Thompson wood kits and metal lower receiver

Nice find!

Ooo, I'd be up for a metal lower receiver!

Post some feedback if you put it on a Marui or one of it's clones. I'm curios if it is a KA only part or if its just KA covering their a****.

Sounds interesting. I wonder how much it's going to cost though. If it's expensive, I might as well buy one of their all metal and wood stock M1A1s.

Sounds interesting. I wonder how much it's going to cost though. If it's expensive, I might as well buy one of their all metal and wood stock M1A1s.

But do those actually have a metal frame? Last I heard, it's plastic, like all the others.

There are two versions (not counting the '1928' and gold or chrome versions).
The "Thompson M1A1 Military Ultra Grade" that has plastic 'wood' and metal upper and plastic lower receivers
http://www.kingarms.com/productpage.asp?prodid=1930
And the "Thompson M1A1 Military" that has real woodwork, metal upper and lower receivers.
http://www.kingarms.com/productpage.asp?prodid=1933

It's a pity that the "1928" wood kit isn't a proper, M1928 woodkit. The stock is the same as the M1A1 kit, if the photo's are accurate. Metal lower looks nice though.

They're now in stock at UNCompany:

http://www.uncompany.com/pageproductdet ... odid=29769
http://www.uncompany.com/pageproductdet ... odid=29770
http://www.uncompany.com/pageproductdet ... odid=29768

I'm sooooo going to try to pick up one of these receivers when I'm in HK. If they're cheap enough, I might get a few...

I'm sooooo going to try to pick up one of these receivers when I'm in HK. If they're cheap enough, I might get a few...

Try going to the ehobbyasia retail store. They have an awful lot there

I'm sooooo going to try to pick up one of these receivers when I'm in HK. If they're cheap enough, I might get a few...

Try going to the ehobbyasia retail store. They have an awful lot there

Cheers for the heads-up!

I'm sooooo going to try to pick up one of these receivers when I'm in HK. If they're cheap enough, I might get a few...

Try going to the ehobbyasia retail store. They have an awful lot there

Cheers for the heads-up!

you're welcome

ehobbyasia online are showing as out of stock

Having looked at them more, I'd like to know which parts of them were "CNC machined" - I know for a fact that a lot of the features of those receivers can only be made by die casting.

Just fitted one of these King Arms M1A1 wood kits to my CYMA. The kit comes with decent instructions, but warns that modification may be necessary on non-KA Thompsons.

The stock goes on without fuss.

The pistol grip goes on very tightly and I had to countersink the hole where the screw goes in the bottom for the CYMA screw to reach in and catch the thread.

The fore grip is the kind with the angular screw for KA and TM's. I just filed away at the angle until it was more or less straight through and it goes on fine. It just sits a few mm forward. You'll see in the picture the tiniest of gaps between the area above the neck of the barrel and the start of the fore-grip.

The sling mounts on the CYMA will probably fit if you widen the holes outwards on them with a steel drill bit. The holes on the furniture appear to be a little wider apart than on the CYMA sling mounts. I didn't bother because I don't sling my Thompson.

The butt-plate dispenses with swivel hinge system and uses the same threaded insert system as the HP PPSH, so you'll need a flat head screwdriver to change batteries. Screws included.

The furniture is a darker colour than the orange plastic CYMA stocks, the colour lies somewhere between walnut and mahogany:

It wasn't so much the look of the plastic furniture on the CYMA that irked me before if I'm honest, but more the cheap feel and racket that came off of it when you shouldered the gun. So no more creaking orange plastic for me

looks nice greedo, so you recon it'll fit a TM then no probs, where did you buy your kit from?

Cheers.

Should do mate. You might need to widen the pistol grip screw hole to get the screw in far enough to bite on the thread at the base of the motor cage, but the most problematic part for me was the angular fore-grip screw hole. TMs and KA's are angular so no problem for you but CYMA just goes straight up.

