EMG Strike Industries ARK-17 by G&P

[greatwatermelon]

EMG Strike Industries ARK-17 by G&P

Intro & Background:

The EMG Strike Industries ARK-17 by G&P is a gas blowback pistol that has the potential to appeal to the ever-growing Glock fan base. This is a fan base that has emerged, hungry for more accessories and options (than just EF/VFC Glocks), as the Airsoft market had been absent of Glock developments for too long due to license restrictions, previously in placed, by the actual firearm manufacturer. Unlike other companies, EMG has continued their interesting yet rather refreshing approach when it comes to product offerings by translating the designs from actual firearm accessory manufacturers such as Strike Industries, into Airsoft replicas. Instead of focusing on just accessories and kits, EMG has more closely partnered with well-known Airsoft manufacturers (G&P, VFC, and Krytac) to offer the whole gun itself. This rather difficult feat is a smart move by EMG and its partners, as a complete replica can reach more demographics, rather than the purview of a few collectors. This business model has certainly spurred more innovation and creativity that has been lacking in Airsoft, as well-known Airsoft manufacturers focus on the quality of their build that we all know them for, and companies like EMG can focus on the licensing/distribution agreements, translation of designs, and satisfying their customer base.

The specifications commonly advertised for the ARK-17 are the following:

• Fully licensed by Strike Industries
• Aluminum CNC (RMR-ready) slide & outer barrel
• Anodic oxidation surface treatment
• CNC aluminum parts
• Nylon fiber lower body
• Suppressor ready front & rear sight
• Marui G17 system compatible
• Magazine Capacity: 23
• Assembly by G&P

Built Material: Aluminum / Nylon / Metal Alloy
Magazine Capacity: 23 (Tokyo Marui compatible)
Length: 198mm
Weight: 740g
System: Gas Blowback, Adjustable Hop Up
Muzzle Velocity: 280-320 FPS w/ 0.2g BBs (Green Gas)
Package Includes: Gun, Magazine, Card of Authenticity 

Externals: 

The trademarked slide from Strike Industries is the whole reason why my friend and I pre-ordered our ARK-17s from JK Army, and honestly, the wait and anticipation did not disappoint. The finish of the slide has a nice touch and play between a glossy and matte finish. The light-weight cuts on the aluminum slide is rather well-defined, but not sharp enough to cut your fingers. This means that the serrations on the slide provide quite an effective grip even while wearing gloves. The slide had to be CNC'd to consistently achieve such edge finishes. EMG offers silver, two-tone, and black finishes for the ARK-17. Obviously, I selected the black finish, in order to balance the business of the slide and fluted barrel with 11mm negative threads for barrel extensions. To nit-pick, I would have preferred them to coat the entire barrel black rather than machine the outer barrel to leave that silver finish. The silver finish has visible lathe marks left behind showing that they rushed the barrel through the lathe machine. Really a minor detail that most will not likely even notice. Without the magazine, the pistol is rather lighter than the usual Glock replica. 

The metal trigger is a two-staged adjustable trigger that allows the user to adjust a set screw that engages the trigger bar sooner to add or eliminate the take-up. The two-staged feature is a working safety in the furthest position. As for the wall, there is not much effort to overcome like on most Airsoft GBBs. The rather long reset ends with a definitive and audible reset. As you may have noticed, I have changed out the trigger and trigger bar on my ARK-17 to a KJW, and later to a CowCow two-staged flat trigger. The original trigger bar was noticeably deformed compared to my friend's ARK-17, which made a big difference on the feel of the trigger. What I described earlier is what you will feel on a normal ARK-17 without a deformed trigger bar. More details later on what I dealt with on my ARK-17. 

The lower nylon fiber frame does not feel as cold as fiber glass does, but this nylon fiber frame is undoubtedly rigid. This frame is quite ergonomic with ledges that support shooters like myself that runs a high grip with thumbs parallel and forward. There are other features that may support other types of shooting styles, but I cannot comment further as I do not practice those other grips. The magazine catch is minimalistic yet definite on a rather flawless engagement. In fact, WE magazines tend to be slightly wider and may require an assist to remove, but still do not hinder the flawless engagement and disengagement of the magazine release. One feature that this frame is missing from the usual Glock replica is that EMG went with the old TM design where the serial number plate is glued in rather than including a safety plate that most Glock users really do not use until they accidentally activate that safety. This serial number plate was engraved on my friend's and laser etched on my ARK-17; a little disappointing but not a big deal. The Night Evolution X300 "Ultimate" initially fits quite loosely, but after adjustments, I managed to have the Night Evolution fit snug. My actual Surefire X300 Ultra fits extremely tight and rigid on this lower frame. The last thing I will say about this lower frame, I am more than pleased to see trademarks impressed into the nylon fiber frame, such as the the Strike Industries Cage Code and the company's location. Personally, I think the frame is made well enough for a former resident of Santa Ana like myself to proudly rock.

