Initial Impressions of the TM SOPMOD M4 AEG

[vidi_gonzales]

Im guessing it was kinda cold where you played. The stock marui sopmod-batteries are rubbish in cold temperatures.

 

I changed the cells in mine, and added one extra. 9.6v with quality cells had no problem dealing with the cold.

I later upgraded to lipos, but even they had problems in minus 20 celsius. It looks like NiCd batteries work best in the cold.

[Richard Y]

try banging the grip once with the palm of your hand then loosening the motor hight out slightly and see if that fixes it ..

[TheEgo]

I doubt it's the cold. It's pretty mild weather I've been playing in.

 

I'll try adjusting the motor height. Seemed like the grub screw was already pretty far out, but I'll give it a try.

[Gunfighters808]

Ego,

when shooting in semi, do you tend to feather the trigger like, on a real firearm when rapid firing?

I"ve found that a good ratio of the Military and RS shooters that play within my group/field tended to experience this for a while. they try to fire as fast as possible in semi, then the gun tends to lock up. thus resulting in the "go full to clear" routine. they had to just teach themselves to slow down a little in the trigger pulling and go to a full stroke on trigger pull, that eliminated about 95% of the issues. now, there may also be a problem with the battery pack not outputting enough. it's rare, but I've seen a few bum defects now and again from the factory, even from TM. do you have multiple batteries? if so, does the gun do it on all? if it's on all, probably not the batteries, then it could be either gun, or shooting/timing thingy.

 

I hope this helps somewhat, any more descriptions on what happens just before the lockup?? like how far into the battery were you? how fast or how many guys you were shooting at (at the time)? weather? gives us a better understanding and picture to help you out.

[Richard Y]

the grip has been redesigned, its not like version 2 m4s all loose. They couldnt make a cage like version 3, so they made the inside of the grip smaller, its very tight around the motor, the only issue is when you install the motor or during motor hight adjustment if it catches due to the tightness, no mater how much you adjust it, its not adjusting it. hence the bang with the palm of your hand. i had one with semi auto lockup come in, adjusting the motor height fixed it..

 

That particular lock up though, theres always a chance yours is due to some thing else..

[TheEgo]

they try to fire as fast as possible in semi, then the gun tends to lock up. thus resulting in the "go full to clear" routine. they had to just teach themselves to slow down a little in the trigger pulling and go to a full stroke on trigger pull

 

I'm fairly sure that a percentage of the lockups have been caused by me not allowing the rifle to fully cycle before trying to take another shot.

I do think that there is another issue as well.

Small difference in what I was doing prior to the lockups make me believe there are more than 1 issue.

 

1- Shoot, Shoot, Shoot, Pull trigger to quickly and rifle partially cycles, Won't Fire

2- Shoot, Shoot, Won't Fire

 

In scenario 2. I'm not aware of the rifle partially cycling (could occur, and me not hear it, or preoccupied on what I was shooting at).

It also occurs on the first shot, drop round a corner, go to fire and nothing.

 

Doesn't feel like a typical Ver2. piston/gear lockup as the motor doesn't rotate as much. And the fact switching to full auto clears it.

 

I'll use my brothers battery, but I use a decent charge so know exactly how charged it was. And it didn't really deteriorate during the day as you'd expect with the battery discharging.

During the day my brother was using an identical, stock rifle in the same conditions, of the same age, bought at the same time from the same place. So do have a benchmark to run it against.

 

 

the grip has been redesigned, its not like version 2 m4s all loose. They couldn’t make a cage like version 3, so they made the inside of the grip smaller, its very tight around the motor, the only issue is when you install the motor or during motor height adjustment if it catches due to the tightness, no mater how much you adjust it, its not adjusting it. hence the bang with the palm of your hand. i had one with semi auto lockup come in, adjusting the motor height fixed it..

 

That particular lock up though, theres always a chance yours is due to some thing else..

I do the same thing with a standard Ver.2 motor grip, to make sure the motor has settled correctly.

 

theres always a chance yours is due to some thing else..

As in any fault finding!

 

First I'll give the motor height adjustment a try.

Try and tame my twitchy fingers. Hopefully switching to 9.6v in the future, will speed up the cycle speed and stop me being able to partially cycle it.

 

I will keep it standard for now, until I know it's working correctly. Otherwise you get too many variables.

[druid799]

Ego , beat me too it was going to ask same question as i had the same thing happen to me at the Mall last sunday , at the time i did wonder was i pulling the trigger too fast and was that causing the problem or was it down to the fact it was fricking cold ! . Richard will give the grip thump a try if it happens again , cheers for that idea .

