APS AK74 review

[The Keeper of Secrets]

Hi,

I recently bought this gun, brand new for £169.99. As I have only owned it for a few days and haven't skirmished it yet, this'll be a detail of what you actually get for your money and what's inside the gun. I'll update after Sunday once it's been skirmished.

I got mine instore so got to have a nice play about with it before buying. I paid the wonga and they boxed it up for me to take home. So from then on I had it exactly as it would be received in the post.

With the gun you get:

The gun (really, I'm not joking),
A bakerlite hicap,
A cleaning rod,
A manual (and not a bad one either).



The externals

The gun itself is a very nice bit of kit. Handling it I was surprised at it's weight and solidity. It really is built well. The metal has rough texturing to it and seems nice and tough. The wood is a very dark finish with nothing like the amount of shiny varnish you find on some replicas. It really does feel like wood as oppose to car paint. All in all a solid external build with absolutely no wobbles, creaks or other complaints. I feel like I could use it as a good club.







The front end splits down like the real thing. The latch next to the rear sight is flipped up and the top handguard mount comes off, followed by the bottom latch and the bottom handguard. The bottom latch mount is also held on by a grub screw, to give you that extra solidity if you don't plan on field stripping the lower handguard all the time (which I don't). A nice touch that wasn't on the JG I had recently.



The wood stock is solid as a rock, and IS hollow enough to take a large battery for anyone wanting to rewire. I bought myself a 9.6v stick to go in the top so I probably won't. Due to the top handguard design, the battery can be slid right forward into the handguard assembly, allowing for a 9.6/10.8/12V to go in there easily (although I'd recommend not going higher than a 9.6 without upgrades).



The internals:

So naturally, within about half an hour the tools were out and the guts of the gun lay open on the floor in front of me. Here they are:



So, to go through the internals:

The gears are of good quality, and seem similar to XYT gears apart from having APS stamped on them. They mesh well together and after I'd shimmed it again spun nuce and freely with minimal noise. Good enough to not need replacing and I can see them lasting for a good while.

The piston is made of orange smooth plastic. The orange put me off at first but apparently APS colour code all their plastic internal parts to various gearbox versions, so fair enough. It seems robust enough, is very hard although may be quite brittle. The second tooth wasn't present for pre-engagement prevention which was a nice touch, along with the rails being staggered to reduce friction. It seems APS have a similar spring/piston interaction to TM, with the piston head needing to be removed before the spring can be taken out. This could be an issue because the piston head was not budging easily. However mine chronoed at 350fps on the dot, so no need for a spring change.

The rest of the plastic internal bits (trigger switch block, spring guide, cylinder head, tappet plate and annoyingly enough bushings) were constructed out of the same orange smooth stuff as the piston. Again, they look solid and time will tell how long they last. The bushings are 7mm, which annoyed me as I had a nice set of KA 6mm metal ones I was hoping to drop in. Ah well.

The nozzle is metal, and has an inner O ring seal which was a very pleasant surprise. Overall I found the airseal on the APS to be very nice. With my finger over the nozzle the piston was not budging an inch down the cylinder. Goodoh.

The ARL is a slightly different design with regards to the spring. Photo describes better than words but it means that the bloody thing doesn't spring up into your face every time you try and seat it down. Nice touch.

The wiring was silicone coated and all slotted into place nicely. I never had to caox it into position or make sure I wasn't pinching it. Very techy friendly this rifle.

The motor seems to work well and has a nice bit of speed and grunt behind it. It can pull the 350 spring at about 900rpm, which is quick enough for me.

The barrel is a 6.08 and came perfectly clean. The hopup unit is a TM style one and works well. A very nice surprise was the 'H' hop bucking, as seen here:



That's about it for the internals. A few nice surprises and the only real disappointment being the plastic bushings. But as it's 7mm, some metal ones should help a lot. I would definitely advise buying some with the gun because turning a 350fps spring on plastic bushings isn't a long term plan.



The blowback unit.

Simple enough, exactly the same as the JG. The rear top face of the gearbox is open and a light metal block sits above it in rails. The block is pulled back by the piston and pulls a rod connected to the bolt. The bolt return spring then clacks it all back into place when the piston is released. The result is a satisfying 'clackackackackack' of the bolt flipping back and forward when you fire. The bolt travel is about two or three inches and is a nice touch. It doesn't imaprt any recoil, however I've always found that the way V3 gearboxes are mounted in AKs make them kick a bit more than your average AEG. Whether that's just me or not, it's a nice feeling when it fires. Very little friction or resisitacne in general on the bolt travel means it's not wearing your gearbox down too much.

Performance.

The hop works well and can propel the BB a good 40m on the crest of the hop, with it dropping at about 45. As for accuracy, I'll let the '10 shots at 25m' test to the talking:

(10 shots, semi auto, gun resting upright on table/cushion, 25m to target)



So all within a diameter of about 4-5cm. Not bad for a stock chinese gun. This was after I'd been inside to reshim and regrease the gearbox though. However all the parts were the same and I hardly touched the hop unit so I can't imagine OOTB perfoemance being any less.



Conclusion.

