A&K M60 Mk43 Mod 0 Initial impressions

[Hillslam]

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.

 

[Azulsky]

Why cant u copy it so we dont have to register, common courtesy.

[Guinness]

I was this face when I saw the topic: +

 

then I read the thread....

 

 

and I was this face.... +

[Versus]

I was this face when I saw the topic: +

 

then I read the thread....

 

 

and I was this face.... +

 

 

I'm not signing up for any more forums or newsletters. Copy/pasta it to here.

Edited May 13, 2009 by Versus

[lance201]

hope to read the rest soon... could be a good buy if the internals are right (better then the A+K M249s)

 

Lance

[Skarclaw]

I can understand posting something to other airsoft forums such as ukara asr etc, but to a personal team forum where you can't view *suitcase* without logging in is just pointless.

[Habakure]

The internals in my A+K m249 para are fine and have been so for quite some time, but I do confess to looking after my AEG's as maybe I don't thrash them about as some do.

 

Care to elaborate on what was wrong with the internals with the one you had?

 

Edit:- Coudl this thread be seen as an advert, seeing as you have to register to view the review? or am i just being a bit *badgeress* today

Edited May 13, 2009 by Habakure

[lance201]

I can understand posting something to other airsoft forums such as ukara asr etc, but to a personal team forum where you can't view *suitcase* without logging in is just pointless.

 

Why? In there own forums they made their own rules for pictures etc. . For me, the link is allright.

 

Lance

[appslapp]

copy it and paste it here pleas.

[The General]

Bah... pointless post!

 

I am not joining another forum to see this.

[Col-Psycho]

this is a pointless thread. If you want to show us the new M60, dont waste our time by linking some team's forums and forcing us to sign up to a forum we probably wont frequent. It would be better if you just copy + pasted the writeups + pics and then reference the website afterwards. :|

[Shardik]

Im very interested to read this, could you perhaps, copy paste it to here?

[Grand'pa Cthulhu]

hmmm, i hope this is allowed? Could'nt get the images to work : /

 

A&K M60 Mk43 Mod 0 - Initial Impressions

This just arrived. Picked it up after work.

 

Box was in bad shape:

Image

Oil all over one end and it took a shot from what looks like a crowbar....

Obviously the oil made it thru the nuclear wrapping paper:

Image

But the styrofoam that was inside protected teh gun well. It was beefy styrofoam, the gun was well protected.

I can't fault A&K for the arrival state, nor even GlobalAirsoft where I bought it. I used to work loading shipping trucks, I know what happens. Regardless the box is well constructed to protect the goods, even if it's plain jane.

 

Oh look - the manual (wrapped for shipping in a nice newspaper, I spent a little time reading n getting up to speed on events in Hong Kong:

Image

 

And here it is in all its styrofoam covered glory:

Image

Yes thats styrofoam bits everywhere, not spooge.

The trades are covered by tape - which took all of 5 seconds to remove. The duckbill flashider is in the box mag.

 

What you get:

Image

 

 

Ok lets get to what matters most: The boxmag and carrier. Ha.

The boxmag is a rigid design and seems quite sturdy. A nice touch is the feed tube (made of a wound spring to guide the bbs) has a rubber sleeve over it for a short length. good for keeping dust and moisture away.

Image

The carrier pouch has a nice vinyl interior material - again, good for repelling moisture. But I'm not sure how mcuh good that does when the top of the boxmag isnt sealed. Although its not as open as the Star/Ares version.

Image

Note the drainhole.

 

Uh oh - the boxmag internals look suspiciously like the Star's. If you weren't aware, I was one of the original Star M60 owners and that damn boxmag of theirs was the Khan of my Kirkhood. Hopefully this isnt as bad. It does run off the gun battery, which means its ~9+v as opposed to ~3+v. And the connector is quality.

Image

Note - this pouch connects to the hanger on the left side of teh gun with two straps. The top strap however connects in a location that has a sharp corner to the hanger bracket. If you take this off and on over time I can see that wearing and eventually cutting the pouch strap. Word of caution.

 

On to the gun itself:

The feed tray cover - this is crucial to good "60"-ness. And this feed tray cover is quite nice. Its got the internal detail as seen here and is quite heavy and rigid:

Image

 

It also closes with authority and latches like a bearclaw. Unlike my old Star that latched like a wet tissue and snapped open if my cheek rubbed it (I'm a southpaw). Oh, and when I say it closes with authority I mean if you have your finger in the way it's going to take a chunk out, like so:

Image

Naughty M60. Oh yes, bite me. You know I like it....

 

_________________

Last Two Posts: Tue Mar 03, 2009 1:03 pm, Mon Apr 20, 2009 3:24 pm

 

 

Post Re: A&K M60 Mk43 Mod 0 - Initial Impressions

Speaking of southpaws - plenty of room for big hamhock hands to fit past the ammo pouch hanger, see below (I wear an XL glove):

Image

 

And on the receiver we come to the first negative. Note the text in the manual:

Image

Now look at the following picture of my gun. Note the charging handle pulled back, and thusly in the "open" position. Note also the absence of a hand holding it back. There was no resistence to the charging handle. I suspect a part (like a spring) is missing or not connected. Note also the faux "bolt" is not pulled back along with the charging handle: on my gun these were completely not connected to each other - in fact I couldnt even move the fake bolt with my hand. I'll have to investigate later.

