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Star M249 Para Examined...


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well i finally got mine yesterday. first thing i noticed when i picked it up, it feels very light and toyish, lighter than my g36 even. I knew the rear sight was not adjustable but it still ###### me off to see it, just a cheap molded hunk of plastic, at least its screwed on and can be replaced. another thing that bothers me is the bipod. it doesnt fold up into the foregrip very securely, and rattles if you shake the gun around, but i guess this can be fixed. other than that its still very solid with no flexing or creaking in the body.

 

well the case is nice, too bad they didnt make it big enough to fit the dam magazine in, they shipped that in a seperate box. so i thought to myself, so this is what i blew 600 dollars on..i expected more. so i charged up a battery to see what it could do.

 

it seems the performance is where star put thier best efforts. The gun shoots great. its very loud for an AEG, and it has a great rate of fire with an 8.4v. the feeding mechanism also works flawlessly. The gearbox is a work of art in my opinion. it feels very heavy and solid, and the polycarbonate shell is very thick, i would trust one of these over cheap pot metal any day. The spring could be changed in a minute without even taking the gearbox out of the gun.

 

i still don't know if it was worth 600$ but we will see how it performs in battle tommorow.

 

by the way the sling rings are plastic :(

Edited by WarMonger
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well i finally got mine yesterday. first thing i noticed when i picked it up, it feels very light and toyish, lighter than my g36 even. I knew the rear sight was not adjustable but it still ###### me off to see it, just a cheap molded hunk of plastic, at least its screwed on and can be replaced. another thing that bothers me is the bipod. it doesnt fold up into the foregrip very securely, and rattles if you shake the gun around, but i guess this can be fixed. other than that its still very solid with no flexing or creaking in the body.

 

 

 

Hey static, Goose, or anyone else who has this gun....

 

Has anyone else experienced the bipod issue or something similar that they would like to share?

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Hey guys, just wanted to check in quickly. I had a great day today, and so did the gun. It's a real force to be reckoned with, that's for sure. I need to take some time to soak it all in and recharge my batteries a bit (me, not the gun). I have some PMs to catch up on, and I'll have a detailed skirmish report for you soon (tonight or tomorrow hopefully).

 

And night-fighter, don't worry, I'll take those pics too!

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Hi all,

 

Just to add on the bipod issue, with mine I have no problems at all, deployed or folded away the bipod seems to work very well.

 

Also on the Sling points, the front is plastic and very thick, the rear sling point on the MKII is metal. Again no issues with this, I'm using a new British Mini-mi sling and its works very well.

 

I'll be out again next week so I'll take my camera this time and get one of my team mates to get some action shots.

 

Goose5x5

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Staticzero,

 

Can you show a pic of the flashider removed from the barrel.

 

Suppose you wanted a full length barrel, do you think it would look semi-authentic if you were to buy a M4 barrel extention and thread it onto the STAR M249 para?

 

If so, this would be an economic way to modify the LMG depending on the senario being played.

 

I'm planning on buying the STAR M249 Para. I love the para stock, but I also want a full length barrel.

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Can somebody explain to me why the spur gear is sticking out of the case? It looks like the entire gearbox/motor/piston unit is self contained, but the spur gear is sticking out to drive the tappet plate, or??? I was thinking these replacement gearboxes would make good powerplants for other things (the custom m240's and BAR that I've seen recently come to mind)

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Took my saw to the game yesterday, i must say i LOVE this thing. Its so much fun to use. It has an excellent rate of fire, before your first shot hits, theres already 10 BBs in the air behind it. and its got great range, the hop up works very nicely. I was using .20bbs and i was very impressed with the accuracy. By the end of the day i was glad it doesn't weigh 15 pounds. The trigger response is great, very little lag for an AEG. I'm still waiting on a large battery so i had to play with 8.4 600s and it eats through those like crazy. other than that, no problems at all. great gun, if you've always wanted a SAW but can't fork out 1000$ dollars, buy the star, you will love it.

