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ABER
German 88mm KwK 36 L/56 Tiger I Early
ABER 1:35 Set #35 L-26
Review by Terry Ashley


The Set:
This barrel is designed for the Tamiya Tiger I kit #35146 Late production type and consists of a two part aluminium barrel with rifling added inside the muzzle and five machined brass parts for the single piece later Tiger II type muzzle brake and gun collars as well as six etched parts for the muzzle brake details.

Assembly is straight forward with two barrel parts fitting together to a fine tolerance and the rear collar fitting equally well and just a small dab of cyanoacrylate is all that is needed to hold the parts together.

The rear muzzle brake brass collar and etched collar ring may need enlarging slightly with a fine needle point file to fit the barrel and it is best to file the etched parts while still attached to the fret for easy handling with test fitting often to get a good fit.

The inner muzzle brake grommet may also need some minor filing to fit inside the one piece muzzle brake but this varies between sets with the part in this set required a bit of reduction while that in set 35 L-26 (Early barrel) not requiring any filing.

The two etched detail ring parts fit easily in place on the grommet with a small dab of cyanoacrylate and it’s your choice if you add these before or after fitting the grommet in place.

The muzzle end cap fits precisely to the muzzle brake but you have to add two small notches yourself with a fine razor saw and extreme care is needed here not to destroy a good barrel by not getting the cuts even on both sides.

On the top of the muzzle brake is the small securing fittings with three very small etched parts and care is needed when fitting these while the fit of the barrel to the target kits requires no alteration and simply replaces the kit barrels and there is an engraved line on the barrel to indicate how far the barrel should be pushed into the kit gun collar.

Nothing could be easier with the only thing to watch is the orientation of the muzzle brake to ensure it lines up correctly in relation to the mantlet.

A simple update set to add a considerable more detailed barrel to any of the Tamiya Tiger I kit.

Highly recommended

Unassembled parts
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Image showing barrel rifling and assembled muzzle brake
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Assembled barrel
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See the Tiger Tank Subject page for additional reviews for the Tiger series.

Thanks to Michael from Airconnection for the sample barrel.
Airconnection carry the full range of ABER update sets and barrels.




Page created March 7, 2005