Slo

Hey, if we confused the hell out of you - as you say, hell, buy both! Yeah, that's right, spend nearly 2000 dollars and make up your own damn mind if you don't appreciate what others are trying to do here. To me? I could give a flying *fruitcage* who buys a CA or a STAR. It's your money and I'm not going to be the one lugging it around. Nearly everyone who posted in this thread were just trying to show that, despite everyone thinking it was going to be a piece of *beep*, the STAR is a very capable, though different gun, from what CA is offering. And contrary to '######' on eit

Another after skirmish report guys: Today, same as the last three weeks. Gun performed superbly, and even better so with the upgraded spring and the barrel actually not flopping around. Fired about 4,000 rounds today, bringing my total up to nearly 17,000 rounds in three weeks of play. Keep in mind, all mechbox internals are BONE stock, running a PDI 170% spring. Thing just keeps ticking - even I didn't expect the piston or gears to run this long with no problems, even when it was running at stock fps levels. The only problem I've run into, and it happened today, was the box mag kep

Looks to me like normal sized 6mm ones. Sorry I didn't clarify, I forgot a lot of manufacturers are putting 7mm bushings in their mechboxes. -Slo

No, the Star has normal sized bushings as far as I can tell. And all I have in mine is the spring. Everything else is stock. I have a box full of upgrade parts sitting around, but I'm waiting to see how long everything will last in stock configuration. The only other "upgrade" if you could call it that, in my gun, is the Prometheus hard hop up bucking, because the stock one is pretty weak in my opinion and was not standing up to hard usage at all. -Slo PS: 785 Euros. . . wow . . .

About the springs - I have a PDI 170 in mine. Also no noticable drop in ROF in mine either. Definitely above forum limits, but I've put about 5,000 rounds through mine on this spring - no problems. -Slo

No problemo. Glad I could help. -Slo

Yeah I had a time getting it back in where it was 'springy' again. What I do is put the gun down on it's right side, then I put the spring with the short extended piece into the lever itself with the longer end pointing outward and out of the lever. Next, it requires a balancing act, but you keep the gun level on it's side, place the lever in without moving the spring from it's position lined up with the lever hole - it will stay lined up with the hole if it's not shook, and then put the pin back in. Be sure to have the pin handy to be ready to stick in there. Then, put the E-clip

Yeah, I noticed that if I shook the gun, I could hear the rattling of the inner barrel slapping around in there. Intrigued, and wondering why the hell my groupings were ALL over the place, I shoved an o-ring down there and found it shot 200% better. Anyhoo, here's what I did to pull the barrel: I pulled the two screws on the side of the gun, the one under the barrel change lever and the one on the other side just in front of the cocking handle. Then I pulled the e-clip on the pin and the pin and spring holding the barrel change lever and pulled it off. Then I undid the lar

Stock FPS even after replacing the piston head o-ring and even after checking cylinder compression at the air nozzle, the FPS wasn't that great in stock form. Though, I was using a crappy paintball radar chrono, but even so, it said I was shooting barely 310, with a low of 298 and a high of 315. It's hard a ###### to chrono it simply because there's no semi auto, and the chrono has a nasty habit of going to RPS instead of showing FPS numbers when you go full auto over it. Also, being since it's FA only, the piston is never cycling one complete time over and over, so I attribute the deviations

I've run a 9.6 2400 mah batt on mine for the past 13,000 rounds and nothing untoward has happened, BUT - and a I do stress the but, I know my way around a mechbox, so if something breaks, I'm not too concerned. Star recommends on an 8.4 in stock configuration, so you might do best to hold off if you're worried about breaking something. If you know your way around a gearbox and aren't worried about having to replace stuff, I'd recommend the 9.6 - the ROF is absolutely hellacious even with a stiffer than stock spring. -Slo

About the prolonged bursts thing - I've done a burst of about 15 seconds holding off 6 guys and nothing untoward has happened. Have done shorter bursts of 7-10 seconds multiple times in the same game. The STAR just kept chuggin along. It has definitely impressed me. My M60E3S didn't fire more than 6,000 rounds in STOCK form before it tore the bellows . . . . . . -Slo

Indeed, both gearboxes are more than fine for airsoft. I'm not downing one or the other, nor was I trying to start some kind of flame war, but I think it's sad that when people see the word, "plastic" they automatically think junk. Sometimes yes (especially in the airsoft world)but in this case, no. -Slo

ABS? Sure I will: it's called a TM and CA G36 and a KSC Glock 17, 18C, 34. But when you get down to it, on the real G36, the reciever is made of polymer ie: plastic. I think I just said that . . . And to my knowledge, a Glock pistol does not have a "body" per se. . .it has a metal slide, metal barrel and a polymer lower grip assembly. Any more brain busters? -Slo

Why is everyone downing the plastic gearbox as being uncapable of handling grossly powerful upgrades? Honestly, I would trust a high tensile plastic more than that ###### potmetal that most Asian companies use - TM included. There is nothing wrong with plastic - when I took my STARs mechbox apart, the gearbox seemed extremely solid and had no torque when I tried to flex it. Am I saying that it's unfallible? Of course not, but consider what's plastic in the real gun world: Glock, H&K, and a whole other multitude of pistol lower frames. Yes, they are technically polymer, but when it com

