Double Bell By-813s - Hk416a5 Almost

[mightyjebus]

This AEG is loosely based on the HK 416A5 model and I go into details further down this review listing the things not quite right with it to make it a proper looking 416A5.

 

First up is the company Double Bell. Double Bell used to just be called “Bell” and I did a review on one of their AK47’s about 15 years ago (it was crap) so I think 15 years is long enough to revisit them and see what they are doing now.

The new name “Double Bell” came about when they bought the Dboys factory and toolings and started pushing out Dboys M4’s but have since up’d their game and are now making their own versions of weapons in AEG form.

They also produce about 300 different Glock pistols in different styles and I have a G17L which runs like a train and was cheap to boot so I’m hoping for good things from this AEG.

 

Full disclosure – I don’t know anyone form Bell or Double Bell and bought this AEG from Taiwangun for £197 delivered to my door.

 

 

I’d normally start with an unboxing picture but since it came in a plain brown cardboard box there didn’t seem to be any point.

Inside the box you get the full metal AEG, a Hi-cap magazine and a little Z shaped square key to wind up the magazine as the Hicap doesn’t have the traditional thumb wheel on the bottom to load the magazine. The only other thing in my box was a sheet from Taiwangun telling me it had been tested and 10 shots recorded with a FPS too high for all UK sites (420 approx with hop off). First thing I will do is change the spring to bring the FPS down to 340ish.

Going back to the magazine some people might like the realism of having a hicap without the thumb wheel poking out the bottom but I think I’ll end up loosing the Z key used to wind it so I’ll throw it into my spares box and use some other midcaps I have floating around. The Magazine doesn’t have any markings and the black paint seems thin. The Magazine is based on the Gen 1 Aluminium style magazine fist introduced with the HK 416.

 

Let’s talk about the HK416A5 and how this replica compares to the real thing.

 

Let’s start from the back and work forward.

The Stock – The AEG has a nice copy of the real thing and the back plate comes off allowing a battery to be fitted to the Mini Tamiya connector inside the stock tube. I can fit a 11.1V 1300Mah sized LIPO inside the stock no problem. The sock doesn't have the HK trade found on the real thing.

 

Stock Tube – The real thing is dark earth in colour and the AEG is black. A quick blast of dark earth paint should sort that out. The stock is tight on the stock tube but there is a slight wobble when locked into the 5 lock points on the stock tube. A lot of AEG’s suffer from this and it caused by the catch/rod that goes into the 5 position holes is too small in diameter for the hole

 

Lower receiver – The lower receiver on the AEG has the correct Ambi controls for fire selector, bolt release and Magazine release. All work flawlessly and when you pull the charging handle to the rear the fake bolt cover locks open so you can adjust the hop unit and closes when you press either of the bolt release levers.

I like the fact that the magazine release goes together like the real thing and the rod screws into the button and doesn’t use a screw to hold the button on.

The fire selector is black whereas on the real thing they are tan coloured (again a quick blast of paint will sort that out).

The rear body pin is captive and the front body pin has a spring and pin retainer just like the real thing. This is good as it stops you loosing the body pin if you have the AEG in half. You don’t need to take out the rear body pin to separate the upper and lower receiver.

My AEG doesn’t have the HK trades however I believe that the Far East versions do have the correct trades. Mines is limited to the markings for the safe-semi-auto around the selector switch.

The trigger guard is the correct shape (Half-moon) but it’s the wrong colour and should be tan/dark earth.

The pistol grip is nice and fits in the hand nicely but it’s actually at the wrong angle. The 416 family use a sharper angle on the pistol grip to improve point ability when holding the real thing but this AEG has a more traditional AEG styled slope to it. I have a spare VFC grip (in black) that I will try to fit to see if it’s possible but in all honesty,  I like the one on the DB 416A5 so will probably swap back.

The paint finish is in a nice dark earth colour and on the website I thought it looked too light but now that I have it in front of me I think it’s a good match. It seems pretty durable and doesn’t scratch easily.

 

Upper Receiver – there is a slight wobble between the upper and lower receiver with a slight gap between the two. I have a similar gap on some of my TM NGRS rifles so it’s nothing to get excited about. I think I can get rid of the wobble by adding a “Magic Pin” to replace the front body pin.

The rear sight is the correct type and correct colour (on the VFC A5 it’s Tan but on the real thing most pictures show it as black.)

The cocking handle is black and has a traditional latch whereas the real thing is either black or tan and has an enhanced latch. It should be possible to replace the standard latch with an enhanced one if you can find one.

The dust cover is plastic just like the real thing.

The fake bolt is so wrong. It should be black and have the HK trades on it. I’m not sure how this will hold up to being sprayed black as it will probably wear off quite quickly. I’ll be on the lookout for a standard AEG style fake bolt in the correct colour with trades.

