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CA Scar CQC Impressions


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Ive read just about every reader review on this website and countless others across the vast reaches of the interweb. One thing that has always irked me, to say the least, is the overall positive light that each and every gun is reviewed in.

 

Very few people really tell the reader how it is. I think we can attribute this to the fact that most end users of airsoft weapons either dont have a borderline obsessive compulsive detail oriented view on how their guns should look and perform, or they're so enamored with themselves for spending 200-1500 dollars on their new purchase that they simply overlook massive faults in the product.

 

Now, i want to start this review by saying i only have one scar and ive only handled two others so this review is by no means a widespread condemnation of the gun. It is merely a look at one single scar out in the wide universe and how it failed to meet my expectations.

 

Day 1: June 28th 6:05 PM.

 

I checked the tracking manifest around 8 am to make sure my package was still scheduled to arrive on time, it was. I left at 8:15 for class.

 

Upon arriving home at 2:30 i again checked the tracking manifest. Everything still right on schedule, my package was out for delivery.

 

6:30 rolls around and the big brown truck that everyone loves so dearly still hadnt arrived. I decide to head out to the gym at this point because it was getting late. I walk out of my apartment, turn around to close and lock the door and staring me right in the face was that awful piece of yellow and brown paper. Sorry, we MISSED YOU! We will attempt to redeliver your package tomorrow sometime between whenever we FEEL LIKE IT!

 

Now, let me explain why i am reacting in such a manner. I dont know about you guys but over the past 10 years and many, many packages delivered i have found that the quality of driver employed by UPS has been steadily declining. Back in the day the kind, polite drivers would knock and patiently wait several milliseconds before leaving the aforementioned horrible piece of brown and yellow paper, then running back to their trucks and driving off in a cloud of burnt rubber. In fact, i was on a first name basis with several of my deliverymen over the years and i found them to be courteous rather cool individuals, very down to earth.

 

Over the past several years it seems as though UPS has created a yellow and brown sorry we missed you gun which the driver employs as he drives past your house. Now, he isnt even required to stop in order to "attempt a failed delivery". He simply shoots the sticky onto your door from 50 feet away and resumes not delivering packages.

 

Sorry, i digress. It is now 6:35 and i decide to jump into my car to see if mr UPS man is still in my apartment complex. I hop into my car, slam it into first and take off. Let me advise you all that speedbumps exist for a reason and they can really cause some serious damage to your suspension when you go over them at 80 miles an hour. After nearling decapitating three old women and killing 8 dogs i spied the shining brown truck 500 feet in the distance.

 

I screeched to a stop, jumped out of my car and approached the truck. You never know these days, especially down here in florida whether or not the UPS driver is packing a sawed off m82a1 in his shorts so i decided to approach cautiously.

 

It was a new driver, one i had never seen before. I kindly stated my name and asked if he would be able to deliver his package to me here. He looked at me, looked again...took another look then stared blankly at me. I dont know if it was the heat or if he was playing coy but i kindly asked again. After watching the cogs turn in this gentlemens head for what seemed like ages he said sure. I told him my address and he went into the back of his cavernous delivery van to find my package.

 

The sounds of boxes falling, glass shattering and muted curses could be heard coming from the back of the van. I silently thanked AEX for packaging their shipments as well as they do. Mr UPS asked me for the third time what my address was and after several more curses that made my hair curl produced my package for me.

 

I grasped the package tighly to my chest, thanked mr UPS man profusely and ran back to my car.

 

Again, i slammed my car into first and sped off back to my apartment. Thankfully i only nearly killed two children on my way back to the apartment. I avoided the speedbumps by swerving off the road onto the grass by utilizing my e-brake.

 

I exited the vehicle, clutched the package to my chest and tore towards my front door at full speed. I burst into my apartment, threw the package on the floor and proceeded to rip it open with the closest thing at hand, my car keys.

 

I stood up to admire what was laying, well packaged might i add, in the cardboard box.

