Good base m4 variant guns/companies

[Jxmie]

Hey guys,

I am looking for some good base companies/guns on the m4 variant that have good internals to be able to upgrade. I know for certain I want to stick in a gate titan and trigger, do a flat hop and precision barrel (if gun doesn't come with) and motor upgrade, and debating whether to go for new gears 12:1 and compression upgrade to get a nice fast fire rate, good accuracy and range too. Is there any guns/companies you recommend; and where to get them from as everywhere seems to be out of stock of 80% of their products. 

Any sort of help is appreciated

 

[BigStew]

whats your budget and why do you want good internals if you are just going to up grade everything? you might as well get what ever gun you like the external look of. Going to be rude here and ask have you any experience working on guns or you just watched a bunch of you tube vids that say you have to up grade straight away. Have you actually played airsoft?

Off the top of my head G&G, CYMA, specna arms make good m4 guns for reasonable money. VFC make expensive guns that look great but have shit internals, Tokyo Marui are the dad of all modern airsoft and their recoil range is really good and you do not need to up grade them at all. You can get a decent gun for the cost of a gate titan it has a lot of functions most people wont use why do you feel you need it? Rate of fire isn't really important anything out the box is fine if you go for a high rate of fire you run the risk of spamming other players. Accuracy comes from good quality BBs, cleaning your barrel and taking the time and using a range to set your hop right for the weight of BBs you are going to use. range wise most airsoft guns shoot accurately at around 45 to 55ish meters. Unless you go to a DMR or bolt action you are not going to see a massive increase by up grading gears/motor/piston/hop/barrel how much money are you willing to spend for an extra 5/10m range.  

Basically any gun over £100 is likely to perform decently enough and you can spend a lot of money chasing performance with little to show for it and you may end up making your gun unreliable. 

 

[Tackle]

No offence @Jxmie, if you know so much about these "must have" upgrades, how is it you know nothing about the guns their best suited to.

Why not just find an AR platform that you like the look of ? (irrespective of price), come back & ask if the manufacturer is reputable, most are, & then actually play some games with it in its standard set up. 

You'll probably be pleasantly surprised that it does what you ask of it, & will likely continue to do so without you throwing any more money at it, at least for a while anyway. 

 

[Jxmie]

whats your budget

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Looking to spend around maybe £400-500 for everything

why do you want good internals if you are just going to up grade everything?

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Didn't massively make my post clear, which is my mistake. By good internals i meant nice easy to work with, and not have a stock part that i might not change that isn't very good; i.e. bad compression/bad shimming out of the box.

Going to be rude here and ask have you any experience working on guns or you just watched a bunch of you tube vids that say you have to up grade straight away. Have you actually played airsoft?

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Not rude at all, very valid questions. I have been playing airsoft for maybe 4/5 months now, and the only upgrade I've done to my current gun is change the motor as the stock one kept getting hot and draining my battery quickly. And there's a few reasons i want to buy a gun to upgrade: 1. i want to learn airsoft tech and i feel like this is a good way to 2. i want to have a quicker semi-auto rate of fire 3. i want to have really good range and accuracy

why do you feel you need it?

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I want to hair-trigger my gun, run 11.1v lipo, and have the ability to change the trigger response and use the pre-cocking. But if there's an alternative that's cheaper that does most of the same things please let me know

Accuracy comes from good quality BBs

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I currently use asg devil .25, what do you recommend if this is something you wouldn't class as good quality?

No offence @Jxmie, if you know so much about these "must have" upgrades, how is it you know nothing about the guns their best suited to.

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I have been trying to do research about what guns are best suited to things but most things i found were about 3 years old at a minimum. And not sure how up to date these posts are about what's reputable or not. 

Why not just find an AR platform that you like the look of ? (irrespective of price), come back & ask if the manufacturer is reputable, most are, & then actually play some games with it in its standard set up. 

You'll probably be pleasantly surprised that it does what you ask of it, & will likely continue to do so without you throwing any more money at it, at least for a while anyway. 

