MP5K PDW Up Close And Personal - Part 1

(This post became something of a mammoth, so I split it in two parts just to make it easier to read)

I recently purchased a Galaxy G.5, i.e. an H&K MP5K PDW replica. I wanted to get something new, and I've heard good things about it. As I saw it on sale for dirt cheap, I took the plunge. I think it's going to be a really fun little QCB gun in the future.

The gun comes with some extra bits not usually seen in AEG packages. Among the usual hicap magazine (240 rds in this case), 8.4V battery, a wall charger, some low quality BBs and a cleaning rod, this one also had a smaller magazine (28 rds), a carrying strap and a speedloader included. Basically everything you need to get going right away, apart from safety goggles. As a funny aside, the battery and charger were marked as Special Battery and Exclusive Charger. To what end, I don't know, since they seem like pretty standard 8.4V cases to me.

Construction

Mostly made of plastic, the gun without a magazine weighs in at only 1795 g, battery inserted. It's rather underweight, then, compared to the 2.5 kg of its real life counterpart. Removing the folding stock will cut it down even further, to a very light 1380 g. You can easily hold and shoot it one-handed if need be. (Note to self: Buy another, activate akimbo mode!)

Metal parts, in addition to the standard V3 gearbox, are the outer barrel, front sight, front sling mount / pin, charging handle, magazine release paddle and button, trigger, fire selector, rear body pins, rear sling mount and the buttstock mount/swivel assembly. The hicap magazine is also a metal one, while the smaller low cap is plastic.

Overall, the gun feels surprisingly sturdy and the construction is pretty good. There are some visible seams left over from moulding, and the side panels (just before the buttstock) don't sit quite flush with the body, but these are just visual problems. All the pieces fit together nicely and no parts are crooked. Especially the buttstock is one of the steadiest I've ever come across in an airsoft gun, most likely due to its hefty, metal mounting system. Shouldering the gun feels very convincing.

The most likely place I would wager the gun is likely to break if mistreated, would be where the buttstock is mounted on the gun, though. Once the buttstock is removed, it becomes obvious there is precious little material keeping the large, long, and relatively heavy piece in place.

The rear sight is made of plastic, if you don't count the screws (you know we don't). On my specimen, it was incredibly wobbly. You are supposed to be able to turn the drum to select between the differently sized apertures, but mine would just turn without any resistance and also move up and down and side to side.

First I though it was just the quality of the gun, but after a while decided to play with the sight a little. Unscrewing the sight, I saw the drum was held in place by a small screw on the bottom of the sight.

A quick twist with a screwdriver, and that thing was working as intended. Sadly, I came to realise that the sights are pretty useless later on when trying to sight in the gun. More about that further down.

One more wobbly piece in the otherwise good piece is the flash hider. It's made of plastic throughout and does not mate with outer barrel in any other way than loosely fitting over the lugs.

As such, the flash hider is the poorest piece of workmanship on this particular gun, and I will replace it with something else. I had both and M4 style birdcage flash hider and a short 13 cm silencer sitting around, so I tried both on just for fun. Either works in my opinion, and both are a lot better than the plastic monstrosity.

It seems you could also get a metal aftermarket replacement for the original style flash hider or a thread protector that would mimic the real steel look.

This is the end of part 1. In part 2 I go over the operation of the gun and my attempts to zero the sights.