Ares Striker AS-01

[Brauster]

Thought I would take a chance and see what its like as a starter.

Price is reasonable at about £150 and if as many parts are truly VSR compatible as they say then it should make a good gun in the end!

I can confirm so far that they are a little low on power at around 300fps but the consistency over 50 shots was only 1.4fps which is excellent.

The build quality seems good but need to see how it fares after a few knocks etc. It does feel solid and comfortable with no creeks or movement where you don't want it. there is a little play in the bolt assembly but thats me being picky.

I will be changing the spring very soon which looks to be very easy and there is plenty to choose from as its an AEG spring.

The Barrel is quite long at 550mm and uses the normal VSR hop rubber. Will be looking at the Hop assembly soon but the current one is top adjustable and has no adjustment space from the mag well so not sure the VSR hop assembly is going to be compatible but will keep you posted.

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[Hef Legend]

14fps is quite bad buddy, will lead to some inconsistent shots.

On a bolt actions sniper you'd be expecting maybe 3+/- at best.

Might be worth stripping it and checking the seals, re-seating the bucking etc.

I was looking at one of these as a project, but am waiting to see haw they fare after some use.

 

[Brauster]

14fps is quite bad buddy, will lead to some inconsistent shots.

On a bolt actions sniper you'd be expecting maybe 3+/- at best.

Might be worth stripping it and checking the seals, re-seating the bucking etc.

I was looking at one of these as a project, but am waiting to see haw they fare after some use.

Oops that was my Typo meant to be 1.4fps.

Will be checking all the internals soon to see how it all looks and what if anything can be done to get power and acuracy to be as best as possible

 

[Hef Legend]

Oops that was my Typo meant to be 1.4fps.

Will be checking all the internals soon to see how it all looks and what if anything can be done to get power and acuracy to be as best as possible

In that case, that's impressive for a stock gun lol. Hopefully as it's "Amoeba" it's better than Ares last dealings with snipers as they suck internally. The concerning thing is they offer "upgrade" cylinders etc which kind of gives the impression you may need them as the stock ones will break :S

 

[Brauster]

Must admit I am very impressed so far but cant help but think that the consistency might be down to the low power spring! Will see if the deviation remains this good when the spring change has been done.

 

[Samurai]

550mm barrel and for that short stroke? Hmmm. Strange.

 

[Brauster]

550mm barrel and for that short stroke? Hmmm. Strange.

I Haven't taken full measurements as yet but manual says 550mm for the barrel and measuring the outher to hop adjustment screw 550mm seems correct.

I agree it does seem very short stroke for that length of barrel but it seems to work so far. Will measure diameter of piston when I change spring as maybe it uses a larger diameter cylinder to give the same volume as a longer stroke would.

 

[GiantKiwi]

Mine is slightly different in that it Chronoed on thursday at 430fps, with no more than 1.6fps variation across an entire mag, when I picked it up. No need to look into the hop unit, as it's not going to be possible to swap for a VSR chamber, as dimensions are completely different.

Inner barrel is confirmed as a 550mm length 6.03mm diameter, made from brass. It uses open window type VSR barrels, but I did check and see with a spare VSR barrel and it will fit, I just didn't bother as I want to play with it before messing with it.

Hop Bucking is VSR type with concave contact patch, looks OK, but at least you've got plenty of alternatives to choose from if you don't like it.

Hop Chamber is fairly impressive in itself, regardless of the fact that it's an Ares unit. Minimal adjustment was needed for it to happily fling 0.4's out to reasonable ranges. (I was on the little range with measured markers only going to 50m, it was going an undetermined distance past those, so immediately better than the Stock MSR 338 I bought when they had just been released.)

Critically for me, Cack-handers like myself can use it without removing skin from the top of our left hand with the bolt cycle

There are a few niggles with it, molding lines could be a little better, mags are fricking enormous (seriously, if you have small hands, don't bother, I can use Phablet phones one handed, I struggled to pull a reload with a single mitt), mags being enormous of course means pouches were a chore to locate if like me you dislike Multicam greatly.

I got it a little cheaper than the OP, ended up being about £180 for it and 3 extra mags. Some retailers (RWUK) are taking the piss at more than that even for just the gun.

 

[Hef Legend]

Mine is slightly different in that it Chronoed on thursday at 430fps, with no more than 1.6fps variation across an entire mag, when I picked it up. No need to look into the hop unit, as it's not going to be possible to swap for a VSR chamber, as dimensions are completely different.

Inner barrel is confirmed as a 550mm length 6.03mm diameter, made from brass. It uses open window type VSR barrels, but I did check and see with a spare VSR barrel and it will fit, I just didn't bother as I want to play with it before messing with it.

Hop Bucking is VSR type with concave contact patch, looks OK, but at least you've got plenty of alternatives to choose from if you don't like it.

Hop Chamber is fairly impressive in itself, regardless of the fact that it's an Ares unit. Minimal adjustment was needed for it to happily fling 0.4's out to reasonable ranges. (I was on the little range with measured markers only going to 50m, it was going an undetermined distance past those, so immediately better than the Stock MSR 338 I bought when they had just been released.)

Critically for me, Cack-handers like myself can use it without removing skin from the top of our left hand with the bolt cycle

There are a few niggles with it, molding lines could be a little better, mags are fricking enormous (seriously, if you have small hands, don't bother, I can use Phablet phones one handed, I struggled to pull a reload with a single mitt), mags being enormous of course means pouches were a chore to locate if like me you dislike Multicam greatly.

I got it a little cheaper than the OP, ended up being about £180 for it and 3 extra mags. Some retailers (RWUK) are taking the piss at more than that even for just the gun.

