Boneyard Ares Thompson

[JinxDuh]

Bought an ares Thompson a few days ago from on here and sadly it’s nowhere near what was described. I’ve spent the past 2 days trying to salvage my £285 investment but it’s not going to happen. 
 

It will be sold as parts/boneyard, included is:

A (from what I can tell) steel upper/lower receiver that’s been artificially weathered by the previous owner.

The Thompson gearbox which works alright now it’s been opened and had the metal shavings removed. ?

The ares hop chamber with no inner barrel or hop rubber as both was damaged when I received the replica. 
 

The motor cage screw has been stripped for the pistol grip screw by the previous owner and has a tiny bit of thread left that does lock on but it’s not great. 
 

The gearbox itself, as mentioned above is now okay however the previous owner superglued the fire/safe selector axis in place with the screw. I had to drill the screw out to get the gearbox out to fix the issues it had. As it was drilled out, the axis bar is no longer in a useable condition and the selector switch only just bites onto it via the grub screw however the safety/fire does still work if you manually twist the axis bar. 
 

The electric blowback has been disabled poorly by the previous owner and will take some work to get up and running again, possibly modification to a new piston.
 

When I purchased the replica, most of the screws were missing. I’ve added a few of the important ones but worth mentioning. 

There is also 7 (If I remember correctly) high cap Thompson mags that will be going with the “replica”.

The outer barrel assembly, wood pistol grip & stock will not be included however I may be able to provide the faux wood from the Cyma I purchased to replace the ares.

Obviously I won’t be able to get back the £285 I got burned for but I would like to recover something at least, but I’m not really sure what it would be worth as a boneyard bundle. I will upload images of said items as soon as possible. Any help is massively appreciated!

 

[EDcase]

Sorry to hear.  I hope you left appropriate feedback

 

[Tackle]

Sorry to hear this, but I gotta ask, how did you pay & who was the seller ?

Edit: I see who it was, Chef82nd, but confused as to why your stuck with it, please tell me you didn't pay F&F.

 

[JinxDuh]

Sorry to hear this, but I gotta ask, how did you pay & who was the seller ?

Edit: I see who it was, Chef82nd, but confused as to why your stuck with it, please tell me you didn't pay F&F.

No, Goods and services! 
 

I stuck with it as initially it seemed like just a hop up issue, which is an easy fix. It wasn’t until I had the upper off to get the hop up out that I started seeing the metal shavings everywhere and traces of superglue etc. I have had to “modify” it to get it apart to fix the issues, so it’s no longer in the condition that I received it in, and can’t be returned to said condition. 

 

[Jez_Armstrong]

Sorry but with all those issues and the time you've spent messing with it you should send it back for a refund or the seller should at least offer a partial refund, they can't have been in the dark about its condition 

I'm fed up with people getting dicked over with sales. Even if the seller claims to not know anything is wrong with the gun and let's be honest the majority of the time they do and it's them that have fucked about with it and claimed they didn't know (not saying it's the case with this particular sale but it happens alot) 

How was the gun advertised? With just a minor thing that needs fixing? 

 

[JinxDuh]

How was the gun advertised?

It was titled as “Ares Thompson M1A1 EBB”, however the EBB had been disabled (Not an issue as I would have disabled it anyway but it wasn’t listed as disabled)

He mentions it’s been used for reenacting and airsoft, and is battle worn. Cool, not an issue and was actually one of the selling points for me.

He mentions it shoots at 335 fps, has a Zci inner barrel (it does), a maple leaf 60 degree rubber (It did, but the rubber was torn up - Discovered this the day after purchasing when I went to chrono it and 3 mags wouldn’t feed (edit: I only tried 3 mags) I messaged him mentioning this, he said he tested it on the Monday and it was all working fine.), and an omega nub (It did not, it actually had no nub at all.)

The advert also said it came with only a few high cap magazines however the majority of them were high caps. 
 

The only fault he mentioned was the selectors was loose (Via private message.), no mention of half the screws missing, no mention of the wood furniture handguard being super glued in place because he dethreaded the part that holds it on, no mention of the major screws that hold important parts on (I.E the handguard, the pistol grip) being stripped of thread, no mention of the motor installed failing and almost burnt out, no mention of the selector axis being super glued in place (You have to unscrew these to access the gearbox)
 

It was to my understanding that the replica was in working order, minus the wobbly selectors - when I initially received it I put a battery on and pulled the trigger. It went bang like intended so I thought “Cool, it works” but I don’t have the means to fire bb’s where I live so couldn’t test it until the next day - which is where it all went wrong. 

 

[Jez_Armstrong]

Ahhh the old I tested it and it was working fine line really fucks me off too 

In all honesty you should have requested a refund the moment you found all the issues without starting to work on it but the work you have done was also necessary if the gun as to be in good working order but then he should also have noted the things wrong with it 

That's alot of things to be found and sounds like an absolute shit hog of a gun that's been messed about with by either him or a really shit tech 

The fact that the hop rubber was torn AND it has a missing nub makes me thing it won't be pushing out 335fps 

Is the gun now in a better condition because of your work? As in have you fixed alot of the issues it had 

Have you contacted the seller to ask for a resolution? 