Image

 

The rear sight. Quite nice. Lots of very nice detail. Lots of stuff to fiddle with. Oh btw it was loose:

Image

 

The trades. With tape:

Image

and without:

Image

They are painted on and not etched. Still they look nice.

Its hard to tell in this picture but in person they appeared to my eye to be slightly crooked.

 

The barrel assembly (outerbarrel, gas tube, inner barrel, hopup chamber) all comes out in one piece, by flipping the attachment lever near the rear sight (see above). Like the Star (and the real steel for that matter) it was somewhat loose. That never affected shooting on the Star so oddly enough I'm not worried about it here. Unlike an aeg you never touch this barrel, its a semi-free-float. Here's a shot of the front cradle with the barrel assembly removed:

Image

You can see the connector for the rheostat in the bottom tube.

 

Here is front sight:

Image

It was loose.

 

You can also see there how far the duckbill flashider screws on to be tight. If you screw it to the correct aligned position... its loose. Use the attached o-ring and you should be fine.

 

Here is the back of the barrel assembly - with the hopup chamber.

Image

It was not loose. In fact, unlike the Star, whose inner barrel slid, rattled, rotated, and shimmied... this thing is pretty well locked in there. With only a sliding adjustment of about 1/2 cm forward and back (spring loaded) to assure a seal.

 

Speaking of seal - note the oring on the hopup chamger adjustment wheel, mine came split. Luckily I have a pile of those.

 

With the gun in squeal-maker mode, you access the hopup wheel as you do on a CA or clone M249, via under the feedtray cover:

Image

 

_________________

Last Two Posts: Tue Mar 03, 2009 1:03 pm, Mon Apr 20, 2009 3:24 pm

 

 

 

Reply with quote

Post Re: A&K M60 Mk43 Mod 0 - Initial Impressions

That's all for now. I'll get to addressing these niggling negatives tomorrow after work. And will shoot, chrono and otherwise test it. I'll post more then. I'll also be skirmishing this thing on the 23rd at Springfield and will report on those results after.

 

But before I go, I'll say the gun feels solid. DEFINITELY heavier than the Star. Not quite CAM249 heavy, but maybe A&K M249 heavy (they're lighter). Aside from the loose bits, the main gun body felt quite solid. No squeaks or rattling. And teh externals are much nicer than I expected and easily a cut about the Star. Which is pretty damning considering this is cheaper (or was for me).

 

By way of comparison, here are the two guns' pictures taken. Same camera, same pose, same floor.

First the Star:

Image

And next the A&K:

Image

Even in these pictures you can see the higher level of detail in the A&K, and in person this is greatly magnified. The A&K feels beefier, looks beefier, and has more attn to detail front to back. The metal is thicker, the foregrip and othe rubber and plastic parks are thicker and of a better feeling material, and the bits like the bipod and sights are more functional and more stout. Here's hoping it's skirmishable....

 

And one more of the A&K to close with for now:

Edited May 13, 2009 by Grand'pa Cthulhu

[Hillslam]

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.

Edited May 13, 2009 by Hillslam

[beretta]

you dont have to upload them to arnies, just copy the image URL from the other site where the review is at the moment.

 

in fact, if you go to the review and "QUOTE" it then you can copy the whole thing in one go.

[Billy Bob the Sniper]

This just arrived. Picked it up after work.

 

Box was in bad shape:

Oil all over one end and it took a shot from what looks like a crowbar....

Obviously the oil made it thru the nuclear wrapping paper:

But the styrofoam that was inside protected teh gun well. It was beefy styrofoam, the gun was well protected.

I can't fault A&K for the arrival state, nor even GlobalAirsoft where I bought it. I used to work loading shipping trucks, I know what happens. Regardless the box is well constructed to protect the goods, even if it's plain jane.

 

Oh look - the manual (wrapped for shipping in a nice newspaper, I spent a little time reading n getting up to speed on events in Hong Kong:

 

And here it is in all its styrofoam covered glory:

Yes thats styrofoam bits everywhere, not spooge.

The trades are covered by tape - which took all of 5 seconds to remove. The duckbill flashider is in the box mag.

 

What you get:

 

 

Ok lets get to what matters most: The boxmag and carrier. Ha.

The boxmag is a rigid design and seems quite sturdy. A nice touch is the feed tube (made of a wound spring to guide the bbs) has a rubber sleeve over it for a short length. good for keeping dust and moisture away.

The carrier pouch has a nice vinyl interior material - again, good for repelling moisture. But I'm not sure how mcuh good that does when the top of the boxmag isnt sealed. Although its not as open as the Star/Ares version.

