BOYI BIM4 Review

[Thrawn]

This is the picture of the BOYI BIM4 Series BIM203 Carbine A itself and all the accessories that the pack contains.

 

Where i bought it from

 

I bought this gun 3 or so months back from www.Airshooter.co.uk for sixty GBP, if your looking for a cheap introductory gun i would advise going to them or to www.airsoftscotland.co.uk, these are the best 2 sites that i have come across for you to get a cheap AEG that doesn't suck amazingly badly, both offer a warranty on their guns and excellent delivery times, Airshooter delivered 3 days after order, Scotland 2 days.

 

What extras i got

 

I got quite a few extras with this gun, first an interchangeable front handgrip, either smooth or RIS system came with it, (as a warning don't use the smooth grip, i couldn't fit the battery in there for love nor money), and the RIS system is excellent quality.

 

I got a fake LAM to hold the the battery, it screws on and holds very nicely and even though its plastic holds the battery with no rattle at all, but after several unscrewings it became necessary to use the screwdriver i got to secure the clamp to the RIS system, but beyond that i haven't had any problems with it.

 

You get a metal Midcap supplied with it, it holds 68-70 rounds and is of genuinely good quality, it feeds smoothly and the only slight issue is that the last BB will sometimes get stuck in it, but it doesn't impede reloading or firing so it is fine.

 

You get a weighted vertical handle for the RIS, while made of plastic it is very heavy and easy to use and solid feeling, slot it onto the RIS system at the from and it makes the gun easier to pivot and aim in CQB.

 

An extra stock designed to take the split stick batteries is also included, but you'll have to do a wiring fix to get this to work, and it isn't worth it because the battery supplied is excellent, switching stocks is easy, you just pull out the circular pin and slide off the stock holder, then slide the new stock on.

 

A speedloader is included too, good easy to use no jams one made of translucent black plastic with about a 200 round capacity its a very nice piece of kit to get if your starting out.

 

As standard you get a manual (in slightly literally translated Chinese to English scrip) and a jam clearance rod.

 

The sling they include is completely unfathomable, there is a set of instructions and its allegedly a 3 point tactical sling but i couldn't make head or tail of the instructions to put it together and ended up duct taping it together, it turned out to be quite tough and reliable.

 

Finally the battery and charger they include are both excellent, the battery is a 1100 Mah 8.4v Ni-MH mini battery, the charger is rated at 450 Mah so it takes 2 hours 25 minutes roughly to charge from zero charge, the battery supplies a decent RoF and i never saw a need to change it over.

 

The Gun

 

Airshooter rated the gun at 260 FPS but i reckon its at least 280, on its second use i took it up against a friend with a gas Glock that did roughly 290 FPS and they had comparable speed out of the barrel, and owing to it being longer barreled i reckon its 280, it wrecked the coke can i used for target practice at roughly 15 meters, and penetrated at up to 20 meters away.

 

The gun had quite a high metal content giving it a good weight, the carry handle (removable) is about 25% metal, the RIS rais are all metal, the outer and inner barrels are metal, as is the front sling point, the body and gearbox are plastic, but damnably good quality stuff, it only broke under a lot of strain (i will explain what this was later).

 

It has a spring loaded forward assist button on it, it serves no function but does look nice when you can work it as on a real M4, the charging handle pulls back to expose the hop up through the brass ejection port, it springs back into place and the spring is excellent quality, the hop up itself is a little hard to set right but decent enough once you get it set right, after a days use you will need to reset it however.

 

The gun itself is accurate up to about 40-50 meters against a torso, never got a proper grouping but i took it to a friend who has about 70 meters of back garden, he and the other 4 were using 40 quid AEG's with .12 rounds, one was using a springer with .2's, it ended up on a 4/1 fight because my gun just smacked them dead every time, they had to angle their guns like mortars to hit me, and this was with only an hours charge on the battery, (only got the gun that morning), for an extra 20 quid it was a bargain, if only for the look on the springer snipers face when i sprayed him from beyond what his "sniper" could achieve.

 

.2 BB's are the best things to use in this gun .12's are just not good enough.

 

The sights are adjustable through the form of 2 knobs on the rear carry handle, this can be removed to expose a 20mm rail suitable for any scope to fit onto it, as its full metal.

 

The front flash hider can be unscrewed to accommodate a silencer, but as that is going to most probably cost more than the gun i fail to see the point, but it is quite nice.

 

Finally the gearbox itself, its all plastic, but given that there are no metal parts in it whatsoever and the plastics are very high quality there are not metal gears to damage the plastic parts, it all works beautifully with a RoF of 480-720 RPM on fully auto, the single shot function works well and the fire selection lever clicks into place so you cant dislodge it with a bump or brushing close to a tree, there is however one slight problem, not sure how ubiquitous it is to airsoft guns, if you eject the mag before its expended four or 5 rounds will drop out of the feeder mechanism inside the gearbox.

 

The circumstances leading to this gun finally breaking require a little explanation, i was airsofting with 2 mates in a field that one of them owns, they were using an ICS and a CA MP5, i poked my head up to get 5 rounds flying past it, i broke cover and sprinted away, running straight into the guy with the 328 fps ICS, he hit be bang in the forehead, this caused me to trip and fall on my gun, the stock and flash hider hit a sticking up rock and the ground, the flash hider broke clean off and all 14 stone of me fell on my stock join, this parted it clean in two, (which is understandable, for a plastic bodied gun i feel).

 

After 2 weeks of muppetting about trying to find some glue that would work i bought a tube of locitite, glued the flash hider back in place and the stock along with some duct tape, I've been treating it gently since then and it hasn't gone wrong again and the stock has been solidly back in place for a few weeks now.

 

Final Rating

 

Quality: 8/10, The plastics are excellent and the gun was robust and reliable, but some wearing on the finish and some creaks in the body mean i cant give it a full 10

 

Firing: 7/10, the FPS is decent for CQB and so is the RoF but at the end of the day it wont match up to the most expensive guns.

 

Value for money: 11/10, this is the damned best 60 quid you will ever spend on an airsoft gun, it can match up to guns that cost twice its amount, and outclasses guns only 10 or 20 pounds cheaper by an order of magnitude that is damn close to infinite.

Edited July 1, 2007 by Thrawn