 

[JinxDuh]

Is the gun now in a better condition

I cleaned up the gearbox, reinstalled all the inside parts and made sure it all lined up etc, replaced the motor with a new one, replaced the hop with a standard rubber/nub and it fires fine now. It chrono’d at 315 (On average) however there’s no safety and it’s on full auto as neither switches can be salvaged to work. I would say it’s in better condition overall, however without a safety and selector it’s essentially useless. 
 

My local shop had a Cybergun Thompson (Cyma spec I believe) which I purchased for a good price of £125 and most of the wooden parts from the ares fits it (Minus the stock) so I do at least still have a Thompson.

I didn’t contact the seller further as I was rather upset and didn’t want to make matters worse or be rude towards him, however I just want to make people aware of the issues I’ve had. It seems I’m the second person, as his other negative feedback is from a guy who bought another WW2 replica that was leaking gas on most mags (Sold as gas tight) and also had screws missing.

 

[Jez_Armstrong]

Right well if he has negative feedback (which I've just read)  isn't the first time he has dicked someone over, but then he does have a few positive too, given the benefit of the doubt he may not have known about the condition but does need to take some responsibility for it 

send him a message (I can see he is currently using personal messenger) 

Sorry but I'm getting fed up with people getting messed about with second hand sales and you're expected to just suck it up, it's not fair 

 

[DanBow]

Yes, definitely need to take some form of action even if its only a negative review.

 

[JinxDuh]

Right well if he has negative feedback (which I've just read)  isn't the first time he has dicked someone over, but then he does have a few positive too, given the benefit of the doubt he may not have known about the condition but does need to take some responsibility for it 

send him a message (I can see he is currently using personal messenger) 

Sorry but I'm getting fed up with people getting messed about with second hand sales and you're expected to just suck it up, it's not fair 

This is the first time I’ve had a negative experience on here, and leaving my first negative feedback was tough ? I would hate for others to have the same issue I’ve had. I’m partially glad I got it as I have a decent(ish) understanding of AEG gearboxes now so I could fix issues but I can only imagine if it was somebody looking to get into the hobby properly, it could quite possibly put them off properly. 
 

What do you recommend for the best case of action? As I say, never been in this situation before. 

Yes, definitely need to take some form of action even if its only a negative review.

I left feedback yesterday as I was having a bit of a mental battle as I don’t like putting a bad light on people but felt it needed to be done the more I got into the state of the replica. ?

 

[Jez_Armstrong]

I maybe would have waited to see what he said via PM and if it could be resolved before leaving feedback 

I may even have a Thompson going spare in my rack if it's of any interest, a friend gave it to me to fix about 7 years ago when he left for Australia ?

 

[JinxDuh]

I may even have a Thompson going spare

Is it one of the marui clones? If so, thank you very much for the offer however the Cybergun one seems to be okay. If it’s ares, I may be interested!

 

[Jez_Armstrong]

Is it one of the marui clones? If so, thank you very much for the offer however the Cybergun one seems to be okay. If it’s ares, I may be interested!

Not actually 100% sure of brand you may know from these? 

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View attachment 128462

 

[JinxDuh]

Not actually 100% sure of brand you may know from these? 

View attachment 128461

View attachment 128462

Looks like king arms bud, worth a pretty penny now! Sadly not of use to me, as I need the military A1 for my impression. Really do appreciate it though, thank you so much!!

 

[JinxDuh]

Still looking for an appraisal on the Thompson, seller refused the refund so I'm still stuck with the paper weight he said "was my fault" ?

 

[Jez_Armstrong]

You're joking 

What did he say? 

 

[DanBow]

Still looking for an appraisal on the Thompson, seller refused the refund so I'm still stuck with the paper weight he said "was my fault" ?

Absolute C you next Tuesday!

 

[JinxDuh]

You're joking 

What did he say? 

He claimed the screw was threadlocked, not glued. In my experience, threadlock is blue and super glue is clear/white. The same "substance" is also holding the handguard to the barrel, and I'm 99.99% sure threadlock can't hold wood to a steel barrel?

He also claimed if I'd of messaged him he would have refunded me and there was no need to drill it out, and that by drilling it out (To assess the sheer state the gearbox was in, which as I expected was full of metal shavings that needed to be removed) the replica is no longer in the same condition as when I received it, which I found rather humorous because it's now actually working unlike when I received it from him ? 

I've spoken to the tech at my local shop who has agreed to take a second look at it and see if we can salvage it somewhat as the gearbox/motor/Hop unit is actually functioning and it's just the selectors that are now faulty, he suggested possibly semi locking it and having the selector switch act as a "dummy" - So there's a ray of hope, but it's definitely soured my trust in purchasing pre-owned replicas. I've bought countless pews from here and never faced issues before though.

 

[JinxDuh]

Update re Thompson:

I got a call from the tech this morning I asking me to pop down, and he’s got it all working as should be minus from the semi/auto like we discussed. So overall, I have a “working” Thompson but think I’ll look at getting a king arms to replace it eventually.