 

First impressions:

 

Ok, here is where this review starts to read like every other review out there. I was impressed. The paint was matte brown in a very earthen tone. I am very partial to anything not black. I dont own a single piece of black cordura and i never will. Most of my ar's have classically been painted or at least accessorized with OD or CB furniture/parts.

 

I picked the rifle up and was instantly pleased. It was heavy, solid and the ergonomics closely resembled those of my ar15's. FN did a fantastic job designing the SCAR. Im most definately no operator but i think that our boys over in iraq who will eventually be issued this weapon will be instantly pleased when they shoulder the rifle. It just feels "right". The length of pull is fantastic, the cheekrest is comfortable but not obtrusive and the length in 10.5 inch barreled format is just right.

 

This is where the review starts to read differently. The upper reciever is painted, yes painted. There isnt a damn spot of anodizing anywhere on this gun except for maybe a few of the screws and even then i doubt it. Just by looking at the gun and admiring it paint began to chip off. Perhaps my acidic glare had something to do with it but i doubt it, haha get it, acidic glare?! Ok, enough puns.

 

The stock that i mentioned before has some major issues that could be dealbreakers for many. First off, while it is true that it folds and its not nearly as much of an issue as it is on that abomination of a scar that JLS "manufacturered", the stock doesnt will easily unfold if you jostle the gun. It stays locked but it is a far cry from the stability of a locked stock on a g36 or sig 556.

 

The second issue that i have is with the design of the stock hinge and its locking mechanism. Now, without ever handling the real steel generation 2 FN scar i cant say if this is a classic army design fault or an FN design fault. Im going to blame this one on FN because the generation three scars have a revised locking mechanism. The problem lies in the molded piece of plastic that locks the stock into the extended position. It is about an 1/8th of an inch thick and there have been documented issues of it snapping off after minimal pressure has been applied to that area. Unlike my AR's, should i happen to land on the gun at the stock joint i am very confident that it is going to break. What ###### me off about this to no end is that CA jumped the gun and released a generation 2 scar instead of waiting until more production photos or samples were available of the generation 3 (final generation). This in the end is MY problem since im the one that decided to plunk down the cash for what equates to a prototype weapon. Still, given the other innaccuracies present in the gun which i will discuss momentarily, you would think CA could have at least over engineered the stock joint so that it wouldnt break? I guess that is asking for too much.

 

Ok, onto some more problems.

 

The magazine release needs to be worked in quite a bit. I couldnt load magazines into the gun until i had depressed the mag release button a good 3,000 times. I watched a movie that thursday night and sat there while viewing the movie pressing that damned button over and over and over. I finally got it to the point where i could insert a magazine without having to take a hammer and smash the floorplate on the magazine to get it to seat properly in the magwell. While this was a minor complaint i think its better to have something too tight than too lose since you can always remove material to make something looser but its harder to do the reverse.

 

The selector positively clicked into place in all modes, semi auto and safe. It is slightly different from the ar15 but i believe it is more user friendly since you dont have to shift your grip when changing fire modes, as you do with an ar15 if you have smaller hands.

 

After fiddling with the selector switch i noticed something that seemed out of place. I looked closely at the rear of the gun and noticed a pin like on an ar15. I could have sworn that in all of the generation 2 guns that i had seen, none of them had a rear retaining pin. I deposited the gun on my couch and went to go check out the gallery of pictures of scars i have saved to my PC. I was right, there is no pin there. CA in all of its lazy glory decided that rather than engineer a way for a version 2 gearbox to sit in the lower reciever without a rear retaining pin they would simply drill a hole and slam in that damned pin. Star got it right, VFC got it right why couldnt CA? Oh right because stooges like me will buy their garbage. That basically concludes my complaints with the guns aesthetic qualities.

