Series: High Grade Universal Century (HGUC) 1/144
Title: RGM-79SC GM Sniper Custom (B-Club conversion)
Release Date: 10/2001
Suggested Price: ¥ 4800 (conversion kit), ¥ 700 for GM
No. of Parts: 40 resin + 25 plastic + 21 polycap
Plastic colors: resin is a light tan color, GM is light blue
Gimmicks: upgrade of the GM to Sniper Custom with functional targeting visor that folds up and down

Introduction

Contributor: Clem-Master-Janitor
Date: September 26, 2009

Ever have a kit you really, really liked?  That’s the GM Sniper for me. Not as much the second or third incarnations or the Version Ka redesign. I love the standard GM Sniper. It screams of a design that was meant to be used and abused only to come home in one piece. I’ve also learned that the more I want to be in love with something, the more violently it will disappoint me. Let’s explore why I’m in need of therapy after this build… besides the normal therapy I probably needed I mean.

Head

Two parts of this kit worked really nicely, the head and the arms. The head features a ‘face mask’ like design for protecting the finer instruments in the visor panel. These plates can collapse over the visor, protecting it and also focusing the instruments for sniping. It works great. The upper piece slides nicely into place and holds when you put it back up. I had some slight warping with the lower plate that was easily corrected. The antennae can go to hell. Seriously, go straight to flaming hell and stab whatever demon it hits in the face. It was a nightmare getting in properly. The peg doesn’t have a defined straight ahead like some HGUC kits will do, so you have to play with it until you get it just right. Then you slip up after the kit is finished and the antennae snaps in two. Cheap, thin bastard with a high price tag. The head doesn’t swivel very well because of the overly tight fit on the neck polycap. This is the only instance where the resin actually fits tight in a polycap.

Torso

Here’s the good here, a lot of detail in the kit. Standard stuff for B-Club.

And now the bad…

Did I mention that neck polycap? J.B. Weld is what I use to assemble these B-Club kits. It’s designed to hold on resins and ceramics, like those found in the engine of your cars. Apparently polycaps are immune to this binding as I discovered when I test fit the parts together after a week of drying. After much swearing, I fit the piece in permanently.

Sanding is required. A little bit of flash here and there makes the parts look odd. After sanding, it looks nice. Upper chest and midsection need glue to fasten resin to plastic and works nicely. Of course, the arms would benefit more from the Gundam’s kit design of the shoulders flexing to make better sniper poses, but that doesn’t happen here.  The backpack is heavy. I had some issues with too much detail being put into the thrusters. They look cluttered with all the detail lines carved around them. Warping strikes again on the main thruster guards of the backpack. I didn’t realize how bad it was until after the gluing was completed. Since the thrusters and thruster guards are all very fine detailed, a lot of the mold release compound is stuck in the crevices.

Painting is a must with B-Club. For some reason, the mold release mixture decided to fight back. It refused to be removed from the resin. I repainted this kit two to three times for some parts. I soaked them in degreasers and dishwashing soaps and ended up meeting a point where it would let the paint stick, but turned it to goo in some places.

Arms

Arms are mostly the standard HGUC pieces. The shoulder armor resin pieces integrate well and the beam saber for the wrist on the left arm suctions perfectly to the shield connection point. Unfortunately, the new hands are loose in the sockets. The right hand is glued around the sniper rifle. After much cursing and problem solving grinding, sanding, and re-gluing, I managed to get them together. It should be noted that the package shows a fist for the left hand but that fist is another aftermarket B-Club kit. I spent a whole day searching for the hand figuring I had lost it. 

Insert any swearing you like or can think of. It will never come close to my usage on that day of crawling on the basement floor.

Legs

Skirt armor doesn’t work well here. The polycaps are too large and the male pegs are too small. The only bright side is the side skirts have an upgrade (same one I just mentioned for the hand) that has weapons and storage racks for these weapons. The back skirt has a folding weapon rack that was very badly warped.  I had a whoops and now the bit doesn’t hold my RGM-79 [G]  Bazooka gun the best but still works half assed… as long as I don’t ever touch it. 

Legs, how I detest you. Upper legs work great. They’re the standard legs of the GM. Lower legs suck. They have too big of holes for the polycaps, letting the caps buckle backward if you’re not careful. Also, the knee joints hit the knee vents, blowing out the glue job if you’re not careful. More sanding, more resin fighting paint, more swearing, and another set of overly detailed booster. Then you get to the ankle guards. The guards flex, swinging up and down to let the feet move. They barely hold on to the shallow peg holes that the use. Bump them and they bounce apart. Ankles are crap as they too use too small of a male joint in the polycap. You now have a limp footed GM that has easily broken resin parts if it falls backwards. Like the antennae. 

And then there are the feet. They use some of the original GM’s feet (base pieces) and new pieces for the upper part of the feet so to connect easily to the new ankles (that are too loose) so they can bump into the guards (that just flew off because the feet caved back, shooting off to who knows where) dropping the kit back into the wall (snapping the antennae in half). And I didn’t even mention the upper resin parts of the feet don’t fit right on the lower plastic. They almost fit but you need to hack and grind the plastic to get the right fit. Then it’s off to watch the knees or ankle give out and the kit falls back again. Thus the cycle repeats again and again.

Weapons and Accessories

You get a sniper rifle that’s nice (and the barrel is warped) and detailed. A new left and right hand come with this and the beam saber for the left wrist. No decals so you have to make your own. But there are upgrades! From B-Club to make your Sniper more like the Version Ka design with its weapon layout and extra hands. It’s about $40 more.  I wonder if they give you any parts to fix the suck this kit has in abundance?

Conclusion

Do you feel my rage yet? I wanted to love this kit. I spent two months trying to get myself to love this kit. I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. For how much I dumped into fixing up this kit and time undoing things that other B-Club kits made seem so easy (clean up, painting, assembly, not breaking), I want to hunt down those responsible and punish them, demand my HGUC GM Sniper Custom and then force this kit down their throats, recording their choked screams as they succumb to the suck this design radiates with so to use it later down the line while sitting alone with a bottle of Champaign.

If this was the only B-Club kit I ever put together, I would swear off the whole endeavor as the biggest waste of my money.

I hate this kit.

Overall Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

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