Ares ms338 & ares ms700!

[Arktic]

Just did some testing with the mag.

Basically as long as their is enough bbs in the tube leading to the hop up you will be fine.
I loaded the mag full. Put it in the rifle so the tube was filled like it should. Then pulled the mag out and empted the bbs from the mag. Then put the mag back in and fired out all the bbs that were in the tube.

I estimate that the tube holds between 20 and 30 bbs or so.

With regards to the barrel. It has a 455mm barrel from what I guestimate. (Holding another 455mm barrel in roughly the same position) I have yet to open the rifle up as I dont know how to disassemble it yet. Going to tackle that in the next few days. I was hoping to use my Angry Gun Steel tight bore from my WE M16A4 but the 509mm barrel will be way to long. Unless I add a suppressor to it.

[SuperHog]

Thanks for the review.

Can you please confirm the maximum bbs it can actually hold, and at what point how many bbs before it has bb feeding issues.

Any pics how the feed chamber actually works? How do you adjust hop up?

Does it looks like it is VSR10 compatible?

[seabass]

How big would you say the mags are compared to an m14? Think ill be able to run the same open top pouches?

[Arktic]

Thanks for the review.

Can you please confirm the maximum bbs it can actually hold, and at what point how many bbs before it has bb feeding issues.

Any pics how the feed chamber actually works? How do you adjust hop up?

Does it looks like it is VSR10 compatible?

The tube holds 29bbs. Id say loading up 40 or so would be ideal without any feeding issues.

Sorry no pics yet as I haven't had a chance to disassemble it yet. Hoping to do that on Monday.

There is a small hole in the upper rail where you adjust it with an Allan key. It feels very tight.

How big would you say the mags are compared to an m14? Think ill be able to run the same open top pouches?

The mag is the same width as M14 mag as its also 7.62 but its roughly half the height of an M14 mag. So being so short you might have problems with mag pouches. See my pics for reference.

I did a very quick range test at my house.
I shoot at a tree thats exactly 53m away from my door.
Using WE 0.30g bbs they easily sailed far past the tree. Id say somewhere around 65m or so.
It was VERY windy today so cant say much for accuracy as I had a right to left crosswind.

[seabass]

Arktic you are the man. This info is putting me at ease about my purchase. Thanks!

[Arktic]

Heres another update:

I fixed the wobble in the stock now.

I used some plastic from some AEG gear packaging. About 1mm thick or so.
I placed a square on the stock side at the top to eliminate the up and down wobble.
Then cut a key hole shape to fit into the area where the stock locks into place.
Glued them down with Q Bond so its not going any where.

The stock is now SOLID. No movement at all in any direction. The only wobble is when the stock is folded. Which is only for transport so dont care to much about that.

This fix took me about 8mins or so.

[Arktic]

Ok Internals Review Time.

Taking the rifle apart is pretty easy. Just a bunch of screws and it falls away from the lower receiver quite easily.



On the rifle is split you can then see the trigger box and the feed tube for the bbs.

Feed tube.


Trigger box.


The trigger box doesnt look to be like any other VSR 10 trigger box. I havent seen many so maybe some one can correct me.
Its made out of a decent type of metal but is probably just pot metal. It looks like is has a 90degree seer which is great. I couldnt get the trigger box off of the cylinder chamber even after removing a lot of screws. So maybe I missed something there...
The trigger itself is made from a different metal to the trigger box though. Much nicer and sturdier. I changed out the stock spring for an Element M145 ST spring. It was extremely stiff so I had my doubts....and rightly so. After I pulled the bolt back and locked it into place it came off of the sear. Not broken but just pulled over the top it I guess. A Steel seer might solve this.

Next up the Cylinder.

Cylinder head.

This looks to be made quite well with a nice o-ring on it. No air leaks as well so thats good.

Plastic Spring Guide.

Plastic spring guide.......not much to be said about it. Feels very sturdy and strong. Will replace this with a metal bearing one.

Plastic Piston.

This piston reminds me of the one I had in my WELL L96. I thought VSR 10 pistons were a lot small than this? Its made of strong plastic, same as the spring guide I assume. The O-Ring is pretty good and fit tightly in the cylinder. No need for stretching or any thing.


