VFC M4A1 E-Series: Long Term Review

[Redshirt 1-7]

This is probably my first real review, so my apologies if I fail hard at this.

 

VFC M4A1 E-Series: Long Term Review

 

Howdy!

 

I picked this thing up nearly a year ago from a local shop, and it just begs to be reviewed. Most reviews people seem to do on the day of or very shortly after they receive the weapon, with only an occasional blurb, if any at all, to give a status update on the item after much use. Thus, I've given my weapon of choice some additional time to see how it would play out in the longer term.

 

Real Steel History

 

In the early 90s, a Cult realized 10 inch barrels don't make good platforms for launching particularly small methods of hot death and, after enlisting the help of Santa, Magpul, and Chuck Norris, invented the M4 for the aspiring middle eastern conflict. They quickly realized it still sucked because there was no way to tack hundreds of useless attachments onto it, nor was three rounds per trigger pull on the burst fire setting a substitute for poor trigger control, and thus the M4A1 and it's A3-style flat top were born. Today they've replaced nearly every last true battle rifle, and the military continues to wonder why a short commando rifle with limited range and power is unable to function sufficiently in the capacity of an M16. It has, despite it's shortcomings, become one of the coolest non-peasant soldier weapons of all time.

 

First impressions

 

This was my first, and since then only, "high" tier gun; my others consisted of of two ACMs and a Classic Army sportline (word of warning: this review is not about them, but please, for your own good, AVOID THE CLASSIC ARMY SPORTLINES). As you can imagine, I was impressed.

 

When I unboxed it, this is what I laid eyes on (gun on the bottom, too lazy to crop it right now):

 

 

In this picture, as horrible quality as it is, you can still see the difference between my sportline and the VFC: while the sportline has a "realistic" finish similar to a Colt gray, borderline bluish, the VFC has a hue a lot more like many of the ubiquitous civilian ARs commonly found in America: a very nice matte black that was neither too shiny nor too flat. It almost hurt to paint over the stock later on because of how nice it looked. Not the most realistic finish, but it blows most other guns' externals out of the water by far; Even when it was mostly plain it caught the attention of a few, in a sea of G&Gs and Classic Armies.

 

Upon lifting it out of the box, I was surprised to find that it was not very heavy at all. While heavier than my plastic sportline, which can be nearly fired like a pistol with one hand, it was not much moreso. The body is aluminum and the gun is very pointable out of the box. You can feel that the thing is not cheap, but they run almost the same price as other competitors who cannot lay claim to this level of eyecandy.

 

As far as ergonomics go, it's mostly the same as your run of the mill M4. The main difference is that the pistol grip is thinner than most, identical to a real M4 grip's thickness. This is the only perceivable difference from any other M4 on the outside.

 

Out of the Box Performance

 

For people outside the US, this gun may not be safe for your limits. While not the screaming 400+ FPS of many ACMs, this thing was still shooting an average of 365 out of the box, and I recently had to have it downgraded to accomodate a new MOUT field's lower limit.

 

I never really did a formal test due to laziness and not really having much room to do so in my backyard, but this gun has proven to be accurate to roughly 120 feet with ideally adjusted hop-up and .25s. Not stellar, really, considering most other players seemed to be doing this easily (may have just been the type of field I was at with huge open areas that make you feel pathetic). The rate of fire on a 9.6v is excellent and is more than good enough for anyone. At the end of the day the range is average and won't matter unless your field is semi-only like most of ours are.

 

Contrary to what some people would tell you, the internals on these are fine as long as you take care of the gun. My main complaints with it are wiring and the bolt release/dust cover. There is an automotive type fuse in the handguard, and it was easily damaged irreparably and needed to be removed. Furthermore, as cool as it is to have a functional bolt release, it resets your hop up for some reason when you hit it; this leaves the bolt constantly stuck open, and since the dust cover tends to get stuck open as well, you will have a constantly exposed hop up that can get BBs, dust, water, and no telling what else in it unless you reset it all the time. Plus, if you absent-mindedly smack it in the middle of a firefight, you'll find yourself unable to hit anyone because your hop up went bye-bye.