The last details I will nit-pick are that while the metal suppressor sights are well cut and filled with white paint; however, the left dot on the rear sight is slightly off the center-offset. Also, the threads for the RMR are smaller than what is standard for the real or not-a-Trijicon sights. Even though EMG includes longer screws in the box, my fake Trijicon is somehow too tall to allow those screws to grab the threads on the slide. Not a big deal as I used longer 3mm flat head screws to mount the RMR sight. 

Last detail about the RMR is that cuts are done carefully around the mounting threads integrated in the slide; fully exposing the nozzle return spring and blowback unit when the cover is removed. This means that the blowback unit is based on the Tokyo Marui Glock 17, not the Tokyo Marui G18C that is often seen in most RWA, Ready Fighter, and Gunsmodify aftermarket CNC'd RMR slides. While the G18C design results in a cleaner slider cut for the RMR sight, this G17 design does allow for the cylinder nozzle and return spring to be removed without having to remove the blowback unit. In other words, the maintenance is easier and quicker. 

Overall, the overall build was tight with little to no play, especially between critical components such as the slide and rear chassis. More on this later. 

Internals:

This ARK-17 surprisingly includes some outstanding components right out of the box, such as their CNC'd piston, which is usually an upgrade that other GBB pistol users consider down the road. This creates a consistent seal with the blowback cylinder. Then, there are components that can be points of failure, when quality control is lacking, such as I mentioned earlier, the trigger bar. In this review, I will explain how to remedy various issues that plagued my ARK-17 out of the box, in case you happen to be an unfortunate one like me and would rather address it yourself than contact EMG for warranty services and repair. Although, I highly recommend to save the trouble and just contact EMG, first, for warranty & repair. 

Now moving into the ugly part of the review, I am not sure how much of G&P's craftmanship and EMG's quality control were impacted by the scarcity of components needed to finish this first batch of ARK-17's. The ARK-17 was supposed to be ready in February but was delayed to May due to the disruption in the supply chain, from Covid-19. I suspect that G&P was stretched thin during this time and had to rework components, that they normally would not have used, in order to finish this first batch and make up for the late delivery times. I suspect that because, when comparing my friend's ARK-17 to my own, my ARK-17 noticeably came with a deformed trigger bar and a different hammer bearing design. The hammer bearing design had a half cut on my ARK-17, opposed to a full round bearing, which the half-cut hammer had a more smooth engagement.

Most of the parts are not magnetic/steel except for the trigger bar, springs, pins, screws, and chrome-coated sears & hammer. While I am not bothered nor caring for the lack of steel components that most Airsofters rave over, I have found that "striker-fired" Airsoft Glocks primary suffer from direct or indirect malfunctions of the hammer sear. The hammer sear is the connection point between the trigger, trigger bar, and hammer, all of which are steel parts. The hammer sear works with the precise cuts on the rear chassis to release the hammer. The hammer sear also is responsible for re-engaging/catching the hammer upon the reset from the slide blowing back. What I have have often found with manufacturers like WE, KJW, and now sadly to say, G&P, is that they do not place enough emphasis on the fitment of the hammer. The hammer must have little to no side play within the chassis, as well as the pin which the hammer rotates on. If the hammer does have play in both, the hammer can tilt and jam the hammer sear. This makes the hammer sear sit back further and making it more unlikely for the trigger bar to engage and release the hammer.

This only becomes worse with stronger hammer springs. The results are a fail release of the hammer or a hammer that does not catch/reset after the slide cycles. Do note, if the hammer fails to release, the trigger release will feel awkwardly empty. If the hammer fails to reset, you will be unable to disassemble the slide normally. 