Hey Fella,

Was looking at one of these, when you say "No need to look into the hop unit, as it's not going to be possible to swap for a VSR chamber, as dimensions are completely different." What do you mean? The way it's advertsied makes it soudn liek the whole hop up is VSR compatible, not just the barrel/Bucking.

How did you find the accuracy at 50m?

 

[GiantKiwi]

Hey Fella,

Was looking at one of these, when you say "No need to look into the hop unit, as it's not going to be possible to swap for a VSR chamber, as dimensions are completely different." What do you mean? The way it's advertsied makes it soudn liek the whole hop up is VSR compatible, not just the barrel/Bucking.

How did you find the accuracy at 50m?

As in not compatible at all. The unit in the gun is a larger diameter and a lot longer.

I wasn't really shooting at anything in particular, so I can't comment on the accuracy, I was just eyeballing how far the BB's were flying. I'll be able to report back in more detail tomorrow evening though.

 

[Hef Legend]

As in not compatible at all. The unit in the gun is a larger diameter and a lot longer.

I wasn't really shooting at anything in particular, so I can't comment on the accuracy, I was just eyeballing how far the BB's were flying. I'll be able to report back in more detail tomorrow evening though.

The lying B*******'s lol

For the price they are tempting, taking VSR buckings and barrels is a bonus. Be interesting to see how to volume works with the short stroke/small cylinder etc.

Let us know how you get on

 

[Brauster]

Think what they mean by VSR compatible hop they only mean the rubber! Providing the hop unit works well enough I can't see that being a big issue. Looks like it depends where you buy it from to what spring/power they have out the box.

Mine is in bits currently and will upload a few more pics when I'm back at a computer and let you know what spring rating has what output etc.

 

[GiantKiwi]

Hop chamber is positively amazing, completely stock I was getting consistent 1.5-2 inch groupings at 50m today, Accurately hitting body sized targets at 60m and fliers able to pass targets out past the 70m marker, this was also with a 20mph headwind which was deflecting anything past that mark, added bonus I was looking like a drowned rat afterwards

 

[Hef Legend]

Hop chamber is positively amazing, completely stock I was getting consistent 1.5-2 inch groupings at 50m today, Accurately hitting body sized targets at 60m and fliers able to pass targets out past the 70m marker, this was also with a 20mph headwind which was deflecting anything past that mark, added bonus I was looking like a drowned rat afterwards

Good to know.

I wonder how it would perform with an EdGi barrel and maple Leaf Decepticon bucking or sugru Patch.

What's the disassembly like on it?

Also where did you pick yours up from?

Cheers

Dan

 

[GiantKiwi]

Disassembly is pretty easy, you can have it down to it's component parts in about 15 minutes first time round (no disassembly instructions exist as far as i'm aware, and the exploded parts diagram is next to useless for that).

Got mine from MadDog Airsoft (Brampton, Cambs) who have an on site shop, I highly doubt they'll have much left after the amount of people I had pawing over mine today (Mostly after having been shot by it where other sniper rifle users could not get hits).

 

[Brauster]

Will be trying a few different springs in the next day or so and see how it goes but here are some internal pics so you can all see how good or bad you think it is.

I wasn't sure the spring guide was metal so thats had a polish as you can see from one of the progress pics.

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[Samurai]

I had the chance to shoot it. It was out of the box so no scope either.

Feels really good. The short stroke is good, a little bit grinding when pushing back, the trigger pull is very light. The body feels sturdy however there are seams on the plastic parts. The cocking indicator is handy, the safety is harder to move than the VSR's so probably won't switch it accidentally when cocking the gun. The TDC hop feels solid, but needs an allen key to set. Which is inside the grip itself. The outer barrel looks great. Oh yes, the mags are huuuuge.

It couldn't lift 0.43 Geoffs bio properly, but shot amazingly well with 0.25. I only had these two on me. My guess is that it would love 0.30 - 0.36. "Unfortunately" I already have a great sniper rifle but If I could afford one, I would definitely get one. For this price it's brilliant.

 

[Brauster]

Had a few minutes to play last night and fitted an AIP M135 spring. I was going to fit an SP140 but wanted to be slightly safer power wise considering ive not done anything to improve hop airseal as yet.

Good job I did go for the 135 as you can see from pics. I crono'd 50 shots and apart from a couple of abnormal readings the two pics were the highest @ 496.5fps and lowest @ 494.6fps giving a total variation of 1.9fps which is pretty good. Ignoring the odd abnormal reading the average worked out at 495fps.

OK I have seen better but I have also seen a hell of a lot worse!

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[Samurai]

 

[Brauster]

Had few moments over the weekend to try a few makes and weights of BB and I'm very happy with the performance of the standard hop up.

I have a 50 meter outdoor range and it was a good day wind wise with only a small cross wind, results were as follows.

0.20g Amoeba, ASG and Nuprol all consistently pointless apart from using with the chrono.

0.25g Proball, ASG and Geoffs. Better but only good to just past 30m and quite a few fliers.

0.36g Geoffs. Hop still lifted these really well and performed consistently hitting a torso sized target at 50 meters with almost every shot.

0.40g Geoffs, Proball and ASG I had the best result with the proball and geoffs and to be honest dont think I could say which one of the two performed better as both seemed identical. The ASG still performed very well but they were harder to trace as the BB's were a dark colour which is why I don't tend to use them.

Was easily hitting a head size target at 50 meters and looked like it would easily of reached further if I had a longer range.

Will be sticking to using the 0.40g white BB's, either Geoffs or Proballs. I didn't have anything heavier to try but might see if I can grab a sample at sometime and see how the hop works with those.