 

June 30th Unknown time

 

I wacked off the stock connector, soldered on a deans connector and test fit my battery. Everything fit perfectly. Part of my reason for wanting to move away from the m4 platform is that i cannot stand crane stocks, too many exposed wires, too many things to fiddle with. With the SCAR you unscrew one allen screw, place your battery into the compartment, attach the connectors, put the telescoping portion of the stock back into the shell of the stock and reattach the allen screw. Boom, you're done. The entire process takes about three minutes and it CAN be done in the field if you carry a set of allen keys which i do.

 

July 1st-Big scenario game. 10:35 am

 

Now, previous to today i hadnt fired my gun except a few dry fires to make sure it wouldnt explode after i soldered on the deans connector. I had zero expectations out of the gun because well, CA guns simply dont perform up to the high standards that i have set for my guns over the years. I havent had a CA gun that hasnt required some sort of work and ive had six CA guns and worked on many more.

 

I loaded up a magazine, walked over to our firing range and shot the gun a couple times. Wow, the gearbox actually sounded smooth unlike most CA gearboxes that sound like someone is throwing a live chicken into a trash compactor. I proceeded to fire off a few more shots on semi auto and was again impressed by the smooth operation of the gearbox.

 

I watched my shots travel about 15 feet and fall anemically to the ground. I pulled back the bolt, turned the hopup wheel a quarter turn and fired another two rounds. Still no hopup. I again repeated the above procedure. Still no damn hopup. I turned the wheel to max and fired off a few more rounds. No hopup. This is something i expect from many if not ALL ca AEG's. You would think by now that CA would realize that their stock buckings are made out of used condoms and that they're freakin garbage. I wasnt dissapointed because i expected this. The good news is that the hopup adjustment wheel is extremely tight and it wont lose its position like almost all M4 units that havent been modified do.

 

Despite the lack of hopup i wanted to field the gun so i fielded the gun for the day and aimed at the treetops to hit my targets. Due to rain i was only able to fire about 400 rounds through the gun but i was impressed yet again with the sounds eminating from the gearbox, it sounded as refined and well shimmed as a TM box. Also, something to note is that i have serial number 12** and my tappet plate hasnt exploded yet.

 

July 1st Continued 4:50 pm

 

I had a couple hopup rubbers lying around the house so naturally im going to tear down the gun and see if i can fix what i percieve a problem. I dont know about you but lobbing bb's at your target definately isnt fun, i expect my airsoft guns to utilize hopup.

 

The gun is EXTREMELY easy to take down. Remove three screws at the 12, 3 and 9 o'clock positions and the stock and stock hinge slide off of the back of the gun. Remove the front retaining pin from the lower reciever and the upper reciever, inner and outer barrels come off in your hand leaving you with the lower and gearbox in the other.

 

I removed the inner barrel from the hopup unit and reassembled it with a new hopup rubber and nub. I reassembled the gun and went to test it. I fired 300 rounds and i still had almost no hopup. I did at least notice a SLIGHT improvement but nothing worth writing home about.

 

I put the gun back in its case and went to go take a shower and head off to bed.

 

July 2nd dunno was too ###### to look at the clock

 

This afternoon i realized that i may not have been seeing any positive hop due to the fact that i use silicone oil when i assemble my hopup units to defeat friction. I figured i would run another 600 rounds through the gun to see if it was silicone oil on the rubber defeating the purpose of the hopup. Unfortunately, six hundred rounds later and i still was getting the same lack of performance out of the gun.

 

I went back to my work table to dissassemble the gun yet again to see if i could remedy the problem and the selector switch on the right side of the gun falls off in my hand. I just stared it for a couple seconds before rattling the windows with words which shall not be uttered here. Im pretty sure i released several demons from the underworld with my enraged screams. My vision tinged with red i began having flashbacks of my generation 1 CA mp5. I lost about 300 selector switches on that gun. I counted my blessings and thanked the AEG gods that all of the parts fell off into my hand.