Click to shrink...

thinking about it, you are right. its best to find a sexy gun, play with it, see what needs/could be improved and upgrade from there, right? Do you think its worth going to visit a shop to have a feel of some guns? (do they let people do that? my closest shop is about an hour or so away), just because the gun i bought previously is horrendously loud and i found that out the hard way.

Also in addition, is it worth (potentially) looking for a 2nd hand gun? as i know with some things, some people never really bother going for 2nd hand products (through a private purchase), as there is no warranty. 

 

[BigStew]

Looking to spend around maybe £400-500 for everything

Didn't massively make my post clear, which is my mistake. By good internals i meant nice easy to work with, and not have a stock part that i might not change that isn't very good; i.e. bad compression/bad shimming out of the box.

Not rude at all, very valid questions. I have been playing airsoft for maybe 4/5 months now, and the only upgrade I've done to my current gun is change the motor as the stock one kept getting hot and draining my battery quickly. And there's a few reasons i want to buy a gun to upgrade: 1. i want to learn airsoft tech and i feel like this is a good way to 2. i want to have a quicker semi-auto rate of fire 3. i want to have really good range and accuracy

I want to hair-trigger my gun, run 11.1v lipo, and have the ability to change the trigger response and use the pre-cocking. But if there's an alternative that's cheaper that does most of the same things please let me know

I currently use asg devil .25, what do you recommend if this is something you wouldn't class as good quality?

I have been trying to do research about what guns are best suited to things but most things i found were about 3 years old at a minimum. And not sure how up to date these posts are about what's reputable or not. 

thinking about it, you are right. its best to find a sexy gun, play with it, see what needs/could be improved and upgrade from there, right? Do you think its worth going to visit a shop to have a feel of some guns? (do they let people do that? my closest shop is about an hour or so away), just because the gun i bought previously is horrendously loud and i found that out the hard way.

Also in addition, is it worth (potentially) looking for a 2nd hand gun? as i know with some things, some people never really bother going for 2nd hand products (through a private purchase), as there is no warranty. 

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Not VFC then don't go krytac, Ares or ICS they tend to have proprietary parts. If you are set on a specific build don't go TM recoil you'll just spend a lot of money to make it worse than stock. other than that internally pretty much all m4 platforms are the same inside just varying levels of quality. I would consider the cyma platinum series as a good starting place if it has to be an M4.

If you can go off script CYMA M14 is everything you want it's cheap new so plenty of money for parts. It performs great out the box. It's easy to disassemble the gear box is easy to work on. Look up negative Airsofts latest you tube video he does a quick M14 personal build fitting a MOSFET. If you can get to a shop definitely do that have a feel of the guns even with M4s slight changes can make guns more or less comfortable to use. If it is a project gun second hand is definitely worth consideration especially if you are planning to upgrade. Airsoft warranties are Sketchy at best and if you open the gun at all even just to change the hop rubber your warranty could be void. Hope that help.

Sorry for intial harsh response we get to many post for new people who go "I have bought this gun is it any good? I have never used it what should I change as I want to shoot midges at half a km" So us old timers get just a bit cynical.

Also be aware it's good you have actually thought through in what you want to build but even a good build will be inherently more unreliable make sure you have a bone stock back up for when your build shits it's self mid game.

 

[Fatboy40]

@Jxmie I don't have any answers for you, however I'm intrigued by your post, and being a year into airsoft (and enjoying disassembling things as much as playing) I've gone through some of what you're talking about.

Looking at your posts, and what you appear to be trying to build, my only thought is that you'll be creating something that will be almost always be red lining itself (motoring analogy). Low gear ratio, hair trigger, pre-cocking, 11.1v, performance motor, semi only are all factors that combined give you a Formula 1 car of a gun that will have a shorter lifespan as it's under such stress and may well shit itself badly at some point, all that energy being pushed thought the motor into the gearbox / it having to stop quickly on semi auto / hold that spring back ?

I'll be honest in that if money was no object a lot of what you've said I'd be doing, but not unless I had a backup M4 that I always took to each game with me "just in-case".