I ended up getting real steel mounts from Soldier of Fortune because of my OCD. Never sling it but what the hell I can sleep now

They went on without issue. Again the TM sling mounts might be the proper size. But the CYMA sling mounts don't quite line up with the pre-drilled holes on the stock and fore grip.

Got mines from UN company for $86 shipped.

I've arrived back in Blighty.
Anyone interested in a review of the KA metal lower receiver?

Anyone interested in a review of the KA metal lower receiver?

Me

Okay then, This is my review of the KA metal Thompson lower receiver:

First Impressions
The receiver is packaged in a brown cardboard box, approx 6"x4"X11", with KA label stickers stuck to the box top and ends - much like the packaging for the range of boxed mid-cap magazines they produce. Inside the box, you'll find the receiver wrapped up in a layer of bubble-wrap, but on all other accounts free to move about inside the box as no other packaging is there. Also included is the nicely written glossy paper picture-heavy fitting instruction booklet (which I'll try to get scanned and post up as and when I can do so). The receiver comes in two part! Yes, two! There's the main receiver body, and then there's the little half-sectioned pivot end (which is purely ornamental except for holding the mag' release catch below a point from which it could be accidentally removed). On the TM and CYMA plastic receivers, this half-sectioned pivot end is just a moulded part of the receiver and thus cannot be removed from them, which makes removing a the mag' catch from a TM or CYMA Thompson a little harder than a KA Thompson, and so goes against the KA instructions which indicated the removal of this part when disassembling your gun to fit this new receiver. The receiver IS NOT CNC machined, it is purely die-cast with no evidence of any machine finishing. The paint finish is nice, rather hard wearing and matches the finish on my CYMA upper receiver nicely. The ornamental trigger-mech' pivot locking spring of the right hand side of the receiver is made from separate machine/water-cut steel parts, with a (looks like) bare sand-blasted finish which helps increase the levels of realistic appearance.

Fitting
The KA fitting instructions warns you that this part was designed for KA guns, and fitment to a non-KA gun might require a little fettling. As it is, I could and did reassemble my Thompson to test out the tolerance match of the parts without any modifications. The problems that arose though were many. Firstly, the gearbox is a very tight squeeze into the width of the receiver internals, and this squeeze caused the fire-selector cam to refuse to rotate. This is mainly down to the recess for this cam in the side of the receiver not being deep enough for the TM or CYMA cam. Secondly, the slide-lock fit of the lower receiver to the upper receiver was extremely tight. Thirdly, the longer stock-securing bolt (that screws into the threaded spigot in the top receiver half) would not pass through the hole meant for it in the lower receiver as it was drilled/cast approx 2mm too far forward, so the lower receiver had to be slid back from the upper receiver by 2mm before the bolt could pass though and screw home - this caused other problems though and the mag' housing would then be 2mm further back in relation to the hop-up which would cause poor magazine insertion and bad line-up with the hop feed tube, and it would also cause the 'field strip' button at the back to have to remain permanently depressed to allow the movement.

Fettling
To remedy the tight gearbox aperture, you can only Dremel away with a sanding drum or small grinding wheel until enough clearance is made for the cam. Don't be tempted to sandpaper/file the cam boss down, as you need as much of the boss as possible still to locate the selector pivots in to securely. A little bit of extra sideways force can be removed by decreasing the width of the gearbox by removing the little plastic wiring loom clamp from the right-hand-side of the gearbox, but is not recommended unless a necessity to get the gearbox to fit. The very stiff slide-together of the two receiver halves can be remedied by gradual reduction of the metalwork of the locking flanges of the receiver with a small flat needle-file. To ease continuous fitting of the receiver halves to check the reduction in tolerances, I can recommend removing the sprung 'field-strip' button from the rear of the upper receiver. It is removed by gently pulling while unscrewing the spring form the upper receiver's metalwork. The hole that does not line up with the stock bolt mounting in the upper receiver when both receiver halves are fully mated, can be easily remedied by either opening the hole up with a larger drill, or filing the hole into an elongated ellipse with a suitable sized round file.