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ECHO1 M28 Sniper's Rifle


DRAGON64

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DRAGON, you're killing me man.

 

You know how to make one sexy rifle. Cute name, too. My VSR's name is Mischa, or Mishie. wink.gif

 

Where did you get the cheek pad? I want one in OD or Coyote with the velcro on the side so I can put my Cheezburger Operator patch on it! dry.gif

 

I appreciate that Extraordinaire, I got the cheek pad from EVIKE. it comes with ammo holders for either a shotgun or long rifle ammo: http://www.airsoftpost.com/product_info.php?products_id=26888

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Just wondering if you are aware that the Blackside can is a .45 caliber suppressor. Beautiful rifle otherwise,really making me want one.

 

Yeah, I kind of found that out when I put the silencer on soon after getting her...and realized I did not like the look after all. I really like the no suppressed look anyway.

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Update: A member of the Airsoft Forum posted this link to an upgrade kit that is supposed to fit the M28 for anyone wanting to upgrade the piston / spring / guide / bearing set-up:

 

http://www.covertairsoft.com/index.php/internal-parts/piston-piston-head/echo-1-sniper-upgrade-pack.html

 

As much as I love this rifle, I am skeptical of the kit and claim, but there it is...

 

Sorry for the triple post, but the statute of limitations has run out on my ability to edit my last double post...

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No accuracty test yet?

 

I have decided to install the stock barrel back into the rifle and use it for accuracy testing. Straight out of the box, the M28 shot terrible. I could'nt hit a 10X10 cardboard box at 40-yards, as the bb's were flying left and right. As you may have read, I replaced some of the hop-up components to include the bucking, with used WELL VSR-10 parts. These few changes had my M28 shooting nice and straight. Another component that I swapped in the M28 was a WELL MB07 barrel, and I want to swap it back out for the factory barrel for testing.

 

Confusing? Tell me about it, I have made too many changes in one sitting. Nevertheless, I re-crowned the M28 barrel, and I have cleaned it up real good, so it is ready to get back to work. I will do some testing this weekend. I don't get home till dark to do any testing during the week. This weekend, my wife will be out of town, and it is supposed to be sunny and warmer (51F), perfect for punching paper all day. I will do an accuracy report there-after.

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I was impressed by a classic army m24 fluted barrel design and as such had a looksie at these when they were first mentioned but quickly decided the stock was Fugly and the magazine design never encouraged any faith from me, they should have chosen one design or another but never to try and merge the two... in the end i settled on a JG GSpec and love it lol

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Cylinder / Bolt Update:

 

I decided it was time to break into the cylinder on the M28 when the cylinder started to show serious signs of damage on the outside of the tube. The damage was caused to the 2-small nylon receiver bushing being to thin, allowing the receiver to touch the receiver walls.

 

IMG_3136.jpg

 

I pulled the action out of the stock, and removed the guide keeper pin from the trigger group, and slid the cylinder / bolt assembly out. To my surprize, I discovered more hidden damage, that may have come as is from the factory. The damage is not slide related, it appears more impact related.

 

IMG_3137.jpg

 

The piston, spring and spring guide look like most any stock assembly that we have all seen in other VSR-10 or APS2 assemblies.

 

IMG_3122.jpg

 

The first item I look at, is the o-ring and o-ring groove. I was hoping that part of the reason this rifle is enjoying such good performance numbers, is that the compression must be efficient. Again, like many of the other platforms we have seen, the piston and o-ring set is nominal, with a deep o-ring groove and too small of an o-ring.

 

IMG_3123.jpg

 

Again, all of the components seemed nominal, nothing out of the ordinary to report. The spring however did seem to be a bit larger (diameter), but it was hard to tell, with no other set up to compare at the time of this session.

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Cylinder Continued:

 

I took some measurements of the cylinder and piston, to see what kind of tolerances we are working with here. First up is the inside diameter of the cylinder:

 

IMG_3130.jpg

 

And then the piston head diameter;

 

IMG_3128.jpg

 

This gives us a difference of .038" (.9mm) or basically an air gap around the piston of .018" This gap seems excessive, but more on this later. I measured the length of the piston, not really indicating any surprises, with nothing to compare it to at this time.

 

IMG_3133.jpg

 

So all in all, I was somewhat surprised and yet disappointed at the same time. With an out of box performance reading of 500+ fps on .2g ammo, I truly expected remarkable progress or quality in components when I opened up the cylinder assembly... maybe remarkable is not the appropriate term, so let's just say that I expected better than this. Without an actual side by side comparison, I would have to say that the M28 relies on the bulk of the performance to come from the beefier spring. The piston to cylinder wall clearance is loose, and the o-ring groove is too large, while to o-ring is too small for this rifle to generate any kind of efficiency from compression. One can only assume that the real upgrade here is undoubtedly the spring.