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Static I had a few questions,

 

First, with the upgrades that you've done - mostly the higher power spring, does the motor seem to pull enough torque to get the job done? That's my main concern with the entire gun because I've seen some cheapo motors from other companies and really don't want to have to replace the motor after 10 or so thousand rounds.

 

Second, is it possible to put a TN barrel into one of these? And how hard does the actual barrel come out? Looks like kind of a pain.

 

And lastly, the 3 kilo weight - is that just the gun with no mag, no battery and no bbs in the mag? I'd imagine that put all together it'd still weigh 4-4.5 kilos if that's the case, of which I'm more than happy with. Playing with my M60E3 in the Florida summer is not fun, so it'll be nice to kinda be able to run and gun with a light weight LMG for once. :D

 

Anyhoo - I'm eagerly awaiting mine, and can't wait to see a detailed skirmish report. From the looks of everyone who owns one, it seems like most people are satisfied with it and it's nice to see that Star has put it's best efforts into performance, rather then just a pretty face.

 

-Slo

 

 

PS: does anyone have an ETA on that cloth mag? (mmm sexy)

Edited by Slo
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Time for a Skirmish Report!

 

I used the gun for two out of the three missions on Saturday, consuming about two mags worth of BBs (~5000 rounds). The gun is currently using a spring-that-must-not-be-named and a 9.6v battery. There were no feed issues, no failures, and the range is comparable to other guns at the same power level that I've used. I still want to do some proper testing as to range and accuracy when I get a chance. The gun now has several confirmed kills under it's belt (I'd like to thank the other team for not watching their flank on several occasions). :D

 

Certain points I that I feel are worth calling out:

• Yes, both the sling points on the Para are plastic. The front, I'd not worry about. The rear, I might. I don't plan on using a sling with this gun much, so I'm not too concerned about it.

• You need an allen key (not supplied) to adjust the hop up unit. I adjusted mine before the game, and found it to be a simple process. The set screw is rather tight which does make it a bit tough to really finely tune, but I'd not worry about it moving on you during use. However in my case I set it too high as it turned out, and as I was without a key on the field, I was SOL. I'd advise getting a spare key to tape to the inside of the feed cover, just in case.

• The bipod worked great. Yes, it's a bit loose, but this is no different than the CAs I've held. One complaint is that when I was prone in the rough, it was easy to get one of the feet caught when I shuffled around, which resulted in inadvertently extending the leg.

• The volume of fire this thing brings to bear is incredible. I was able to suppress multiple entrenched targets (inside a building no less) from basically standing out in the wide open. I could pop up and effortlessly rake the side of the building, hitting all the windows and doors they were in, forcing them into hiding (if only more of my team was in position to take advantage of this fact). When the game ended (while in the process of laying into them for the Nth time) they came out and just said, "Holy ess that was a lot of plastic you were sending in here, I couldn't believe it! It was like horizontal rain! Yada yada." It was not uncommon for people to be surprised that I wasn't more than one person.

• The body held up, no issues to report there. Still solid as ever.

• I have complete faith in the carry handle. I used it quite a bit. Also worth mentioning is that it feels much more solid and precise compared to the CA249s I've held (their carry handles were quite loose by comparison).

• The sight, while not adjustable, is reasonably sighted in. It wasn't a problem using it to aim, though most of the time I preferred to 'aim with the tracers' so to speak. I still plan on installing a rail so I can use my AimPoint or an Eclan or something. I'll post a write up after I do it.

• I charged my 2400mAh battery between missions, putting about 1100 mAh into it. I don't know how much of it I consumed, as I wasn't able to fully charge it. But, it never went dry on me.

• The AA batteries powering the box mag also held up. No idea how much longer they'd have lasted either.

