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Initial Impressions of the TM SOPMOD M4 AEG


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I used a Systema 1 J spring (if Im not confusing my many springs now, but I only have Systema springs and the 1 J is the weakest) to get under 0.5 J. I just shortened it to about 10.5 cm, which is shorter than the original spring, but it works, at least for a few shots. I havent tested it further, as Im not going to play with that spring anyways, its just to transport the gun within Germany. (Diameter is 1.28 mm, for reference)

 

 

But I have another question, isnt piston head, cylinder and cylinder head standard v2? Why did prometheus and magic box made these parts specially for the new gen v2, cant I just use any other version as well?

Because currently im thinking about using an aluminium piston and cylinder head to make it sound even louder. Im running the system on 400 fps though, might this be a little to much stress for the gearbox shell then?

What do you think about metal piston heads?

 

And the last question is, whether there was a place to get replacement gearbox shells, as this seems to be the last part thats not availible.

 

p.s.: Hi Bastel, I just noticed its you again ^^

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While fiddling about with my SOCOM recently I noticed an expected benefit of using a Magpul MIAD grip. The swappable backstrap means you only need to remove the pistol grip base to get access to the a

Oh PureSilver, you do spoil me rotten sometimes.   PureSilver dropped half his SOPMOD off with me last weekend with some new goodies to install. Before we continue, you should note that the gun had

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But I have another question, isnt piston head, cylinder and cylinder head standard v2?

Cylinder: yes

Piston Head: yes and no. I used a KM piston head on mine with the stock piston head nut and stock spring. But if you're going to replace the stock piston head nut the "standard" ones won't fit without modification.

Cylinder Head: no. Look at the Prometheus piston head and you'll notice the difference immediately.

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I have a G&P URX II Rail on mine. The only problem I have, is that the recoil keeps loosening the barrel nut and rail, but I guess some loctite would solve that problem. I just mounted my Eotech over the section between upper body and rail, which works as well (the rail is screwed onto the barrel nut)

 

 

@ Richard Y: even if you mod the sopmod to semi only, you would still need a special stamp (the F in a pentagon) from a special department, which is pretty complicated (and expensive)if you want to get that legaly (you cant just bring your gun to that department, because on the way you would have an illegal firearm). So swapping the spring is much easier, especially if youre not going to play in Germany anyway.

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My eyes are all red from bleeding after reading through 62 pages of chatter about the Marui M4 Blowback AEG.

 

Oddly enough, I already pulled the trigger yesterday. Order from eHobbyAsia has been placed for the Marui M4 SOCOM Blowback. I just bought the gun. Airsoft Extreme has three 82round mags in stock and a 430rd hi-cap mag so I can pick those up when the gun arrives. The shop also has a Polar Star Concave Hop Up Spacer as well as a handful of Firefly Kurage Hop Bucking in Soft/Hard version in stock. Just gotta make my mind up about whether or not I will want more velocity. If I do, the shop also has a stock of Guarder SP100 springs. Just cut those down and I'll be GTG.

 

I think I'll purchase a 7.4v 2100+ mah 25C Lipo to power up the new toy.

 

I'm surprised there aren't very many photos of the gun/gearbox on this thread. Wish there were more....maybe I'll take some if/when I take mine apart. :P

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Bookmarked :)

 

Much Appreciated Anakchan

 

BTW, how is yours setup? Any real points of failure? In your opinion, how strong is the gearbox shell compared to the standard Marui v.2 gearbox shell?

 

I have had the Marui AK 74u and 74MN. I have stuck a Guarder SP90 in the 74MN and a Guarder SP100 spring in the 74u. The MN was chronoing around 340 FPS while the 74U was shooting around 370. I did not cut the springs down, nor did I replace the stock bushings.

 

IMO those Marui nylon bushings are pretty resilient to moderate abuse.

 

I know the mechanics are different between the AK and the M4 recoil shock AEG's but will the shorter spring really be required? I've read that someone ran an original length upgrade spring in his Recoil Shock M4 with no ill effects. I've also heard about lock ups with the original length springs. Does it really make a difference?

 

Another thing is that stock CA springs (short ones) are readily available. What's your opinion on those being used on the Recoil Shock M4?

 

I am getting the M4A1 Carbine SOCOM version.

 

Thanks!

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My Sopmod's been "dead" since July. I'm waiting for parts for it from TM since then too (and I'm making orders for some other folks here in this forum who are waiting along with me). OK, to be fair it's not the GB but the lower receiver & the buffer tube threads that's worn out with the number of times I've opened up gun.

 

The shell appears to be standard TM strength, having said that my friend has broken his before and had to order a new GB. He wasn't pushing it (as he's also here in Japan, therefore limited to 1J) but personally it's made me wary of trying to push it too far.

 

Overall I'd say the gun is a little fiddly. If you open/close quite a bit, there's quite a few things to keep track of (not hard but just have to remember) and can be somewhat finicky. The reason why my buffer tube/lower receiver wore out 'cos that everytime I disassemble and reassembled, something was wrong (fell out of alignment, whatever, and it wouldn't shoot). I must say I have less problems with V2/V6 mechboxes. About the spring, no I've not been using the shorter spring. Having said that, my piston doesn't have that block that pre-compresses. I've experienced lockups when :-

 

1) I tried using a stronger spring (that's more the motor not having enough grunt)

2) screwed on the tube too tight that it "pre-compresses"

 

Having said that, when I get my lower receiver/buffer tube, I'm probably just going to stick to Richard Y's spring, it gives the same power in a shorter length and just reduces a potential variable. I have to admit I'm unfamiliar with CA's springs - in Japan, non-Japanese brands are somewhat harder to come by unless it's a big well known brand like PTS, etc. CA's only sold in whole guns like the CA249P, etc. And supporting parts can be found but not in masses.

