This just arrived. Picked it up after work.

Box was in bad shape:

Oil all over one end and it took a shot from what looks like a crowbar....
Obviously the oil made it thru the nuclear wrapping paper:

But the styrofoam that was inside protected teh gun well. It was beefy styrofoam, the gun was well protected.
I can't fault A&K for the arrival state, nor even GlobalAirsoft where I bought it. I used to work loading shipping trucks, I know what happens. Regardless the box is well constructed to protect the goods, even if it's plain jane.

Oh look - the manual (wrapped for shipping in a nice newspaper, I spent a little time reading n getting up to speed on events in Hong Kong:


And here it is in all its styrofoam covered glory:

Yes thats styrofoam bits everywhere, not spooge.
The trades are covered by tape - which took all of 5 seconds to remove. The duckbill flashider is in the box mag.

What you get:



Ok lets get to what matters most: The boxmag and carrier. Ha.
The boxmag is a rigid design and seems quite sturdy. A nice touch is the feed tube (made of a wound spring to guide the bbs) has a rubber sleeve over it for a short length. good for keeping dust and moisture away.

The carrier pouch has a nice vinyl interior material - again, good for repelling moisture. But I'm not sure how mcuh good that does when the top of the boxmag isnt sealed. Although its not as open as the Star/Ares version.

Note the drainhole.

Uh oh - the boxmag internals look suspiciously like the Star's. If you weren't aware, I was one of the original Star M60 owners and that damn boxmag of theirs was the Khan of my Kirkhood. Hopefully this isnt as bad. It does run off the gun battery, which means its ~9+v as opposed to ~3+v. And the connector is quality.

Note - this pouch connects to the hanger on the left side of teh gun with two straps. The top strap however connects in a location that has a sharp corner to the hanger bracket. If you take this off and on over time I can see that wearing and eventually cutting the pouch strap. Word of caution.

On to the gun itself:
The feed tray cover - this is crucial to good "60"-ness. And this feed tray cover is quite nice. Its got the internal detail as seen here and is quite heavy and rigid:


It also closes with authority and latches like a bearclaw. Unlike my old Star that latched like a wet tissue and snapped open if my cheek rubbed it (I'm a southpaw). Oh, and when I say it closes with authority I mean if you have your finger in the way it's going to take a chunk out, like so:

Naughty M60. Oh yes, bite me. You know I like it....

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Got Molle on my Snuggie!

Speaking of southpaws - plenty of room for big hamhock hands to fit past the ammo pouch hanger, see below (I wear an XL glove):


And on the receiver we come to the first negative. Note the text in the manual:

Now look at the following picture of my gun. Note the charging handle pulled back, and thusly in the "open" position. Note also the absence of a hand holding it back. There was no resistence to the charging handle. I suspect a part (like a spring) is missing or not connected. Note also the faux "bolt" is not pulled back along with the charging handle: on my gun these were completely not connected to each other - in fact I couldnt even move the fake bolt with my hand. I'll have to investigate later.


The rear sight. Quite nice. Lots of very nice detail. Lots of stuff to fiddle with. Oh btw it was loose:


The trades. With tape:

and without:

They are painted on and not etched. Still they look nice.
Its hard to tell in this picture but in person they appeared to my eye to be slightly crooked.

The barrel assembly (outerbarrel, gas tube, inner barrel, hopup chamber) all comes out in one piece, by flipping the attachment lever near the rear sight (see above). Like the Star (and the real steel for that matter) it was somewhat loose. That never affected shooting on the Star so oddly enough I'm not worried about it here. Unlike an aeg you never touch this barrel, its a semi-free-float. Here's a shot of the front cradle with the barrel assembly removed:

You can see the connector for the rheostat in the bottom tube.

Here is front sight:

It was loose.

You can also see there how far the duckbill flashider screws on to be tight. If you screw it to the correct aligned position... its loose. Use the attached o-ring and you should be fine.

Here is the back of the barrel assembly - with the hopup chamber.

It was not loose. In fact, unlike the Star, whose inner barrel slid, rattled, rotated, and shimmied... this thing is pretty well locked in there. With only a sliding adjustment of about 1/2 cm forward and back (spring loaded) to assure a seal.

Speaking of seal - note the oring on the hopup chamger adjustment wheel, mine came split. Luckily I have a pile of those.