• Operational expense is high. I spent a lot of money on BBs this weekend. When you get this gun to use in a support role, be prepared for this. Normally, I go through maybe a bag of BBs (1500-1700 rounds) in a day's play. I stress maybe as I usually play with standards, in which case I go through 300-400 rounds or so per mission. In this case I went through 5000 rounds in 2/3 the gameplay, not something I plan on making a habit of. I did it to see what the gun could do, and I was quite impressed.

 

All in all I had a lot of fun with it (and after all isn't that the point??). It does seem Star paid more attention to making the gun work reliably (FPS inconsistency issues I've mentioned earlier aside) than to making the externals super pretty or feature-full (not to say it looks really bad or anything). Surely this is as it should be with a gun like this. Function first, and all that.

 

One last thing to mention (which I'll go into detail later on) is that the changes I performed the other day did not produce the results I expected, and I'm not sure why... I'll have more on this after have the chance to investigate it all further.

 

one more thing that bothered me is how the spring hoses for the power and the bb feed go into the ammo box right where the bullets would come out because i want to put a dummy ammo belt on it. guess i'm gonna have to do a little re-designing of my own and move them over.

I have an ammo belt on order, should arrive today. I'll post a write up of what I have to do to fit it once I get a chance.

 

Staticzero,

 

Can you show a pic of the flashider removed from the barrel.

 

Suppose you wanted a full length barrel, do you think it would look semi-authentic if you were to buy a M4 barrel extention and thread it onto the STAR M249 para?

 

If so, this would be an economic way to modify the LMG depending on the senario being played.

 

I'm planning on buying the STAR M249 Para.  I love the para stock, but I also want a full length barrel.

I can take a pic later on. You could thread whatever you want to onto the barrel, but there are certain factors to consider. I can't tell you what's the most authentic solution, certainly. One thing to look out for is that the inner barrel is supported by the flash hider, without it or some kind of spacer to do this job, it won't stay centered in the barrel. An extended inner barrel could also solve this if you use the flash hider with whichever outer barrel you install.

 

yeah, ditto on that one!

found any pics of the body and general of the gun yet mate?

If there's something specific you want a pic of, speak up. Here are a few close ups of various body parts. It's picked up some oil making it a bit shiny. You can see some of the rougher spots in these pics.

 

IMG_7418.sized.jpg

 

IMG_7419.sized.jpg

The gouge you can see in this pic is from pulling the stock out with it partially rotated. The end caught and took a bite.

IMG_7420.sized.jpg

 

IMG_7421.sized.jpg

 

IMG_7422.sized.jpg

 

IMG_7423.sized.jpg

Note: Barrel release lever removed, I'll go into why later.

IMG_7424.sized.jpg

Note: Barrel release lever removed, I'll go into why later.

IMG_7425.sized.jpg

 

Can somebody explain to me why the spur gear is sticking out of the case?  It looks like the entire gearbox/motor/piston unit is self contained, but the spur gear is sticking out to drive the tappet plate, or???  I was thinking these replacement gearboxes would make good powerplants for other things (the custom m240's and BAR that I've seen recently come to mind)

Because that's what the space allows. No other reason at all. Look at it again, the tappet plate is in the gearbox in the normal spot.

Static I had a few questions,

 

First, with the upgrades that you've done - mostly the higher power spring, does the motor seem to pull enough torque to get the job done? That's my main concern with the entire gun because I've seen some cheapo motors from other companies and really don't want to have to replace the motor after 10 or so thousand rounds.

No issues with the motor. It's fine. Good response and ROF (which I have yet to prperly measure).

 

Second, is it possible to put a TN barrel into one of these? And how hard does the actual barrel come out? Looks like kind of a pain.

Sure. It's fairly easy to get the barrel out, but harder to get everything you take out back. More on this comming soon.

