Tokyo Marui ABS

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emilianoksa

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Saw a photo of a Glock 17 which had come out of its holster and hit the deck, the other day. It had a curved horizontal crack running from the slide release to the beginning of the grip tang.

At first I thought it must be a Marui, but then I saw that it was Gen 4, and in fact, what looks like an Elite Force Glock licensed gun. I expected a so called polymer to be superior in strength to ordinary ABS. Is this a bit of a myth? 

In any case we have no way of checking the grade of polymer used on guns, or the pot metal for that matter. People say there is more aluminium in some airsoft zinc alloys than others, but you have to take that on trust. 

I know TM slides will crack but their frames seem to hold up well. There's a bloke on youtube who owns a TM HK45 that has been dropped several times, including being flung out of a holster onto the tarmac, but it only has a couple of surface scratches and little dints. It has held up pretty well to rough treatment.

The good old JG G36c has an ABS body but it's said to be pretty tough. Are the cheaper range of TM plastic rifles like the Aug equally tough? ABS may not look particular good but is it really that much weaker than the so called polymers used in airsoft?.

 
Polymer is a fancy name for plastic.  ABS is a polymer, a really tough one. 

 
I don't even think ABS is actually used in all cases, it's just became a generic term for plastic in the early days of airsoft along with 'heavyweight'. ABS has a very distinct smell when melted/burnt and most guns ( if you've ever chequered a grip with a soldering iron or similar) don't actually smell like ABS. Even ABS is variable, as you can vary the ratios of A, B, & S in the mix for different properties. I think the quality of plastic on airsoft is pretty much an unknown and you have to go on a case by case basis, much like 'full metal' which ranges from utter shit, brittle, granular pot metal (aka ZAMAK, MAZAK etc) to actual, genuine, aluminum or steel.  I think some manufacturers even go so far as to call their guns 'aluminium' due to the fact zamak has a whole 4% aluminium in it! (It's mainly zinc)

 
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As a new airsofter I was dead against plastic. That was until I played a couple of games and then followed advice on here and bought two TM pistols. They are the best, and once you have been converted to TM, there is no going back.

I have now come to believe  that TM plastic series  rifles that need no upgrading and function well in stock form for years are probably great to use in cqb games.. As you say Koppel, plastic is plastic however they want to describe it. The TM plastic may not have the best appearance but it's probably strong enough for all but the roughest treatment.

Even the expensive Recoil Shock guns are sporting the same ABS stocks  and grips as the rest of the TM line up. Their G36c recoil shock and AA-12 shotgun must be made of the same sort of plastic too. And nobody seems to be complaining about these guns. FPS doesn't really matter much to me as I only play indoors. When I have saved up a bit of money I may well try a high cycle. 

 
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jcheeseright said:
Polymer is a fancy name for plastic.  ABS is a polymer, a really tough one. 
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I think this has all come about from manufacturers that have used "nylon reinforced polymer" or "fibre reinforced polymer" in their blurb which makes it sound like it's not plastic. Which of course it is, just that it's plastic with bits of string in it!

 
Lozart said:
I think this has all come about from manufacturers that have used "nylon reinforced polymer" or "fibre reinforced polymer" in their blurb which makes it sound like it's not plastic. Which of course it is, just that it's plastic with bits of string in it!
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Could be yeah, but the amount of times I've heard "oh it's not plastic it's polymer"... FML. 

 
Hahaha, I once saw a guy bragging about his full metal MP7... I was genuinely amazed that a company had spent the time and effort to make one in the wrong material. 

 
Lozart said:
I think this has all come about from manufacturers that have used "nylon reinforced polymer" or "fibre reinforced polymer" in their blurb which makes it sound like it's not plastic. Which of course it is, just that it's plastic with bits of string in it!
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While that’s true, nylon fibre is still just plastic/ polymer/ whatever, it is much nicer than ‘normal’ plastic 

 
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