Hillslam
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Posts posted by Hillslam
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Thanks Beretta, I was wondering about that bit too.
But what I'm really stumped on is the big monolith standing up on the right of your pic. I know it houses the flip up rear sight, but it just seems so.... I dunno, it just seems too beefy just to house a flip sight is all. I mean here's this well designed gun and then you have this concrete block apartment building of a sight house looming over the top of it.
So I figure its gotta serve some clever purpose that I'm just too stupid to figure out or find on the interwebz, yeah?
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Update: Just tore it down for a quick spring change to recover some of this lost fps. Chrono'd it after I put the included short CQB inner barrel on it and it netted 290fps - utterly ridiculous.
So I get it open and lo and behold there's absolutely no compression whatsoever. One nested oring later and we get full dead stop compression. Throw in a well worn pdi 150% spring thas done a few seasons in my SAW and she fires 380fps on the button. Saw no need to mess with the bushings at this fps.
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So did anyone answer what the heck that widget is on top of the gun is for? Aside from being a ridiculously oversized rear flip sight housing.
Its sort of like vegatables: nobody seems to actually know what they're for.
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Wow. Don't need sound. Don't even need to look at the reviewer's face. Just look at the gun! Its a complete piece of ######.
Oh, and that Qulevra guy is a smacktard.
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Well my VFC Scar L just arrived. Making me the proud owner of a DBoys SCAR, a WE SCAR, and a VFC SCAR.
I have to say I was let down a little by the VFC. Build is fine but the materials just didnt give that tactile satisfaction that the WE does. Feels better than the DBoys, if more fragile, even if thats an illusion due to the higher grade aluminum in the VFC being lighter.
Hands down, the WE has the best looks/feel. But thats not fair being an electric to gas comparison. Still, it just looks good and feels amazing.
Honestly, I think even the DBoys shoots somewhat better than the VFC. I know it packs more fps according to my chrono. But on the other hand I've reshimmed the DBoys and rewired it and put in a Magnum motor. so it didnt come shooting better.
I'd expected more out of the wiring on the VFC - its really bad wire in the rear stock, thin, rigid, and is alreadt splitting its insulation from bending.
I had to bend the faux-bolt to make it engage the bolt stop, it didnt work out of the box. And I have to use my fingernail to depress the bearing to rotate the hex tool to remove it. The charging handle was REALLY rattly in its groove. Luckily the WE one fits so I'll swap over that and the WE's better rear site during the winter while I dont use the GBB.
The kicker was that I had to modify my VFC EGLM to fit solidly on the VFC SCAR. Had to file off a couple millimeters of material at the back this time to make it engage the rail positively. Otherwise it *looked*like it was solidly clamped on, but one good yank at the rear and it plopped off. Fixed that with some filing of the material to get the grooves to line up, but still, this is a VFC EGLM not fitting on a VFC SCAR? There's just something not right about that.
Having said all that, I like alot about this gun, and I'm going to use it at an event this weekend to see how it performs in what matters: skirmishing. I expect it will perform well for a stock gun, and all the niggles I mention above are easy for me to remedy. I dont expect it to remain stock for real long either...
Overall, glad to have joined the VFC brotherhood.
More later.
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The hop-rubber is not very good so im changing it to a Guarder (clear ver)
If you find what version fits please post. It appears to be proprietary. I've not found one that fits because it has an extra 1mm of material at the end.
A Big Out H nub aloen will help alot though.
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I have a 9.6v 4600mAh crane stock style battery in my boxmag space. Fits just fine. Small tamiya connector and all wires hidden with room to spare.
As I've posted on the striker thread, the M60 nets about 15-18% lower fps for a given spring then when put into say a CA M249, and shows a little more loss when compared to an AEG. I've confirmed this with the math and by testing the same spring in three guns including the M60.
The reason is the longer stroke (distance from the pistonhead to the spring guide): springs in the M60 just get compressed less due to the longer mechbox.
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Guys dont worry - turns out there's no problem really.
Nothing wrong with the gun, its just a longer mechbox. Solution: put in a higher rated spring. End of problem.Details here:
http://www.teamstrikers.com/forum/viewtopi...?p=28146#p28146
Guys I just popped back in to say I'm gonna ease off posting here and the other forums on this and consolidate my stuff into that one thread linked above. Sorry I'm just getting way too many questions from inboxs and threads all over the place to keep up, avging 12 per day now all counted. Look for any detail or info at the link above. Trying to address all questions in the thread itself. So far I've disassembled the gun a half dozen times just for answers to questions, on top of my own tinkering.
I will check in from time to time though for questions and stuff. Look for a skirmish update after the weekend.
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I figured out the missing fps. The bucking wasnt the culprit, thank goodness. Not looking forward to when that thing wears out....
