P90 'box' mag conversion?

[Trust]

I'm interested in getting one the clone ones in order to use my armalite magazines, but I have no desire to use the large reservoir.

Can anyone who has one tell me how the feed tube runs inside? I'm planning on cutting the 'walls' down to the lowest point I can (which will be the height of the feed tube), and sealing the top, so it is just a magazine adaptor. Is this feasable, and if anyone is able, could you post any pictures of the inside?

Cheers.

[Grantos]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

Firstly the china made clones work just as well as the hugely expensive laylax ones.

Secondly I think you've got a brilliant idea here as I never even use the well especially as it is awkward to take your magazine off after each game before entering the safe zone.

Here is a picture of it normally:


Here is a picture of it with the top taken off:


As you can see with the top off it saves a lot of space and makes it less bulky which is good if you're like me and are using the original red dot sights - you have to get your head down low to the gun to use them!

Here is an overhead picture with the top off:


The red arrow points to where the BBs drain into the magazine. This can be covered over with a piece of plastic cut from the leftover top piece if you wanted. Or alternatively you could use a latch or leave it open so you could easily pour BBs in during a game and not have to take in too many mags.

If you wanted to seal it off I would recommend cutting some bits in where the magazine goes so that you can place your hicap mags there without needing the top of the mag open and hence the risk of losing BBs if you tip the gun over. This may be necessary to be able to fit low cap mags too. But I bet the whole reason is to be able to fit hicaps (rather than the shitty P90 hicaps!)

I'd also cut along the red line in the last picture to get rid of that plastic up front you don't need

Might end up doing this conversion myself! :-)

[Trust]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

Awesome pictures, exactly what I need.

And yes, it's mainly so I can use my armalite mags due to feeding (or lack of) issues. If I remove the spur inside that holds the mag open, I'll be able to use mids too, and I could use some 'green stuff' from my modelling crap to maybe smooth it all out.

Cheers for the help.

[Gaffa]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

For a short while I actually used mid cap/ low cap armalite magazines in my P90. I had to modify the reservoir though - ie, snap a little piece of plastic off that in my eyes, did nothing. I haven't made any other mods to her though, just leaving the reservoir empty.

[Grantos]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

No probs,

Put some pictures up when you're done.

I was thinking of snapping that bit off that allows me to keep the mags closed so i don't have to bother with sealing the bottom of the well.

If I do that I can always just cut at the red line shown above and glue that piece to the well top piece and voila, I can take the well on/off as needed!

[Grantos]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

Oh and on the subject of mid-caps...

The Silverback Airsoft P90 mid-caps are awesome. They feed just as well as the 60rd low-caps but hold 150 rounds.

There isn't exactly any decent proper P90 hi-caps I've come across.
And they still aren't any good despite all my fiddling and mods to them!

[Grantos]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

Ok, you've set me off on one and I've started the conversion ha ha!

Well I cut along that red line carefully and managed to save that bit of plastic so I could glue it to the top piece like so:


I also cut here to get rid of the excess metal and so I still had the holes to screw the top piece on if I wanted to:


The next bit to cut was the bit that keeps the top of the high-caps open. It is actually part of the metal bit so needs a hack-saw:


Then I just assembled it all back together:


All it needs now is a top piece. If you kept all the top bits and glued them together like I did then you can just screw it back on whenever you wanted like shown. Or if you weren't gonna keep the top bit as normal then you could cut along the red lines to make a small cover that could be screwed in:


I'm considering using my P90 high-cap bits to make a seperate cover as shown:


This will mean I can look in side too as the plastic is partially see-through. Just thought it was a good idea that's all :-). If I keep the entrance to the mag open this way then I'll have a small well to put some BBs in without the bulkiness of the original cover.

[Grantos]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

Whilst I was fiddling about with this, I had yet another idea...

When taking apart my hi-cap I suddenly thought why not use the spring system to feed BBs into the well - less bulkier than the original system, you still get 900 or so rounds, the spring stops the BBs from making so much noise when you're running and you also get rid of the stupid cog system that quite obviously doesn't work

Was thinking of cutting somewhere along the red lines:


Would need a fair bit of remodelling with a craft knife to make sure the BBs run smoothly into the base of the well. It would take some time but should look cool if I ever get it up and running...

Something for next weekend maybe

[Trust]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

That's a great setup. Alternatively, a 9.6v mini would fit in the front of the P90 mag section with no worries, too.

[Grantos]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

I was thinking a large type battery. Not really much point putting a small one there when you can use the normal battery space at the back...

[Trust]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

A normal 9.6v won't fit in the back without modification, and a large battery probably won't fit inside the hollow magazine. Best to compromise.

[Grantos]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

Mostly there with the hi-cap/box mag conversion thing whatever you want to call it.

The tricky bit is creating the right hole in the box mag and a congruent hole on the end of the hi-cap mag internals to get the BBs through easily.

I've put it on hold till next weekend as I've a busy week and need to modelling putty to smooth off bits...

[Grantos]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

Really should be doing work but I was itching to see what I could do with this conversion ha ha!

The prototype conversion is now finished:



It took ages of fiddling, filing, cutting etc to get it right, but it actually works surprising well! The top bit plus the insides of the old hi-cap mag will hold about 5-600 rounds and as the rounds slowly pass down into the magazine the BBs are pushed quite smoothly into the top of the old well. The last few rounds do need tipping into the mag as the spring abviously doesn't travel all the way to the back of the old part of the well.

The insides of the old P90 hi-cap needed to be widened so the BBs moved smoothly - I think this is part of the problem of why the P90 hi-caps don't work very well in the first place! I used a fair bit of putty to get it smoothed off after filing parts down.

The other snag was here:


The bit lined in green can't be moved out of the way as this is where the BBs travel from the attached mag into the hop unit of the P90. It kinda gets in the way but they seem to pass nicely round it along the red arrow.

Definately could do a better job if I did it again. The were loads of bits I cut that didn't need cutting etc.

The main change would be to put the P90 hi-cap mag upside down so I could pull the spring back without taking the whole thing off each time I wanted to load.

Tsk such a perfectionist! Anyone got a high-cap mag going for nothing ha ha!

[SmokeyWare]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

I could drop you one for £5? It's broken ( a cog is loose inside) So i think it's perfect for what you want.

[lothario]

Re: P90 'box' mag conversion?

GENIUS! almost wish i still had my p90 now lol.

i would fit a mini 9.6v battery in the dummy highcap making it a battery box if you could, i had custom batteries for my p90 L type and J type and the ability to buy cheap generic mini batteries would have been more economic rather than £40 a battery.

Have spare mini 9.6 and box mag if anybody wants to try the theory as an alternate to building a high cap