PMMS
armorscale
88mm KwK 36 L/56 Barrel
for Tiger I Late Model

armorscale Set No. B35-008
1:35th Scale
Review by Terry Ashley

This barrel set from Armorscale provides one replacement barrel for the Tiger I and consists of one aluminium barrel, five machined brass parts, seven finely etched parts and one resin mantlet plus a small instruction sheet.

The metal parts are finished to a high standard without any surface blemishes and the resin mantlet has subtle cast texture on the front face and nicely defined bolt head details, although it lacks the small flush screws on the gun collar.

Resin and metal barrel parts
armorscale
armorscale

The barrel features fine rifling in the hollowed out muzzle as well as threads on the outer side and the small muzzle collar and muzzle brake are also threaded and these parts simply screw onto the barrel without the need for any glue which is quite impressive although the thread isn’t to scale if you want to get real picky.

The collar half way down the barrel is also a separate part which you obviously fit first before attaching the muzzle brake.

Thread and rifling details
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The muzzle brake has the rear and forward halves separate with a small round grommet fitted to the inside, this in turn has two small etched flanges added for detail and the small etched retaining bolt on the top of the rear muzzle brake.

Assembly of the muzzle brake is straightforward but ensure you line up the two small flanges on the inner grommet and this should be attached inside the front muzzle brake part and not the rear part as indicated in the instructions as this makes fitting the two muzzle brake parts together much easier.

Inner grommet and flange details with assembled muzzle brake
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There is some minor play when fitting the barrel to the resin gun collar so ensure this lines up correctly when gluing but this is only minor but something watch for.

Assembled barrel
armorscale

There is a couple of dimensional issues with the set in that it is marketed as a Late barrel which then should have the smaller Tiger II muzzle brake but the one in my set is the larger Tiger I early muzzle brake, a minor point but the resin mantlet has the late single sight aperture meaning this barrel/muzzle brake combination is not applicable to this mantlet.

The other issue is the rear end of the barrel is slightly larger than other available kit and after market barrels and will not fit into the gun collar of the AFV Club, Dragon, Tamiya or aftermarket mantlets from Hussar Productions and Tiger Model Designs without modification and will only fit the resin mantlet provided with this set which limits it’s use considerably. We are only talking fractions of millimetres here but enough so it won’t fit the other mantlets as mentioned so any adjustment will just be reducing the diameter of the barrel base marginally to fit any other mantlet as required and shouldn’t be a big issue.

Instructions
armorscale

Conclusion:
A nicely machined and detailed barrel with the threaded screw on muzzle brake quite impressive but as mentioned it is an early barrel and not the late as marketed with the minor dimensional issues limiting its use without modification, but overall is an impressive replacement barrel.

Recommended.

Thanks to armorscale for the review set.



Page created 4 June 2005

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