Airsoft Dynamics (AD), Airsoft Retailer of the year 2001, started selling FIRST Factory customs in 2001. Ordered direct from Japan I was told it would take 4-6 weeks to get to me, and cost £450 in stock form. The AD website offers more clues on the ShadowAUG’s features, namely;
AD claims that the ShadowAUG:
For £450 you would hope it was more than a standard AEG with a silencer on the end of it.
The word typically used to describe the AUG’s look is futuristic. When it was first drawn up in the 70’s, it looked like a space age gun. But here and now it just looks plain ugly with its thick receiver and thin barrel. Fully ambidextrous, the weapon is equally usable by righties and lefties. The original AUG has spawned several different variants; an LMG, SMG and a 9mm SMG version. Used by the Austrian and Australian armies in the military form (Olive Green furniture with a 20mm scope). The SR (Special Receiver – black furniture with a weaver mount for a scope) version is used by several Special Forces and special police units. Shopping Experience You can read the full write up of my shopping experience with AD and the ShadowAUG elsewhere, but the advertised 4-6 week delivery time in my case was hugely unrealistic. I ordered the AEG on the 24th of October 2002, and it finally arrived with me on the 20th of December 8 weeks latter. During which time only 2 out of my 4 phone calls, and 6 out of my 12 emails to AD were responded to. I was kept almost totally in the dark about how the build was proceeding, and it was only through my constant harassment that I was told it would be delayed due to a part shortage. When it supposedly finally arrived in the UK it took nearly a week to get to my front door – and in my opinion AD lied to me about when the couriers were given the package to delivery it to me. Considering I was ordering a £450 AEG this is a massive concern. The prevailing theory is that by using a UK based retailer there less hassle and more reliablility than the overseas (HK) boys. With AD this is blatantly NOT the case, you would be better buying your kit from WGC or DEN and reaping the cost and time savings. For my troubles I was begrudgingly offered compensation – a £10 G3 Muzzle adapter free of charge. Even then they sent me the wrong one! For the record I will NEVER be shopping with AD again, I would not recommend anyone use them, it is a cowboy outfit. Save the money and hassle and go with Zero One or WGC. If you want a FIRST custom gun you can now get them DIRECT from FIRST Factor, through their website – at almost ¾ of the cost of the AD one (that’s including shipping & tax). Overview The ShadowAUG arrived in a standard looking AUG box. I went for the SR version as the Military version is hindered by the 20mm Tasco scope – which is practically useless. Plus the silencer and RIS rails would look very odd matched to the OG furniture of the military version
Included with the box were 2 interesting documents; the first was AD’s warranty document and the second a FIRST Factory certificate of authenticity and warranty document. No loading rods are included since it does not come with a standard magazine. It’s a full 25mm shorter than the TM AUG.
What immediately strikes you when you pickup the ShadowAUG is how solid it is. There is none hollowness or creaking that is evident with new TM AUG’s. The ShadowAUG’s silencer is constructed of metal, most likely aluminium, as are the RIS Rails. The Rails themselves are fixed to the silencer by 3 screws per rail. The rail covers are fairly standard; except that they have been cut down to fit the shorter rails on the silencer.
The trigger unit has 3 stages – safe, semi and full auto (FA), whereas the standard AUG’s only have a 2 stage trigger.
One other feature that strikes you with the ShadowAUG is that both shell ejection ports are covered. In the rush to take the digital photo’s of the ShadowAUG I knelt on the receiver punching the rear sling pin through the receiver breaking some of the plastic. After 30 minutes with some Araldite most of the damage was rectified. Overall I was very impressed. Testing - Features & Claims The next logical place to continue the review was to look at the individual features and advertised benefits of the weapon and see if they measure up in real life. With an 8.4V battery charged and several thousand rounds of 0.25g ammo ready it is time to get to work.
AD claims that the ShadowAUG:
It is disappointing that AD feel they have to falsely advertise the features of the ShadowAUG to sell it especially when it is such a high quality weapon. Stock this AEG fired at 292fps, about bang on from what I would expect from a stock AEG. However I never intended on using this AEG in its stock form. I bought a Systema M100 FTK for the AUG, and 4 12V 600mAh batteries, before I ordered the gun from AD. At the time I did not buy a high accuracy barrel for the Shadow because AD could not confirm to me that a high accuracy barrel designed for the AUG would fit in the shortened ShadowAUG. Upgrades Upgrading this AEG was a nightmare!! Plain and simple. It took over 7 hours of blood, sweat and tears (literally) to fit the FTK and barrel. To compare it took me 20 minutes to upgrade a standard AUG to the same specification. So why did it take so much longer?? Well I have to hand in to FIRST, the £450 price tag soon become very justifiable.
I removed one of the ejection port covers, the upper receiver assembly and the butt plate to expose the core of the lower receiver. I then removed the gearbox retaining plate and what I found was very surprising. The back of the gearbox appeared to be hand wrapped in foam, and then sealed with clear tape. On top of this the motor was covered by a rubber sock. Along with this there was an electrical switch on the top right hand side of the gearbox compartment. Trying to remove the gearbox was an absolute nightmare.
Here’s where the ‘customness’ of the weapon becomes apparent. Since the lower receiver is a clamshell design (2 halves) by my reckoning the only way to get the wrapped gearbox into the receiver was to have the 2 separate halves of the lower receiver, put the gearbox in one and glue the other one on. When you also consider the gearbox itself has been hand wrapped in the foam insulation and then sealed you begin to see where your money has gone.
Of course this was no great lift for me because I had to get the gearbox out – and the only way of doing this was by removing all the lovely foam and sealing tape! Once I had removed a sufficient amount of foam the gearbox did come out. What I noticed was that the electric switch was attached to the wiring loom on the gearbox, and had come out with the gearbox.
To open up the gearbox I had to remove all the remaining foam, the rubber sock, and a sheet of adhesive metal mesh that covered the cylinder. On top of these covering I noted that all holes on the gearbox had been sealed with electrical tape – rendering the gearbox airtight as possible. I then noticed a further addition to the gearbox on the wiring loom. So I attached a battery and played with the gearbox. The long electric switch that was in the receiver well fired the mechanism at FA. The further modification at the front of the gearbox was the semi-automatic fire control circuit.
Out came my Dremel, and very carefully I milled away the metal sections above the screws. Once this was done I undid the screws and was able to upgrade the barrel and HOP quite easily.
With the upgrades in place the ShadowAUG chronoed at 345 fps with 0.2g ammo. With the 12V packs RoF was insane – seriously fast, probably twice as fast as the stock fps with an 8.4V pack. Noise increased noticeably but it was still very quiet considering.
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by Permian External Links: FirstFactory , AirsoftDynamics Site links: TBA Comment on this review in the forums Last modified: Sunday, March 9, 2003 7:02 PM Copyright 2003 ArniesAirsoft
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