 

I set about seeing if i could reattach the selector switch. Unfortunately, due to my laziness i wasnt able to attach it as well as i would have liked and i had to leave out the springloaded ball that goes from detent to detent as you switch firemodes. I couldnt use this ball because the post that the selector switch sits on for some strange reason was falling into the lower reciever. This meant i couldnt secure the grub screw on the flat surface of the post. If that grub screw isnt flat on the surface of the post the selector switch isnt ambidextrous, meaning it will still switch fire modes but only the left side will work or vice versa depending on which side has the properly mounted selector switch. I believe i will have to remove the mechbox in order to push the rod out far enough to properly mount the selector switch. I will do this once the mechbox craps out.

 

I again changed hopup buckings and attempted to fix my problem. No luck this time except now the gun is double and tripple feeding horribly. I honestly havent got the foggiest reason as to why this is happening now. The bucking is seated properly in the gun and the mechbox appears to be cycling just fine out of the gun. One thing i have noticed is that i cannot press on the nozzle at all to move the tappet plate, its incredibly stiff. I dont know if this has anything to do with my issue.

 

Four hopup buckings later, horrible double and triple feeds and ive got a gun that functions but doesnt function effectively. I dont know whats worse a gun that doesnt function at all or a gun that might as well be a paperweight because you couldnt hit the broad side of a barn if its more than 15 feet away.

 

Let me explain something to everyone. I bought my CA scar for a few reasons which i will outline here.

 

1. I bought it because i am incredibly tired of the m4 airsoft platform. I love the real steel platform and the ergonomics but as an airsoft gun m4's are terrible. Almost all stock TM guns will outrange a 1200 dollar fully upgraded m4 just because of the horrible hopup unit. Ive had stock tm and CA ak's that have out ranged and gotten superior groupings than my 1300 dollar pimped m4 that has had almost every internal part made put into it in the efforts to optimize it. The SCAR offers a unique proprietary hopup unit that for all intents and purposes SHOULD work. Like i said, i have seen three scars and all of those units fired EXTREMELY well. I knew that with a little careful hopup bucking tuning i could turn this gun into an amazingly accurate weapon.

 

2. I like the ergonomics of the m4, i also have 24 m4 magazines so i really didnt want to deviate from the platform. All of my molle gear is m16 based. I also like to replicate albeit loosely the gear worn by the boys in our military.

 

3. Ar15s were burning a hole in my wallet. There are way too many ways to customize them. I was starting to lose touch with reality. I play airsoft because its an extremely fun game. I play for the action. A 250 dollar stock doesnt improve the way my gun shoots, it doesnt make me a better player. Moving away from the worlds most customizable platform allows me to save some money. MY scar has my eotech on it, my tangodown VFG and some magpul rail covers and thats IT. It doesnt NEED anything else nor do i want to add anything else to it.

 

Now that the glow has worn off of my new purchase i can safely say that i am dissapointed that i spent this money.

 

I have a gun that might as well be a paperweight. Obviously im going to fix it but its going to take a whole lot of time and tinkering. Its interesting, ive said this for ages. If you're going to buy a classic army be prepared for the crapshoot. You're most likely going to be getting an AEG that either works and requires only minimal fixes to get it working up to your standards or you're going to get something that explodes right out of the box.

 

Oddly enough i got something that functions out of the box but doesnt effectively function despite the "minimal fixes" that ive performed.

 

The bottom line is that CA's replica isnt really that great of a replica of the real SCAR. There are some cosmetic differentiations between the real one and the replica and to me they're rather major.

 

Functionally the gun doesnt perform as well as i know it can so i cant say that im COMPLETELY dissapointed because i KNOW its got the potential.

 

Take all of these things that ive mentioned above and throw them into the template that each airsofter holds in their head when it comes to prospective purchases. If too many of my negative points fit into the negative con slots in your imaginary template i would probably stay away from this replica.

 

If you're not concerned with any of my complaints then i would definately recommend you get the gun. As an airsoft platform its got potential despite the unlucky beginning ive had with mine. To each and every scar owner i say good luck to you all, i hope whichever AEG you get works out of the box.

 

I will keep this thread updated with progress on my aeg. We will see if i ever get it fixed.