 

-Once- you get everything working properly, it's a lovely weapon to shoot. I'd like to say more than 1/3 if my team in Tokyo has either the Sopmod or SOCOM (and one guy has the AK).

 

I think the SOCOM's the way to go. I'm not a fan of the rear wired which limits me to the Crane or Vltor stocks. Also as you may have read in the previous posts in this thread, I've put in Gandolf's Extreme Fire SW-Long into my Sopmod in the front.

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Thanks for the heads up. Im pretty mindful of what I do when working on things so hopefully I won't do anything wrong. I don't think I'm going to do spring cutting of my own. Downside to the CA springs is that they shoot up to 350 FPS. To be honest, I like that FPS but do not want to push the gun that hard.

 

Do you know if a tight bore barrel will increase the FPS and by how much?

 

Just wondering if its worth the gains in terms of power increases. If not, then I will probably just leave it stock (maybe install a mosfet) and run a 7.4v 2100mah lipo.

 

Thanks again!

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I've got a PDI 6.01mm...sorry, I didn't test the stock FPS but I'm "guessing" the PDI 01 would increase some FPS.

 

I should add the misc mods I've done is just to bring the Sopmod as close as possible to 0.98J with 0.2g (JP's legal limits). So it's possible to increase the power of the weapon safely at least up to that small bump from stock. I know it's not much of an increase but that's all I'm limited to.

 

I believe Richard's got his to UK legal limits (350fps? What weight BB's?).

Edited by AnakChan
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I owned the SOPMOD version and sold it and eventually bought the SOCOM version because I missed it :)

 

I think the rear wiring that AnakChan mentioned is the biggest design flaw in the system, as the wires get stripped, pinched, or cut trying to remove the buffer tube...or as in Anak's case, you strip the threads.

 

My first mods were on my SOPMOD. I swapped everything out with what was available from laylax at the time, and had a few issues with lock-up. When I bought the SOCOM I decided I wouldn't open the mechbox unless something broke. I have had much better luck with it that way.

 

In terms of a TBB. I swapped my standard one for a Madbull 6.03 and saw an increase of about 4 or 5 meters per second. It was shooting between 91-93 stock, and went up to 96-97.

The SOCOM is great as long as you don't push it to hard. A 7.4 800mAh 20C lipo works perfect for me, and it's a joy to field.

 

Sorry if I am just repeating what AnakChan said, but wanted to share my experience as well.

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I appreciate your input dude :P Thanks!

 

With what I have been reading, I'm really leaning towards a tightbore barrel upgrade more than anything to increase the fps no matter how marginal it may be. This will probably be one of the handful of AEG's I have bought a brand new barrel for as I don't really believe in the benefits of a tighter bore barrel in an open field. My mentality is that if I absolutely need to take a shot from 200 feet...do a burst or spray the area. In this particular case however, I'll just try to squeeze in however much I can from the stock spring.

 

Marui does things right. And if you follow their recommendation, the gun should last close to forever(save 1 in every X amount of production gun made).

 

Whats your take on the Firefly Hop buckings for AEG's dstole? I have heard positive results with it combined with the flat nub.

 

At the moment I'm thinking about sticking with the Guarder Clear 50% hop bucking and using one of those concave/shreder type plastic nubs. Any comments on those as well? :P

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On AnakChan's recommendation I am running a firefly and H-Nub together. However, another respected member in our group recently suggested that might be overkill, so I am going to do some grouping tests over the next little while to test it.

 

Since buying the MASADA it has been a hard decision as to what to take out with me to the field :)

 

I was running an H-nub and systema bucking with a 550 promethius hidden with a compressor on my SOPMOD. I was getting very nice distance and accuracy with this combo.

 

One huge benefit of the SOPMOD is that the rear wiring makes it way easier to swap the hop and inner barrels. The SOCOM requires removal of the fuse and wiring, and can be a pain to fir back into place.

Edited by dstole
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About the barrels, when I had my SOPMOD I was shooting around 280FPS with the stock inner barrel. I had a Tanio Koba hop twist for a month and I believe I was shooting around 285FPS. Later I swapped out the outer barrel for the Laylax CQB barrel and PDI 6.01 and was shooting about 295FPS and was dead accurate. This setup was 285mm, vice the stock length at 363mm.

 

And it seems that I was the only one that had problems with my hop up unit. It worked fine, but it wouldn't fit any other bucking except for stock. I've destroyed a bunch of aftermarket buckings but the only one that would fit in was the stock bucking. Well, gun is sold and I haven't heard anything from the new owner.

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2) screwed on the tube too tight that it "pre-compresses"

Wait, if you screw on the tube fully the stock lock hole thingy won't be at the bottom. But the stock spring is partially compressed when the tube is inserted, much like in other AEG gearboxes.

 

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but I used something I learned from plumbing when reassembling the gun: wrap the stock tube with vinyl tape. I used electric insulation tape. This will double as a thread lock and makes the threads mesh nice and tight, prolonging thread life.

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Received my TM M4 SOCOM Recoil Shock AEG today. Taking off the upper receiver/barrel assembly is pretty easy. The hole for the wires are big enough for a few wires to go into for mosfets.

 

Still haven't made my mind up when it comes to upgrades. Thinking about keeping it stock (or doing a spring upgrade) with a mosfet installed (dont know which unit yet).

 

I have a hyperion 7.4v 2100mah 25C LiPo battery for the gun. Haven't rewired the gun for the battery yet so I haven't shot bbs through the gun. Tomorrow maybe.

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