LCT SVD - the journey to a usable SVD
This is what I have learned from owning this SVD for about two years, it has taken me that long to get it running well and I have had it apart at least 20 times.
The motor is a nice slim hi-torque like the ones used in the LCT slim grips. Likewise the finish and external build quality are excellent.
LCT decided to use a 15 tooth sector gear on a 19 tooth piston, effectively short stroking it so it doesn't use all its cylinder volume like the CYMA/RS do. LCT effectively said "it was to stop unusual BB behavior". Assuming that means the next cycle was happening before the first BB has left the barrel causing erratic BB's. Nobody else has ever had this issue so not sure what they were fixing?
CYMA 19 tooth sector gear works as an upgrade, it does require a small amount of grinding of the gearbox shell as the tappet plate pin on the sector gear slightly rubs on the gearbox housing. No other gears can be replaced, everything I tried bound up the gears with the shell back together.
Shimming and bearings are an issue, gears are almost press fit into the bearings making assembly/disassembly of the gearbox difficult if not sorted out. The original gearbox was SHOCKING, it was difficult to turn over by hand, with the gears feeling like they were binding up, zero shims and when cycling the gearbox the gear noise was piercing loud. It really sucked. I replaced the original bearings with solid bushes for everything except the sector gear, the CYMA sector gear fit the original bearings.
The main spring is standard AEG but has an alloy spacer about 20mm long behind it, I assume it was to make up for the short stroke. If you go to 19 tooth sector gear I expect it would be catastrophic to leave this spacer in.
The cylinder, piston, piston head and cylinder head are all proprietary. I have not checked if CYMA/Real Sword are compatible as I did not have access to them but the LCT ones are oversize bore (bore-up) which increases cylinder volume. So no upgrade path with those parts.
Hop up is adequate and appears to be same as the CYMA/Real Sword with TDC style dial. I would expect all 3 of these would perform identically. So no upgrade path here either.
Hop rubber and nub are standard AEG type. Barrel is standard AEG so upgrades are possible.
My one has a serial number ending in 0004, so being an early one I had the LCT branded ETU with no adjustments. At some stage they started using an Aster(?) ETU which probably solved the issues I had. Once I got my gearbox spinning freely, shimmed correctly, AOE corrected, the ETU would double fire and emit two buzzes and shut off. After talking to LCT about the issue and given completely wrong information, I was left no choice but to put a different ETU in. I went with a T238 v3 front wired, fairly priced and has the adjustments you need. Installing the ETU was another big job that required gearbox shell modification to get it to fit, it is taller and longer than the LCT one.
My gearbox shell itself was pretty telling, it looked like it had been modified by hand to fit the LCT ETU in, almost like it was a pre-production/test fit gun, again this could be true with my low serial number.
After all of that mine is now running well.
I am using a M150 spring and was getting consistent 406-409 FPS with 0.25 BB's (1.9 Joule).
Gearbox noise is acceptable but still a little louder than my other LCT guns which are tuned to the point that they cycle so fast and cleanly there isn't enough time to hear the gears/motor 😉
Would I recommend the LCT SVD?
No.
All my other airsoft guns are LCT and I wouldn't use anything else but for the price tag of the LCT SVD you would be much better off hunting down a second hand Real Sword and still having some change left over or buying three CYMA SVD's, both of which actually work well out of the box.