Tokyo Marui L96 AWS Sniper Rifle

British firm Accuracy International is the proud manufacturer of L96 Sniper Rifles and its variants. This rifle was initially designated as PM (Precision Marksman) when it was entered into competition in the 1980’s when the British Army was on a hunt for a replacement rifle for their ageing Lee-Enfield derived sniper rifles such as the L42A1.

When the Swedish Military was also seeking a new sniper rifle, Accuracy International entered an upgraded version with AW designation which stands for Arctic Warfare. This version has a special de-icing feature on the barrel making it effective on extreme cold temperatures as low as -40 degrees Celcius. This feature has been adopted in the entire AW range of rifles even if it is not for use on frigid regions. This rifle has been popular among police, civilian and military services all over the world. The British Army decided to adopt this rifle and designated it as L118A1. It is currently being used in Afghanistan and Iraq by the British Army and other coalition forces.

AIRSOFT REPLICA

This review sample was handed-over to me by a fellow operator for review purposes. This did not arrive through a courier unlike those that I would receive direct from the manufacturer such as ICS. As such, the rifle did not come with a Japanese Manual and the strap that secures the rifle to the packaging is missing. The outer part of the box is also a bit tattered.

Nevertheless, the gun is intact and no visible sign of usage or abuse. Just like most sniper rifles on the market, the first thing that will catch your eye is the overall length of the gun as evident on its packaging. Upon opening it, you will find the external manufacturing quality that TM is renowned the world over. Tokyo Marui has endeavoured to replicate the real steel version down to its minute details.

While its real steel sibling would weigh in at around 6.5 kilograms, it is most comfortable to lug around half such weight on a skirmish field for an airsoft variant. After all, we won’t be shooting at targets well beyond 40 Metres on most situations.

THE EXTERNALS

The upper part of the rifle that consists of the receiver and the barrel is made of metal. The external barrel is large at 30 mm diameter. Why? because this model is a suppressed type. The entire length of the barrel acts like a silencer on its real steel version. As with most short and long weapons, your front sight is already useless once you attach a silencer. Hence, an integrated front and rear iron sights are omitted in the design. A 20 mm rail is attached to the receiver for the use of optics which you will definitely need for this rifle. A non-working metal bolt catch is located on the left part of the receiver whilst the bolt handle is also made of metal.

A large metal ball is used at the end of the lever to ensure optimum grip while cocking with the least effort. Bolt travel is smooth and crisp while cocking as well as on its return. The large safety lever ensures that your thumb would easily grasp it even when wearing a thick glove. When the safety is engaged before it has been cocked, the cocking handle could not be moved to its charging position. It just stays there. When it is engaged after it has been cocked, the trigger could not be pulled. Push the safety lever forward to fire and rearwards for safety.

The engraved markings that you will find on the rifle are “99 AW 5103” at the right side of the receiver, “WARNING REFER TO INSTRUCTIONS MANUAL AW 5103” at the left side of the receiver and “MADE IN JAPAN TOKYO MARUI CO. LTD. ASGK” which is located at the left lower end part of the receiver. An initial “A1” is also embossed on the rubber butt plate.

The lower rifle furniture which is made up of one piece hand guard, trigger guard, grip and stock is plastic made. This is matt in texture and is finished in olive drab colour. This is not painted but rather the true colour of the plastic. The quality of the plastic finish seems to be flawless until you come across the lower part of the handgrip as shown on the photo. There is a very obvious moulding imperfection as evident on the picture. This is not an isolated incident for other reviews of this rifle highlighted as well this part. This is not common to a Tokyo Marui product. Nevertheless, most snipers would paint their rifles to their liking so this is not a major issue. Actually, this is just a very minor issue.

Beneath the front guard lies the rotary hop-up adjustment. This type of hop-up is very easy to use. Right after the hop-up to the rear of the rifle is the magazine well. Tokyo Marui went into great lengths in designing the location of this to exactly replicate the real L96. A new BB feeding and hop-up mechanism has been designed for this matter. This is unique to this rifle and is currently the only one in the market for this type of rifle. The provided 40-round metal magazine will feed from the front not from its top and a plastic follower attached directly to the loading nozzle will extract a BB every time the bolt is cocked and on its return travel. This BB will travel through a ramp and into the hop chamber. There are no dropping BB’s when you detach a loaded magazine from the rifle.

When using a bipod, you can adjust the hop-up without taking your eye from the scope or your firing finger from the trigger. The trigger guard is integrated into the one piece plastic body. There is sufficient space for glove wearers to play with their firing finger on the space provided. The visible metal parts that are attached to it are the ambidextrous front and rear sling mounts, magazine release lever, bolt catch and the bi-pod attachment.

A black plastic cheek rest can be adjusted to suit the user’s preference by the allen wrench provided. The plastic butt can also be adjusted by removing, adding or making any combinations of the three parts extension plus the rubber end butt. It feels comfortable to feel a bit of softness on your shoulder from this rubber butt compared to the solid plastic ones by other manufacturers. It also ensures that it doesn’t slide on your BDU and stays rock solid where you want it to be for precise aiming.

THE INTERNALS

There are three Philips screws that you have to remove before the metal receiver and the barrel could be detached from the plastic lower furniture. At first, I thought that the screws would be allen head since there are 3 sizes of allen wrench provided. I was wrong. The first two locations are obvious to the eyes but the third one is hidden beneath the trigger guard. I was surprised that these screws were already loose when I unscrewed them. Just a couple of turns and it popped-out already. This would indicate that this review sample has already been fiddled with.