 

And lastly, the 3 kilo weight - is that just the gun with no mag, no battery and no bbs in the mag? I'd imagine that put all together it'd still weigh 4-4.5 kilos if that's the case, of which I'm more than happy with. Playing with my M60E3 in the Florida summer is not fun, so it'll be nice to kinda be able to run and gun with a light weight LMG for once. :D

I need to weigh it again, but IIRC it was around 10lbs with mag and large battery, no BBs.

 

Anyhoo - I'm eagerly awaiting mine, and can't wait to see a detailed skirmish report. From the looks of everyone who owns one, it seems like most people are satisfied with it and it's nice to see that Star has put it's best efforts into performance, rather then just a pretty face.

 

-Slo

PS: does anyone have an ETA on that cloth mag? (mmm sexy)

No idea here.

Edited by staticzero
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static, i haven't seen any CA249's in person, but judging from pics it looks like most of the body parts are the same,you've had experience with them, what do you think?

 

i'm thinking of one of those CA249 metal receiver covers with the rail...the covers look almost identical but i can't tell for sure.

 

ps. it is really easy to overwhelm the enemy with firepower isnt it :) my other guns are going to be neglected now for sure..

Edited by WarMonger
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static, i haven't seen any CA249's in person, but judging from pics it looks like most of the body parts are the same,you've had experience with them, what do you think?

 

i'm thinking of one of those CA249 metal receiver covers with the rail...the covers look almost identical but i can't tell for sure.

 

ps. it is really easy to overwhelm the enemy with firepower isnt it :)  my other guns are going to be neglected now for sure..

I can't say anything for certain either. Many parts are the same, but there are also key differences. I think the feed cover would be safe to try, though.

 

I'm not going to buy one myself, simply because they cost so much for what they are (name of the game for M249 stuff, it seems). I'm just going to graft a spare G36C rail to the existing cover.

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Dude, I sold my TOP SAWs because of this review. I like the idea of a lightweight heavy support weapon. Especially, if it's a BB hose and reliable.

 

Regarding the CA SAWs, their appearance is a turnoff. The whole gun is black and doesn't look very realistic. The appearance of the STAR version is what got me interested in it.

 

If their L85s are half as nice as their SAW, they're gonna sell a ton of them.

Edited by birddog
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Thanks a lot Static for ALL of the info - for it is because of you that I actually bought this Para instead of a CA one.

 

I was all ready for the CA one but upon reading the reviews on the iffy pistons and such, I just couldn't justify spending 1300+ dollars on something when this will probably fill the role adaquately.

 

 

Thanks again for the great review and taking all of your spare time to do it.

 

-Slo

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I can't say anything for certain either. Many parts are the same, but there are also key differences. I think the feed cover would be safe to try, though.

 

I'm not going to buy one myself, simply because they cost so much for what they are (name of the game for M249 stuff, it seems). I'm just going to graft a spare G36C rail to the existing cover.

 

i think i may do the same, i can't blow 160 bucks on a metal top cover...

 

 

Dude, I sold my TOP SAWs because of this review. I like the idea of a lightweight heavy support weapon. Especially, if it's a BB hose and reliable.

 

Regarding the CA SAWs, their appearance is a turnoff. The whole gun is black and doesn't look very realistic. The appearance of the STAR version is what got me interested in it.

 

If their L85s are half as nice as their SAW, they're gonna sell a ton of them.

 

 

Thanks a lot Static for ALL of the info - for it is because of you that I actually bought this Para instead of a CA one.

 

I was all ready for the CA one but upon reading the reviews on the iffy pistons and such, I just couldn't justify spending 1300+ dollars on something when this will probably fill the role adaquately.

Thanks again for the great review and taking all of your spare time to do it.

 

-Slo

 

i've heard bad things about the CA249, i heard the carry handle breaks easy, and i've heard that thing about the teeth stripping off the pistons. I really don't see what justifies the 1000$ price tag, it doesnt come with the ammo box either.

 

this gun rules, you will love it. and you'll have 700$ left to spend on BBs!!!

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