not want them grey,yuk.I have one of the short ones too,that is my 10round jump mag.Loaded in the gun when parachuting

A good tip for builders- I use M3 Socket head hex drive or allen screws,thay use a 2.5mm key,if you use m4 button or dome head and m5 grub screws,that just a thread with a hex drive hole in it,all 3 types of screw need only one tool or allen key when working on it,a big advantage,I will put one of these keys in the stock as often vibration can make them come undone.Also these screws last longer without rounding off on the drive hole,I use high tensile engineering quality black ones,they are very good on gearbox casings too.You can buy small quantities on ebay,so ****off all those soft philipes screws on your guns now.
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These are my annodised aluminium parts,they way 0.34kg,steel has a specific gravity 3 times that of ali,so these parts could have weighed 1kg instead,big difference.
Top is the bayonet
2nd row pistol grips,flash hider,bipod pivots,front and rear sights,hop unit(half of it) 2nd grip
3rd row,mag catch,catch side cover,gas block and bipod mount,trigger,silver drum to lock trigger,small flat on one edge allows shooting,below selector lever and knob,charging handle.

You've done a very good job there , I've been asked more than a few times if I could build FG42's but people shy away when I start talking prices and timescale. You should be very pleased with it !

Hi thanks, this project took nearly 3 years from buying the gearbox, to completion of the gun,and hundreds of hours of my spare time designing and manufacturing.
i worked in my spare time,and all parts had to designed around airsoft requirements and available manufacturing techniques.
As a builder of similar projects you are one of the few people who understand how long it actualy takes,I did'nt think i would ever finish to be honest.
Too bad ww2 games seem to be a bit thin on the ground at the moment also,either being sold out,canceled or too far to travel,so i am shooting it the local blat fest's in my area at the moment.
I am at a loss as to what magazine pouches to use,is a FJ K98 amo bandolier the most apropriate to use as i have 6 magazines?.

Good build, have you considered the FG42 bandolier for your ammo carrying purposes? They look ace.