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Off topic from review:

 

Not satisfied with the results of the cylinder review, I dug up an old 20% upgrade kit for my TSD SD700 rifle (WELL MB03). I wanted to see what the differences were between this kit and the M28 components. The results were rather surprising. Here are all the components used for this side by side comparison, the guides, springs and pistons:

 

IMG_3125.jpg

 

First glance, the aluminum piston from the 20% upgrade kit was shoter than the M28 piston. Second, the springs are nearly identical. I'm referring to length, but in the cross section diameter of the springs. The guide metal spring guide was also shorter, but this was of no concern to me. The aluminum piston was a quarter inch shorter than the plastic piston:

 

IMG_3127.jpg

 

Measured:

 

IMG_3132.jpg

 

And the aluminum piston head was slighly larger, and fit quite comfortably into the cylinder. The measurements indicated a much tighter air gap of .007"

 

IMG_3129.jpg

 

The quart inch difference in piston length was easily taken up at the spring guide end by stacking washers, and wala, I may have an upgrade in the works:

 

[/url]IMG_3138.jpg

 

If you haven't figured it out, I was trying to figure out a way to make it work...check out the final results here:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCWMoYIQ_P0

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What would happen if you put the kit without the washers?

 

Not a techny myself, but its allways good to test :)

 

Unfortunately, removing the washers will only take the tension off of the spring, it will not change the position of the piston. Since the piston is a quarter inch shorter than the stock piston, the assembly will still not be able to engage the sear.

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Thats unfortunate... but my main concern, given the high FPS this gun features is... how reliable is the trigger mech? ACM guns tend to die after a couple of hundred shots. How is yours holding up? :)

 

This is my first ACM built product, so I have no history to compare the durability of this rifle to. But I can, in all honesty voice the following concerns:

 

1) Hop up is very weak. The screws are starting to lose their grip inside of the hop up, indicating the threads are weakening. I am tightening the srews less and less as one of the screws has no grip at all now. I am actively searching for a Tokyo Marui repalcement hop up unit. I may have to order over seas, from Ehobby Asia as they have one in stock.

 

2) I need to up grade the hop up bucking... If I can get the Tokyo Marui hop unit, then it will come with a new hop up. There is also an option to buy a KA bucking from Ehobby at the time I order the Hop up.

 

3) I have been unsuccessful at getting the stock barrel to work in the rifle, and have resorted to using a WELL barrel which has the window cut design for the hop up. This works fine wihtout issue, but it is not stock for the M28. No Matter, the WELL barrel should be able to get me through accuracy testing this weekend.

 

4) I would love to have a custom piston made that fit inside of the cylinder like the aluminum piston that I posted about...

 

5) I am searching for replacement nylon rings that fit inside of the receiver and serve the purpose of guiding and centering the cylinder. The set in the M28 are too thin, and as pointed out earlier, have caused damage to the cylinder. I have found a tutorial on how to make these guides from 35mm film canisters, but at the moment I have had trouble locating some canisters... I will need to broaden my search if I hope to fix this issue.

 

I will try to get a pic of the trigger sears this evening. Other than a shine at the point of contact of the 45 degree sear, they appear to be holding up just fine. All of the edges are crisp, with no indication of any rounding off.

 

Of all things, the magazines, which I chastised early on, are standing their gorund and performing as hoped.

 

Reading this for the first time, a player may stear clear from this platform. But, I planned to shoot this rifle till it fails and when it does, I'll report back on how I made it better. The rifle has not failed me yet, it is just showing early signs of significant wear... which will usualy lead to failure...

 

It is what it is folks.

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How many rounds have you put through it? estimated, of course :)

 

To be honest, I didnt expect it to be anygood beyond the "OMGitsacheapm24!!!11oneoneone" but if putting a TM hop chamber will fix accuracy problems, I dont care the barrel being shorter than stock, in fact, I would downgrade the spring to make it more comfortable to cock and increase the "ROF" :lol:

 

Thanks for your input Dragon :)

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This site is claiming that the Echo 1 ASR upgrade kit will also fit in the M28. Interesting if true.

http://www.covertairsoft.com/index.php/internal-parts/spring-guide/echo-1-sniper-upgrade-pack.html

 

A question: those holes near top and bottom of the dirty-yellow plastic piston: are they anything like what is used to attached the metal weights in a VSR "Real Shock" system?

 

Kind of like this:

 

Piston1.jpg

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This site is claiming that the Echo 1 ASR upgrade kit will also fit in the M28. Interesting if true.

http://www.covertairsoft.com/index.php/internal-parts/spring-guide/echo-1-sniper-upgrade-pack.html

 

A question: those holes near top and bottom of the dirty-yellow plastic piston: are they anything like what is used to attached the metal weights in a VSR "Real Shock" system?