My ARK-17 came with a hammer with too much play, which would tilt into and prevent the hammer sear from sitting far enough forward for the trigger bar to reliably engage. In order to remedy this issue, I placed a <0.15mm AEG shim on the hammer pin, between the hammer and the chassis to keep the hammer from tilting toward the hammer sear. I also swapped the hammer sear with the Guarder defric coated hammer sear, which happens to be thinner. This gave a good amount of clearance that the hammer sear needs in order to slip between the hammer and chassis, and even closer to where the end of the trigger bar resides. Lastly, I noticed the KJW trigger bar had a wider engagement point, so it was a no brainer to swap in the whole trigger assembly. The original ARK-17 two-stage trigger is not TM-compatible due to the placement of the pin holes, so that could not be swapped onto the KJW trigger bar. 

 

Now, was all that work worth really worth it? I will save that for the conclusion of this review.

Another key characteristic that I look in a worthy "striker-fired" Glock replica is the fitment between the slide and the rails of front rail mount and rear chassis. This is a real deal breaker to me. If such parts are too loose, there are greater chances of malfunctions. This is important because many TM based Glock slides and blowback units actually do not simply interchange with each other. Making noteworthy, that if you come across malfunctions due to poor tolerances of the slide and rails, you are better off buying a whole new gun, than experimenting and finding out a domino effect that results in buying as many replacement parts as a whole new gun. How else do you think I have a bunch of Glock parts to mix and match with? 

In this case, this G&P ARK-17 slide is too tight for the Guarder/TM front and rear chassis. That really does not tell us much than being limited to the G&P front rail mount and rear chassis. So here is the important question, is there play between the ARK-17 slide and chassis components? Near to none. In my book, this totally makes the ARK-17 worth the work and time that I put into making it function well. There are still other components that we still have to discuss.

How about magazine compatibility? The EMG ARK-17 followed after Tokyo Marui's curved nozzle design instead of the KJW/WE/VFC flat nozzle. This means that the included magazine comes with a curved router/rubber gasket just like on Tokyo Marui G-series magazines. You may be lucky like my friend to run WE glock magazines on his ARK-17 without having to change out the flat router/rubber gaskets. However, with my ARK-17, those flat routers on top of WE magazines tend to catch my loading nozzle, thus preventing my slide from returning forward and requiring the routers to be changed to the curved TM router. I have swapped my WE magazines with Guarder and Laylax; both work great.

After that, I did my typical thing to clean the inner barrel, before really going out and giving a more fair evaluation of its performance. 

Performance:

Funny enough, my friend's ARK-17 performed beautifully and without any issues or complaints, right out of the box. While on the other hand, my ARK-17 required a substantial amount of examination and work to even cycle properly. After remedying the issue between hammer and hammer sear, my ARK-17 also cycled beautifully as EMG and G&P had likely intended by design. Both of us have fairly been impressed with the smooth cycle and crisp blowback. The ARK-17 runs efficiently as one gas fill is good for two magazines worth of rounds. 

My ARK-17 initially chronographed from 310 and 320 fps at around 25 degrees Celsius for the first magazine of 24 rounds. After some cool-down, the ARK-17 consistently chronographed around 290 to 300 fps for sub-subsequent magazines. Before seriously recording down several data points to share, I noticed that my ARK-17 was sending 0.20g BB's to the heavens and even severely over-hopping 0.25g. Not only is this difficult to provide groupings when I nearly have to aim at the ground to hit a target, but an overly aggressive hop up does add resistance for gases to further compress and transfer more energy to the chambered round (adds velocity). 

I stripped down the hop up and found the engagement surfaces on the hop up arm to be overly profound compared to, as reference, the black KJW hop up arm sitting on the right of the picture below. Some twisting, bending, and pulling with some pliers lessened the pressure that the hop up arm applies to a noticeably sticky hop up bucking. 

 

  

Before, the hop up's lowest setting, shown below on the left, already sent the BB's to the moon. After adjusting, the hop up barely applies enough pressure to keep the BB in the chamber while the highest setting looked more like the lowest setting of before. Modifying the hop up arm with pliers did take a few attempts to ensure BB's are centered and flying straight. As I mentioned earlier, the hop up bucking is very stick and thereby super sensitive. A slight over-adjustment can result in sending BB's into the sky.

