Ares Scar Light with EGLM.

[Four Leaf]

Hi everyone,

As requested by baffled orange, I'm going to do a review of my Ares Scar Light with EGLM. This is the first gun review I've done, so please feel free to feedback to me with any pointers.

So here I go :

I bought the Ares Scar Light W/ EGLM from Zero One for the price of £500. I did a lot of reading on Scars as I'm not a fan of M4's and I wanted a good, solid gun and after about 50 hours of research, I decided on the Ares Scar.

What it takes
The gun takes standard M4/M16 mags and uses mini batteries that slide into the sliding the stock. 8.4v is recommended, but you can get a 9.6v in there. It uses a long shaft motor. Plenty of RIS rails on this gun, all 20mm and you can fit a variety of accessories to it. The gun comes with a CQB length barrel, a mid cap that takes 120 BB's and loading rod.

Look's and Feel
The gun is heavy. With the EGLM on it, it's a hefty weight. You will get tired carrying this round woodland so a good sling is needed. The top of the gun, and the cocking handle are solid metal. Very robust. I'm not the most cautious player with guns, I tend to knock them about a lot when I'm going through trees and the metal has not suffered from anything but paint chips. The lower receiver, the stock and cheek raiser are made of very sturdy plastic, I'm not sure what it is made of though, I just know its very tough and hard wearing. Again, only paint chips to show. Standard M4 grip that houses the motor. Rubber butt plate that's solid and comfy when tucked into the shoulder. very solid gun that feels great in your hands. Iron sights nice to use in the garden, I removed them and put an ACOG on it, so never skirmished the irons.

Shooting
Out the box this gun chrono'd between 340 - 360 FPS. It has hitting torso sized targets at 30 meters no problems. Rate of Fire (ROF) wasn't great, but that didn't bother me so much. The EGLM is very weighty. It does what is says on the tin, with a catch to release the loading tube that turns slightly to either the left or the right to make loading / unloading M203 shells that bit easier.

Take Down and upgrades
The gun comes apart very easily. The barrel can be changed in 10 seconds due the the nice quick change system that Ares put into this gun. You just move a catch and pull the barrel out then slide in the next one. Now I've not read of anyone putting their own tight-bore barrel (TB) into an Ares Scar because of the system they use, so I bought the Ares Scar Sniper inner/outer barrel set for £80 something pounds from an eastern hobby shop.

The EGLM comes off in a couple of seconds as you only have to open to levers on the unit and then remove it. Now I do not know if it will fit any other type of Scar, but I've read that is does not fit anything other than the Ares model.

Holding the gun together is a couple of pins. Literally that's it. You pop two pins, one at the top on the upper receiver and one in the middle of the gun on the lower receiver, slide the lower section of the upper receiver out (This bit also has the lower RIS rail on it). When that's been removed, press the cocking release in and slide the lower receiver forwards and out. The gun breaks down into four separate parts on less that a minute.

The gearbox sits in the lower receiver and when you have removed the mag release and set the fire selector all the way back, there are four screw in the bottom of the pistol grip and a further two inside the mag well that need unscrewing.

There's a Tamiya connector from the stock to the gearbox to supply the power. The gearbox is a version two from what I've read. I don't know enough to visually identify them apart. All the gears are solid metal. The piston and piston head is a clear plastic, which I guess is polycarbonate. The trigger is very solidly stuck to the left side of the gearbox. I don't know why, but it's one less thing to worry about getting wrong. In the gearbox are a few items that are of a unique size to the Ares Scar gearbox. If you do get one and want a peak inside, make sure you don't loose anything, as some of these pieces you cannot replace.

The motor is a nondescript black effort, there are no markings on it at all.

Issues
Right then... on my first skirmish, after putting a couple hundred round through it in the garden and Zeroing the ACOG, and then putting maybe another hundred rounds through the gun, it suddenly stopped working. The pistol grip was hot to the touch. I adjusted the motor plate in the bottom of the pistol grip and then had to continue doing this for the rest of the day. Sometimes I'd only got 5 or so rounds out before having to adjust it. Seems that the motor was getting hot and expanding and then would have to be adjusted accordingly until the motor was properly bedded in.

Second skirmish, the motor died on me completely near the end of the day. When I got the motor out some of the teeth on the pinion head had stripped.

I got a Systema Turbo, purely because I wanted to try one out. Great motor, I would highly recommend it.

I fitted the new motor then fired the gun. Something was not right. When I opened up the gearbox and had a look, the piston had a small crack in it. I replaced that with a G&P piston. The reason I picked G&P piston was because I've read that these are the only ones are the come close to fitting. The piston needed some sanding to fit.

Skirmish three. The piston head cracked. I haven't taken it into the field since replacing this.

Conclusions
This is a very solid gun and it does stand out. However, while Ares have spent a lot on the outside of the gun, the internals appear to have been over looked. For all the trouble I've had with this gun, I'm not thinking of selling because when the gun works it works well and with the sniper barrel it is making good groupings at 35-40 meters. Also I've invested that much time and money into it I'm determined to get it through at least one skirmish without fault. It's just getting it in working order that I'm having trouble doing !!

So if you want an Ares Scar, maybe you will have better luck with your internals than I did. If you buy one of these guns be prepared to have to replace the motor, piston and piston head within your first two skirmishes, unless I just got a bad one. But then again, maybe there's a reason that Ares and Arse are only one letter swap away.

[ZX12R A1]

Re: Ares Scar Light with EGLM.

To add to this review.

I have not had any problems with mine at all apart from a small fault fixed by Zero One when I first purchased the gun.

I have had no problems with the internals and for interest sake only did some test firing in my warehouse with a M120 in it getting somewhere near 440Fps this was removed as it blew the BB's apart against the wall so obviously very dangerous.

After mucking about with springs I have it firing at 348 +/- 3 Fps which is pretty good in my opinion and more probably down to BB's than air seal etc.

Only down side I can add is that my stock mount has snapped off so i am waiting for a new stock to come in to fix it.

That said this is my primary AEG and has had thousands of BB's through it I would put a rough guess on 10,000 since purchased. Yes I know this is a lot but I often play the role of support gunner and until recently I did not have a support weapon.

When playing as cannon fodder its single shot all the way...

It is an excellent piece of kit and will also re-itterate the buy a decent sling as mentioned above it is bloody heavy with the EGLM on it. My personal recomendation would be a real steel M249 / M60 sling as it has a nice wide padded should on it and can be adjusted to carry the gun across your back pretty easily.

Again another gun I will never sell on.

[Jsmithy]

Re: Ares Scar Light with EGLM.

i personally find my ARES Scar-L a brilliant gun. Solid structure, internals for me have been fantastic, no wobbly bits, good balance of plastic and metal. one thing i dont like is the weight of it but hey thats understandable i suppose. But yeh +1 to getting an m249/m60 sling as they are practically perfect.

all in all a good aeg in my view.

[Four Leaf]

Re: Ares Scar Light with EGLM.

Thanks for your input guys, glad to know that there are Ares Scars out there that dont have the issues I've had

I've recently obtained and Ares Tavor AKA Tar-21, so I'll be putting that through it's paces and writing up about it over the next few weeks.

[ThE LeGenD]

Re: Ares Scar Light with EGLM.

thanks guys, it is good to see compliments on the gun i wish to get.