So you want a reliable MP5 clone do ya?

Posted: May 29, 2009 | Last Updated: September 13, 2009

Well so did I. Problem was I had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to jump at a clone that happened to come up for sale on AR15.com one day.

It looked like a good deal and in hind sight was actually not that bad of one, but the gun was a lemon for sure. The previous owner said that it ran "fine" with good ammo. I soon found out that "fine" is a very subjective term so remember that if you purchase a clone.

The only maker of clones right now is Coharie Arms which is the latest of several incarnations of companies run by a guy named Todd Bailey. Todd has a bit of a reputation as a cheat and a scoundrel which I'm sure he got the old fashion way... "he earned it!" Unfortunately he is the only major game in town for a complete 922r compliant clone at this time, and with H&K bringing litigation against everyone that makes anything resembling their series 94 arms, there will likely not be anyone else entering this cornered market soon.

The quality control at Coharie Arms (CA from here on out) is pretty much hit and miss. I get the impression from reading new owner posts at www.hkpro.com, AR15.com, and even his own forum www.hk-54.com that Todd's primary focus is to sell as many of these things as he can while he can and does not bother to test the guns properly to ensure that they will run from the factory, which many (if not a good many) do not.

My sample had several issues that took a bit of diagnosing with the help of members at www.hkpro.com, which Todd Bailey seems to monitor for the purpose of gathering information to make fun of and call names (on his forum www.hk-54.com) those who have been unfortunate to get a non-working sample of his guns. I guess it's easier than helping his customers which might require admitting his guns are crap from the factory more often than not, taking responsibility for such, and not trying to weasel out of his "lifetime warranty" at every chance he can. If everyone who got a bad apple sent them back, they would not have time to throw more crap out the factory door, but I digress.

There are other options to getting a clone though...

Because of the poor quality of build coming from CA, a few gunsmiths have stepped up and started building guns out of MP5 parts kits and rolling "flats" (Special Weapons (SW, another Todd Bailey alias) flats or better yet LSC flats) to build the gun on. Investment Grade Firearms (IGF) and Prusik USA are both making a good rep for quality kit builds.

That's just to say... If I had it to do over again, I would have had one of those builders put a clone together for me from a parts kit of genuine H&K parts verses having to change out a bunch of the CA parts for H&K and deal with broken welds, etc. with the CA94.

Because my gun was made into an SBR (short barrel rifle), 922r did not apply. If you do purchase a CA gun, be aware of what parts you change out to non USA made ones as you could be in violation of 922r. If you don't know what 922r and NFA and SBR mean, then you need to do some research as the topic is too deep for me to cover here.

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My Clone Experience

NOTE: One should keep in mind that the majority of Coharie guns do not require this much work to make 100%. My sample is not the worst case scenario that I have read (i.e. repressing the barrel for proper bold head gap) but it is also a bit more involved than most CA gun cures (aka. the "Usual Suspects" replacement) so keep that in mind when reading about my experience please.

What follows is the road I took to a functioning MP5 clone that started as a unreliable Coharie 16" CA94. Again, because I paid the tax to make it an SBR I was free to change out American made parts (CA crap) for mostly H&K original parts and a Rim County Manufacturing locking piece.

Below is a picture of the gun as it looked when I took possession from the seller for $1650.00

I purchased this $1200.00 CA94 with the "usual suspects" already replaced with H&K parts, the case, (3) H&K curved mags and (1) Special Weapons mag (another Todd Bailey company) which was total junk, a Police trade-in Surefire SF618 forend, and a wide factory forend.

Those "usual suspects" are often changed out by new CA owners when their guns first malfunction, usually out of the box. Most report that their guns will run after those few parts are exchanged for HK parts. They include the cocking support tube (CA one is plastic, HK is metal), ejector, extractor, and extractor spring.

A ballpark range is $220.00 for the replacement parts and $50.00 ea. for used HK curved mags, $100.00 for a Police trade-in SF618, and $55.00 for the wide forend so I figured I was getting $1725.00 worth of gun delivered for $1650.00 and was happy with the deal.

Of course I didn't know what lay ahead to make it run reliably. I will say this much though, if you don't know about the HK94 series when you buy a clone, you soon will.

Deeper Issues

In my case, the "usual suspects" did not do the trick. I was getting Failure to Eject (FTE) on a regular basis, as in 2-3 per mag when using normal powered ammo like Winchester White Box (WWB) which is 1250FPS from the 8.85" barrel and PMC ammo which is ~1300FPS. I read that subguns liked +P ammo for reliable functioning so I loaded up some hotter hand loads in the 1350FPS and 1450FPS (very hot) range to see if it would help. The hot stuff did indeed reduce FTE issues but did not clear the issue up completely.

