China clone of VFC BAR M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle

[WW2Stu]

Sorry for large image wont let me upload from my comp.

Inital thoughts:
Nice weight. The bipod and handle both seem strong. Mag, bipod, rear sight, front sight and carry handle made of a magnetic compound. (Mild steel I assume) Main gun reciever is metal as is the barrel as is the gas cylider non magnetic so most liekly some sort of Mazak, which I believe is the norm with most guns coming out of China.
Not got a Chrono here and not seeing my mate till next Friday but it sounds meaty. The ROF is low with an 8.4v battery which i can only assume is because the ridicilous size spring in the gearbox!
The faux wood looks really good I had to physically touch it and look for seams to clarify it was plastic. Although the first batch of guns is the only ones going to made of plastic so if anyone else gets one they will be most likely wood!
Has very good wiring. Not disimiliar to angel wire or Prometheous NEO cord. Attached to a small tamiya connector.
The main body of the gun has a stamped serial number AY-0001 and the bipod is also stamped with a seperate number which is B 7312235 N.
Mag sits in tight with no wobble. And as another point the whole gun feels rather solid with no wobble on anything except the faux wood on the carry handle. This does has a screw but havent had a look to see if it just needs tighting. <== FIXED when added to the actual BAR.
Seems to fire ok but needs a decent amount of space to test. Living in a block of flats makes it a bit tough! This will be tested next Friday. Safety works ok It is marked with a S A F. Now with the real steel version of this BAR it was meant to have 2 fully automatic firing modes. The only thing different between the two was the speed. In the Airsoft replica it is just full auto & safe. I am not sure if this is how it is meant to be (IE should it have single shot) as its been a long time since I have handled a VFC BAR. (Maybe someone could clarify this?)

Bad points found so far:
The stock has a massive cavatity for a battery. Will need foam to stop even the largest batterys from knocking around. (not a big issue!)
The 2nd picture shows the ejector port exposed. Looking at the VFC bar its not meant to be like this. I did notice a bit of plastic was sticking out and when I cocked it back it now has totally disapeared. Will break it down next Friday to see whats going on.
Rear sight is slightly "off" will probably just need stripping down and put back together (again not a big issue)
Didn't come with the battery it was meant too (not going to lose any sleep over the crappy china battery)

Conclusion so far well worth the £300! They did also ring me to see if I wanted it downgraded to 350 FPS which I said no. As I wanted to look to see what sort of job the China lot did to the gearbox before anyone else had tinkered with it. You could say this is another "bad point" as you can't use it straight out of the box. If you have ordered one, I am sure they will ask you if you require it downgraded. Also they have added 3 new pictures showing some of the internals.

Stu

[madwelshman]

Re: China clone of VFC BAR M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle

always makes me laugh.... its not optional for a retailer to "offer" a downgrade service if the guns firing hot..... over 375 on full auto and its frikin illegal! lol Anything to squeeze a little more money from you! lol

[WW2Stu]

Re: China clone of VFC BAR M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle

always makes me laugh.... its not optional for a retailer to "offer" a downgrade service if the guns firing hot..... over 375 on full auto and its frikin illegal! lol Anything to squeeze a little more money from you! lol

I believe the shop was offering it as a free service but I wanted the gun as quick as possible basically

[WW2Stu]

Re: China clone of VFC BAR M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle

Pictures added as links as doesn't like me hosting them on here. Stu

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...32212270_o.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.n...56654734_o.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...14487448_o.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...38258515_o.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...69601640_o.jpg

[WW2Stu]

Re: China clone of VFC BAR M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle

Well I broke down the BAR today with a mate and although I am still happy about it, there are some issues that need to be looked at. (all fixable!) :good: I did have a camera and took about 20 photos's of how to strip it down step by step but left it at my mates :slap: Will upload next week when I see him again.

Before i stipped it down i ran a couple of hi-cap mags through it with some issues. The plastic chamber of the mag is not fitted well to the outer steel part. Which means the whole inside mag can move 2-3 mm in either direction which stopped it from clicking into place, and feeding. Will look at how to address this going forward. Could just be my mag or the first batch but not a great start :? Also the interior of the mag was soaking in oil which meant this was then being carried through to the hop and barrel by BB's. So like I said will strip down and fix / clean it before used again.

When the mag was working 10 reading's through the chrono came up as 349-360. 10 FPS variation is ok, but inside we found had to reduce this furthur! :good: If the air seal was better on the stock parts I am sure the BAR would be doing 380+ as the spring in side is pretty meaty. m120 perhaps?

I mentioned in my photos about the cocking lever not working properly, which left the hop and clylinder exposed to damage. This was a odd because the way it is built it never could possibly work! The guy on the production line i presume realised this and tried to hand bend it into some sort of workable mechanism but.... impossible. I would guess all bar's in the first batch will have this issue. As a quick guide a hammer came out to flatten it as the cocking lever was in a sort of U shape. It was then cut down to leave a L shaped peice which we attached directly to the internal cocking lever bar. (quite hard to describe without photo's)

After taking out the Pin in the above video the BAR came apart exactly as shown. The gearbox from the video from what I handled today looks identical.

After removing the 2 screws from the rear stock allowing access to the wires, foam and battery did we notice another small but annyoing issue. The screws were obviously too short so where just cut down to fit. Nothing again major but something else to add to the list!

