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Who’s MP5is the nicest?


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I'm looking into one of these as well. I went to Las Vegas in May and took my sons to Battlefield Las Vegas where you can pretty much rent out shoot "anything" out there.

I went with a MP5SD and Springfield Armory 1911-A1 (tactical model). I have never had so much fun shooting a suppressed weapon in my life. It is still one of the best out there. Just amazing.

I too gave up my older MP5 and MP5k years ago and am going back (lol).

By the way, if you ever get a chance to get to Las Vegas, I cannot recommend Battlefield Las Vegas enough. Its really a great experience. By the way, if you have a spare $2500.00, you can crush a car with a Chieftain Mk8 tank that was converted in Hollywood to look like a M1 Abrams.

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I recently picked up one of the VFC Avalon MP5A5s from a buddy of mine. Here are my initial thoughts:

 

The gun is externally solid, with no front-end flex whatsoever. This makes it stand out compared to any other MP5 I've handled. I attribute this rigidity to the fact that this MP5 comes with a proper outer barrel, which locks into the upper receiver with a large-diameter chamber and 4 separate bolts. This is a far cry from TM's design, which uses the cocking tube and inner barrel to keep the front end aligned.

The ambidextrous selector switches are fantastic. They click into place firmly and offer about as much resistance as the selector switch on an actual firearm (so a lot compared to most airsoft guns). The thing that I like most is the completely new design of the selector switch setup. Most MP5s have a bar straight across the gearbox, with the right side selector secured to said bar with a grub screw. The Avalon setup uses a series of gears, with both selector switches bolted straight through the lower receiver. No more lost right-side selectors!

There appears to be stand-off distance built in between the cocking handle shaft and the end of the cocking handle channel. You should be able to HK slap this gun with no ill effect.

The locking mechanism for the sliding stock is contained entirely within the endcap of the stock itself. This makes removing the stock to access the quick-change spring much easier, especially when compared to older models, with the locking lever and spring contained in a recess on the upper receiver.

It's very difficult to remove the orange tip. I ended up disassembling the front end, removing the front sling loop, unthreading the outer barrel from the chamber section, and boiling the flashhider for about 5 minutes. Only then could I loosen up the glue securing the (CW threaded) flashhider. I plan on ordering a black Cyma MP5J 3-lug flashhider to replace it.

The spring-loaded body pins securing the upper to the lower receiver, as well as those securing the stock to the gun, fit exceptionally well. Removing them the first time will likely take a punch and hammer.

Trigger response is terrible. I attribute this to the awful motor that comes installed as stock. I plan on dropping an ASG Ultimate U-22000 long-type motor in soon.

The internals seem okay. Standard Avalon fare, with the obvious exception of an MP5 trigger being installed instead of an M4 trigger. Airseal between the piston and cylinder is great, although I opted to install a Lonex hollow piston head o-ring in the interest of longevity. The air nozzle has an internal o-ring and is 18.95 mm long, making sourcing a replacement difficult.

The hopup unit is plastic and appears to function well. Nothing significant to note here, other than the likely proprietary nature of the hopup unit to function with the proprietary air nozzle.

The electronics could be better. The wire used appears to be standard 18 AWG, which could stand to be upgraded. There is an ATM blade fuse holder, which resides in the battery space; someone decided that shrink-wrapping over the entire fuse holder assembly was a good idea, so I had to unwrap it and re-seal it in a way that allows access to the fuse for replacement. I didn't pay any attention to the MOSFET (located around the trigger trolley in the gearbox), but I assume it is present and functional.

Fitting a battery in the handguard is likely to be a tricky affair. The presence of the outer barrel and enlarged chamber reduces the amount of battery space available, but I am confident that a "butterfly"-style 11.1V LiPO will fit. I intend on fitting my real Surefire MP5 foreend to the gun, which should not pose any unique issues other than the aforementioned battery space concerns.

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On 11/8/2019 at 10:56 AM, ardrummer292 said:

The thing that I like most is the completely new design of the selector switch setup. Most MP5s have a bar straight across the gearbox, with the right side selector secured to said bar with a grub screw. The Avalon setup uses a series of gears, with both selector switches bolted straight through the lower receiver.

I don't have any familiarity with MP5 gearboxes - are you saying you find switching from a single bar with a selector on each end to the gear-and-transfer-axle assembly an upgrade? I've used systems like that before and even on high-end guns (Scorpion EVO3A1s, NGRS HK416s etc.) you end up with horrible slop between the two selectors because of the slop inherent to the transfer gears. I'd much rather drill a divot into the end of the transfer bar to help a grub screw stay located than deal with selectors that can be in burst on one side and auto on the other...

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On 11/10/2019 at 4:50 PM, PureSilver said:

I don't have any familiarity with MP5 gearboxes - are you saying you find switching from a single bar with a selector on each end to the gear-and-transfer-axle assembly an upgrade? I've used systems like that before and even on high-end guns (Scorpion EVO3A1s, NGRS HK416s etc.) you end up with horrible slop between the two selectors because of the slop inherent to the transfer gears. I'd much rather drill a divot into the end of the transfer bar to help a grub screw stay located than deal with selectors that can be in burst on one side and auto on the other...

I am indeed claiming the selector's gear system is an upgrade. Both selectors move perfectly in unison, with almost no slop to speak of from either side. That said, I bought this gun lightly used, so it's entirely possible that the selectors will develop some wiggle over time.

Regardless, I still prefer the Avalon's system. My dislike for Navy-style lowers stems from seeing so many MP5s with missing right side selector switches. It seems that they fall off no matter what you do. This is less of a concern with the Avalon.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update on the Avalon MP5. It takes Cyma MP5 tri-lug muzzles with a bit of fiddling. It’ll also fit a real Surefire grip, but be prepared to grind out the barrel supports. I managed to *barely* fit a nanoTech 11.1V 1000mAh “butterfly” LiPO in there. Trigger response with that and the newly-installed ASG CNC U-22000 motor is lovely, though.

 

E76DB938-C950-4E50-A4E3-2B3DA46529B2.jpeg

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  • 2 months later...

Guarder's are pretty good, for airsoft. Depends what you're putting it on to - most of the airsoft handguards I've seen have interior guide rails at the stock end to lock onto the upper receiver, but real ones are just round and have a different mounting tab on the lower interior handguard. The Classic Army CA53 I had was somewhere between the two, so real handguards from militaria places may need modding to fit (but are much better made).

The other main problem I've had with torch handguards (with surefire 6p) is not being able to use the QD suppressor at the same time.

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Thanks for that. It’ll be going onto the new Cyma model. Just the front pin and a tab at the rear of the interior of the handguard holds it on. G&P is ruled out now as it doesn’t have this, just 2 tabs along the sides that won’t line up with anything. Will probably go VFC as that looks like it should fit.

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