With the gun in squeal-maker mode, you access the hopup wheel as you do on a CA or clone M249, via under the feedtray cover:

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Got Molle on my Snuggie!

That's all for now. I'll get to addressing these niggling negatives tomorrow after work. And will shoot, chrono and otherwise test it. I'll post more then. I'll also be skirmishing this thing on the 23rd at Springfield and will report on those results after.

But before I go, I'll say the gun feels solid. DEFINITELY heavier than the Star. Not quite CAM249 heavy, but maybe A&K M249 heavy (they're lighter). Aside from the loose bits, the main gun body felt quite solid. No squeaks or rattling. And teh externals are much nicer than I expected and easily a cut about the Star. Which is pretty damning considering this is cheaper (or was for me).

By way of comparison, here are the two guns' pictures taken. Same camera, same pose, same floor.
First the Star:

And next the A&K:

Even in these pictures you can see the higher level of detail in the A&K, and in person this is greatly magnified. The A&K feels beefier, looks beefier, and has more attn to detail front to back. The metal is thicker, the foregrip and othe rubber and plastic parks are thicker and of a better feeling material, and the bits like the bipod and sights are more functional and more stout. Here's hoping it's skirmishable....

And one more of the A&K to close with for now:

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Got Molle on my Snuggie!

Very nice. Let me know if you want to take it out to the farm and zero it.

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Fags wear Snuggies

Found what I feel is a major flaw in the design.

The front and rear of the gun are not one solid piece. They are held together at the front of the receiver (just under the feed tray cover hinge) by a triangular set of 3 bolts on either side of the receiver. Result - its not a hard connect. Over time that connection will loosen resulting in vertical wobble and/or up-down motion. Just playing with it for an hour I was already able to bend the gun about this joint pivot slightly. My bolts were loose. So I tightened all 6. Still was able to have visible motion at that joint.

I'm not sure if this is a problem operationally - as the front and rear halves are not going to go anywhere. But I worry about the aligment of the innerbarrel/hopup chamber to the nozzle. Especially given the long length of that nozzle. I worry about binding.

I am also not sure why A&K chose to assemble the gun this way - I haven't taken it apart to see the why and how of it, but it seems a bad choice. If I cant find any reason for those two peices not to be hard-joined I will likely JBWeld it on the interior and call it done.

You can see the 3 bolts I'm refering to in my "charging Handle" picture above.

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Got Molle on my Snuggie!

HS, what about weight?

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"An eating contest is just the beginning of a shitting contest." D. Martin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Vod8NUE0M

I'll weigh it soon.

Here is how you tighten the rear sights, there's a little allen bolt under the feed tray cover:


And here is what happens when you take out those 3 bolts on either side of the receiver, the whole thing comes apart:

Scarey huh?

Detail of the front:


Detail of the rear:


Shades of TOP m60 design anyone?

You're going to have to do something about that joint if you plan to play with this gun more than once or twice. It most definitely will start to pivot about the top bolt and exhibit a vertical wobble at mid-body. Not good at all.

You can either drill another hole near the bottom and drive bolts thru there to stop the pivoting, or you can put a spacer plate in to shim up the body-to-body contact. I did the latter for now. I started with some good old handy dandy electricians tape:

But that didnt work due to the overhang on the sides interfering with the two halves of the body sliding tightly together. YOu can either cut that precisely or do as I did and cut a spacer to shape (I used impact foam) and put it in the socket of the front half. Tightened the 6 bolts tightly without over tighening and that took care of the body wobble. For now. I'll probably Lock-Tite those bolts. And will eventually drill the bottom hole and bolt it there as well.

IF you want to completely solve the problem, JB Weld it. However there is a snag: You gain access to the fuse box thru that opening. So be sure to re-wire things first (maybe with some extra wire length so you can get at the fuse thru the front of the gas tube instead. Be sure to do this BEFORE you weld the two halves together.

I'll try to get a chrono read tonight. The body problems sidetracked me.

One thing I have noticed is the gun motor doesnt seem to fire if the mechbox is empty. However the mechbox does wind as soon as you plug it in. I presume it'll stop once it's pre-fed the bbs into the feedtube. We'll see.

More later.

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Got Molle on my Snuggie!

Weight: a little over 16lbs. No battery, no ammo.

FPS: 295fps

ROF: fast with rheostat out. Gun didnt fire with rheostat in.