 

 

The rail – The rail is the newer 416 style with a front sight built into the top at the front of the rail. This pops up under spring tension but on the AEG the spring is pretty weak and it doesn’t take much to knock it back down. I’ll look at this in more detail to see if I can improve the spring tension but for since I’ll probably run some sort of optic I can’t seeing this being a problem.

The rail is held onto the upper receiver in the traditional HK style with a large barrel nut with 1 slot for the bolt to pass through and hold the rail into position. The rail is a free-floating rail for anyone interested. It’s also worth noting that the bolt that holds the rail to the barrel nut changed to a slotted screw type head on the A5 but on the DB 416A5 it uses an allen bolt.

 

Outer Barrel and gas Block – This is probably the area that suffers the most for being unlike the RS 416A5. On the real thing the Gas Block is now adjustable for “Normal” or “Suppressed” whereas on the AEG version they have used the older vented style. There should be a plug sticking out the front of the gas block which in real life is used to adjust the amount of gas going to the piston.

The DB 416A5 is meant to be the 14.5 inch barrelled version however the barrel profile is wrong. The DB has a traditional M4 styled outer barrel but it should have a solid 1 piece outer barrel with bayonet lug and pop up front sight.

Now if this bugs you as much as it bugs me then all is not lost. The outer barrel is 2 piece and the front part that goes from the flash hider to the front of the gas block screws off (-14mm threads). One surprise for me was that the inner barrel goes all the way through the 14.5 inch outer barrel so if you want to run the AEG at 11 inches then you will either need to cut the inner barrel or fit a smaller length one.

If you decide to run a mock silencer then having the longer barrel might work for you as you can just thread the silencer onto the gas block and have a full length barrel.

 

Gas piston – This is a traditional 416 style gas piston housed inside the front rail. I noticed a slight rattle coming from the front rail and when I removed the rail I seen that the gas piston doesn’t plug into the upper receiver properly and is just kind of sat there. I think with a bit of heavy handling this might come loose so to fix mine I’m going to cut the piston slightly so that it fits into the upper receiver.

 

The real thing

 

The flash hider is a traditional bird cage type with -14mm threads held onto the outer barrel by a grub screw. This will allow you to put on whatever flash hider takes your fancy.

 

The internals

Popping out the front body pin allows the upper and lower parts to be separated. This gives you access to the hop unit and inner barrel.

The hop unit is a 1 piece metal unit with a traditional adjustment dial on the right hand side. Looking down the inner barrel I can see that it works as intended however I did notice that the inner barrel was dirty so if you buy one of these make sure you clean the inside of the barrel.

 

I'll cover the gearbox and lower internals in Part 2.

 

How does it shoot?

This is probably the biggest question and in all honesty it fires fine. It doesn’t have a Mosfet so will seem sluggish when compared to a Specna Arms M4 with a Gate Aster fitted and when using a 11.1V LIPO it fired a bit snappier.

For CQB ranges it’s going to run fine and if you want to reach out and touch someone at a Woodland site then the normal upgrades would apply.

Range now is about 45 meters so not unusable but could be improved.

 

My plans for this AEG is to make it look a bit more like the real HK416A5. This includes swapping the Gas Block for a VFC one (£18), removing the 14.5 barrel extension and fitting a smaller one to take the barrel length to 11 inches.

I’m going to fit a Gate Aster and S hop the inner barrel which will also be cut down the inner barrel to the inside of the flash hider.

I’ll probably try and find a spray paint that matches the Dark Earth colour and spray up the black parts that should be Dark Earth.

 

Once I rip out the gearbox I'll post up part 2.

 

 

[Sitting Duck]

It is an updated D-Boys 416 or rather 614 or BI-8001 or 801

(or other variation of codes/styles)

 

They chucked in the outer extension barrel on the 614 but had a shorter barrel on mine

My 416/614 had a horrid clear plastic hop unit I think, that never really held its setting and mediocre at best

& gearbox was a 7mm bearing reinforced V2, meaning it needing a bit of modding to fit 13:1's

mine were front wired with a PEQ box, that got rewired to rear

Gun is pretty weighty as it is

 

Aside from a few meh bits n bobs it is a pretty decent cheap 416 without trades

cheaper than the WE 888 416, though the D-Boy does need a few tweaks where some cost corners were cut

(fine if you don't mind a bit of DIY, maybe not for others who are not wanting to gut their new peew peew)

 

Nice to see a better hop unit and longer barrel on this model

Might be a 8mm box by now, think D-Boys have just used/sold/changed the name & revised their 614 a bit

Nice budget 416's, needs a tweak but overall I'm pleased with my 416/614's for what I paid for them

 

NB: sorry to crash thread, would love to see if the box has been updated when you get a chance

nice purchase & review btw

(mods - please delete this post as it would likely spoil an excellent review of new 416)

 

[mightyjebus]

feel free to post what you want on this thread. the more info the better.

