18 year old Classic Army M4 in Metal/TM G36's - Upgrades possible ?.

[JensenDK]

I went airsofting with my boy for the first time in 12 years or so yesterday. We rented guns at DMZ. Had a blast and the boy wants to go again (lucky me !).

Today I dug out my old airsoft guns. I have the above mentioned Classic Army M4 and two Tokyo Mauri G36's. All bought around 2003/2003. The M4 was refurbished and spring upgraded back in 2013/14 but I never went airsofting with it.

Is there any point in upgrading any of these or should I just buy new guns ?.

Please offer constructive advice to a newbie/experienced player.

JensenDK

[Drakker]

If their compression is still good and their output power is stable, all you'd need to be competitive is probably a new hop-up rubber that can easily lift heavier BBs. The price of heavy BBs fell over the years, and since they are far more accurate and with enough hop can go much farther than light BBs, pretty much everyone is using them now, so you kind of have to use them to keep up. Something like a Maple Leaf hop-up rubber with a large contact patch works very well and doesn't require any special skills to install. If you wanna go the harder way, you can always r-hop it, or get a professional to do the r-hopping for you. When properly installed, a r-hop is a bit better than a large patch hop-up rubber like the Maple Leaf or a flat-hop (but a flat-hop is not worth doing nowadays when you can just pop a Maple Leaf rubber in the gun and enjoy awesome range, it doesn't perform significantly better).

I said Maple Leaf a lot, they're not the only good large patch hop-up rubbers out there, but they're easy to acquire, a lot of people use them and they work very well.

[venture]

The CA M4 is dated now because of all of the fancy new m4's coming out. Those 2 G36's are valuable. They are also date but the G36 is one of the best older platforms for airsoft and the TM's are the best.

[jordan7831]

They are junk, ill take em off your hands for $20.00. All kidding aside, the are all probably viable. They are v2 and v3 gearboxes which have tonnes of upgrade/replacement parts. Some good maintenance would probably do them some good.

You know you are old when guns from the early 2000s dont seem that old....

[Kwokwai]

Like jordan7831 noted your M4 and G36s are still fine as you can upgrade the internals to your heart's content whether you stick with AEG or convert over to HPa. I still have my old M4 that I source-built from parts from back in 2001. Still works fine and competitive enough with everybody else. Just needs an updated barrel-hopup combo to get a bit more range and probably a new set of wires some day if it ever stops working.

Go and get your AEGs tuned up, get some new batteries and have fun. No need to spend any more until you get the itch for something new and shiny or something has a catastrophic failure and isn't worth repairing.

[Ratters]

It would be a wise move to upgrade the piston, gears and bushings. TM nozzles and airseal components are pretty good but go with an o-ring nozzle upgrade.

A ball bearing spring guide, a ball bearing piston head will keep the spring torque happy and put less strain on the gearbox shell (also alloy) and upgrading the cylinder / head set will round things off for a completely upgraded and bullet-proof gearbox build.

Aluminum gears and nylon bushings were common in older TM aegs.

Quite often the alloy gears would snap, crackle and pop or the piston teeth would shear off if you were uninformed, bold or daring enough to install a 120 spring without suitable upgrades.

Stock hop up units were and are still great.

Deans connectors work so much better than the Tamiya minis or large because the female side of the Tamiya pins expand from heat and you'll lose functionality at the worst possible moment. HIT!

lose the fuse and sauder the fuse holder together then clip the plastic holder back over the copper.

Don't run over a 7.4 volt Lipo (equivalent to a 9.6v nickel batt) unless you've beefed up the internals, metal bushings, steel gear set, proper shim job, quality reinforced piston and it's rock and roll

The EG 1000 motor from TM was a later upgrade from the less powerful one. It will be marked on the side of the motor sticker.

I hope I've helped, have fun