I always fancied an HK UMP but at the time G&G ones were just too expensive to buy on a whim. This reason hadn't actually stopped me before but when I saw DE UMG on Landwarrior's website for £100 I had to take a look. I'd read the reviews of Double Eagle's take on the UMP and most agreed that it was a clone of the G&G and out of the box it wasn't a sterling performer. Specifically, the hop was pants and needed replacing and the motor was a bit slow. It didn't sound like a big job, so I stumped up the cash for the gun and a couple of spare magazines and headed home.
On testing the gun at home there were indeed several issues. True to the review the hop was rubbish and appeared to be fully on even at its lowest setting sending bbs skyward within a short distance. The rate of fire was as suspected pretty poor. The last thing was that the bolt cover kept jamming when you tried to open it. Not all the time but enough to be annoying. I quickly discovered that the UMG is the easiest gun ever to dismantle. No tools required, remove the rear pin, hold the hop forward against its spring to clear the gearbox nozzle and hey presto the gun is in two parts. The upper has the barrel and hop unit and the lower contains the gear box which with little effort and removal of a second pin can be taken out completely. A slight turn of the hop unit and it and the barrel slides out of the upper receiver.
The bolt was an easy fix and a small piece of plastic card glued on the inside solved the problem and it works fine to this day. It was suggested that replacing the hop unit would solve that issue but I thought, "Why not try and fix the current one?". I quickly had it in bits and after some experimentation out came the needle files and I carefully reprofiled the groove in the lever that the presses down on the hop up nub. The motor was dumped and a G&P M120 motor installed. From the start of reading the manual to having the whole thing back together was less than an hour. It worked like a charm, the bolt worked fine, rate of fire was much more to my taste and turned out to be surprisingly accurate. I was well chuffed and rate the gun as one of my favourites despite being one of the cheapest.
Other mods just kind of happened as I lived with the gun. One thing I found is that the nice rubberised plastic finish wears off but to be fair did lend it a somewhat battle worn look until that is I accidentally exposed it to DEET based insect repellent. It melts into a sticky goo. This was basically from my face against the stock. I cleaned it off with some alcohol and put on a piece of neoprene foam tape to cover the shiny part. Works great and looks pretty cool.
After a short time I'd decided a silencer was needed and ordered the expensive but nice G&G one. It arrived and it was at that point I realised that clone meant close but not identical. It didn't fit. Bugger. No problem thinks I and ordered a G&G barrel to replace the clone one. That'll work. However, that, "close but not identical" hit again. The barrels used different fittings. Double bugger. The silencer did come with a threaded fitting to allow it to be fitted to a gun with a 14mm CCW barrel thread. All I need to do was turn down and thread the DE barrel on my lathe and - wait, don't have a lathe. Hmmn. Do have an electric drill and a file though. Some time and a great deal of patience later it was the correct profile. I eventually tracked down a 14mm CCW die for significantly less than the kings ransom they seemed to want for one in the UK and... it now takes a G&G silencer.
The gun now sports a Magpul angled foregrip which this time fitted perfectly first time. No, don't be stupid, of course it didn't. You see, a wanted the angled foregrip and the original UMP front end sling points. Some more patience - and a Dremel - and it fits.
Finally (really?) after seeing a chap's outstanding effort in painting the top frame in OD mine also has an OD top frame with the sights, rails and pins left black. It was a right pain in trying to get the rubberised finish off until I remembered the insect repellent. It did a grand job. As did most of a can of OD Krylon.
To top it off the gun has been fitted with a clone C-More red-dot sight, all the sling points have been fitted with paracord loops for easier sling attachment and two of the mags have the slide on G&G magazine link things.
It's finished. So far.
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