need some help picking a setup

[Hectic]

well just look at the difference between an mp5k and an ak with no upgrades the ak has far more effective range and much tighter groupings hands down, (i chose those two cause they use the same gear box and a simaler hop up unit) or look at a vsr vrs an m4 yes the hop up is deferent but other then that at th same fps or even less (ie a stoct tm vsr at 280 fps and an average m4 at 350+ fps only diff is a barrel 1.5 times longer)
also to note if u put a 460mm in a standard m4 with a 3/4 ported cylender u will be eceeding the volume of the cylender so it only will work to a point 3/4 can take up to 430mm i think. Ill try n find the link i use
in the end tho the difference is verry small and the best thing is if the barrel has a consisten smooth bore and that u have a consistant hop up unit and good air seal. Mostly the longer barrel ie the maximum or close to it that the cylender canhandle is just going to increase the efficiantcey of the gun allowing the bb to reach its maximum velocity as it exits the barrel with no wasted air from the cylender

[phloudernow]

As I usually tell all the newbies in airsoft, If you got the money to spend, go for VFC or G&P. TBH i don't believe there is any gun that is amazing out of the box other than a TM with an 8.4v NiMh battery LOL

Sooner or later you will end up replacing parts in your gun and you might as well buy a gun with extremely well made externals G&G isn't bad but as far as i can tell the G&G series in Canada is terrible compared to the ones I've seen used in HK and whatnot due to their factory upgrades required to be imported and whatnot into canada. This being said I'd stay away from G&G and go for VFC and G&P aforementioned.

[Hectic]

here
is a handy tool for choosing the right length of barrel
sorry OP for takin your thread off topic lol.
and agreed about external quality but jgs and echo1 guns are more for those who want an inexpensive fieldable gun that can take bit of a beating isnt too heavy to lug arond all day and u wont cry about when it breaks, once the reciver cracks or somethin then u have some experiance and can decide if u wanna lug around a metal body or not. I personnaly dont mind the plastic body guns as they arent so heavy and still work fine, but if u want the best looking most true to life (being an aeg of course isnt that true to life but u get my point) then yes a full metal gun is a good choice vfc 416 is one of my faves just havent gotten one yet.
but they are probably the nicest aeg416 i have seen

[boogiebot]

thanks to all of you for the responses. i truly appreciate the help. feel free to take this thread where ever it needs to go. i just get to absorb more info

[L473ncy]

Originally Posted by boogiebot

it would be great if you have a chance to elaborate. its funny that you use the Tippman reference as I use to play paintball a while back. nothing wrong with Tippman pretty relieable. A friend of mine use to have an A-5 with etrigger and flatline barrel and it would sing! out of the King arms, G&P and VFC is one any better than the other?

I'd say King Arms is mid-upper end, around the same as G&G regular line or G&G TopTech line, VFC and G&P are a different beast. What I don't like with G&P (though I own a couple) is the weak gears and occasional lemon piston, VFC on the other hand is solid but I personally do not like their "auto shimming" gears (cool but IMO not as good as if you were to do your own shimming) and have seen a couple pistons blow up (I gather they're probably lemon batches and/or people were abusing them with high powered 11.1V lipos without doing proper preparation).

By the way, there are a few problems with King Arms as well, sometimes their piston o-rings are offspec and lead to some airseal loss (not a "big" deal but it just means a lower FPS than expected and you'll need a higher powered spring than if you were to replace the o ring (and to be honest it's like a $0.50 part if that from home depot)). The cut off lever is also suspect and I've seen plenty of people's cut off levers wear down resulting in full auto fire even if you have it set to semi.

As for the Tippman thing; between a Tippmann 98, A5, and Crossover; there is a difference right? like different "tiers" marketed for different market segments (rec players, amateur, woodsballers, milsim (RAP4 and Tippmann X7), pro speedballers, etc.). Then you have ones like Dye, Palmer Customs, and Bob Long which are like $1K+ easily.

Nothing wrong with JG and CYMA especially after a few simple upgrades and maybe some preventative maintenance (although QC has improved as of late so slightly less necessary to crack it open as soon as you get it). But if you know you want to get into airsoft and want to get into the midrange stuff right off the bat can't go wrong with any of the King Arms, VFC, G&P, Classic Army "X Series", ICS, ARES, etc. they're more or less in the same league just get whatever is easy to get and you think looks kind of cool.

[boogiebot]

Originally Posted by L473ncy

I'd say King Arms is mid-upper end, around the same as G&G regular line or G&G TopTech line, VFC and G&P are a different beast. What I don't like with G&P (though I own a couple) is the weak gears and occasional lemon piston, VFC on the other hand is solid but I personally do not like their "auto shimming" gears (cool but IMO not as good as if you were to do your own shimming) and have seen a couple pistons blow up (I gather they're probably lemon batches and/or people were abusing them with high powered 11.1V lipos without doing proper preparation).

By the way, there are a few problems with King Arms as well, sometimes their piston o-rings are offspec and lead to some airseal loss (not a "big" deal but it just means a lower FPS than expected and you'll need a higher powered spring than if you were to replace the o ring (and to be honest it's like a $0.50 part if that from home depot)). The cut off lever is also suspect and I've seen plenty of people's cut off levers wear down resulting in full auto fire even if you have it set to semi.

