Got my GSG-16 today what a pile of

[GerardSamija]

I picked up a 9in. barrelled version the 17th. from Cabelas. No steel plug in the grip, btw...may have been a Cabelas thing in past, but not now. Seems to be a decent little plinker, although the shorter barrel is no fond of lower velocity ammo. CCI stingers work great, but I ran some older ammo at 1250fps, and had a FTE every 5-7 rounds.

If your preference is lower velocity stuff (and that's probably a better bet given the experiences people have had with Stingers and the like causing cracking of the bolt housing), then it's an easy fix; just pop in slightly weaker springs. I only shoot CCI SV out of mine, and a pair of 0.7mm wire stainless steel springs did the trick perfectly.

[Neutrino]

I literally just disassembled my grip and found that chunk of steel. Came here to answer the penultimate question: "WTF?" Glad I'm not unique in this find! All the online videos, pics, etc. don't show it or mention it. FYI it's the 9" model from Cabelas (was on sale for $600 at my local so I finally picked one up).

Now back to the bench to see about removing it. Not sure if it's just jammed in there or screwed in or what, but it's blocking access to that bolt I need to remove the trigger group...

[hfp75]

Aren’t these things all pig/pot metal ? With a pencil barrel and a shroud ?

[GerardSamija]

Aren’t these things all pig/pot metal ? With a pencil barrel and a shroud ?

Sure. Zamak is the 'pot metal' type I think, similar to what Chiappa uses on a lot of their lower end firearms. And there's a lot of plastic and bad screws in the GSG-16 as well. It's a cheap gun. Price-wise, I mean. So don't expect $2,000 materials in a $500 firearm.