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Quick update.
The metal around the 3 bolts appears to be aluminum.
The gun itself is losing roughly 40-60fps. That is, with the exact same spring in a CA M249MkII it nets 375fps, in a CA M249Para it nets 380fps and when transplanted to the M60 it nets 330fps.
I've check the compression in the cylinder: perfect. Then blew into the nozzle from the front - full compression (at lung power at least) - so no leaks at the nozzle to cylinder interface. I checked the hopup bucking and it seems to be installed well. So I assumed a nozzle to hopup bucking leak.
Bought some replacement buckings to try out. Prometheus, TM, Systema. Removed the bucking from the M60 and.... dead stop: its a unique bucking! *&^%
There's about 1-2mm of thick extra material at the end, sort of like a built in oring, that makes this a different shaped bucking from any i've seen. So no replacing that. So I greased and taped the outside of the bucking, and added a spacer in front of the hopup chamber spring to hopefully provide some more push on the nozzle for a better seal. No effect.
So, i'm stumped. No idea why is down that many fps. Star M60 exhibited the same lower fps on a given spring than the M249s, btw. Maybe its a relic of the floating barrel in the M60 Mk43 models?
Also - dont follow temptation and push the spring guide forward into a "position 2" like was doable in the Star M249 and M60s... I did and the sector gear promptly shed 2 teeth. Off to the store to buy a new sector gear.
I may still try those other buckings anyway but I dont expect they're going to work with the barrel notches: without that extra 1mm of material up front the barrel goes too far in and you cant put in the retainer clip. Also - the front of the nozzle is dead flat, not angled like most.
More later.
Agreed. And I'll say the same about the first group of replies. Wouldnt you? Quid pro quo. Moving on.Good of you to post the review.It's up to you whether you decide to post on Arnies or not but we could definitely do without the attitude.
Thanks.
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gerrysnaps: Didnt mean to imply your fps was falsified, I meant that I did not suspect a 2j spring would be installed in the US or UK versions. I also will bet the US stores will receive a 400fps spring in their shipments. My teammate has a US spec one on pre-order from a US store. We'll see what fps it nets out of the box. BTW - what ROF are you getting on that 2j spring? curious if it same or different gearing and motor as well as the spring.
As for me I"ll swap out the spring for a ~1.8joule to meet our 450fps standards for support guns where we are.
tbsix: No the star was not assembled that way. But TOPs were. Definitely a problem. I'm going to run it with the spacer and locktite'd bolts and see if it loosens up. I expect it will.
habakure: what can I say, sometimes geezers just run out of patience for ungrateful rudeness...
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Info on the body splitting now up, with pics.
Weight: a little over 16lbs. No battery, no ammo.
FPS: 295fps
ROF: fast with rheostat out. Gun didnt fire with rheostat in.
Videos of the ROF and fps are up - links here:
http://www.teamstrikers.com/forum/viewtopi...?p=28094#p28094
I knew that 472fps picture posted elsewhere was suspect.
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As posted above - the thread is now readable by visitors, no need to register
(to the whiney children: no need to thank me, the world lives to serve you)
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The forum is now visible and readable when not registered.
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I'll work with the site owner to get the public areas readable without registering.
The images are in a gallery on Imageshack so should be viewable by anyone. I will no longer upload images to Arnies.
Until you can see the thread here is the latest:
Found what I feel is a major flaw in the design.The front and rear of the gun are not one solid piece. They are held together at the front of the receiver (just under the feed tray cover hinge) by a triangular set of 3 bolts on either side of the receiver. Result - its not a hard connect. Over time that connection will loosen resulting in vertical wobble and/or up-down motion. Just playing with it for an hour I was already able to bend the gun about this joint pivot slightly. My bolts were loose. So I tightened all 6. Still was able to have visible motion at that joint.
I'm not sure if this is a problem operationally - as the front and rear halves are not going to go anywhere. But I worry about the aligment of the innerbarrel/hopup chamber to the nozzle. Especially given the long length of that nozzle. I worry about binding.
I am also not sure why A&K chose to assemble the gun this way - I haven't taken it apart to see the why and how of it, but it seems a bad choice. If I cant find any reason for those two peices not to be hard-joined I will likely JBWeld it on the interior and call it done.
You can see the 3 bolts I'm refering to in my "charging Handle" picture above.
I'll remind the people complaining about me posting a link that Arnies members asked *me* for info on this. As did several members of half a dozen other forums. So I posted a link to a single source.
If you don't like it, thats your problem. I'm not going to cut paste and spend hours updating half a dozen forums. I didn't know the public threads weren't visible to guests. As I said, I'll ask the site owner to make the public areas (where the linked thread is posted) visible to guests. If thats not doable I'll look into cut and pasting the original post here. But not if you continue to whine at me for not spending hours around the internet catering to you.
