TM Famas... ...modified.

[madcas86]

I'm creating this thread so the information is recorded and available for anybody fielding (or more likely now restoring) one of these rifles, and a lot of the original information I drew from will have vanished, bear in mind put this together and used it together about 8 years ago.

Firstly excuse the godawful embarrassing quality of these pics, this forums picture uploading, is dire. So I resorted to my 900 year old photobucket account,
that has added watermarks, bastardised the quality (made the older pics looks not worth posting) and is now demanding money off me. (they can whistle)
I'll fix it when I can get this forums stupid picture arrangement down, anybody else have a problem with it? hard to use? flips pics no matter what you do with them?

They are amazingly accurate in stock form, like make a bad player look like a good one kind of accurate. Range isn't the best but not terrible either,
and could be great with the right mods and hop setup. I cannot find anything else with a barrel this long (472mm) in such a compact form. It has a good rate of fire (very good with SHS 13:1 gears) and does everything nicely, patrol rifle, support weapon, cqb, and dare I say it DMR/Sniper role. I know this because I found myself using it as all these things without even really thinking about it.
Granted there are more specialized tools for all of these jobs, but in airsoft terms, where we are all firing round plastic BB's down a metal tube using compressed gas in one form or another, it basically comes down to accuracy, range and form factor, and this thing, especially modified offers massive versatility.

I had always wanted a Famas since my first time round airsofting, so when I decided to get back in and looking for something to save me the rental lucky dip
this cropped up and I bought it. It came with a rare 20mm scope rail adaptor, a 60rd basic mag and someone had fitted a rail under the foregrip, and a bungee to keep the bipod quiet at some point.




It worked nicely but was down on power, 196fps.

I went to my local friendly airsoft shop in Cannock to pick up some extra mags and parts, but the person that served me told me it was basically a collectors item and pretty much a dinosaur relic that wasn't worth messing with, I wouldn't find the parts and should just buy a Cyma/Cybergun Famas off them instead.
I had read up on what was available and wasn't that impressed, also I am a TM fanboi, I used to use a TM G17L and Uzi back in the day (yes I'm old)

(this is less relevant now as a new version of the Famas was released fairly recently that is improved and has mosfet etc but I have not tried it to comment)

Anyway, an evening of google bashing and gun dissassembly/measuring later I went proudly back to the shop and selected upgrade parts off the shelf that would work. (see pics for the brands and part #'s I used)






The 'V1' Gearbox is well built and takes 5.9mm 'TM Recoil Shock' bushings, standard size spring (contrary to what I have read I didn't have to cut the spring down)
Standard shims fit, and a V2/V3 spring pack had the springs I wanted to replace. Also took SHS High speed gears with only a minor bit of filing.
I usually use tamiya grease for assembly, but this time used Silkolene RG2, as its what I had. Its a synthetic race grease that I use for assembing cars,
I also used it on my RB44's wheel bearings.












I also replaced the wiring for 14swg Turnigy silicone wire and switched to a traxxas connector for ease of use, current carrying capacity and it meant I could use the huge 5000mAh batteries from my traxxas slash (they only just fit, but give the rifle a nice weight balance and feel) and whilst reassembling did the electrical tape mod on the seams to help alleviate the famous TM creaking. Anti reversal latch could be hit and miss (this was worse with the SHS gears as they only fewer ratchet teeth, whilst the original marui one has more...) so 'sharpened' this (filed the slightly rounded pawl end to make it catch better)



Ordered some more mags, and took it to Stormforce for a skirmish day, it now chrono'd at 296fps, it was consistent and very,very accurate.
It performed well but I had become addicted to modifying and upgrading it!

I modified a cheap generic 500 round thumbwheel M4 mag, added a sling and played around with various sight types and styles, but soon wanted to mess some more.



[IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/b63/MadCas86/DSCF2019(1).JPG[IMG]

I had read about mosfets and burst controllers, and about how the trigger contacts would eventually give up from repeated arcing so bought a King Kong Burst Wizard 2, and fitted it along with a voltage readout to protect my Lipo batteries (even though they would likely last 2 game days without a recharge)
The trigger contact group was removed, and replaced with a microswitch on a custom adjustable mounting bracket, and adjusted it to my preferred trigger pull (I had it like a hair trigger at first but eventually picked a point between that and the standard trigger travel. Again turnigy silicone wire was used.