There are two screws that secure the trigger assembly to the receiver. Upon closer inspection, the red thread lock on the screws appears to have peeled off already. There are adjustments screws for trigger pull and trigger stroke to suit the user. I did not tamper with the adjustments. This rifle utilises a 45 degree sear similar to the VSR but different in some ways. The safety sear cut-out for this rifle is in a different location as that of the VSR. The trigger sear is also longer which means that these parts are not interchangeable with the VSR.

The feeding ramp has to be taken off before the bolt assembly could be removed from the receiver. But before that, the outer barrel has to go first. The RIS on top of the receiver has to be removed for beneath it is a screw that secures the outer barrel to the upper part of the receiver. Two more screws secure the barrel at the lower part. The barrel itself is screwed unto the receiver. You stop screwing it once the holes on the barrel and its mounting holes on the receiver are aligned. I would have preferred a tightened screwing of the barrel to the receiver then securing it with screws for a rigid connection. The present mounting procedure results in a slight play between the barrel and the receiver. This could be remedied by applying a Teflon tape on the thread. Once the barrel has been removed, the loading mechanism that is directly attached to the nozzle has to be removed first before the cylinder can be pulled out of the receiver. The cylinder is pinned shut so I did not venture further into its innards.

Be cautious when removing the inner barrel. After all the screws are undone, there are two tiny springs that secures the two plastic bits at the entrance to the hop-up chamber as shown on the photo. Make sure not to lose this. Gently glide the inner barrel out supporting these tiny springs from flying out of your sight. The inner barrel measured 500 mm long and calliper reading on its inner diameter is 6.05 mm.

PERFORMANCE

Out of the box, I would expect that a bolt action spring rifle would have a minimal deviation in its chrono readings. Here is what I got in FPS: 271, 275, 276, 275, 276, 276, 276, 280, 280 and 281. The readings would indicate that this rifle is based on Japanese standard. I may say that the readings are good enough in terms of consistency. It is the power that I am not happy with. The point in using a sniper rifle is to hit the enemy at a distance where they can’t hit you back with the range of their assault rifles. With this kind of power, it is not feasible. My TM Glock 17 would chrono at 310 FPS on green gas! If you intend to buy one of this, be prepared to splash more cash on third party upgrades from PDI and the likes to achieve a long-range kill factor otherwise this will just be for show. For such power the range was in the vicinity of 30-40 metres after the hop-up has been adjusted.

Here comes a major flaw that prevented me from making a proper and appropriate target test. The outer barrel is not aligned with the receiver. It has a bit of off-set to the right as shown on the photo. I suspect that the mounting is the culprit. Again, the mounting design could be improved to avoid play and misalignment between the barrel and the receiver. It would be frustrating to spend a lot of time zeroing your optics only to be altered if you accidentally knocked your rifle while in the heat of the game.

Its stock weight of around 3 kilograms is not bad for such a huge rifle. This would be much heavier though once you start mounting your long range optics and bipod. The plastic furniture has helped to minimise the overall weight.

Grasping the rifle by the plastic grip is comfortable. The contour of the grip is ambidextrous. The front plastic furniture is a bit boxy but in proper proportion with the large bored suppressed external barrel. Being a suppressed variant of the AW family, I can’t comprehend why TM still decided to adopt a threaded outer barrel. Is it for an additional suppressor? Or they overlooked this one?

CONCLUSION

Tokyo Marui have made the lives of current TM VSR owners miserable. I know that this rifle is better and has a more macho look than the VSR but they can’t have both or the wives will declare war. I like this rifle despite the flaws that I have encountered. But obviously, the internals should be upgraded especially the spring and a tighter inner barrel. Even with the BB swaying to the right due to the misaligned barrel, it still managed to maintain a long level flight after proper hop-up adjustment. The misalignment of the barrel could only be an isolated case and does not reflect the entire production of this rifle.

For those among us airsofters who love the motto “one shot, one kill”, this is your rifle. It won’t break the bank unlike those .50 calibre rifles that seems to be an over kill on most gaming sites. Nevertheless, this is a superb airsoft replica from a current hard-hitting and reliable AI L96 which is currently being used by our guys in the warzones of Afghanistan and Iraq. Tokyo Marui should be commended for replicating down to the minute detail as possible the real L96.

I had my China L96 stolen a couple of years back but this time I will have a TM L96 and no one is going to take it away from me!

SPECIFICATIONS

DESIGNATION: L96 AWS (ARCTIC WARFARE SUPPRESSED) OD (OLIVE DRAB)
TYPE: SINGLE-SHOT BOLT ACTION SNIPER RIFLE
CALIBRE: 6 MM
LENGTH: 1115 MM
WEIGHT: 3280 GMS
INNER BARREL DIAMETRE: 6.05 MM
INNER BARREL LENGTH: 500 MM
OUTER BARREL DIAMETRE: 30 MM
OUTER BARREL LENGTH: 609 MM
MAGAZINE CAPACITY: 40 ROUNDS
PACKAGE CONTENTS: SNIPER RIFLE, MAGAZINE, MANUAL, PACKET OF BBs AND 3 SIZES ALLEN WRENCH