The gun came with the cocking tube unwelded which I did not know was abnormal until posting the video below of it on www.hkpro.com. I figured that slop was causing friction and slowing the bolt group down which would result in FTE and also explained why hotter loads would reduce the FTEs since they would overcome the added friction better.

OK, so the cocking tube needed welding. I also wanted to remove the 8" fake suppressor about this time anyway and had already engraved my NFA info on the receiver, so I figured a refinish job would be nice to clean the whole package up.

IGF is know for a finish that best copies the H&K original and unlike the CA paint job that was on the gun, is not so thick to make reading the stampings impossible or applied unevenly like my sample was, so I sent it to IGF to have the tube welded instead of back to Coharie because I wanted the work all done at once.

I later found out from a user and employee of CA called "turn_fab" on www.hkpro.com that having anyone work on your CA gun voids the warranty no matter what they do.

Bad Todd, Bad!

Even though the FTE issues were actually the result of an out of spec CA bolt head and improper trigger housing install, having the cocking tube welded at IGF was enough excuse for Todd Bailey to void the warranty as he so pleasantly stated on his forum. A forum which I didn't find until after coming to www.hkpro.com by the way, since it does not promote itself as the "Official Home of Coharie Arms" or such. The Coharie Arms website had been down for sometime when I started researching the gun online, I naturally assumed that he has moved on to another company name and support for the gun was no longer available.

IF YOU GET A COHARIE GUN THAT DOES NOT RUN, SEND IT BACK TO TODD AND MAKE HIM FIX IT!

Then email me and tell me how he checked the whole gun over and sent it back and it ran 100%.
Also email me if you had to keep sending it back or eventually gave up and fixed it yourself.

I'll be happy to post your experience on this article.

His website www.coharie-arms.com should be up and running soon with contact information.

Help Found

I did find people willing to help at the www.hkpro.com website and plenty of warnings about Todd and his bad reputation on customer service which you don't get by doing things right I figured. Reading his forum and the bad mouthing he does on everyone in the industry and customers like myself is enough to make you sick and certainly was enough to make me stay away from dealing with the guy.

It was no heart break for me to find out I had unknowingly lost the warranty though as I just could not bring myself to allow Todd Bailey to work on a broken gun over and over again with me picking up the shipping tab every time it had to go back like some have done. It's like a Sears Craftsman warranty in a lot of ways. The parts keep breaking, but you can get a new one if you send it back on your dime. Eventually you end up buying a Proto or Snap-On tool (H&K) to replace it if you want quality and your time is worth something.

Anyway, that is the last of my Todd Bailey ranting. You can google the guy and find many examples of his behavior and like rants about what a jerk the guy is. One of my favorites is located at King's Armory.com by the owner Joey who lives near the guy. I've dealt with Joey as one of his customers and he is top notch, and would seem to be dead on about Todd Bailey.

Magazine latch issue, quality job none.

Something I found after working mags in the gun on the range was that the magazine latch was able to be pushed so far that it came out of the magwell cut and hooked itself on the outside. This results in a gun that will not retain the magazine. After taking the latch apart it was obvious that the hole for the latch pin had been miss-drilled and then wallowed out to make it work instead of welding it and drilling another hole. I solved the excessive travel by adding a Delrin washer I cut on the lathe to take up the extra slack and prevent excessive travel.

What else is broken on this thing?

So I get the gun back from IGF and while it looked great with a new finish and nicely welded cocking tube, the gun just refused to run. If I had not been told by the original owner that it ran "fine" I would have asked Jayson at IGF to check the thing out and make sure it was 100%, but figuring that the broken weld was my only issue, I didn't ask him to.

With the help of people on www.hkpro.com I started looking at the bolt head and extractor tension. Some suggested using an extractor spring meant for .223/.308 bolts because of increased tension, so ordered some and guess what? The extra tension did not matter.

The problem was not the extractor profile or tension, but the fact that the bolt head face cut is too large so no matter how much extractor tension there is you still got nothing to hold the round against.

Not being able to find actual specs on the bolt head face to confirm my suspicion that the face cut was too large and thus allowing the casings to slip off the bolt head face before the ejector could kick it out the port, I decided to buy the real deal. If the CA bolt head was OK to use after all, I would then have an expensive H&K backup bolt head. Having little choice left, I reluctantly ordered an authentic H&K "F" bolt head from HKspecialist.net at a whopping $340.00!