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M60 arrived.
Posted my Initial Impressions here:
http://www.teamstrikers.com/forum/viewtopi...p;sk=t&sd=a
NOTE: this write-up is NOT 56k or small monitor friendly. Several of the detail images are 1500 wide. If you have a small monitor, tough, scroll. People alwayd ask me for more detailed pics, so here they are. If they're too big for you, thats your problem, so don't ask me to post smaller ones; I won't be listening.
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Just got done putting it together.
Going to be putting a VTLOR upper to complete it.
and
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New question:
Is the color variance from actual hue or age of the lower? Even just a year of exposure changes a receiver's RGB value appreciably.
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excellent review fareast.
I'm in the middle of a VTLOR build myself and this was perfect timing and information.
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EXCELLENT REVIEW FAREAST!
I'm so glad this gun is on the market, even if it is overpriced in the US due to a certain company acquiring sole distribution rights...
Even being a CA M249 owner I'm glad to see this gun available to more players - I've always said there should be 1 support gun per every four man fireteam to make airsoft more realistic. The A&K means more players can get into the support gunner role without embarrassing us all with boxmags or c-mags on M4s or G36s, and WITHOUT sacrificing to the devil of plastic *cough* Star *cough*.
Well done.
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I might add a couple points:
- the gap between the cylinder wall and the gearbox does nothing to lose airpressure. No gearbox is airitght, and none are meant to be. The only presurrized space in an AEG is the volume defined between the cylinder head, the piston head and the cylinder wall. As long as teh cylinder head has a good wall seal and the piston head does not leave the cylinder during its stroke you are fine. I think you said that but I thought to restate it.
- if you're looking for good bearings see www.vxb.com. Mine have lasted >500,000 rounds in my CA. They are different shape than the ones in the CA, no flange, but the correct shape is available at VXB. You'll find no better bearings on the market anywhere in the world.
- The boxmag can hold a 9.6 3000mAh NiMh just fine and for the para this is an excellent choice. Moving the battery out of the foregrip improves the balance and the big battery gives you a full day's gameplay without swapping batteries, plus better amperage draw for high fps needs (non uk and japan). On the A&K you even alaready have a spring tube to run the wires down thru!
- The "CA" reinforced feedtray latch pins for sale at CobraAirsoft.com are reinforced steel and slightly different angle. Put these into your feedtray cover and you'll be able to "slap the lid down" like you see in movies and game and it'll actually latch. If you're into that sort of flourish.
- Don't over hop your A&K - jams can occur
- if you want to actually be able to pick up your saw by the "carry handle" and not have the quick release barrel feature automatically disembowel your 249 for you on the spot you can bolt it in: just locate the two bolts to either side of the outer barrel on the front of the receiver - one is directly in front of the charging bolt slide, the other is opposite it. Take these out and get come 1.5-2x longer at your hardware store. Then look in the hole as you reinsert the outer barrel. As you slide the barrel on you will see pre-drilled holes in it slide by! Line those up and drive in your bolts. Your outer barrel is now hard-attached. No worries using your carry handle now, but you can't get at your battery as easy if you didnt relocate it to the boxmag. Even if those holes in the outer barrel are not predrilled like they are in the CA, even if they're not tehre you can still put two longer bolts in there and just thru friction you now have 3 frictors on the outer barrel. MUCH more secure even if not hard-attached.
- the inner barrel will float, use some electricians tape around the tip AFTER you've put the outer barrel on the gun. Unscrew the flash hider and wrap one or two or three loops around the end of the inner barrel - you'll see a noticable accruacy improvement.
- for a better hopup to mechbox seal put some washers on the inner barrel in front of the hopup chamber - either before or after the spring doesnt matter.
- remember if you misfeed alot the mag port angle can be adjusted - locate the two bolts inside the receive fiddle the alignment
- you WILL wear out the bipod tabs. when you do, the steel CA or guarder parts kit is an excellent buy. even THEY will wear out but you'll probably have grey hair like me before they do
- be CAREFUL tapping back in the pins that hold the pistol grip subassembly to the receiver - get it even slightly misaligned and you will seam-tear one of the u-joints: i did exactly this because I was impatient. Again, the steel parts kit to the rescue. Steel>Pot Metal
- if you don't like scratching the bejeezus out of your front sling point's black metal finish a small loop of para cord will work great as a sling point.
- if you want the ranger look/feel don't buy another gun, just buy a real steel M249 pistolgrip and bolt it to the front thru the pintle mount hole, instant foregrip, RIS not required
- if you can't stand the fruity satin silver finish of the gasblock bracket and tard grey finish of the belt port as I do - KRYLON to the rescue. its just that easy.
That's all I have off the top of my head.