[IMG]https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/b63/MadCas86/IMG_0503.JPG[/IMG}


Also while it was opened up I installed a new hop and nub (can't remember what brand, was a good one though, poss. laylax or maple leaf? nothing special or mysterious about the hop/nub on this, very generic standard same as many other aeg, old and new.
Had looked at doing the I/R/IR/ABCDEFGHI.... hop modifications but figured i would probably do more harm than good, I cannot state enough how accurate this thing is out the box,
...which leads me into the barrel. I found that the sniper crowd generally regard 450-500mm barrel lengths to be optimal for airsoft,
and at 472mm its ideal, but aftermarket barrel choices are limited, and to get anything as good as the original Marui brass barrel narrowed my options to a PDI stainless one at over 90 quid.
I wanted to stay close to the original 6.04 size without having to cut a longer barrel down, and decided against madbull or KM head based on materials used.
I shelved the barrel change idea given my original was working great and it was expensive for what may or may not have been an 'upgrade' but took note for the future.



Did some more research and found that the V2/3 pistons and sleeves would fit, so future plans at this point involved a top notch piston with seal (may have to file a tooth off the end of the 'rack' and stainless sleeve. For now the original Marui one made a great seal.




Lots of people say 'The V1 gearbox uses a proprietary motor' ..No it doesn't. Its a 380 size RC motor, so kind of between the short and long sizes.
I looked at motor upgrades, but neither a standard short or long motor fit very well, could be made to fit with a bit of re-engineering of the mounting arrangement. (it has been done) I figured if I'm going to modify the gearbox casing I may as well fit a brushless motor- Yes I found one, size equivalent of the brushed 380, think it was for a 1:16 rc car. Only problem is brushless requires a speed controller (ESC) to run, and the speed controllers use a variable pulsed input signal, not a static voltage, so this wouldn't work with the burst wizard.
so a circuit would be needed to translate that signal. Simple enough, but then seems like a wasted opportunity to use that varible speed control capability...
...I thought about using an arduino and programming it to drive the brushless ESC, and add options like variable rate of fire, burst mode, shot limit/ammunition counter, etc etc etc.

I played around with the burst settings and stuff on the KK burst wizard 2, I *think* (correct me if I'm wrong) its supposed to act as a motor brake and complete the firing cycle (or cycles, in burst mode) itself, I don't know how it senses this (presume its motor current draw) but need to play with it some more as if you squeeze the trigger and release too soon it sometimes doesn't finish its cycle, or if it should have its original trigger group back, as these contacts latch until the cycle completes and it disconnects the power to the motor. I also double feeds every now and then on semi, this might just be the cheapo M4 mag, I will check this. Last I chronoe'd it it was 326fps, and very consistent apart from the double feeds.

Anyway, this disheartened me a little, plus I started playing more CQB with gas guns and shelved it, I had ideas but still can't decide what direction to take next, as well as the brushless idea I also considered taking a different route and going 'fusion engine' and going HPA, possibly with in internal reservoir (I don't like air tanks and lines) or a completely different route, and converting it to open bolt GBBR (a french guy did this, looked good)

I have decided to cure my indecision by putting my Famas/parts up for sale, with options - that way if the internal parts sell I might do the gbbr thing with it,
if the whole rif sells I'll put the money to a bullpub gbbr build of some sort (doubt it will ever be as accurate as the famas though)



If you are still reading I hope you found it useful, if you are bored s**tless then sorry, you will not get that time back.

Piece out.

[sparrowhawk]

Nice post, regarding the inner barrel if you had kept the gun I would have recommended a ZCI, best valued ib on the market

[ElZer0]

Nice Post, I think I may of owned that famas at some point... Cos I put a G36 rail on the bottom of it.

Great gun

[sparrowhawk]

So what happened in the end