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Ares Tavor Tar 21 Review


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hey guys, got my tavor last week and was able to do some tests and upgrading. got mine second hand and it had an element m135 installed, shooting at 445fps which is very low since my 2 other guns with m135s are shooting at 500fps. anyway, i sealed the hop and cylinder with silicon sealant, installed an SCS replaced the airseal nozzle with a ca m4 ASN then i replaced the cylinder with a deepfire type-1 and it now shoots at 470-480fps. i guess there really was a mismatch in the air ratio because the stock barrel is too short to be using a type-0 cylinder. hope this helps others having low fps problems.

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The hopup arm in mine was fine but the actual nub in there was too short and fatter on one end. Its also a weird number "8" shaped thing instead of a regualr nub., :)

 

yup same here. what i did was i cut the nub into 2, i left the part that goes into bottom in the arm in case the scs goes into the groove if that makes any sense. u'll understand once u open it up. havent done any tests with the scs installed though. have a feeling it will work well with the TN barrel i have installed.

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  • 1 month later...

So, just received my DE Ares Tavor, and I LOVE it ! Here is a short review on first impressions before playing it on field.

 

Presentation:

- Bought from eHobby Asia. Delivery was a little late and had to pay custom tax, but box arrived in good condition.

- Heavy foam padding, comes with one mag, a speed loader (urgh), a tag saying who checked the muzzle velocity at Ares, and that's it ! Link to download a manual which was a bit useless honestly.

- Cybergun IWI license sticker on the box, trademarked.

 

The externals:

- Sturdy, no wiggle, no creaking noise, canon is fairly tightly fixed to body, when you take the gun and try to shake it hard, nothing moves AT ALL.

- It looks GOOD. The DE is very slightly different from Magpul's DE, but almost the same. Quite matte too although the black parts are a bit more shiny in comparison. The DE material is some sort of very resistant polymer, feels good. Finish is pretty good too even with the slight imperfections from the mold at the junction parts.

 

Handling:

- It's my first bullpup so it took me a bit by surprise to have a gun back heavy instead of front, but I already got used to it just waving it around. It's heavy for what it looks like, but it feels good, and it's still lighter than my full metal G&P M4 with everything on it.

- The trigger pull is indeed a bit long, got to get used to that, but no biggy, had to pay attention to it really to notice.

 

Internals:

- When opening the rubber stock plate, the motor appears protected by a shrink wrap. Spring change also was fairly easy once you get how to do it. Had just difficulties pulling the spring out the first time. Lots of room for battery.

- Shooting rate felt comparable to my G&P M4, better than my TM G36C I thought.

- Comparing the size of the barrel to the M4, it's a pretty amazing difference, hoping it will show by accuracy.

- Hopup very easily accessible through round chamber by pulling the charging handle. Felt a bit loose though, I might tight this up.

- The mechanism that release the hopup cover also releases the spring in the mechbox, pretty cool I thought.

- That's the farthest I went internal wise.

 

Shooting:

- The tag said 0.92J out, and I live in Japan, which restricts at 0.98J max. Trying with my home chrono and I had a stead 1.1J, which is a bit of a problem for me, but since it's brand new, I'm hoping it will drop a little. I always prefer more than not enough though ^^

- Tried only with iron sights so far, but seemed pretty steady grouped shooting.

 

 

Ok, so all the above was fairly positive, now here comes what's wrong and could be better.

 

The bad:

- The mag release is indeed too loose as mentioned be other people here. Right away I took a mechbox spring, cut it, and just dropped it there behind the lever. Perfect now ! Fixed !

- Somehow, my PTS Magpul mags don't fit so well. I have to push them up as hard as I can and wiggle them a little. Sometimes the mechanism will will just catch it (especially thanks to the new spring), or I need to push by hand the plate that holds the mag on the side. I mean, it guarantees every other mags will be quite tight there with no wiggle, but it's a bit of a bummer for the Magpul, especially since they look so good with the Tavor... All other mags went fine, tight fit.

- It's noisy. The mechbox reminds me a G&P one in the noise output, it's fairly loud, don't expect to sneak around with that.

