Fixing DAM's PP-19-01

[AdamC]

The Vityaz PP-19-01 is the highlight of the SOBR Lynx Anniversary figure but there is one area where the assembly QC could have been improved. In 1 in 5 examples I’ve seen the rear picatinny rail installed poorly or completely detached out of the box. Here is one example and how you can fix it if such things bother you.

The rail is glued onto the dust covers and unfortunately that dust cover has minimal tooling features to allow proper alignment of the rail. It’s quite easy to end up gluing the rail onto the cover canted to one side which was the problem I saw with a few of the units like below.

In the few examples I looked most of the factory glue was applied near the rear half of the rail. To detach the rail you can use a thin bladed hobby knife and run it along the horizontal seam, in an upwards angled fashion so you aren’t cutting directly into the dustcover, where the the bottom of the side of the rail meets the dustcover. That should allow you to pry the one side slightly upwards if you get where the glue is attached, repeat on the other side as needed.

When it’s detached you’ll see the dust cover has a flat area and a raised section. It’s hard to see in the photo here but on the raised section of the cover on the right side there are two raised dimples that align the front of the rail. If you have any excess glue here carefully take it off. This was a pretty bad example as the excess glue required filing down for a more even surface.

On the underside of the rail you will see there are two holes where the dimples on the dust cover plug in. If they are covered by glue use a pin vise to drill out the hole slightly. If you have excess glue on the inside of the rail a round file can be used to remove some of the excess so it sits properly on the rail. Test fit the rail by aigning the front dimples then seeing how flat the rail sits on the dust cover and file down any old adhesive as needed. It doesn’t take much glue to put back on, two small dabs in the underside of the rear section and a small dab at the front should be sufficient.

You may need a bit of touch up paint depending on how bad the factory glue was applied. It would be nice to see improved QC checks or CAD designs and tooling that reduce the likelihood of factory assembly problems.

[Murakami]

Thank for this scouting report and fix, Adam. With these figures getting costlier, and the tariffs surely making things worse, proper QC would be a big help in assuaging resentment among we hobby-boyz. I’m grateful when unique items are at last made, but it leaves a bitter taste, when they have unnecessary flaws.

[AdamC]

It would be nice to see some increased effort put forth in this area. Things like this are a bit less obvious but most of the problems I tend to see are of the sort that are easy enough to check for. Consumer goodwill often doesn’t cost much so there is a middle ground that can surely be found. That shouldn’t deter from it being a great unique piece that many are pleased to have.

You are correct on tariffs, the specific HS codes under which the 1:6 category gets imported into the US is on the USTR new list of items that will be subject to tariffs if they pass through the commentary phase. I suspect this round will meet with more objections given the list is more broad and targets consumer goods at the retail level. It would put things in a weird situation where buying domestically would mean paying duties (rolled into the price as new goods are imported) whereas buying outside of the US would mean not paying those duties since section 301 duties (aka the tradewar duties for these purposes) don’t apply to section 231 shipments covered by the de minimis exemption of $800 (1 shipment per person, per day) which renders those goods duty/tax free. Now add into that equation the increasing rollout of internet sales taxes across many states.