 

Battle Reports

 

The negatives on this gun were highly exaggerated early on.

 

To be honest, our most popular fields are packed with mostly professional teams and good players (and consequently lots of $$$ dumped into upgrades). This, combined with semi-only and/or a severe lack of cover at two of four main venues is frequently problematic for people like me. At first I thought this gun was a piece of junk because I never really could hit anyone with it no matter what I did; when I realized what was causing my gun to not work well, got into closer quarters after fixing it, and forced them to engage within my own range, this changed fast.

 

Again, while not amazing with stock range, it does what it needs to on semi and gets the job done; I can't speak for automatic because we don't usually have that here. Don't make my mistake; many of the early issues that exaggerated how fail I thought this gun was were because of accidentally resetting my hop up with the bolt catch, thinking it was just a neat little function that did nothing.

 

I've had it upgraded and even in my backyard the thing was showing good signs of improvement. I'll write up some actual tangible info after the operation coming up here or if I skirmish again before then, and hopefully continue reporting on functionality.

 

The gun now:

 

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

 

Maybe this review was absolutely useless to you. My anaylsis so far is this: as a stock AEG for it's price range, I'd give it a 7 or 8 out of 10 because it has some design flaws that, while avoidable if I had actually known about them or been a little more careful, were completely unnecessary to begin with and made much of my experience a slamming headache. When I figured out what was wrong and got my gun to finally work properly, though, this gun redeemed itself for me and performed well. If you're looking for a base to start a typical assault AEG, this one should do just fine over a CA and will perform the same if not better at a good price point; you are not buying a 200 foot-reaching, 30 RPS, 400 FPS monstrosity. It is no G&P, but it is good for what it is, and from the looks of things a couple inexpensive but quality upgrades produced a fine weapon.

 

I would recommend it even on the gorgeous factor alone as long as you aren't expecting a beast out of the box and learn from my mistakes before you fall into the same traps.

Edited October 29, 2011 by Redshirt 1-7

[SteevoLS]

I think you may have received a bit of a lemon. Between my personal VFC M4, a teammates' VFC M4, and a 3rd and 4th that I handled at a game today, not a single one had the issue with resetting the hopup *or* the remarkably short range that you were achieving. Each of them was getting a much more respectable 175ish feet of effective range. My personal M4 went for 2 years without a single internal failure while being run on an 11.1v 20c lipo at 27 RPS, and chrono'd out of the box at 390 FPS +/- 5.

 

That having been said, thanks for the well-written review.

[adadqgg]

For the record,

200 foot-reaching, 30 RPS, 400 FPS

is hardly a monstrosity...

[PianoBlack]

Are you sure your inner barrel is installed correctly? My VFC SR-635, which is shooting .20g BBs at 340 FPS can reach a verified 180 feet with .25s through the 7" barrel that it has.

 

-Piano

[Redshirt 1-7]

adadqgg, it may not be "monstrous" but it's certainly respectable.

 

I think you may have received a bit of a lemon. Between my personal VFC M4, a teammates' VFC M4, and a 3rd and 4th that I handled at a game today, not a single one had the issue with resetting the hopup *or* the remarkably short range that you were achieving. Each of them was getting a much more respectable 175ish feet of effective range. My personal M4 went for 2 years without a single internal failure while being run on an 11.1v 20c lipo at 27 RPS, and chrono'd out of the box at 390 FPS +/- 5.

 

That having been said, thanks for the well-written review.

 

I've not really had any internal failures other than strangley-behaving hop up. Again, maybe my reach was a little better than I thought and the sheer openness of some areas just exacerbated the issues of people already constantly murdering me with superior range...

 

This gun performed very average out of the box from what I could tell, though. What the heck.

 

Are you sure your inner barrel is installed correctly? My VFC SR-635, which is shooting .20g BBs at 340 FPS can reach a verified 180 feet with .25s through the 7" barrel that it has.

 

-Piano

 

My heart just sank...as far as I know it's fine.

Edited October 30, 2011 by Redshirt 1-7