Here is a nice pair of barrels to spruce-up the business end of the SKIF BMP-3 turret and, honestly, the SKIF kit needs it. These barrels are the 2A70 100mm rifled bore barrel and the 2A72 30mm coaxial barrel.

The 2A70 barrel is made from aluminum in 2 parts that are difficult to separate. It has a hollowed out end and some marvelous rifling present, a real treat and a step above trying to add a photo-etch barrel rifling insert. The barrel is 74.5mm from the end of the barrel to the part that attaches to the mantlet. The mounting tab has a hole drilled in the end that matches PERFECTLY to the SKIF kit. No drilling or filling required.

The second barrel is the 2A72 30mm machined from brass in 2 parts with a proper hollowed out end. The 2A72 30mm is similar to the same Model Point 3568 2A72 30mm mounted on the BTR-80A, but it is NOT the same barrel, nor are the two different Model Point barrels interchangeable. The one in the BMP-3 set has a thicker barrel near the end, presumably for the braces between the two barrels. This barrel is 63.8mm long from barrel end to mantlet connection. It has a proper plug to fit PERFECTLY into the SKIF kit piece. Again, no drilling or filling.

Now, I do not have proper measurements, but these barrels look correct with the resources I have available. The machining is marvelous and as such these barrels are straight, have no seems to fill, and have crisp demarcations for all the proper pieces…no soft detail at all.

The only knock I have against the barrel set, and I am not sure that there is a feasible solution for the manufacturer, is the lack of the “bracing rods” between the two barrels at the ends. The end of the 2A72 30mm barrel is thickened where the support rods would connect so at least all the modeler has to do is add two correct sized pieces of .080 rod to connect the 30mm and 100mm barrels, using the SKIF parts as the template. It will probably require a bit of filling and filing to get everything to look correct, so expect a bit of “fiddly” work.

Overall, a very nice set of barrels that will really add some crisp detail to a kit that needs it.

The photo shows the Model Point pieces (metal) compared to the Skif pieces plastic).


Thanks to Dmitriy Li of Model Point US for providing the review sample.