SV-98
The beginning of the
project
After dreaming for about a year about getting a sniper rifle and lurking
about on various message boards on airsoft sniping, I finally decided that I
was going to build a rifle with the VSR-10 as a base.
When I discussed this with the rest of the team we agreed ( or rather: they forced me to realise it….) that a VSR-10
has no place in a team which has the Russian look.
I searched around for a bolt action Russian sniper rifle. I found this
in the form of the SV-98 sniper rifle.
A newly developed rifle in use with the FSB and MVD
Special Forces. I searched around for pictures of the rifle and then
presented them to the team.
The responses where positive, but sceptical… how was I to make such a
stock?
(real SV-98)
But I had a secret force, so secret that only a handful of people knew
about it…. my father.
My father had been building wooden models of cars and trucks for a long
while now and I had asked him before to make a wooden vertical grip for my
AK-47 which he did, much to my satisfaction.
( 2 of my fathers creations)
( To give you an idea of scale… it’s not a small dog…)
Needless to say… I wasn’t really worried ;-)
When the donor rifle ( a VSR G-spec) finally arrived I
first upgraded it completely ( internal) to 500 fps so I was sure the
performance was good before starting with the project.
Now many people have asked me if I have any drawings, I hope that it’s clear
that there were no drawings, my father made the stocks ( 2
where made) by estimating the sizes and shaping it to the VSR internals.
The stock
The following is a pictorial how the stock slowly took form, the whole
process took about 3 months to complete.
The pictures are not of great quality since they where made before I
bought my digital camera so I took them with my cell phone.
My
father started with making a rough template to use as base, you can see the
template in the far right in the picture.
Then he had to figure out how the internals should fit.
The internals of the VSR slide right in and it is secured by 2 screws.
One of the hardest parts was making a system so the magazine would be
able to feed into the internals.
The
magazine would be held in place by a sort of trap door, the metal slide locks
it in place, move the slide,
then the door can open and you can insert the
magazine.
Then
my father started to shape the wood into the SV-98’s form. Special attention
was placed on the handgrip for most comfort.
In the picture you can see the 2 stocks side by side,
he already shaped the bottom one.
Then
the bipod ( I’ll come back on the bipod later) and the
butt pad where added. The butt pad is from the VSR-10 donor gun, it just slips
on the wood stock.
The real rifle features an adjustable butt pad but this was not within
our power to make. This was the cheapest , and most of
all, easiest way of attaching a butt pad.
The paint was cause of some concern since the real one has a paint that allows
the wood grain to show through it.
After much experimenting ( and cussing that it didn’t
work) he painted the wood in green paint.
After letting it dry for a bit he took a piece of cloth and went over
the stock which gave the perfect effect.
The scope and other bits
and pieces
I first went after a PKS-07 which is fitted on the real SV-98 but after
I got the price ( 230 USD from POSP.ru)
and recovered from my fainting, I realised that I had to look around for a
different telescope.
I searched on the various sites which had Russian optics, and I found
the 4-8x42 WD POSP scope.
It had a variable zoom and not a fixed 7x zoom ( which
is not very good for airsofting) of the PKS-07.
I bought the scope from www.posp.ru where I have bought all my optics
from, for about 160 dollars.
(close-up of the
scope)
I bought the bipod from e-bay, a no-brand bipod but it does the job well. It
was fitted by fixing a nut into the wood which the bipod can grip onto.
It’s rock solid and even though I don’t use it that often it looks great
and its useful when putting the rifle on the ground
during brakes.
Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to make the stock in such a way that
the bipod folds into the stock, as it does on the real one.
So we opted for the standard sniper rifle way of attaching a bipod, when
folded its legs point to the front.
I replaced the outer barrel with a longer, smooth one so I could fit a longer
inner barrel ( PDI 6.01mm) and it looks a lot better
than the original G-spec barrel with silencer.
The magazine that’s attached to the underside of the stock is a dummy magazine
made from a magazine I bought once on a market years and years ago.
I held on to it and never used it until now, I
recently found out that it was a FN FAL magazine.
Lastly I added some sporting tape to get some more grip when holding the rifle.
Because I noticed then when using the rifle with sweaty hands ( it gets warm out here too) you can loose grip in the worst
moments.
So that’s it… that’s my making of. The rifle isn’t finished completely yet, it
still needs a flash hider but that’s something of later concern.
If someone wants to read up on the real SV-98 then I can recommend this site:
http://club.guns.ru/eng/sv-98.html
Pictures of the result:
*UPDATE*
As time went on I decided that it was time for something new, so I
purchased a couple of cans of spray-paint and started off.
The stock was first painted over in a lighter shade of OD which would
make a good base:
I practiced a couple of times on the template my father made and then
proceeded to the stock.
An example was found by a team mate of mine which I used as a guideline,
but I soon discovered that painting with spray-paint is fun… so I decided to
take it a bit further.
(real SV-98)
The results:
Overall I am very pleased
with the results. Still to come:
bipod adaptation, flashhider and possibly a modification to the bolt handle.
Greetings,
Wildcard