1:72 Mig-19S gun barrels

Three NR-30 cannon in the first Soviet supersonic fighter

The MiG-19 was the first series-built Soviet fighter to pass the speed of sound in level flight, and the S version added an all-moving horizontal tail, without which the aircraft was hard to control in the transonic range. The armament consisted of three NR-30 cannon of 30 mm caliber, a pair in the wing roots and one in the forward fuselage. A round from them had such force that the muzzle flash dazzled the pilot and the shock damaged the skin; the designers dealt with that with muzzle brakes and sheet metal shields around the barrels.

These barrels are the weakest point of the ordinary kit. At this scale injection-molded plastic is always too thick, the part tends to come out of the mold bent and the muzzle stays blind.

• A replacement for the plastic stubs — the barrels have the right section and length
• 30 mm caliber — matching the armament of the S version
• 1:72 size — the barrel length matches the subject
• A quick job — an improvement that is finished in one afternoon

Fitting is straightforward: the original stub is cut off at the root, the face is leveled with a file and the new barrel is set into a shallow hole drilled with a pin vise. It is worth dry-fitting them and comparing the angle of the two wing barrels from the front, because any asymmetry shows on the finished model at once. The steel shade is best mixed from a dark gray with a drop of metal paint.