As for the Tippman thing; between a Tippmann 98, A5, and Crossover; there is a difference right? like different "tiers" marketed for different market segments (rec players, amateur, woodsballers, milsim (RAP4 and Tippmann X7), pro speedballers, etc.). Then you have ones like Dye, Palmer Customs, and Bob Long which are like $1K+ easily.

Nothing wrong with JG and CYMA especially after a few simple upgrades and maybe some preventative maintenance (although QC has improved as of late so slightly less necessary to crack it open as soon as you get it). But if you know you want to get into airsoft and want to get into the midrange stuff right off the bat can't go wrong with any of the King Arms, VFC, G&P, Classic Army "X Series", ICS, ARES, etc. they're more or less in the same league just get whatever is easy to get and you think looks kind of cool.

thanks for the posting L473ncy. I tried to search and find more articles on the site regarding buying from international vendors as to widen the range of guns available and I heard that the law has changed regarding importing of airsoft guns. Can anyone confirm this?? also i spoke with airsoftgi today and they told me that i would have no problem importing and ordering anything that shot between 370-390 fps is this also true??

[L473ncy]

Cannot confirm nor deny that, sorry. But it is right in front of you. If you feel you have a clear working understanding of the laws then by all means go ahead but I've heard of people having their shipments held (sometimes up to a year but usually like 3-6 months) and sent to testing labs, and/or denied and destroyed (or sometimes shipped back at the buyers expense and not only that must get a bonded courier to do the shipping which is hella expensive).

In fact most recently there was one guy who messed up bad and got this item siezed and was trying to find a bonded courier to ship the item back to the states.

As for me, I'm thinking of it and kind of planning it out to get all my ducks in a row, but right now I'm pretty happy with what I have and not really looking to get more stuff.

[boogiebot]

At this point being so green to process why take the chance. I could only imagine what menial money saved been thrown out the window them double the costs due to all the red tape.

I'm still really torn between what manufacturer to buy. Some people swear by g&g others say its complete shit. Some folks say vfc is awesome and others say the internals are sub par.

Is KWA really a step up from these other guys. A quick search on google would suggest that the pricing is quite similar to the other two. Not saying its the same but it's within the ball park.

I just want to go out with a few of my friends and have fun. By definition fun to me would mean being able to buy a gun and run it out of the box without any hassles. As time went on I don't mind teching and learning myself in fact it's a challenge I look forward too. Bit dealing with those issues out of box would piss me off

[phloudernow]

KWA has a proprietary-ish gearbox. its a modified V2 gearbox so even tho they are decent once it breaks depending on the part you would have to go back to KWA for parts. also their externals suck compared to VFC and G&P imo.

TBH you wont find anything amazing stock out of the box. i mean they will all work for sure it just depends how long before you need to replace a part. They WILL break sooner or later just depends how soon. Unless you encounter a Lemon in one of the internals of the guns, VFC and G&P should be able to go through a couple thousand rounds before anything serious starts to happen. I mean even for KA, I'm not sure about the imported ones that you get here, but the Stock KA Larue M4 i got back in Hong Kong Lasted about 3 different days of gaming before i stripped the piston. and that was running on a 11.1V 20C lipo too so it all depends. you will deff get a couple games out of the box with those guns it just depends when its going to break

[ThunderCactus]

KWA uses a twice poured plastic cyl head with a brass air nozzle, and they have a high tendency to break
I guess nobody told them you can't fuse hot plastic to cold plastic lol

[boogiebot]

thanks for the info on the KWA stuff. anything proprietary im sure has its pros and cons but in this case having to go back to them for OEM parts seems like more of a pain than what its worth.

so the typical types of problems that one will encounter from using these guns are they avoidable with regular maintenance? coming from paintball it was pretty easy to just lube the orings and grease the reg once in a while and if you had a marker like a timmy most of the time it was pretty reliable.

[boogiebot]

ok so just spent some time on youtube going through some assemble and break down videos of gearboxes. after seeing the anatomy and know the names I am starting to learn a bit more.

[boogiebot]

well guys I have finally made a decision today and got my first airsoft gun. Before I reveal what it is with pics I wanted to thank you guys for responding and sharing your thoughts. Especially forum member L473ncy who helped me with a LOAD of info and insight. This is really a great place so I am just thankful to be a part of it.

OK......so after all the back and forth with what to get and the toss up between brands. what should I look for blah blah blah. I finally decided to go with the VFC M4ES Quake. Here are a couple of pics. Sorry my camera skills are pathetic.

Also a thanks to Ivan and Harry at ASG in richmond. All the help was greatly appreciated.

And yes that is a plastic tea cup from my daughters tea set













there is one additional question that i had regarding airsoft and the high capacity mags. At present the mag that I have hold 300 BB (i believe). The gun fires fine when the mag is full. but for some reason when you get down the the last 20 bb and wind up the mag to spring load them, the gun just dry fires. however if you dump more bb in it seems to work. its very strange because you would think that the gun would allow you to fire off the last 20+ bb and empty the clip. Am i doing something wrong???

[Juic3]

Nop , you are doing everything good. On High cap mag the last 20 ish bb's will never feed or they wont feed proprely.

[foxtrot-one7]

Is that your purple combat cup?