Todays review is of a (pretty much new, but) used Arcturus AK04.
Starts off in a pretty plain looking cardboard box with the logo and slogan.
Open the box up to find a ziploc bag with the owners manual, quality control/testing sheet and Arcturus PVC patch.
Under the top layer of foam, you find the gun, magazine,(supposed to be 1 midcap AND 1 high cap. Having gotten it used, I only got the highcap), a set of polymer back up sights and an unjamming/cleaning rod under the gun.
Starting at the rear, it features a minimalist M.F.T.-esk style stock which has textured rubber butt pad and QD swivel mounts, one on each side. That, on a 6 position buffer tube with a ring type sling mount at the base of the receiver.
The receiver is steel with a traditional side optics rail already mounted, as well as an aluminum railed dust cover.
The selector plate has an extra tab for easier manipulation with your trigger finger.
The pistol grip is polymer, reminiscent of a PTS grip, with a texture on the front and back.
In the trigger guard, there is a small nub that allows access to a spring detention feature.
In front of the trigger guard is a polymer flared Magwell.
Inside the magwell, it has been blocked off to prevent improper magazine insertion.
Up front it rocks a slim, lightweight aluminum M Lok rail system with rails the full length on top and bottom, and 4 M Lok slots on each side.
Threaded to 14mm counterclockwise threads.
Opening it up, the microswitch gearbox has a quick change ball bearing spring guide with a slot for a flat head or coin.
The motor has ferrite magnets and a D type arm/pinion.
On the right side you can see the selector plate parts and a cover for the Ares-esk microswitch trigger design.
On the left side you see the anti reversal latch /spring detention lever, again with a design reminiscent of Ares design.
Inside the gearbox, everything but the trigger trolley and microswitch are standard TM compatible parts, including the cutoff lever and trigger.
It features 8mm bushings on sector and spur, 8mm bearings on the bevel. A sector chip. A full metal tooth piston, with an 8 port poly piston head with bearings. A 3/4 port cylinder with a single O ring polymer cylinder head and a 21.15mm polymer O ring nozzle.
The gears are shimmed pretty well, just a touch on the looser side. And everything that should be greased or lubed looks to be done so with an adequate amount.
The barrel is 380mm, around 6.02ish diameter (per my cheap caliper), made of steel, and has a pretty rough inner bore finish. Definitely a mirror finish. The hop up unit is metal with a plastic arm with numbering for adjustment. Standard cylinder nub, bucking has a normal mound, no split or special shape. Bucking is on the harder durometer side for a stock bucking in my opinion, my guess around 70-75. And the barrel clip is more akin to standard M4 as opposed to the traditional AK shape. It has a ridge to help lock in the barrel from rotating. The whole barrel system fits well together, nice and snug, just not an ideal barrel quality.
Thoughts & Opinions:I must admit, I had high hopes for these guns, and while I only have a sample size of 1, its easiest to say it wasn't quite entirely what I was expecting.
Overall external quality was decent. Seems maybe a touch heavier than it should be, but that might just be me. It's solid, so long as everything is tightened down. Keeping in mind I got this one second hand, there were a few loose items:
-The buffer tube could twist a tiny bit but nothing an AR wrench couldn't fix.
-It had the usual sloppy/loose external AK selector plate, which tightens up nicely with a slight bend. Snaps into positions nicely now.
-The 2 grub screws in the trunnion were slightly loose, and in turn the barrel and front half of the gun had a tiny bit of play. The handguard was solid to the outer barrel, just loose to the receiver. Tightening the grub screws was all it needed.
-The upper handguard/gas tube lever was loose and didn't stay in its proper spot. It doesn't have any tension from the gas tube to give it friction as the upper handguard is secured to the lower handguard. Just to keep it in position, I bent that inward a touch as well and seems to be holding ok now.
-As I was disassembling the gun for the review, one of the studs/"rivets" popped out. They seem to be held in place by either glue or being splayed outward from the inside of the receiver.
-Lastly, some of the screws for the end cap of the railed dust cover were sorta loose or misaligned, resulting in the part that the button holds it in place being difficult to put back down.
And for the polymer back up sights it came with, due to the dust cover and the top handguard not being the same height, you either have to put both on the dust cover or the handguard, not one on each, at least in a functionality standpoint.
The buffer tube is attached like a real buffer tube, so if you wanted to rewire it through the buffer tube you could, but you would have to either route the wires through the small hole at the end, or cut out the area so you can access the space.
Internally I guess I was expecting something else, but really shouldn't complain, being that it is a stock gun. It has a lot of nice features, the spring detent, the microswitch, the quick change bearing spring guide, etc. I was hoping for some XYT or akin to E&L type more robust gears. Time will tell how the stock gears hold up. I expect those to be the weak point of the system currently. As always, even a basic mosfet would be nice. A neomagnet motor would be nice. Deans/T plugs out of the box would be nice. The trigger response isn't anything special in its current format, but it's not bad.