Video links showing rof and fps

ROF:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4Ncvoiafi8

FPS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KizyxGt0oIk

Obviously I may have some compression issues (especially given the hopup chamber adjustment knob's oring was split). But the gun is bone stock and this is the first time it was fired. Internals never touched. I may recover 30 or so fps but thats it.

This is clearly a 1 joule gun. (At least from AirsoftGLobal) - whether it was meant for the limp UK market is possible. Regardless, its not of much concern. I'll throw in a spring that nets a known fps in my CA M249s and test it for compression later. BUt given the quick change spring I didnt expect to leave the stock one in there anyway.

I knew that 472fps picture posted elsewhere was suspect.

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Confirmed this gun shoots about 40-60fps lower than it should.

confirmed this by using an M120 spring in a CA M249 and recording the reading, then putting it in the A&K M60 and recording again. 40-60fps deficit. The springs are the same length. I tore open the mechbox and made sure I had good compression inside the cylinder. Netted 5fps.

Suspect the nozzle. Its longer than any nozzle I've seen elsewhere in AEGs, so I cant really swap it out. BTW, the stock spring from this gun, when swapped to a CA M249 (two of them, just to repeat the test) nets 340-350fps. FYI. IN the M60: 300fps.

I'll look into different hopup buckings. Already replaced the stock hopup nub which was terrible, with a Big Out H-Hop nub, yeilding much better hop adjustment. Also had to replace the oring holding the hopup dial on with one procurred from the local hardwre store to replace the one that arrived split on the gun.

If I make any progress with buckings I will post here.

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Got Molle on my Snuggie!

Figured out the "missing" fps. There is no airleak. There is no "missing" fps.

Stroke of M60. Stroke of M249.
6.25" 5.5"
FPS of M60. FPS of M249
330fps 375fps

That length is as measured from the spring guide to the cylinder head.

Assuming linear power from a spring (decent assumption) you'll see the length varies at the same % as the fps from both.

13.5% - 15%.

All guns confirmed to have no airleaks.

Therefore, its just a matter of the M60 not fully using a spring because it has a 15% longer stroke and thus the piston does not compress it fully: you're not geting all the energy out of the spring that you do in an AEG or SAW (btw SAW strokes are slightly longer than v2 or v3 aegs strokes as well).

Assuming no airleak: motors and gears all undergo the same workload at the same fps. So do not worry about overworking your mechbox - if it can handle 400fps, then use whatever spring nets you that fps. M130, M140, M150 whatever. I'll be testing after saturday to find the spring that nets the fps I want.

In other words:

Nothing wrong with the gun, its just a longer mechbox. Solution: put in a higher rated spring. End of problem.

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Got Molle on my Snuggie!

BTW - don't be tempted to push the spring guide forward into this gun into a "position 2" like was doable on the Star M249 and M60. While you can do so, I tried that - and immediately the sector gear died, losing two teeth. Not sure what jammed but I couldn't budge the spring guide after that. Had to disassemble the gun to get it out.

"Good" news is is that a standard v2 sector gear seems to fit fine. Although it means reshimming the gearbox. Which I had to do after I swapped in a new CA sector gear (original ratio).

EDIT : And here is a shot of the mechbox:

Note long nozzle.

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Got Molle on my Snuggie!

Skirmish report:

Gun ran fine. Shot stright. Ran full day on 9.4v 4200mah and M120 spring netting 330fps.

At beginning of day 1 out of 10 shots would misfeed. but as fired it got better and by 1/4 the way thru the first boxmag it was feeding flawlessly (or as near as is realistic).

The gun handled long lurid pulls of the trigger and held up fine.

8000 rounds fired and seems fine.

Going to put it up to a 400-450fps spring (whatever that works out to be in this gun) for next op and see if she holds. If she can handle that and a 15,000 round day, then I'll call her a support gun.

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Got Molle on my Snuggie!

It was solid all day. I took a spill mid day at about a jogging pace and it took that well also. I didnt quite land on teh gun though, did my best to protect it.

So I've got the foam spacer in it and the bolts with their locking washers torqued down appropriately. (No locktite on it yet. No new tapped hole and bolt at the bottom. Its not JBWelded.)

I still don't beleive it won't wear loose over time but if you tighten it after each skirmish I dont see a big problem. Unless the holes distend or the bolts bend (not likely).

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Got Molle on my Snuggie!