Note the drainhole.

 

Uh oh - the boxmag internals look suspiciously like the Star's. If you weren't aware, I was one of the original Star M60 owners and that damn boxmag of theirs was the Khan of my Kirkhood. Hopefully this isnt as bad. It does run off the gun battery, which means its ~9+v as opposed to ~3+v. And the connector is quality.

Note - this pouch connects to the hanger on the left side of teh gun with two straps. The top strap however connects in a location that has a sharp corner to the hanger bracket. If you take this off and on over time I can see that wearing and eventually cutting the pouch strap. Word of caution.

 

On to the gun itself:

The feed tray cover - this is crucial to good "60"-ness. And this feed tray cover is quite nice. Its got the internal detail as seen here and is quite heavy and rigid:

 

It also closes with authority and latches like a bearclaw. Unlike my old Star that latched like a wet tissue and snapped open if my cheek rubbed it (I'm a southpaw). Oh, and when I say it closes with authority I mean if you have your finger in the way it's going to take a chunk out, like so:

Naughty M60. Oh yes, bite me. You know I like it....

 

 

[Billy Bob the Sniper]

Speaking of southpaws - plenty of room for big hamhock hands to fit past the ammo pouch hanger, see below (I wear an XL glove):

 

And on the receiver we come to the first negative. Note the text in the manual:

Now look at the following picture of my gun. Note the charging handle pulled back, and thusly in the "open" position. Note also the absence of a hand holding it back. There was no resistence to the charging handle. I suspect a part (like a spring) is missing or not connected. Note also the faux "bolt" is not pulled back along with the charging handle: on my gun these were completely not connected to each other - in fact I couldnt even move the fake bolt with my hand. I'll have to investigate later.

 

The rear sight. Quite nice. Lots of very nice detail. Lots of stuff to fiddle with. Oh btw it was loose:

 

The trades. With tape:

and without:

They are painted on and not etched. Still they look nice.

Its hard to tell in this picture but in person they appeared to my eye to be slightly crooked.

 

The barrel assembly (outerbarrel, gas tube, inner barrel, hopup chamber) all comes out in one piece, by flipping the attachment lever near the rear sight (see above). Like the Star (and the real steel for that matter) it was somewhat loose. That never affected shooting on the Star so oddly enough I'm not worried about it here. Unlike an aeg you never touch this barrel, its a semi-free-float. Here's a shot of the front cradle with the barrel assembly removed:

You can see the connector for the rheostat in the bottom tube.

 

Here is front sight:

It was loose.

 

You can also see there how far the duckbill flashider screws on to be tight. If you screw it to the correct aligned position... its loose. Use the attached o-ring and you should be fine.

 

Here is the back of the barrel assembly - with the hopup chamber.

It was not loose. In fact, unlike the Star, whose inner barrel slid, rattled, rotated, and shimmied... this thing is pretty well locked in there. With only a sliding adjustment of about 1/2 cm forward and back (spring loaded) to assure a seal.

 

Speaking of seal - note the oring on the hopup chamger adjustment wheel, mine came split. Luckily I have a pile of those.

 

With the gun in squeal-maker mode, you access the hopup wheel as you do on a CA or clone M249, via under the feedtray cover:

 

 

[Billy Bob the Sniper]

That's all for now. I'll get to addressing these niggling negatives tomorrow after work. And will shoot, chrono and otherwise test it. I'll post more then. I'll also be skirmishing this thing on the 23rd at Springfield and will report on those results after.

 

But before I go, I'll say the gun feels solid. DEFINITELY heavier than the Star. Not quite CAM249 heavy, but maybe A&K M249 heavy (they're lighter). Aside from the loose bits, the main gun body felt quite solid. No squeaks or rattling. And teh externals are much nicer than I expected and easily a cut about the Star. Which is pretty damning considering this is cheaper (or was for me).

 

By way of comparison, here are the two guns' pictures taken. Same camera, same pose, same floor.

First the Star:

And next the A&K:

Even in these pictures you can see the higher level of detail in the A&K, and in person this is greatly magnified. The A&K feels beefier, looks beefier, and has more attn to detail front to back. The metal is thicker, the foregrip and othe rubber and plastic parks are thicker and of a better feeling material, and the bits like the bipod and sights are more functional and more stout. Here's hoping it's skirmishable....

 

And one more of the A&K to close with for now:

 

 

[Pulsipher]

Hot DaAYUMM!!!

that is awesome

[Shardik]

Heck, gonna have to get me one, after reading this review it sure is tempting

[spetsnazdave87]

I loved my old Star, so if this proves to be up to scratch in performace I'll be getting one!

[Hillslam]

The forum is now visible and readable when not registered.

[Hillslam]

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.

 

 

--------------

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)

Edited May 15, 2009 by Hillslam

[navymp28]

Hillslam thank you very much for such a detailed review

[Habakure]

Thank you for sorting out the link problems, great review. But whiney children come on, how about whiney old man thats more insulting and true.