I'm using a Tango Down sling made for an M4 on my Para. Modified it of course, but it's got a nice thick padded strap and is solidly made for real firearms. And someone posted here that current aftermarket parts were indeed NOT compatible with the STAR gun. And I whole heartedly agree - I think they should've made a different case for the MkII owners because I imagine it's a PITA to keep taking the stock off and putting it back on when you want to take it somewhere, not mention the fact of the wear and tear on the gun by having to keep messing with it. As for having to squish the gun

The case is awesome - no pics (Static has a couple on the very first page of the thread) but let's put it this way, I won't hesitate to put my REAL firearms into it when I go to the range next time. It's very, very sturdy. Not a huge case by any means (my Rock River M4 barrreellyy fits in there and I have to pull the Eotech off to do it), but it's definitely nice. Also, I don't know from firsthand experience, but have seen pictures - the MK II version fits in there by them removing the whole butt stock and it's in two pieces to fit in the case when it comes to you. Kinda dumb, but it save

Indeed - I only bought the STAR model because I couldn't justify spending 1200+ dollars on something when the 600 dollar one could fulfill the role I wanted - plus I already have a 1000 dollar support weapon and I don't even LIKE it that much - M60E3S - anyway, both guns have their pluses and negatives, but there is NOTHING wrong with the CA M249. I was a hair away from getting one until I actually read this thread and decided to take a chance. About the longevity of the STAR M249, I'm approaching 10,000 rounds on stock everything except spring now, and I've only had it a week and a day.

Well, I promised some "action" pics of the Para and here they are though they are close encounters of the blurred kind . . . my buddy's camera obviously doesn't know what focus is . . .d'oh. But they still look kinda cool . . .

Well guys, here's my AAR after a full eight hours of skirmishing: The Para performed absolutely beautifully - fired about 4500 rounds through her and she kept rockin and a rollin. No problems feeding, no mechanical failures, nothing except the sweet sounds of, "Oh ****!" and "Get down!" when the barrel was pointed in the OPFORs direction. Just for the a note, I'm using totally stock internals except I replaced the piston o-ring with a TM o-ring off one of their pistons. I held back installing any kind of after market piston because I'm interested to see how long the stock STAR one w

My boxmag as well had bbs in it - about 10, but I think it was just STAR doing QC testing on the mags to make sure they feed. It'd take a retailer forever to test out every single box mag they get. As for the adapter - I ran into the same problem and have one running on mine. No effect on ROF. I'm running a 9.6 2400 mah though so I couldn't tell you for sure. A question to all STAR M249 owners - did you have a hell of a time adjusting the hop up the first time? For cryin out loud, I had to use both hands on the allen key to get the sucker turning and even then it was stiff as anythi

Just received mine today and I must echo everyone's positives. This is a very nice gun, and yes it is light, but I think it's a comfortable light and not a 'toyish' kind of weight. I carry enough ###### as it is and this gun feels very nice. Cycled about 1500 rounds through it with no problems, either in the feeding department or the gearbox side. Did have some trouble when I first hooked up the battery though - one of the contacts from the magazine that goes into the side of the gun was kind of off kilter and all it took was some pulling with a hobby knife and bam, she fired right up.

Could the boxmag feeding issue be old AA batteries in the boxmag? Or did you put brand new ones in there? Kinda sucks hearing about these two guns, especially when everyone else had what seems to be great experiences with them. I guess there are bad apples in every run of every gun, but I hope this doesn't become a trend with the STARs, especially since my Para will be here tomorrow (Finally). I really wish STAR would hurry up and release spare mags, be it the cloth 100 round ones or the full size 200 round boxes. Hate to have that large chunk of change go down because the damn maga

Hahaha - I know what you mean. Whenever I leave any kind of gun on my bed - be it real or airsoft - my one giant orange furball will actually sleep on the gun itself - dunno how that's comfortable - but hey, any cat that can sleep on an RIS IIed, Eoteched M4, is okay in my book. Back on topic though - still waiting very unpatiently-like for my Para to arrive . . .grrrr . . .should've been here today, but Nooooooooo . . .especially seeing everyone take pics of theirs to rub it in - ARGH!!! STOP IT!!! -Slo

Hey Warmonger - . . .nice cat. And it seems as if he has a good taste in weaponry also. Hehe. -Slo

I ordered mine from Airsoft GI as well, and it was supposed to be here tomorrow - buuuuuttttt they screwed it up. I got a notice that it had shipped on Monday, but then the UPS tracking never updated, kept saying, "Billing Information Received" and nothing else. Well, 4 phone calls and 3 days later, and after insisting that they must've not shipped it out - low and behold, the tracking finally started working early this morning. Seems they just forgot about my 600 dollar order sitting there and only after I made a handful of phone calls and whatnot did it finally get shipped out. Needless to s