Introduction:

Live Resin is a well-known name in scale modeling. The company revolutionized the model making process by employing state-of-the-art 3D rapid prototyping technology to produce high quality weapon and accessory sets in 1/35 scale. Another revolution in resin manufacturing the company initiated comes from utilizing flexible resin for pieces which require bending and twisting. This review covers one of the Live Resin sets cast in flexible resin: 7.62 feed chute (LRE-35216). All the other reviews of Live Resin products on Armorama can be found here (link).

Review:

The set is packed in a zip-lock bag secured between hard cardboard backings. The CAD boxart on the front shows the contents of the set, while the one on the back displays the chute in use with M134D Minigun. The set includes 4 casting blocks, each carrying 70mm long ammunition feed chute molded in black resin. Due to being flexible, the resin feels a lot like synthetic rubber or vinyl, however the pieces can be easily removed from their carrier blocks and cleaned using a sharp blade. The pieces can be twisted and bent, and they can also be fanned out slightly. The black colored resin is difficult to photograph, and the images included in this review do not show these ammo chutes justice: the casting quality is of highest standard with the chutes featuring lots of details nicely delivered in scale.

This set represents 7.62 ammunition feed chutes, flexible link channels used to provide support and guide an ammunition belt as it moves from the ammunition box to the breech mechanism of a machine gun. Feed chutes help to avoid jamming problems at the gun feeder mechanism that could potentially be caused by routing the ammo belt through one or more sharp turns. 7.62 chutes are usually used with M134D Miniguns. Although Live Resin already produces M134D ammo chutes (LRE-35107) and includes ammo chute segments in all their M134D sets, this set is very different as it features highly flexible long chutes, which are easy to install and give extremely realistic results in scale. I added a photo from my friend’s build featuring a flexible .50 cal chute from Live Resin (LRE-35147) on the remote weapon station of his M-ATV. Although not a set featured in this review, the photo can serve as an example of what can be achieved using 1/35 scale chutes cast in flexible resin.

Conclusion:

The 7.62 feed chute (LRE-35216) is a set featuring ammunition feed chutes suitable to use on M134D Miniguns and several other weapon systems in 1/35 scale. The set includes four chute segments, each 70mm long, cast in flexible resin… and the flexible resin is what makes all the difference between this set and the ones released before from Live Resin, as these chutes can be bent and twisted to realistically depict the ammo channels going from the ammo box to the machine gun.