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AIM TOP M4A1 Review


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Today I have prepared for you a review of the M4A1 carbine made by AIM TOP. The gun is one of the best Chinese replicas I have encountered so far, so her price is on par, but I will get to all details later in the review.

 

AIM TOP Company

 

AIM TOP was founded in1993 and their first article were various types of paintball bullets.Throughout the time they started to construct airsoft replicas with above standard quality, so they are now well above DBoys and slightly better than JG.While still not so good as e.g. TM or CA guns, they provide very good platform with high quality internals and quite high production accuracy.

 

M4A1 HighSpeed version isa classic M4 carbine with full-metal body and out of the box tuned AIM TOP v2 gearbox. You get 430fps with .2g BBs and close to 1.8J.

 

Design

 

Like the majority of AIMTOP rifles, the M4A1 has a full-metal, probably aluminum body. It's pretty heavy, has very good production accuracy and USMC trademarks on the left side of magazine shaft. The paint is dark gray, looks very slick (in my opinion better than all black) but is very susceptible to scratches. The upper and lower receiver, outer barrel, stock tube and sights together with all the small bits are metal. You do get the classic plastic parts, such as grip, stock, forend and carrying handle, of which details are metal as well. The carrying handle is removable and covers classic 20mm rail. Apart the stock which wobbles a bit all the rest sits very tight and doesn't rattle or anything. Even the magazine doesn't move in the mag shaft due to the shaft being a bit tighter than the usual M4 lot. Although this is a bit of a problem as well, as you can't just fit anything inside. I have tried AIM TOP and JG highcaps that worked without missing a beat. Yet I was not able to fit anything else inside the shaft.Recently I have been told that grinding a bit of material off the inside should help. I might give that a try as I love lowcaps and hate highcaps (grrr, BB rattle).

 

As far as control mechanisms go, it's a totally standard M4, so no surprise here. The left-hand side selector is nice and clicks in place with a satisfying sound, the trigger is pretty crisp. The front and back sights are both adjustable. The battery goes into forend and the place is pretty tight, so I would suggest to stick to lipo batt, although you could just replace the foregrip for a RAS system and put the battery inside a PEQ box. Setting the hop up is pretty conventional as well as the assembly being covered inside the shell ejector. The cocking handle, that opens the ejector, has a decently tight spring, so it jumps into place very nice and the dust cover is good enough to stay closed.

 

Internals

 

The AIM TOP rifles are pretty tuned machines out of the box with very overpowered internals and this model delivers. Inside you can find a 'reinforced' v2 gearbox with 8mm ball bearings (I use quotes, because you can't really see the 'reinforced' part;maybe the metal used is different but the box looks the same as a totally standard JG gearbox). The 2010 model line gives out pretty strong 430fps, which in many cases will need to be downgraded or the carbine changed entirely to a DMR. What you get is tightbore barrel (6.04mm), high torque motor, high speed gears, 8mm ball bearings, stainless steel cylinder head with double O-ring, stainless steel spring guide with ball bearings, lightweight piston with full steel teeth, polycarb piston head, nozzle with O-ring and stainless steel polished cylinder.Once you open the gearbox, the first thing you notice is the absence of highly sticky Chinese lubricant; in fact it lacks almost any lube so it's not a bad idea to apply silicone oil here and there. I have heard of AIM TOP boxes without proper shimming, but mine looks pretty decent. Using a cylinder without any port in combination with a short barrel (363mm) is the only illogical thing here. What I have to mention is the M110 spring, because its M110 marking seems pretty off to me. The progressive winding is double, just like with the Systema M130/M140 springs and the spring itself just feels too hard to be an M110.

 

Maybe I am wrong and the high fps is achieved solely through superb sealing of all air related components (the number of O-rings alone should give you a good picture), but when I compared it to the standard Guarder M120 spring and the mentioned Systemas (all of which I have at home), the AIM TOP seems closer to the second mentioned.

 

Apart from hop up chamber(one piece) the system is compatible with TM, so upgrade or maintenance shouldnot prove any problem. The gun does not have standard disassembly as the real counterpart. You have to loosen two screws that hold the pins and be careful,when taking off the upper receiver and hop up/barrel assembly so as not to damage anything.

 

Use

 

The paper values truly show off when first skirmishing this carbine. When you set the hop up correctly and use heavier BBs (.25g are my personal favorite, but I am also satisfied with .28 or .30g), you can reach a person as far as 50 meters/165 feet. Get a good wind (zero wind that is) and the effective range can be around 60meters/200 feet. Of course you still have space for improving things, mainly due to the full cylinder, which doesn't do well with shorter barrels, but replace the original with 420 to 509mm tightbore and you have a more than decent DMR platform. All in all the gun delivers great performance out of the box and with just a little added effort, it can be changed to a superb riflet hat outshoots your usual airsoft crowd.

 

Personal experience

 

The gun I own has not been standard from day one. I have replaced the outer barrel and added new RAS forend, silencer, PEQ box and a G&P red dot. Since the selector has stopped to work on semi (it works but the trigger gets stuck), which is a classic v2 M4 problem of cut-off lever, I am currently working on replacing it. Due to my aim of using the gun as a CQB rifle, I will be replacing the spring with a Guarder M100 spring and adding mosfet with dean T plugs to get better trigger response, although I must say the original cables are pretty good.

 

Overall

 

Here in Europe (my region in particular) the gun retails at around €200 plus shipping (around $280 with today's exchange rate) and in my opinion the price is totally justified. You get pretty decent externals and top notch internals, so many pieces will never need a replacement ever. Just the piston and motor would cost you 40 euros or more so you could even say it's a bit of a bargain. I wonder when these powerful Chinese guns will have mosfet installed on them out of the box,because that's pretty much the only thing it needs. Minor flaw here and there (lube, full cylinder, problematic cut-off lever) but really, they are just small things and the pros more than make up for them.

 

PS: photos soon, because my camera is dead and you wouldn't want crappy cell phones shots, right?

 

 

Edited by carver11
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