- The fire selector "bugs". Sometimes the semi won't work, need to get to full and then got back to semi. Sometimes shooting semi just bugs and become full auto for just a trigger pull and then comes back to normal. There's a "click" when selecting the safe/semi/full, but it doesn't stop the selector when choosing semi. Somehow it clicks, but then can easily move over the position if not careful, and full is quite far from the semi. The full selector angle is a good 180 degree. I know it's the same on my M4, but it feels a little bulkier here.

- Most the of the tabs and lever are held by pins on the body of the gun. Most of those pins are pretty hard to move, and the butt plate won't be falling by itself for example. But there are a couple of pins which seem a little too loose in my opinion, and I'll probably loctite it before going on field.

 

 

So, here you have it. My "cons" are really quite little details at that point compared to the "pros".

I still need to test the gun on the field, along with the hopup and accuracy, but so far so good. This is gonna be my main weapon for some time ! ^^

Edited by Ycare
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Alright first off, I wanna say that my intent for this review is not to be a fanboy but to answer the same questions I had to justify buying a rather pricy airsoft gun (pricier still in Canada!). This is my first review (wich I first posted on my main Canadian forum) so be gentle... ;)

 

I went through every airsoft forum out there and read every review of the Tavor and most are similar and fair. A well balanced one I found is the

and the very usefull one by RedWolf Airsoft. The internals are average for an high-end gun, not below, not above, with the exception of the air nozzle wich is a bit leaky. The gearbox is not really a version 6 but it's still well made and is not that hard to find replacement parts for (gears, piston and such). Some people complain about the metal rods fixed to the gearbox going to the fire selector and trigger, mentioning how they should've done it like the L85 (wires from the trigger going to the gearbox) for ease of removal. Of course if you study the design carefully, that would not have been possible, the Tavor's body being mostly one molded piece. So the only real way to get the gearbox out has to be sliding it out the back (like the RS) wich would make wires going to the trigger a real pain. It's only a good option when you can open up the body in 2 pieces like the L85. Where it could have been better is that instead of fixing the metal rods to the gearbox, fixing it to the body and trigger assembly instead might have made it easier when you take the gearbox out.

 

Yes the MARS sight is a bit disapointing although externally it is amazing. But still, it's quite workable for airsoft in my opinion since mine doesn't have any of the problems some mention in their reviews (weak blurry dot, distortion in the glass). Because of this tho, almost all reviews say that the poor optics of the MARS sight makes it not worth the price. This is where I disagree. The polymer material this gun is made of is simply amazing. All my previous airsoft guns have been fiber-nylon composite (CA G36, G&G UMG) and they got nothin' on the Tavor! Of all the airsoft guns I've handled before the Tavor, in my opinion the sturdiest would have been the folded steel made G&G L85. The Ares Tavor beats it hands down. The amount of force you would need to slightly bend the magwell of the Tavor would seriously warp the metal magwell of the L85. It's that strong. I remember reading an article on the Ares Tavor way back in the prototype stage (might've just been a rumour) that IWI not only had sold the rights to Ares for the trades but also helped with the composition of the polymer material used (albeit a more cost effective version of what's used on the RS). Sadly I haven't kept the link to it but I have no problem believing that it could be true. To me who's a fan of sate-of-the-art composite-made modern firearms, this more than justifies the high cost. + you have to add on top of that the cost of the official trades wich is always pricy AND in this case is for the first airsoft version of an highly anticipated model.

 

Now for the CONS... I've talk to Ares concerning the one I bought about the missing metal flash-hider wich is supposed to be included (even tho the plastic orange one is glued on) and the answer is simply that if it was bought from the U.S. through Cybergun, it will not be included (Cybergun get's rid of it). The usual cleaning rod would've been nice too. The spring of the magazine catch is a bit weak and could use some reinforcement. The piston does look a bit cheap because it's transparent but a transludent plastic is not necessarily weaker or in this case, not up to the task. Since I haven't seen any forums mentioning it breaking yet, I'm a firm believer that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" so we'll see how good it holds up. Same thing for the short motor wich does the job but doesn't look like it's on par with the best out there. I've also asked Ares about adding a fuse and their answer was:

"After reviewed with our engineer, his advice is you don’t need add any fuse on there because it use DC battery voltage that less risk than AC power."

