It wouldn't be too hard to 3d print parts and kitbash an existing gun into it. Given what I remember of airsoft, the 3d printer would be cheaper than the gun and you'd end up with a piece worth bragging about.
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
22 points (72.9% liked)
No Stupid Questions
50197 readers
1226 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
This was my thought as well. It seems you could use the G36 of your choice as the base and bodge on the upper rail, stock, and so forth.
I will say this, though, if OP is worried about the finish quality of the external parts: Getting a factory looking finish on those big plastic pieces is going to be very difficult with 3D printed parts and require a ton of postprocessing.
Yeah, I think if I were really planning on a factory perfect look I'd go with extra walls and ABS. That way you could slurry dip all the pieces to remove lines and chemical bond them together for stability. It's actually a lot easier than sanding or bondo, but the tradeoff is fumes and acitone so it's not a perfect option.
I was surprised at how easy it is doing the bondo and sanding. It just works, yea it's a bit of work but it's not to bad.
Honestly yeah, it's my go to for a lot of different projects. That said, I find you can get a near factory finish with abs, including textures you can't print, without any changes in weight or sanding work using slurry and nonbinding materials to transfer the texture.
I really would love for there to be an airsoft community here.
Personally I really want an L85-A3 (british assault rifle) but with HPA.
Currently running an MTW Wolverine M4, but everyone has an M4....
There is one, but it's not very active.
I posted my Luger to it a while ago. I should probably post more, but there are always other projects. Alas.
Thanks 😊
What is your budget and what country are you in?
This may be a longshot but you could reach out to Tommybuilt Tactical.
Since HK historically doesn't sell semi-auto G36 rifles to the US civilian market, Tommybuilt takes civilian model SL8s and modifies them with HK parts and his own clone-correct replica parts to make "close enough" G36 copies for civilians in the US.
All that to say, he might have a junk drawer of SL8 parts. It is worth asking if he would modify a quality airsoft G36 to meet your needs. It would be "externally accurate" because it would be real HK parts.
Note: I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice. Check your national and local laws to see if it would be legal for you to import an airsoft gun that features some "real" gun parts such as the rails, furniture, etc.
Haha, good referral, but this is for airsoft.
I understand. The parts to "convert" a G36 to a SL8 are basically the furniture, not functional gun parts. If the host airsoft G36 is accurately replicated from the real G36, the specs should be compatible or close to it. The main SL8 pieces:
-
The front handguard furniture (basically a fiberglass/nylon shroud going over the barrel assembly)
-
The SL8 buttstock (incorporated into the receiver on a real SL8, but a removed "real" stock could maybe be kit-bashed together with the host airsoft G36 receiver? This would be the hardest part of the build, might require JBweld and sanding and re-staining to match)
-
The monolithic top rail with the sights. If the spacing is the same (or close to the same) on an airsoft G36 as a real G36, you should be able to affix the "real" rail to the airsoft gun. I believe it is a few screws in the rear and a nylon pin in the front where it attaches to the front handguard and barrel assembly.
The choices are: get real SL8 parts, 3D print or manufacture your own replica SL8 parts, or maybe get a garbage-tier airsoft SL8 (I think Cyma or another Chinese manufacturer used to make a very low quality SL8 AEG? Can't remember) and harvest the parts from that, to kitbash onto the quality airsoft G36. I'm guessing that option would require almost as much custom modification as using real SL8 gun parts. So really the limiting factors are OPs budget and manufacturing skill.
Edit: Rereading OPs post, it would probably be cheaper to buy both a Ares and a Novritsch SL8 and kludge the good internals into the accurate exterior furniture. Double the cost of one AEG but likely cheaper than my above suggestion.
Oh I get what you're saying. Good point to get exact parts vs replicas. But yeah.. Pricing lol.
Lol I had one back in the day, well over a decade ago. Even had a polycarbonate body. Loved the thing. Had your standard Gen 3 GB and all