Edited by Magsz
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Thanks for the compliment man, i appreciate it.

 

I apologize for any spelling and grammatical errors in there, i really dont have the patience to go back and edit it all.

 

I would much rather stare daggers at my SCAR. :)

 

If anything i hope people learn something from this rant/review.

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Interesting enough i havent dissassembled the gun down that far. I havent removed the outer barrel from the body yet.

 

I may get around to this because im thinking im going to have to remove some paint to make the hopup unit fit better in the outer barrel. This may help alleviate some of my problem.

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I noted some of your issues in my SCAR review (~HERE~), especially the paint peeling off (images at the site).

 

Mine has had no problems at all re range and in my movie attached to the review you can clearly see me shooting comfortably at fairly long ranges.

 

Anyway, I nice review. Cutting in some images I think would have helped split the review up, but other than that I think it was very well done.

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Great review Magsz.

I totally know what you mean about the UPS delivery men though. I wonder if its just here in FL or what. When they knock on the door, by the time I get halfway down the stairs to answer I can already hear their friggin truck driving away. Then most of the time I dont feel like chasing it so I have to go pick up my packages, which you have to wait until the next day. Nothing sucks worse than being pumped to get your package delivered and missing it and having to wait a day.

 

Also sorry to hear about the problems with your SCAR. Theres a small airsoft shop 10 mins from here that has one. I was able to put a few rounds through it and it seemed nice but it might have just been a lucky one that worked without having to be ripped apart and having every internal part replaced.

 

GL dude

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Sorry for not posting here sooner, i had forgotten i wrote this lol.

 

A few updates and comments.

 

You know, its quite odd that i didnt include any pictures. Most of the time whenever im reading reviews i skip right to the pictures to see the gun in angles i otherwise havent seen it in. Looking at a gun on a retailers website just doesnt give you the same impression as most reviews do when the product is in the end users hands.

 

I didnt include pictures because well, i believed everyone knows what the damn thing looks like, why clutter up my writing with more of the same? Next time ill throw some pictures in. As the writer, the role reversal caused me to forget about the reader which probably goes against rule number 1 in every english textbook on the planet but "pfft i say to thee!"

 

I fixed my problem only to encounter another one.

 

In regards to the hopup fix it took me another three days to figure out what the hell was going on.

 

The hopup unit and packing was assembled correctly, the problem lay in my method of assembling the gun. I wasnt seating the hopup unit far enough into the outer barrel. When i was sliding the upper reciever onto the lower, i was pushing the hopup unit against the mechbox. This was causing the hopup unit to push itself forward onto the inner barrel causing the rubber to kink.

 

I remedied this problem by lightly sanding some of the paint off of the outer barrel where the hopup guide rods slide in. This enabled the hopup unit to fully seat against the inner barrel. After this the reciever slid onto the lower like i had greased it with about 30938084 pounds of butter.

 

Now, here's the new issue. After finally fixing the hopup and getting decent if not excellent groupings, this past sunday while skirmishing with the rifle i noticed that none of my 28 mags were feeding. Yes, you heard me, all 28 of my magazines were skipping shots. Either this is a strange coincidence and all of my magazines suddenly decided to refuse to work or there is a problem somewhere in the gun. Im guessing its either a problem with the nozzle/tappet plate or the hopup chamber isnt aligned just right.

 

The strange thing is, i fired 600 rounds through the gun after fixing the hopup and it fed flawlessly.

 

My skirmish impressions are as follows:

 

1. I have no confidence in this rifle. Let me elaborate a little bit. First off, i have never lost a magpul rail cover in all three years of my intense skirmish history. This past sunday i lost two, yes two magpul rail covers. I had them positioned on the 3 and 9 o'clock rails and somewhere during the course of the day they were pulled off somehow. Either the CA rails are slightly out of spec or its a horrible design on FN's part since the rails jut out from the reciever roughly half an inch.