 

The PROS are all about the body.... In my opinion, in airsoft, it's more important to have a gun with great externals and, if needed, upgradable internals than one with great internals and poor externals that you can't do much about. I also don't think there's an airsoft gun out there that has perfect internals... ;)

 

The overall length (flash-hider to buttplate) of the Ares Tavor CTAR-21 is 685mm (wich is 45mm longer than the real steel: Wikipedia - IWI Website PDF) AND NOT 725mm like it's mentioned on the Ares website and pretty much everywhere else. As for a replacement flash-hider, I've tried a regular G&P M4 birdcage with CW +14mm thread and it fitted perfectly! I also tried the Classic Army 130R M4/M16 Metal Magazines and they fed great + are the exact same grey color as the original one in the box.

 

Now it's up to you to decide if all of this is worth the 500 USD$ price tag (800 CAD$ to 900 CAD$ in Canada!).

 

Cheers!

 

mytavor.jpg

Edited by MrBond
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PS: The Dark Earth version, comes with actual 3 inch longer barrel than the black CTAR, just like the real TAR, and comes without any MARS, which is a good thing in my book, especially considering the price drop that ensues.

 

yeah 100 less everywhere except at airsoft gi...go fig.

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The overall length (flash-hider to buttplate) of the Ares Tavor CTAR-21 is 685mm (wich is 45mm longer than the real steel: Wikipedia - IWI Website PDF) AND NOT 725mm like it's mentioned on the Ares website and pretty much everywhere else.

 

I think it came up in the TSI Tavor discussion, but bear in mind that there is a notion that the quoted IWI length doesn't include the flash hider. Obvioulsy no way to verify this currently, as no one has done a side by side comparison to the RS - but it's something to be aware of.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Had my ARES "Standard" version Tavor for couple of weeks and skirmished twice with it. Went through a bag an a half of TM 0.2g bbs, using a Battleaxe M4 type electric double mag. Chronos at a bit less than 330fps and about 11 rps. Grouping good enough to get a torso sized target at 100ft. Fitted a micro aimpoint to it.

 

One observation, the spring is always loaded after firing. Is the spring supposed to be pre-cocked like the G&G SA80? Is that why there the bolt catch is doubling up as the spring release switch? I can't really tell that the gun is firing the bb at the instant when the the trigger is pulled.

Edited by Erik Cartman
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The Ares Tavor has a pre-cocked feature which is why its important to remember your spring release/bolt catch at the end of a day.

 

If you just start at 8:05 and he finishes talking about it around 9:15

If you're a non believer, listen for the spring being released after him shooting on single when he uses the spring release. If you have an Ares Tavor, then feel free to try it out yourself.

 

If the overspin you're talking about is pulling the piston back after a shot is due to the 1J spring inside the Tavor, I'm running a Guarder M110 spring and it's doing the same thing.

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But...I could use my spring release on my ICS M4 after single shot and I can with my Type 97 - neither are pre-cocked and both run on bigger springs than 1J. The release is just there to get the compression out of the spring before storage. Have you used a G&G L85? Firing that is a completely different experience to the Tavor.

 

Also, perhaps someone more mechanically minded than me can explain how, if the Tavor is pre-cocked, the gearbox facilitates it? All the necessary bits for pre-cocking, which are different in the G&G L85, look pretty standard to me - V2 gears, normal length piston, no spacer etc.

 

Edit: clarity

Edited by The Reptile House
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Never studied it, but I believe it is simple: the "ridge" (don't know English word) on sector gear (which engages the cutoff lever) is at a different angle compared to teeth which engage the piston. This stops the firing cycle at a position where spring is compressed, instead of usual position with piston forward.

Edited by Hristo
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Never thought of ARES Tavor having this feature. The only way to be sure is to compare sector gear to a normal one. Going by photos, it looks pretty standard to me, so I don't think it has precocking feature.

Edited by Hristo
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