Being born in Taiwan and arrived in this great country when I was only 11, the thought of owning a rifle from motherland made it pretty interesting. so when I heard Wolf was going to import the Republic of China 205th Arsenal T91 upper, I was pretty excited to say the least.
Right around Oct. of 2017, I was lucky enough to be the first to receive a prototype Wolf A1 upper, as soon as I received it, I started to put rounds down, it was used as a demo gun at a few local event, used as loaner gun in training classes, plus me myself putting rounds through it, over the course of ten months, I have had ZERO failure and only the handguard have gotten a bit worn. I figure the round count over this period were in the neighborhood of 6000-7000 rounds. What was amazing is the upper was only lube once at the start and never cleaned and maybe lubed two other times during the ten months. I also notice zero carrier tilt issue. so it has established itself as a very well design, and a very reliable piston upper.
Few picture of the gun when it arrived.
notice this gun developed prior to the HK 416 had a rasied receiver much like the HK416
Being in the piston AR game since 1974, Taiwan arsenal understand the need for a robust piston rod key.
The bolt is fashion much like the standard AR bolt minus the cut out for the gas ring. and carrier body does not have the gas vent holes
The gas block on the Wolf A1 is somewhat different than the original, also the US made barrel has a much thicker profile and longer 16.1" length.
Plastic handguard will get very warm quickly even with the heat shield
Top handguard has mounting points for a rail section.
Piston is one single piece, removing by pulling the assembly from front of the gas block.
All components within the assembly. the piston plug/gas valve (not adjustable), the piston and the piston rod, associated springs, spacer.
You can clear see the reinforced area where the piston rod engages the upper receiver.
so as the ownership experience is great for a 600.00 complete upper, I was not satisfied with owning a almost like a T91 carbine. I want it to be as closely replicated as possible.
this was the initial set up, build around an 80% receiver I built in 2015.
Later I was given some Taiwan T91 original furnitures.
but is was still not enough, the gas block and the barrel just bugs me to no end…plus not having the proper receiver. so I embark on a venture that required the help from many good friends.
First I had my friend Alex Ko do the art work on the computer, at first we thought just laser engraving the receiver.
I have seen some engraving work on the internet, but all of the work out there were based on a WE airsoft copy and the airsoft riffle made the mistake of using an A2 receiver, making the fonts for the markings way too small and position the marking an inch lower than the real thing. but I guess I am just that anal so those mistakes were unacceptable to me, so I had to embark on the make my own T91 receiver venture, this is where Monty at Centurion Arms came to the rescue, he was able to machine my A2 lower into an A1 configuration and Monty decided that laser engraving was not original enough so he figured out a way to actually have engraving done properly on my 80%. he was able to translate Alex Ko’s work into CAD program and engraved my A1 80% receiver. Once I had the engraving, I took my 80% and got it anodized.
The upper was completely disassembled by gunsmith wizard Dave Lawver, he took apart the upper, cut the barrel to the original length, turn the barrel down to match the original profile and make sure the original gas block will fit and then drill the hole on the original GB to match the port on the barrel(yes, the port on the GB was not drilled) once assembled it started to resemble more like the original T91.
Only one area where is right underneath the charging handle on the lower receiver that is not copied correctly, but I would say the accuracy rate if about a good 97%.
If you want a A1 80% receiver with the proper engraving, you can contact Monty at Centurion Arms to buy his T91 A1 80% receivers.