 

The lower reciever might as well be machined out of adamantium because it feels like i could drop a moab on it and it would survive. The stock joint however that i mentioned earlier makes me extremely nervous. If i fall on this gun it is GOING to break, no doubt about it.

 

One last complaint. The selector switch is about as intelligent as a puddle of dog ######. I hailed its excellent design earlier in the thread but i am going to retract that statement and say it absolutely sucks. At one point during the day i went to fire on a target and noticed that at some point while climbing through and over all sorts of Floridian toxic sludge i had switched the gun from full auto to safe. Imagine pressing the trigger and meeting far too much resistance and not hearing the familiar fwap fwap of your sewin...i mean AEG. I was quite disappointed after that.

 

Ah, sorry i lied i have one more complaint. I really..really hate metal piston heads. From what ive read, as far as i know scars come with aluminum piston heads. Well, without opening up the gearbox i can tell you that mine definately did. Everytime i fire this aeg i cringe. Aluminum piston heads make my toes curl especially since the scar comes equipped with a version two gearbox. Its loud, its obnoxious and it actually feels like the gun has some sort of whacked out forward based reverse recoil.

 

I may end up opening up the gearbox this week in order to swap out the tappet plate and piston head.

 

PS, as for the front barrel assembly pictures, i have no need to take this apart anymore so i wont be able to get pictures of the whole thing disassembled. Remember the famous axiom: "if it aint broke, dont fix it." Well, it sure as hell aint broke and it sure as hell doesnt need fixing so i aint touching it. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

One small update.

 

My selector switch which was masterfully designed by Lo Pan over at the classic armory dungeon of ultimate doom, i mean design factory, managed to fall off yet again.

 

In order to remedy the problem i had to disassemble the gun down to the lower reciever sans the mechbox.

 

As i mentioned earlier, the post that the selector switch is attached to is able to fall into the body slightly. In order to properly secure the selector switch onto the aforementioned post yhou have to take out the gearbox and push against the cam/post so that it is flush with the side of the body. This enables the post to protrude completely so that you can mount the selector switch flush with the body.

 

Before i go on with this update i want to ask people a serious question. Does your AEG ever engender feelings of all consuming homocidal seething hatred? Have you ever wanted to somehow fashion a nuclear weapon just so that you could drop it onto your AEG? If so then read on.

 

Getting the gearbox out of the lower reciever is NOT fun by any means. Now that i know how to do it im confident i can do it in under 10 minutes but the first time around it took me a half hour just to get the damn gearbox out. I was hesitant to break the plastic lower so i timidly pried it apart to separate the selector switch cams from the cams on the gearbox.

 

After fiddling with it for a half hour i finally got the mechbox out.

 

I fixed the selector switches, applied my threadlock and reassembled the gun.

 

The selector switches are now solid as a rock and i am much happier with the gun.

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  • 3 weeks later...

So you wanted to move from the M4 platform? Then you bought a SCAR? Don't you think it's a bit... weird? Don't you remember that SCAR is based on AR15 platform?

BTW, if you have so many complaints against CA, why did you bought their SCAR? Why didn't you wait for the Star, VFC or even G&G one? You know who to blame!

When I read your review I feel like I read a anti-CA propaganda...

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Did you read my review?

 

Obviously not.

 

I wanted to move away from the ar15 AIRSOFT platform because of the horrible design of the hopup unit.

 

The scar retains the ergonomics and basic function of the ar15 platform albeit with a vastly superior designed hopup unit.

 

Read the review again and then come back and comment.

 

EDIT: Ive got to apologize again, i wont be taking the gun apart until i get my VFC scar. The gun in its current state is the best performing AEG that i have ever used. It far exceeds the performance of any ar15 i have ever worked on, both long and short barrels, too bad it didnt work this way out of the box. Its not broken so i simply refuse to touch it. Once i get the VFC scar i will most definately be pulling out that aluminum piston head for the reasons i have already outlined in my review.

 

I will also be updating this with a comprehensive comparison of the two weapons.

Edited by Magsz
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