I also ordered a locking piece from Rim County Manufacturing for $35.00 because they have a good reputation and was more than 1/2 the cost of an H&K locking piece. I would have ordered a bolt head from them also (saving another $190.00) but they had none in stock at the time. Even so, the bolt head is a pretty critical piece of the puzzle and getting an H&K "F" series while you still can is not a bad idea.

The reason for replacing the locking piece with the bolt head is that both can affect the bolt head gap if the mating pieces are out of spec.

The bolt gap on my CA94 with CA bolt head, locking piece & +2 rollers was .014" which according to the manual is functional. Ideally you want to be in the .018-.020" range with standard 8mm rollers, but the gap was not an issue as it was.

Too small of a gap can cause weak ejections though because the bolt group is held "locked" longer and the pressure in the chamber is given more time to diminish. This means less energy to move the bolt group back and trigger the ejector, possibly resulting in FTE. More than once have I read of a CA gun having NO gap or being under the minimum .010" measurement.

An interesting note is that the bolt head gap increased with the H&K "F" bolt head and Rim County Manufacturing locking piece using standard 8mm rollers. The new gap was now .018", which is ideal for the CA guns according to "turn_fab" who builds them. I've also read that .004" of gap gain is not unusual when changing out the CA bolt head and locking piece to something using H&K specs.

The tension on the H&K bolt head was easily 3X better (see video for comparison) and the round held to the face easily even with violent shacking. I did decide to use the .223 extractor springs from this point on as insurance, but had spare 9mm springs to try if the new bolt head did not fix my FTE issues.

The video gives you an idea of what a "sprung" extractor spring looks like so you can replace it ASAP (buy a bunch of these!) and to give some kind of comparison of the tension I have on the CA bolt head and the H&K bolt head with new .223 extractor springs. I wish I'd had some device at home to measure pressure when knocking the casings loose, but did not. I used a Ty-Wrap as an unscientific attempt to show the difference. As I said earlier, it "feels" like a 3X increase in tension on the H&K bolt head.

Numbers not adding up!

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Shattered Mind (username) on www.hkpro.com suggested that the bolt face cut is so out of spec that it is likely that a 10mm CA bolt head was assembled into the gun by accident. Since the reading is .434" and the .40S&W/10mm casing rim is .424" this would make sense. Also, viper5194 on the same forum had this to say; "I read somewhere CA uses the same NF461 bolt for 9mm and .40, just has a diff. face dimension with no other markings. So it could be the wrong bolt as stated."

75bronco (username) on www.hkpro.com (also associated with Rim County Manufacturing) posted: .40 boltheads are night and day from 9mm... We have seen numerous guns come in with bolt heads that look like 9mm but have .40 bolt face diameters. Also the extractor pocket was dremilled out to allow the extractor to move farther in. This was so the extractor could carry out an empty 9mm case.

CHECK YOUR BOLT FACE BEFORE ASSUMING IT'S THE EXTRACTOR OR EXTRACTOR SPRING!

If your bolt head face measures .434-.435" then you have the wrong cut for a 9mm bolt head. You will need to replace it. The video above shows the difference between a miss-cut and a new RIM bolt head.

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Range Trip!

A trip to the range confirmed that the new bolt head was working better, but I was still getting 4-5 FTEs out of 10 mags of 30 rounds each. Better, but not there yet.

Shelf too low.

I returned with my results to www.hkpro.com and everyone seemed to be at a loss now. One forum member ghilliebear2000 (aka. Jeff @ Prusik USA) said he thought the issue was my semi-shelf. He has seen many CA guns have the shelf too low.

When the shelf is low it causes the trigger housing to slope downward away from the receiver and puts the ejector at a less than optimal angle to eject the empty casings. Not being "timed" properly with the bolt group, this results in the ejector hitting farther on the outer rim of the casing and causing less energy to transfer the direction it needs to go.

My previous use of hotter ammo resulted in more positive ejection, but "spinning" casings faster is not the same as a solid hit closer to the center of the casing which makes for ejection.

There are only two preferred cures IMO for a semi-shelf that is too low. Move the shelf up or in my case, buy an H&K trigger housing that has not been "clipped & pinned" and do so yourself to the height needed to "marry" the trigger pack to the receiver tabs. By raising the trigger housing I was able to get the correct ejector/bolt group relationship back and along with the H&K bolt head the FTE issues went away.

Below are before and after pictures showing the sloping CA trigger housing and the new C&P'd H&K Navy lower I did. The CA was not only too low, but loose also. The new trigger housing is nice and tight but the stock still slides on and pins easily.