I may pick one of these up to augment my collection. After running the 2 days of Irene V with my 28lb (thats 12.7kg) CA M249MkII I am not about to diss light. In fact I went out of my way to run the STAR M60 which is light as all get out... if only it didn't self destruct during chrono.... *&%$
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ROCK ON FELLOW GUNNERS
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EDIT: ###### now that I read the whole thread I see many of my items were already touched on. beh. ah well, there it is.
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My new desktop, poor attempt at artistry
EDIT: ugh, Imageshack's compression ruins the image but you get the idea. The highres original I made for my desktop looks better.
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Hunk what is that?
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Reading thru this thread and its like deja vu two years ago and the CA release.
Welcome to the support gunning brotherhood my brothers! The airsoft world needs more suppression out there, lets stop this flitting about of the young (and fast) tirts. "Run n gun? Ol' painless is waitin for ya."
Anyhow, going to do you all a massive favor, re: bearings.
VXB
VXB has absolutely nothing to do with airsoft. But what they do do is make bearings. Ball bearings. Kick *albatross* ball bearings. VXB sells bearings in pretty much any dimension you can imagine. And what's more they will kick the absolute living SH!T out of any airsoft bearing you can buy anywhere else, in the world. Full stop. Bar none. Period. End of sentence, end of paragraph.
They are expensive, I shelled out $50 for mine for my CA SAW, but they are worth it. The ones I bought can support well over 150lbs apiece! Nothing else you can find can touch that. You will warp a PCG billet mechbox before the bearing will deform. My bearings went into my gun at 60k rounds (the stock ones were fine , but I still swapped em) and I'm well over 500k, actually approaching 1million rounds in fact on these same VXBs (over 400fps, well over, the entire time). They work, they last, they laugh off 600-700fps springs, they will *never* break, they have tighter tolerances than an 80yr old nun...
Anyway, yeah, www.VXB.com pricey but worth it
Rock and roll.
EDIT - I don't work for VXB, really. 1 million rounds speaks for itself. Oh btw I just last month replaced my first gear in my CA due to a chipped tooth. How's that for an alignment holding record?
EDIT 2 - be sure to put some lead weight in those A&Ks so you build up those arms to be the manly man hulk that you deserve in your heart to be, striking fear into all those that see you on the field. Go ahead, make those poofta riflemen pick up your SAW in the parking lot before the match, watch their face as they strain to lift it. See the fear glaze into their eyes as their gaze meets yous after they gingerly set your metal cannon back down. Be sure to whisper to em "I'll be comin for ya" and give em a grin.
EDIT 3 - super secret support gunning er secret #32: The CA hardsided box mag can do one thing that the CA and MAG softsides (or any of the other boxmags with horizontal pickup feeds) can't - feed .3g bbs as fast as .2s. It works with the A&Ks and word on the street is going out of production. I'll let you string together the implications...
EDIT 4 - suppression: nothing suppresses players better than hitting loud things. Yes it works even better than tagging their teammate. Loud things around your target. Hollow logs are good, tree trunks. Baring that shoot the leaves over em as they crouch behind cover. Never bother with the ground, ground absorbs bb impacts too well to deliver that nice audible "hey, I'm under freaking FIRE here" message. Oh, and if your target takes shelter behind a slatboard wall, pallet, or particle board... oh man. Uncork the hose. NOTHING makes them cower in fear more than the sound of hundreds or thousands of angry white pain spheres wailing on that wood like a mallet on a drum. ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-boom! Rinse. Repeat. Grin. Laugh maniacally. Watch as your riflemen rush in or angle out to administer the mercy kills on your wimpering suppressed and pinned victims. Satisfaction. Chew some beef jerky. Spit. Say something manly. Move on to next objective.
EDIT 5 - Don't get me started on how bad you can ruin a sniper's day...
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Darkcell, that is gorgeous.
Negative - this is a pseudo Noveske Leonidas - minus the huge frigging scope.Needs a longer suppressor.The suppresor is on there in leue of the Noveske flashider because,
a: I already had one, and
b: it provides another layer of cushioning for the free-float barrel. I bang into things... and,
c: the stock ICS barrel protrudes beyond the ris so if I put the true Noveske flashider on there it would look dumb: fat-skinny-then fat again
Got a couple flip up sights on the way then its completely done. Maybe an artistic picture to follow.
Anyway, I like it - perfect balance, solid as a single piece of steel, and fires hard and straight
Referring to this:
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Finished with my latest:
I have flipup sights on the way but probably won't use them. I like it as is. I had a G27 grip on there but took it off (after much work to make it fit) because in the end I decided I liked the look without it.
A&K M60E4 / Mk43 Mod 0 - A Full Video Review
in Rifles (AEG)
Posted
Yeah - all these issues were solved almost a year ago. See my sig.