 

 

I went ahead and chronographed the first magazine, then re-chrongraphed after firing several magazines using a Xcortech X3200 Mk3, Magnum power Green Gas, and Elite Force 0.20g bio, during a fairly warm day of 25 degrees Celcius. The consistency is quite notable, with a 16 fps difference between the average, even after going through several magazines within a short time. 

 

Here are my 15 and 25 feet, with the hop up properly adjusted prior to shooting to 40 feet. I managed to land all 26 rounds on each target by aiming at the bottom numbers 1 and 2. The targets are 140mm by 140mm.

 

I did notice that when I quickly went through several magazines, the cylinder nozzle began to be stick more. This is likely due to the fact that plastic shrinks/contracts more than metal when exposed to colder temperatures. The green gas cools down and causes the cylinder nozzle to shrink around the o-ring, adding more friction. While this design retains a good compression and minimizes the effect of cool down. The friction, at some point, becomes greater than what the return spring can push back. When the return spring fails to reset the cylinder nozzle, the cylinder nozzle will still chamber a BB into the hop up, but will rely on the hop up to reset the cylinder head. A failure to reset on time, also can cause gas to spew out from the rear of slide during a cycle. This likely contributed to the first shot registering at 259.3 fps.

The primary issue, however, is if a cylinder nozzle resets on the hop up, nozzle can cause a BB to roll through the hop up chamber, especially if the hop up is set low. There are not many ways around this than:

1. to ensure the hop up setting can retain the BB (thereby more of an emphasis on the hop up arm) OR
2. to allow ample time for the ARK-17 warm back up to room temperature (which allows the plastic to expand back to normal dimensions) OR
3. to replace the piston design to a traditional cup piston.

Personally, I like the piston design and I am not going to exercise restraint in shooting in the midst of a game, so I obviously went with option one, placing more emphasis on forming the hop up arm to retain the BB. I also added a Dynamic Precision 130% nozzle return spring to improve return of the cylinder nozzle. 

Conclusion:

If you managed to read through all of this and perhaps been eyeing this ARK-17, you may have some reservations, now, and, you should. While the EMG Strike Industries ARK-17 by G&P has the potential to be a catchy show piece and a good performer, the possibility of receiving a lemon will be a turn of. Perhaps, this is just an issue with the first batch and has been identified by G&P and EMG to be fixed in the next releases. Time and the public consensus will only tell. 

Personally, the EMG Strike Industries ARK-17 was worth the money spent, as various components such as the slide, front rail mount, rear chassis, outer barrel barrel, blowback assembly, and lower frame are quality components. Those are the essential building blocks while much of the remaining components are replaceable. However, given the chance of a hit or miss on a few components, critical for operation, I cannot recommend this gas blowback pistol to beginners, until this ARK-17 is available in their local retailers for the ease of warranty support and repair services.

My recommendation to EMG is to address the following with G&P in the coming batches: 

• a need for tighter tolerances on the hammer
• additional QC on the trigger bar
• less profound engagement from the hop up arm AND a less sticky rubber for the hop up bucking
• a stronger nozzle return spring

I would like to think that I have thoroughly documented enough issues and fixes to provide reassuring guidance to those working outside the support of retail and warranty service. To the more experienced and resourceful Airsofters, I do not see a reason for you to hesitate much as the aftermarket support is strong with the Tokyo Marui Glock replicas. If you dig the ARK-17 design, why not order those upgrade parts along with it and you will have one fine piece to play with. 

Edited July 15, 2023 by greatwatermelon

[greatwatermelon]

**Deleted duplicate post**

Edited November 27, 2022 by greatwatermelon

[greatwatermelon]

**Deleted duplicate post**

Edited November 27, 2022 by greatwatermelon

[greatwatermelon]

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Edited November 27, 2022 by greatwatermelon

[greatwatermelon]

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Edited November 27, 2022 by greatwatermelon
forgot to add x300 fitment

[icolater]

Looks interesting!! Frame and slide look great, also steel hammer parts is a plus. I’m holding out for the Ghk g17. 

[Wingman]

This is available to me from Evike. I really like the look and most of the performance reports you are giving. However, you do make mention of some issues that concern me. For what this pistol costs, I dont like the possibility that its not going to be "ready to go right out of the box". I'd like to hear more from other owners before I spend good money on this.

I am looking forward to your next installment. You've done a great job with this.

[greatwatermelon]

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Edited November 27, 2022 by greatwatermelon

[pacesetter]

nice review here, thanks for posting