I'll probably add a sorbothane pad to it to quieten it down a bit.

Spring.

Decent spring I guess. Was a lot shorter than the Element spring I tried.

Cylinder.

Seems a bit cheap to be honest. Very thin wall thickness. I would replace it.

After wondering why the bolt needed so much effort to push forward I think I found the reason why...



There was some serious pitting and bad moulding on the inside of the upper receiver. Maybe mine is a lemon but I had to use some 1000 grit sandpaper to sand it down. Its now a lot easier to cycle the bolt. Was a bit disappointed with that.

Onto the hop up and barrel.

The hop up chamber is made from pot metal.





The hop up arm is a nice thick plastic and wont break at all. The nub though is s super soft silicone one that deforms even if you just look at it. The same crappy see through rubber that my hop up rubber was made from in my old ARES M4 FF.



The Hop up rubber itself though looks pretty decent! It looks Identical to the RA TECH hop up rubber for WE GBB's. Its a nice thick but supple rubber. Doesnt feel cheap at all. Has a normal AEG style nub inside.









I changed out the hop up rubber to an A+ rubber for VSR as well as changing the nub to one made from the back of a bic pen. I have had great success with this nub in my WE Scar GBB so want to try it out in this rifle. Its very hard and doesn't deform.



Overall Im still very happy with this gun and what I paid for it. Due to some of he imperfections and poor quality of some parts I have changed my rating to a 7/10.

If there is any thing I have missed please let me know.

[SuperHog]

I am not sure what is actually VSR10 compatible on your MS700 by looking at all those pics. Zshot promised us in the video that it was going take VSR10 upgrades. Unless the MS338 have VSR10 internals.

The trigger box, hop up and piston all look proprietary.

Can you get a length and diameter (in mm) of the piston please. The piston from your pics is 45 deg so chances are the trigger box could be 45 deg. If you take off the trigger box, the sear on it will be very clear if it is 90 or 45 deg.

Your rating may drop below 7/10 if this rifle is totally proprietary.

[Hectic]

the trigger box is off from a vsr but it could accept sears from a vsr, the piston looks like a vsr piston but its hard to tell without a measurement, the hop up chamber looks like it may be simaler in design to a vsr one tho the arm with the nub seems a lil shorter, if u remove the adjustment arm off a vsr that is, then it would be able to adjust with the screw from the top but again without measurements who knows, i tryed to find my old vsr piston to measure but couldnt, i do have a cylender and hop chamber tho so i could check those out. Nice review it does look promising if the upgrades wind up being mostly vsr stuff.
i think the 388 and 700 are spose to have the same operating system just slightly different exterior, ie the mag/magwell and materials on the upper.

[SuperHog]

The best way to test compatibility is to put a TM VSR10 sear and trigger into the MS700 trigger and see if it fires reliably. Also stick a VSR10 hop up lever into the hop up unit and try it as well and same with the piston.

The other question, will a Laylax or PDI trigger box bolt up to the MS700 receiver?

[Hectic]

ya if u want to change out the whole trigger box that may be an issue i didnt go the zero trigger route on my vsr just used the laylax piston and the stainless sears looking more closely at my old hop chamber it seems a lil longer but again its hard to tell with just a photo. We should scrape together old stock vsr parts and send them so arktic can test fit lol

[SuperHog]

Arktic can use JG Bar10 sear and trigger since they are readily available.

I had a worn sear and trigger in my TM VSR10 and put the JG ones in it and no problems.

[FreelancerInc]

i personally want to know exactly where the hopup screw is...if i have to take off my scope to adjust it i'd be very uninterested

[Arktic]

I will take some measurements today of the various parts and report back. Ill try and get the trigger box off.

Its a bit daunting without a dis assembly guide to refer to haha.

The BAR 10 trigger box is a lot longer than this one. Ill take more caparison pics today.

i personally want to know exactly where the hopup screw is...if i have to take off my scope to adjust it i'd be very uninterested

The screw is quite far in front of the scope. If you use one of those huge shrouds on your scope it might cover the hole. I have no problems with the scope I have on mine.

If you look in this pics you can see a small hole a few cm in front of my scope on the rail. That's the hop up adjustment hole.

[FreelancerInc]

i may still be interested then lol