 

 

Looks like that is indeed the case. Obviously we can't confirm...

 

I looked on the ECHO1 USA website, and the kit designed as an upgrade for ASR does not mention that it fits the M28, and the website does not mention any spare parts for the M28 save for the hop up bucking. But yes, it would be nice if it were true.

 

How many rounds have you put through it? estimated, of course :)

 

To be honest, I didnt expect it to be anygood beyond the "OMGitsacheapm24!!!11oneoneone" but if putting a TM hop chamber will fix accuracy problems, I dont care the barrel being shorter than stock, in fact, I would downgrade the spring to make it more comfortable to cock and increase the "ROF" :lol:

 

Thanks for your input Dragon :)

 

Less than 250 rounds <SHOCK!>... Don't get me wrong, the rifle is still shooting hard, it is just loosening up real fast. Before I do the accuracy test tommorrow, I will re-chrono the rifle to obtain the correct 10-shot string for an average fps reading. I would like to see if the rifle is still holding pressure to maintain the 500+fps.

 

As for the OMG factor... this rifle is, in my opinion, the best looking platform in this class ever, and is not inlike any BAR-10 or TM VSR-10 rifle, where-by to make it perform, the player will have to replace everything except the envelope. The envelope on this rifle is hot, and will probably get full upgrades over time. Even if I have to have a new piston machined.

 

I knew there were possibilites of hidden issues heading into a new product like this... but I love to beta test. If I could make a full report that would make a difference, and ACM took notice and made changes accordingly I would sendauthor it up. ECHO1 may be able to help in this aspect, may be worth investigating. Do any of you think that ACM or ECHO1 is sensitive to customer feedback?

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Well, Echo1 just rebrands this ACMwhateverbrandmakesit, and ACM brands dont listen to customer, just third parties find what users need and if it can give money, they design it so i think we are still a bit far from specific upgrades for this platform, apart of course the already abailable VSR10 upgrades which I think are more than enough for the moment as you have stated, the only big problem right now is the hop chamber, hop bucking and inner barrel which can be replaced, maybe even the APS piston is compatible, so only thing left would be a 90º trigger to cope with the +500FPS setup

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Well, Echo1 just rebrands this ACMwhateverbrandmakesit, and ACM brands dont listen to customer, just third parties find what users need and if it can give money, they design it so i think we are still a bit far from specific upgrades for this platform, apart of course the already abailable VSR10 upgrades which I think are more than enough for the moment as you have stated, the only big problem right now is the hop chamber, hop bucking and inner barrel which can be replaced, maybe even the APS piston is compatible, so only thing left would be a 90º trigger to cope with the +500FPS setup

 

 

I just realised something, sorry, I am a little slow to investigate this, but the ASR by ECHO1 uses a zero degree style trigger like the L96, so how could Covert airsoft advertise the upgrade kit for the ASR to also work in the M28, when the M28 has a 45 degree piston and sear. I will investigate this further when I get home this evening... or maybe on my lunch break.

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the piston in the link from mimesis looks to be 45º like the VSR10 and regular L96 so maybe its really compatible, which in fact makes a bit of sense since ACM brands dont like redesigning, so maybe they used existing APS parts

 

The ASR from ECHO1 has a unique trigger set up, but it is indeed a zero degree trigger as seen in this link documenting a take down:

 

http://www.echo1usa.com/main/index.php?option=com_ccboard&view=postlist&forum=3&topic=574&Itemid=53

 

Here is a link from the same site where someone has modified the upgrade piston, and the pic clearly indicates a zero degree piston:

 

http://www.echo1usa.com/main/index.php?option=com_ccboard&view=postlist&forum=3&topic=507&Itemid=53

 

I know I was hoping this was not the case...

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The mystery continues with the same website offering an ECHO1 M28 in an upgraded package to include the metal piston, spring guide and spring, coupled with a UTG scope for $265...

 

http://www.covertairsoft.com/index.php/featured-list/echo-1-m28-ultimate-sniper-package.html?SID=ts7ku1ghd34hqjtm2mfr0lbk56

 

I had to contact them and find out the scoop, so I sent them a message asking how it is possible for an upgrade kit to work in both a zero degree and 45 degree trigger group... I anxiously await their reply, and will post it here when I get it.

 

I want to know, because if there is any truth to it, then I will place an order for the kit and test it!

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I still dont know what a zero degree trigger group is, are you sure its not just another rebranded APS2 ACM rifle with a fancy name? Echo1 just rebrands ACM rifles and includes some extras IIRC, so its possible that M24 is just a mix of VSR10 and APS2 parts...

 

Thanks for the investigation Dragon, I love the looks of the rifle but im still reluctant to get it or not... :(

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