TOP M249

[luke213]

Well guys I may have bit off more than I can chew;) So I picked up that box of m249 from Gunslinger(which I'm not complaining by the way;), but for some reason I thought it was a CA well this morning I got it in hand. Started researching to see what I had for sure, well everything seems to point to TOP M249 with a bellows system. I remember these existed, but I never worked on them. It's interesting from a technical perspective, however I don't have any interest in fighting with that system, particularly with parts availability being what it is now.

My question is does anyone who's worked on these recall if you can slap an A&K or CA m249 box into them without a huge amount of work? I know PGC made a gearbox for them years ago, and from what I've read CA/A&K are clones of that box. But since I can't find allot of info I'm hoping one of you guys might remember more details. I'm going to continue researching it but so far I'm struggling to find much for info since it's been quite a long time ago most of the topics are DOA and pictures are hard to come by etc.

I could probably try and recover the internals as it stands, but I've always heard horror stories of the bellows system even back when it was the only option available for support guns. So I'd rather take the easy way out and just slap a new gearbox in there and be done with it. But at this point I'm not sure I'm willing to take the risk to buy one to find out for myself if I can build it out to working order without at least some sort of confirmation that it's fairly easy and possible.

Thanks and other quirks and memories of TOP M249's would also be appreciated since this is new ground, I actually remember more of the M60's from this time frame but I still never worked on them either. So any and all info would be very much appreciated.

Luke

[T6e9a]

I do believe I ended up.with the gearbox and most of the internals for your m249. It had a split style gearbox, and some rather interesting gears/other parts.

It'll be a couple days before I can dig through everything I picked up and to figure out how to throw it all together.

[luke213]

There could have very well been a PGC conversion or something in the boxes he had;) This looks like most of the bellows system but if you've got stuff that would go with it or fit I'd be interested;)

Luke

[T6e9a]

As you all can see, it has been crudely reassembled with what pieces I have available to me.

Rebuilding the gearbox was one hell of a journey and shim dump.
I ended up reaming out the holes for the 6mm bushings a little so that they were were able to sit flush to the shell. This allowed for better shimming, but a little less axel support. I will probably go back into later at some point, but it works as it sits now.

It was chronoing around 305 and upon a quick range test, was well overhopping .20s.
The hop system is completely different in this thing than I have seen anywhere else.
the barrel has a groove for a metal C-clip, and a hole on the top, which seems to have a rubbery/resin type material in it. That is secured in the unit by the C-clip, and the rest of the unit is held on by 4 grub screws. The portion that holds the bb/prevents rolling down the barrel, is a small rubber cap that barely fits over the end.
Then the gearbox side of the hop up actually has the nozzle retained in it.

Like I said, the whole system quite unique to what is common nowadays.

[luke213]

Great to see! Glad to hear it came together functional as it stands that's much faster work than I'd have had time to do;)

Those not in the know, I decided this would shake out to be way more project than I could handle and since T9 had the other parts already I sold it to him as a project for him to tackle;)

300fps from what I recall of these systems in bellows is about as good as it got from what I recall. High FPS just wasn't a common thing for them back in the day so you might be spot on there. On the hopup not a freaking clue;) I knew it looked very very strange when I looked at it, I'm just amazed it's functioning. Bravo good sir!

Luke