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Must admit i find this concept of "upgrades" a bit baffling. Why not just spend the money on a decent gnu to begin with? Most "upgrades" end up costing at least as much as another gnu and result in a plethora of gremlins introduced which spoil your skirmish day, with very little noticeable improvement.

For most AEGs heavier BBs and a decent hop will get you there IMO. Maybe a longer barrel if you're wanting more of a DMR platform, but then you're just as well buying an M14 or something similar. Unless it's a really crap gearbox or piston I wouldn't bother touching anything else...

Eezer G

 

[EDcase]

Even if you put all the best/most expensive upgrades in a gnu there's no guarantee it will all work together.

In fact using various company parts its less likely to work well.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Thing is, a few well-chosen, subtle mods can make a difference. A better hop unit, better air seal/nozzle (stuff that really costs very little) can make subtle improvements in consistency.

Its when folk go on a Rishi Sunak-style spender bender and just start flinging expensive posh bits at the thing without any research that causes bother. Remember Tim Taylor from Home Improvement? "MOOORE POWERRRRR!!!"... same happens in airsoft. Folk bung in an 11.1 LiPo nuclear fusion reactor, a motor with the power of a CFM56 turbofan at full chat, DSGs in the gearbox to give an A10-esque ROF and a reinforced titanium/diamond or something piston, then wonder why the gearbox has shat itself, or the piston teeth get torn asunder, and can't work out why their £1000 super gnu has just shat itself in the middle of their game, whereas the bloke with the basic 99 quid CYMA AK carries on, yet again, all day without so much as a battery change...

 

[Rogerborg]

Must admit i find this concept of "upgrades" a bit baffling. Why not just spend the money on a decent gnu to begin with?

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Take a bow, Specna Arms Edge 2.0, for example:  https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/specna-arms-sa-h23-edge-2-0-tm-carbine-aeg

What's not to like?  QC spring, GATE ASTER mosfet, decent rotary hop, reasonable enough 6.03mm barrel, pre-wired to Deans.

Oh, and as I found to my surprise, my Edge 1.0 came flat hopped out of the box, something that I've not seen listed as a feature, and didn't even realise since I went straight to a Maple Leaf and threw the stock parts in the bits box.

The stock motor in the Edge 1.0s is OK but not great. If the 2.0 is the same then it's a candidate for replacement.

Stock barrel, or ZCI or AOLS.

Feed it 0.28g BBs, and enjoy.

 

[Tackle]

Looking to spend around maybe £400-500 for everything

Didn't massively make my post clear, which is my mistake. By good internals i meant nice easy to work with, and not have a stock part that i might not change that isn't very good; i.e. bad compression/bad shimming out of the box.

Not rude at all, very valid questions. I have been playing airsoft for maybe 4/5 months now, and the only upgrade I've done to my current gun is change the motor as the stock one kept getting hot and draining my battery quickly. And there's a few reasons i want to buy a gun to upgrade: 1. i want to learn airsoft tech and i feel like this is a good way to 2. i want to have a quicker semi-auto rate of fire 3. i want to have really good range and accuracy

I want to hair-trigger my gun, run 11.1v lipo, and have the ability to change the trigger response and use the pre-cocking. But if there's an alternative that's cheaper that does most of the same things please let me know

I currently use asg devil .25, what do you recommend if this is something you wouldn't class as good quality?

I have been trying to do research about what guns are best suited to things but most things i found were about 3 years old at a minimum. And not sure how up to date these posts are about what's reputable or not. 

thinking about it, you are right. its best to find a sexy gun, play with it, see what needs/could be improved and upgrade from there, right? Do you think its worth going to visit a shop to have a feel of some guns? (do they let people do that? my closest shop is about an hour or so away), just because the gun i bought previously is horrendously loud and i found that out the hard way.

Also in addition, is it worth (potentially) looking for a 2nd hand gun? as i know with some things, some people never really bother going for 2nd hand products (through a private purchase), as there is no warranty. 

Click to shrink...

Buying secondhand is fine 99% of the time, looking at the seller is just as important as looking at the gun, consider feedback/post count/POST CONTENT (can tell you a lot about a person), & how long a member, all these things are worth considering rather than getting mesmerised by a shiny gnu ?