Viva Sten MkII

Come on Warren - pics!

mine caught fire never actually used it....

Neil wtf?

Yes, really, WTF?

Yeah - i connected the battery up for jez to use at gulch pulled the trigger to test it followed by loud crackling sound with smoke and some flames exiting from it! its now f****d with the battery and the wiring a bit of a mess.
........ £375 for a gun ive not even been able to use once - although i did get to fix the hop rather nicely

Yeah - i connected the battery up for jez to use at gulch pulled the trigger to test it followed by loud crackling sound with smoke and some flames exiting from it! its now f****d with the battery and the wiring a bit of a mess.
........ £375 for a gun ive not even been able to use once - although i did get to fix the hop rather nicely

Thats Bad

I assume there must have been a short inside somewhere...

It may be that it's just the battery and wiring that's screwed and the motor may be fine. I'd not have thought it too bad to re-do the wiring and batteries can be obtained from the places sgt heide mentions.

it is fixable but it hurts.... its very disappointing to say the least

Yeah, it took 2 years of use before my S&S sten did the same... no flames but plenty of smoke!

thats a weird one i charged all the batterys and put a couple of mags threw each sten thats why they were charged and open . what do you think it was wireing or battery . ether way take some pics and we can mither viva se what they can do ..

cheers jamie feel sort of responsable as i imported them .

Ithink it was the wiring - all the wiring has melted off the motor so it will be a question of rewiring it and then checking to see if the battery works.

The wiring to the battery connector always looked a bit dodgy to me on the ones I looked at. I re-did mine after Die Glocke.

I haven't checked what it's like inside yet though! But it has been to two further skirmishes without incident.

Definitely a short. I had the same thing with an AGM M14 when trying to fit a MOSFET. Simple crossed wires = lots of smoke, flaming FET and melted battery. Not a big job to fix though, just a fiddle!

got my Viva Arms MkII sten today, it's a version 2 model and is painted black rather than blued as the first batch were. it also has a working and adjustable hop unit and a picture of the all new hop unit can be found on viva's website. to adjust the hop you need to remove the magazine and rotate the magwell to the carry/storage position, this enables you to use a small flat-head screwdriver to adjust the hop up through a small hole in the top of the receiver tube.
weight wise the gun looks as though it should weigh more than it does!, it has a moderate rate of fire and is pretty damn accurate- although I have found that when firing from the hip I do tend to fire a bit high!- this should at least keep jerries head down a bit!
Is it worth the cost? well we have all spent similar amounts on other types of airsoft weapons so I would say it is a little basic compared to a high-end manufacturer's M4 or AK and it is expensive compared to what we spent on ACM MP40's and STG44"s but the exterior quality of what is a very simple gun is far superior to most ACM guns.

As for the clone stens that are coming out soonish, the chap who berated the viva sten imports a lot of clone gear from china so I think made quite a biased review of the viva as he is bound to prefer selling lots of the cheaper clones to a handful of more expensive stens- but here's the problem, the clones Do Not have a working hop as they were reverse engineered from a Mk1 viva so you are going to have to do the ak hop grub screw mod to them.

I purchased this from Airsoft Armoury, give Chris a bell and I'm sure he would be able to get more in

Cheers Uber. Looks like its a - err... grub screw! The hole in the top of the body is a good idea though - I hadn't done the home-made mod 'cos I thought adjustment would be a faff. A hole makes it easy!

Viva web site: http://www.vivaarms.com/

Are the first purchasers going to get a replacement part from Viva or do we make do with the home bodged version and drill our own hole?

heh... yeah it's a slightly nicer way of doing what we've already done... lol!

Hmmm. I have to say that I would like to get a viva sten, but I still have reservations on the wiring, micro switch, and using a lipo (after hearing about the sten that caught on fire!).

decisions, decisions....

Heh, I've seen plenty of smoke pouring out of AEGs - its not limited to Viva Stens! Maybe Uber can tell us if QC has been sharpened up a bit?

the wiring seems fine, the battery charged without any thermal event taking place and so far the micro switch hasn't burnt out, (I've only fired about 600 rounds so far and should take it skirmishing next weekend- that will be the true test of it's worth)
I will get myself a spare micro switch from maplin just in case and hopefully I'll not burn down the house or have any battery problems. the real test will be when the connectors for a larger Mah lipo arrive and I put that in the sten.