[KDawg]

i got my sopmod on friday and so far it looks amazing! I did not however order a battery since I am waiting for eagle6's custom lipo so I can't comment on the performance. But this gun looks beautiful, it feels solid as a rock and i cant detect any wobble anywhere on this gun. It's got a nice weight to it and it seems very well balanced, the battery switching seems like a great innovation on TM's part and i hope more guns will follow in its foot steps since ive had enough with tricky batteries and wires getting caught everywhere. The one concern i have so far is the delta ring (i think thats wat its called, ring that sits at the behind the foregrip) is easily moved and this seems like it could be a problem during skirmish since it would cause the lower RIS to fall off, but i dont know if this actually happens since i havent tested it but i will report back once i have. I liked the ease of removing the back iron sight, just a thumb screw and it pops right off, and my new HurricanE 556 holosight fits perfectly on there and looks great. Im gonna wait until my batteries come and then run it stock for the first game and then put in the promy barrel, eagle6 spring, and firefly buffer rubber, so i can test the fps differences. Ideally i would like to test how much each part affects the fps but i dont have my own chrono so i dont think ill have the patience to do it It might be a little too early to be making conclusions but i gotta say that this is easily the best looking and feeling gun i have ever owned and i would definitely give it a 10/10 so far and from wat ive heard i honestly dont think its gonna let me down performance wise

[KingKrispy 21]

just a quick question, are those trades engraved or stamped?

[dynamic_e]

Anyone have any luck throwing an aftermarket freefloat rail on one of these badboys?

[AnakChan]

Anyone have any luck throwing an aftermarket freefloat rail on one of these badboys?

 

U mean like this? :-

 

http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/forums/inde...t&p=2013059

 

BTW, a couple of follow ups from my TM Sopmod, I've managed to get an airsoft shop to front wire and put in an AB-FET in the front. The only thing they needed to file was the outer barrel to make some space for the AB-FET (Extreme Fire's AB-Long). Looking at some nunchuck styled LiPo's 7.4V 1100mAh to slip it into the MB DD rail...gonna be a tight fit there.

[Number5]

U mean like this? :-

 

http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/forums/inde...t&p=2013059

 

BTW, a couple of follow ups from my TM Sopmod, I've managed to get an airsoft shop to front wire and put in an AB-FET in the front. The only thing they needed to file was the outer barrel to make some space for the AB-FET (Extreme Fire's AB-Long). Looking at some nunchuck styled LiPo's 7.4V 1100mAh to slip it into the MB DD rail...gonna be a tight fit there.

 

So hows the performance with the FET?

 

Also, we've had a bit of discussion on here about exactly WHAT needs shimming when fitting a free float rail... can you enlighten us? (me )

 

J.

[AnakChan]

So hows the performance with the FET?

 

Also, we've had a bit of discussion on here about exactly WHAT needs shimming when fitting a free float rail... can you enlighten us? (me )

 

J.

FET works great. I have the same FET installed in my P90 and mainly for the AB feature. The trigger response is the same as any other electrical trigger. Would be nice to have an electronic one (like the SystemA Revolution). My ROF has increased too but naturally there have been a few factors in play to change that (e.g. moving from a custom 9.6V 1300mAh NiMH battery-in-stock, to a 7.4V 2600mAh Lipo, & of course the AB-FET addition).

 

The shimming for my DD are 3xrings per bolt for the two bottom bolts. That'll keep it pretty centered. If required, I can take pics.

[KDawg]

just a quick question, are those trades engraved or stamped?

 

 

Im not really sure how you can tell but i would probably say that they are engraved someone correct me on this if im wrong

[Number5]

FET works great. I have the same FET installed in my P90 and mainly for the AB feature. The trigger response is the same as any other electrical trigger. Would be nice to have an electronic one (like the SystemA Revolution). My ROF has increased too but naturally there have been a few factors in play to change that (e.g. moving from a custom 9.6V 1300mAh NiMH battery-in-stock, to a 7.4V 2600mAh Lipo, & of course the AB-FET addition).

 

The shimming for my DD are 3xrings per bolt for the two bottom bolts. That'll keep it pretty centered. If required, I can take pics.

 

 

Some pics would be brilliant!

 

 

Been thinking about trying to fit a FET for a while, pics of the fileing done to fit it would be helpful too if that aint much bother, I think I have an infected Mosfet lying around somewhere...

 

J.

[AnakChan]

K, will get those up over the weekend...today's my b'day and my gf's gonna cook up something special for me. I don't think she'd appreciate it if I were to whip out my M4 in the middle of this celebrated dinner.

 

However note that I'd probably be reluctant to open up the receiver though 'cos I'm worried I may not be able to re-route the wiring properly (and cause mag jams, or the empty mag lever to kick off the simulated bolt stop/release function). But I'll open up the front RIS.

[Richard Y]

happy birthday dude!