Overall, a solid bit of kit being everything I wanted from it. For £169.99 it's a good buy. The only issue for me were the plastic bushings, but most shops will offer a downgrade and a quick phone to the techy after ordering will do the job of telling him to put those 7mm bearing you ordered into the gun as he downgrades it. Sorted.

Questons etc welcome. Thanks for reading.

[acheekymonkeyuk]

Re: APS AK74 review

nice TKOS, been wanting one of these and just wondering how good the build was before buying one, thats ace, was worried they would be cheap and nasty

[-Archer-]

Re: APS AK74 review

Hi TKOS, I know this question has come up a lot recently but would you recommend this over the CYMA AK's? I am looking to get an AK74u so have a choice between the APS and CYMA.
Thanks

[The Keeper of Secrets]

Re: APS AK74 review

Hi,

CYMA have themselves a more established reputation for AKs. However this thing really is a beaut. I would recommend them both equally.

To continue the review, I took this to Xsite to skirmish with yesterday. It performed utterly admairably. The consistancy of hop as well as the range provided with it is fantastic. The bbs really do sail along to about 45m before cresting the hop. That, combined with a comfortable ROF, makes the performance an all round winner. I was very impressed.

As fo robustness. The mission I used this in involved me and 10 others as a terrorist cell starting in the killhouse to be either exterminated or rescued depending on which team got to us first. Needless to say it was fast, close and terrifying and the AK took a punishing as we bolted around the tightly packed rooms slamming off the walls. Byt the end of the say I was in worse shape than the AK, and I was pretty much fine. Again, very impressed with this thing's ability to stand punishment.

[Mattman1991]

Re: APS AK74 review

your review made me consider getting one lol not to mention when holding it on sunday it did feel really light and comfortable

[AtR]

Re: APS AK74 review

Hey mate, judging by the price I think I know where you got it from and I'm thinking of getting one myself when my UKARA comes thru, except I'm looking into the APS AKS74 version(folding stock) as opposed to your full stock.

Since I'm a newbie, I'm guessing that metal attachment on the left hand side of the gun is made to fit AK PSO scope mount?(Something I plan on doing + grabbing a genuine PSO scope if I will decide buying this particular AK)

[The Keeper of Secrets]

Re: APS AK74 review

Hi,

Yes, the metal mount mimics the RS AK mount. I can confirm it fits a genuine real steel PSOP (I have one on my dragunov and it fits fine). They also take the CYMA AK74 scope mounts.

The folding stock might be a bit wobbly, I've yet to come across an AK74s that didn't have a bit of up/down play in the folding stock.

[AtR]

Re: APS AK74 review

Thanks for the confirmation, I've heard that playing with some tape gets rid of stock wobling. Might be wrong tho, but in general should work I think.

Could you please PM me where you got your PSO scope, please? I've one place I'm thinking of getting it from but your might be cheaper ;P

[The Keeper of Secrets]

Re: APS AK74 review

I'm afraid I got mine second hand when I got the drag, so I wouldn;t know where to get them new.

Well placed tape does indeed do a lot for stock wobble.

Ta

[AtR]

Re: APS AK74 review

Okay,
Is yours 4x24 or 6x24 or do you use the improved zoom adjustment one?

[The Keeper of Secrets]

Re: APS AK74 review

Mines the 4x24. Adjustable and illumination. The real difference (apart from it being cool to have a genuine one) comes from the fantastic eye relief, something which everyone who's picked it up has commented on.

[AtR]

Re: APS AK74 review

Could I trouble you to make some extra pictures of it standalone and fit to the AK, with shots including on the actual fitting thing on the left side of the gun?
Cheers!

My long term upgrade plan if going AK route would be AKS74, PSO, GP30 =)

[The Keeper of Secrets]

Re: APS AK74 review

No problem. I'll try and get them sorted tonight.

I'm also getting a GP30 for this I reckon. Gonna try and pick one up at the weekender.

[AtR]

Re: APS AK74 review

Thankyou.
Don't forget to review the GP when you get it

For the Motherland!

[jssmitty96]

Re: APS AK74 review

can i just add i own the ak74-u model and i love it although i was having some issues with the fuse when i first got it so i rmeoved it then the tappet and anti reversal snapped (no idea how) it would ONLY work on a 7.4 lipo i emailed aps and told them the problem and within a day i had a brand new gearbox on its way to me via couria only took 2 days from hong kong which was VERY vast it arrived and i was glad to see instead of horrible green internals they were orange and had a full set of metal bushings and a mosfet pre wired to the gearbox, had a very bad shim job though so that needed doing asap as the gears would not actually spin, connected the motor to find it wouldnt connect with the gears correcty and woud grind even when adjusted fully up or down middle ect so i jammed a bushing ontop of the motor (instead of the little round peice of metal) now it works flawlessly disabled the blowback as the motor couldnt handle the extra stress and changed the hop up now ive got a very nice rifle working lovely on a 7.4 lipo very good trigger response and a lovely whizz noise made when fireing greatly increased range, the one problem i still have is the motor being to weak to pull back the heavy spring on normal batterys 8.4 9.6 ect but overall aps is a great company with excellent customer service