Improper fitting shown (front slopes down) with factory trigger housing.


Proper fitting with custom "Clip & Pin" of H&K trigger housing.

Success, a reliable MP5 clone at last!

What it took:

1. Welding of broken cocking tube. - $40.00
   
2. Complete H&K bolt head & RIM locking piece. - $340.00 / $35.00
   
3. Custom "clipped & pinned" trigger housing. - $100.00
   
4. H&K ejector - $50.00
   

That's an additional $515.00 (excluding ejector that came with gun) to make it run.

I did try using the CA bolt head & locking piece in the gun with the new trigger housing, but I got two FTE in the second mag I ran through it and decided not to waste anymore ammo on the combination.

As of this writing, there have been 730 rounds of my reloads (115gr Berrie's FMJ over 4.5gr of 700X powder moving at ~1300FPS with 1.14" OAL) and I have had one FTE in a mixed ammo mag that was likely the same reload combo but with 4.2gr of powder and 1250FPS which is WWB speed and underpowered.

Round Count Since Fixing Gun:

Date      Rnds   FTE  FTX  TOTAL
051109    150              150
051309    300              450
051809    280     1        730
090909    208              938
091209     50              988

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Besides the parts needed to get the gun running ($515.00), I have invested in a few cosmetic upgrades, spare parts and accessories.

• Trident 9 suppressor w/ 3-lug & LID for Glock G17 - $720.00 + $200.00 NFA stamp + $50.00 for XFR + $65.00 Orion SBR Engraving = $1020.00
  
• IGF Envirotech refinish - $250.00
  
• Trigger job by Triggerwork.net - $55.00 (GET THIS DONE!!!!)
  
• Larue Aimpoint T-1 w/ LT660HK mount - $640.00 (picture or check weld / picture of co-wit)
  
• MFI low profile rail - $129.00
  
• The Surefire SF618 forend was changed for a SF619 (offset model) so I could use my Trident 9 suppressor (waiting for form4 to return now) on the gun. - $50.00 net.
  
• Surefire FM14 beam shaper. - $39.00
  
• 3-lug flash suppressor to protect the barrel crown and lugs when the can is not on it. - $99.00
  
• POF MP5 Black Buttstock to replace the loose fitting CA stock. - $48.00
  
• MP5/HK94 Choate Folding Stock - $130.00
  
• VTAC 2pt sling - $29.00
  
• H&K recoil guide rod assembly. Installed and kept CA one as spare. - $59.00
  
• (10) H&K straight mags in 95% condition @ $19.00ea from Cole Distributing. (that was in pre-Obama days, $28.00ea as of this writing) - $40.00 net after selling mags that came with gun.
  
• Used H&K mag coupler off AR15.com - $45.00
  
• SPARES from RTGRobert.com:
  
  
  
  • Stock Pins (2) front, (2) rear - $8.40
    
  • Rollers (2) 8mm, (2) +2, - $17.00
    
  • I made mine on the lathe, but BUY EJECTOR PIVOT PINS!!! (they are easy to lose)
    
  • POF firing pin (CA model started mushrooming, it is now my spare. No issues with POF) - $32.50
    
  • POF extractor & 9mm spring - $30.00
    
  • Five 9mm extractor springs - $8.00ea x 5 = $40.00
    
  • Five .223/.308 extractor springs (I'm using these first) - $8.00ea x 5 = $40.00
    
  • POF ejector - $26.00
    
  
  
  Might have left some out, but so far this thing has cost me... drum roll please.....
  

  $3350.00 for what you see below (waiting on suppressor still) and the spare parts listed.

  
  Feeding the beast... A Dillon XL650 helps!
  
  
  
  
  Sounds like a lot and it is, but considering you can get a lot of extra goodies (even a suppressor as I have) going the CA route over the kit gun or HK94 I'd say it is worth it.
  
  Working through the issues by replacing the core internals (if you can SBR the gun) and tweaking the gun a little will definitely give you the clone with the "most bang per buck." You also learn how the H&K roller lock system works and will be able to troubleshoot your weapon.
  
  If you get one that runs out of the box you are looking at a $1300.00 plain-jane clone verses $3000.00 for a kit gun or $4500.00 for an HK94. Even with $200.00 in "usual suspects" parts, the CA94 is 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of the other two options and that can't be ignored IMO.
  
  Special Thanks to the members of www.hkpro.com who helped me get this thing running!
  
  

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  For further references, see my "MP5 Clone Resources Page"
  

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