[Schaap]

However note that I'd probably be reluctant to open up the receiver though 'cos I'm worried I may not be able to re-route the wiring properly (and cause mag jams, or the empty mag lever to kick off the simulated bolt stop/release function). But I'll open up the front RIS.

 

QFT!

 

I've had one hell of a hard time getting the wires not to jam the bolt stop.

 

However, it is so so worth it! A MOSFET + 7.4V LiPo does the SOPMOD extreme justice. It is the way it was meant to be on day one.

 

AnakChan, do you know the wire gauges you were using?

Edited March 11, 2010 by Schaap

[AnakChan]

Some pics would be brilliant!

 

So, actually if you're looking down the barrel, for the bottom 2 bolts, there's 2xshim rings on the bottom left bolt, and 4xshim rings on the bottom right bolt. You may be able to see the shim rings from this photo :-

 

 

This one shows how the shop custom grooved the outer barrel Extreme Fire's AB-FET.

 

 

AnakChan, do you know the wire gauges you were using?

 

Sorry mate, the wires didn't have any markings on the gauges. But here's a photo, maybe it'll help :-

 

 

And as you can see inside the receiver, the shop has shrink-wrapped all 3 wires so couldn't get any markings either. This shows the wire route from the trigger to the side of the mechbox next to the hop-up unit to the front :-

 

 

happy birthday dude!

Thanks Richard!!

[Gunfighters808]

Anak,

which shop did the milling on the barrel? looks nice. did they mill the back end by the stabilizing washer to allow for the wiring too?

the wiring looks to be 18ga or the thin-wall 16, about the same on the older FET sets from SW. -I've never had good luck with his AB sets, I always fry them. now I use just the really simple non AB type FETs.. my shooting is too much for the boards.. lol...

 

that last pic, does the wiring interfere with the mag cut-off lever to the bolt release switch?

and happy belated B-Day

[AnakChan]

Anak,

which shop did the milling on the barrel? looks nice. did they mill the back end by the stabilizing washer to allow for the wiring too?

the wiring looks to be 18ga or the thin-wall 16, about the same on the older FET sets from SW. -I've never had good luck with his AB sets, I always fry them. now I use just the really simple non AB type FETs.. my shooting is too much for the boards.. lol...

 

that last pic, does the wiring interfere with the mag cut-off lever to the bolt release switch?

and happy belated B-Day

It was called Air-borne in Shinjuku. They're not the cheapest Airsoft shop in town however the ppl there know their stuff and are friendly. Nope, they didn't do any milling on the back end and managed to squeeze in those wires though that opening.

 

I must say I've not had any problem with Gandolf's Extreme-Fire SB-Long. Admittedly I've not bought his newer Cheetah/Panther/Jaguar stuff (but my colleague has got his 2xCheetah products and not had any problems either). I've installed 3xSB-Longs now; 2xP90 and now 1xTM EBB and so far they've been behaving great. Each being driven by 11.1V 2150mAh, 11.1V 1500mAh, and 7.4V 2600mAh batteries.

 

So far, the wiring hasn't interfered with the mag cut-off lever with the way the shop has done it. One of the reasons why I don't wanna open up the receiver to look into it 'cos I don't wanna muck that part up.

[Gunfighters808]

Anak,

Air-Borne!, cool. (I found that shop while lost in Shinjuku last time I was up there, lol...)

 

 

and this just came online:

Metal Selector Plate from Promy. (seems a bit overkill for that piece?)

http://www.redwolfairsoft.com/redwolf/airs...M_SOPMOD_M4.htm

 

 

[Number5]

Awsome pics Anakchan! thanks for the info! and happy birthday although it is a bit late now!!!

 

Just a bit of an update, I just fitted a G&P delta ring to my SOCOM, perfect fit with ZERO barrel wobble!

 

added a few other cosmetic bits, but some internal upgrades i've also done are-

 

Added a 6.03 PDI inner barrel

Firefly flat hop rubber

Prometheus hop bucking (firefly was out of stock!)

and...

 

I FINALLY fitted my Eagle 6 spring! and in all the SOCOM is now kicking out 335 FPS consitantly with 13 RPS and is super accurate!

 

The spring fitting with RichardY's guide was piece of cake! all still working flawlessly too!

 

Going to fit Deans connectors to it next and see if the trigger response improves any. Im already using Lipo's so the trigger response is pretty quick but could be quicker!

 

J.

[Richard Y]

is that the m85 or m100 ? cant remember

 

glad its shooting like a demon.. get that firefly though, youll see even more improvment with the flat nub.

[Elvis]

Just a bit of an update, I just fitted a G&P delta ring to my SOCOM, perfect fit with ZERO barrel wobble!

Fitting the G&P delta ring is drop in? And is it now possible of fitting a G&P m203 Jungle series?