On the video at 22-23 seconds you can see the lower reciever and stock removed. The stock had 4 small screws with glue / locktite holding them in to the outside of the motor cage. Then there is a furthur 2 screws (25mm in length) holding the reciever to the gearbox casing. One of mine was as straight as a round about. :? I am hoping it hasnt damaged the gearbox casing too much. You can then press on the back of the spring release mechanism and remove the spring and spring guide. The spring guide is a bog standard version 2 with no bearing. Being version 2 we managed to fit this one straight in with no problems. A madbull one (red) would also fit but would need some tinkering to do so.



You will then need a an alan key (not the one you get in the box!) to undo the gearbox casing. The gearbox like most china guns caked in grease. The gears were shimmed ok and the gears were stamped DL and looked pretty good. Version 2 style. I would happily run these for a while.
The piston is a half tooth piston and tested a madbull one and it seemed to fit ok.
The cylinder head we first thought was not going to be interchangable but again trying a classic army one from an M4 (version 2) it fitted. There is an extra notch cut out for the standard cylinder head but as far as I could tell not a requirement to fit.
The cylinder is a ported m4 affair. Tried a classic army one as a replacement and fitted ok.
The classic army air nozzle was also interchangable and the piston head was good too.

7mm bearing's seemed very thin, but they might of had to been like this. As there was only 1 shim on either side of the gears. I will want to replace these with a brand i can trust. As replacing the gearbox casing if one fails or if there is any movement causing the holes to be elongated will be a nightmare. Might have to splash some cash though to find some that will fit with the current gear set!

Gearbox casing and a few other area's cocking lever being one were all hand filed to fit. I have never seen anything like this on any airsoft gun before. Which is a little worrying from a quality control perspective. This also means that gearbox casings for an example will probably not be able to be interchanged with another one.

Like i said still happy with my purchase but will need some work to bring it up to my normal high standards!

Hop unit, barrel and pictures will be added next week. Any questions I will answer them the best I can as the BAR is still in parts next to me :good:

Stu

[laurence]

Re: China clone of VFC BAR M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle

I love the reviews of the lesser known guns, good review man, would be good to get some pictures of the internals though
thanks

[madwelshman]

Re: China clone of VFC BAR M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle

Just had one in the shop on thursday for us to "fix", with a list as long as your arm of terrible niggles!

Hows your selector switch, his felt like it was simply broken and did nothing.... his range was inconsistent at best, and had feed issues... we told him to get it fixed under warranty as he shouldn't be paying someone else to fix something covered after only a week of owning...

Still couldn't resist a good fondle though it does look ace!

[WW2Stu]

Re: China clone of VFC BAR M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle

I have the camera back from my mates and will do a Edited version for this forum in the next couple of days.

My slector switch works ok at the moment but I pulled the trigger and relased the other day it continued to fire for about another 10 seconds. It felt like something was blocking the mechanical part of the trigger (maybe the paint!) Will look at this in due course.

Just brought my upgrades!

1 X Systema New Boreup Cylinder Set for M16A1 / VN
1 X Madbull Ultimate 6.01mm Tight Bore Barrel 7075 Aluminium (650mm)
1 X Classic Army 7mm bearings for gearboxes
1 X Systema Energy POLYCARBONATE PISTON (Black)
1 X Systema Energy Spring Guide with bearing v2 gearbox
1 X Pro-Win AK Hop-Up Chamber

As for pictures of internals they will come shortly too. But just imagine a really bad china AEG and thats the internals. The gearbox casing wasn't the only things filed down to make fit, the inner barrel shroud and a few other parts inside the gun are pretty raw looking. Ohh and have you ever cut yourself on an AEG barrel? I did as the standard barrel in this has to the worse inner barrel I have even seen in my life. With sharp edges on either end. You could see where it had been milled and finished by hand again I presume?

Any more questions give me a shout!

Stu

[WW2Stu]

Re: China clone of VFC BAR M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle

Didn't get a chance to start the upgrades on the BAR today but now can upload the photo's i took of breaking it down.



Removing body pin.



Removing of the pin will take the upper and lower reciever apart leaving it looking like this..



.and from the other side.



Then we went to the butt plate and removed the two screws which give you access to your battery. The screws were too long and cut down by Mr China man to fit!



And the glue holding the screw fittings into place... can't get enough glue!



Removing the top 2 screws by the motor cage will allow you to completely remove the stock. Leaving you with this.



Removing the screw near the far right bearing and the one nearest the left bearing will allow the trigger grp to be taken away. One of my screws here was also damaged although easily replaced. You can unplug the motor cables too.



Bottom of gearbox case would not fit into gun, so Mr China man remove material!



Removal of the last screw on the motor cage will allow it to come free.



Pushing in the back of the gearbox case where the spring guide goes will allow you to press the release button on the top of the gearbox. You can see me measuring up a prometheus spring guide with the original spring guide in the back ground. (it fits btw :good: )



Now removing the last few screws will allow acces to the gearbox, removing the spring is so nice as the gearbox isnt under tension when done.



When all parts are removed you can see Mr China man has been at it with the file just to get the gearbox to fit. (Anything which is silver has been touched by Mr China's man file)



Any questions, ask away!

Stu