 

I cranked the gearbox open after I spent around 2 hours trying to figure out how to get it out of the receiver. The hold up was removing the selector levers. Normally you have allen bolts holding the selectors to the side of the gearbox and on this model this is the same however there are fake plates over the top of the allen bolt that have to be prised off to allow you to unscrew the allen bolt and remove both selectors. It took me ages to figure that out since there are no manuals available.

 

The motor is an unbranded one and spins easily by hand so this rules out anything fancy. It does the job well in the stock setup and looks to be well made.

 

The gearbox outer shell looks to be well cast and because it has a quick change spring it comes apart easily unlike the older generation of V2 gearboxes which had a tendency to thown parts far and wide when you separated the 2 halves.

 

Inside the gearbox everything looks to be decent quality. The compression is good, there is a selector/delayer chip already installed and the piston has the first tooth removed. Shimming seems fine, grease isn't overly done and my only gripe is the anti reversal latch is loose in it's hole making it fall over when you are trying to put the gearbox halves back together.

 

The selector plate on the left hand side is metal and I think it has 7mm bearings but I need to get my calipers and double check.

 

[mightyjebus]

I spent a bit of time earlier making the DB 416A5 look more like the real thing.

 

I painted the stock pipe, trigger guard and fire selectors 

 

I sprayed the fake bolt cover gun metal.

 

I removed the outer barrel extension and added a 1 inch extension and added the original flash hider. I cut down the inner barrel so that it fits inside the new outer barrel size. The Brown paint looks lighter in the photos than with the Mk1 eyeball.

 

Next up will be fitting the Gate Aster and I'll get some photos of the gearbox internals as I go along.

[Zarrin]

Looks great with the Tan Elcan Spectre - does it have the handle that flips from 1x - 4x or is it fixed 4x ?

[mightyjebus]

Just now, Zarrin said:

Looks great with the Tan Elcan Spectre - does it have the handle that flips from 1x - 4x or is it fixed 4x ?

yup..its the 1 or 4 mag version

 

[Zarrin]

3 minutes ago, mightyjebus said:

yup..its the 1 or 4 mag version

 

Nice, such a cool optic - I have a Valken or Vortex clone type thing which dials between 1-4x (so not quite as fast switching on the go as your spectre) but what I find is that the optics on a 1-4x module in 1x mode are so much clearer than your average RDS or Holo... such a versatile solution.

[mightyjebus]

I swapped the pistol grip for a VFC 416 pistol grip and I can confirm that it fits and the motor has no issues turning over the gearbox. I've swapped back to the DB pistol grip as I prefer it.

 

I've now fitted a Gate Aster to mine and it wasn't painless but it's now fitted and working. The Aster has a hole in the centre that is used to secure to the gearbox using a screw with insulating washer. The gearbox shell has a raised post and the original trigger contacts are secured to the gearbox shell with a screw using this post. The Aster hole doesn't fit over this post. You have 2 choices, 1 is to remove the post and 2 is to enlarge the hole on the Aster. I went for option 2 and increased the hole size to 4.5mm. Drilling a bigger hole in an Aster is going to invalid the warranty so don't do this unless you are brave or stupid.  

 

The gearbox shell has some extra gears on the outside, similar to a Dboys PDW, and you need to correctly align them when rebuilding the gearbox to make sure the Ambi selectors work.

 

When re-assembling the right hand side selector it should look like this:

 

The left hand side should look like this:

 

Inside the gearbox you will find steel gears, 8mm bearings, vented cylinder, plastic toothed piston and the rest is all standard V2 stuff. Everything is an OK standard so I'm not going to change anything until it breaks but being a V2 you can go crazy with upgrades if you want.

 

I mentioned earlier that the Magazine release screwed into the button but this was wrong. It actually uses a small grub screw to hole the button to the post. It's the first time I've seen this design and it seems to be durable.

 

So that's the review for the Double Bell BY-813S. Here's a comparison of what I started with to how it looks now.

 

The only thing more I will do is fit an enchanced charging handle latch and fit a VFC A5 gas block when it turns up.

 

My conclusion is that this is a good budget AEG which works fine without modification however it's easy to upgrade and being a standard V2 gearbox you will find loads of parts available to make it a very good AEG. It's a sub £200 AEG and is the same standard as a CYMA, DBOYS or any of the other budget AEG range. If you are after a HK416A5 replica then this isn't a exact match but it's cheap enough that you can buy the parts needed to make it look a lot closer without breaking the bank.

This is the second Bell replica I have and both work fine so I'm  now happy to go and buy another if a model appears that I want and I know that with a few upgrades it will preform very well.

[mightyjebus]

While waiting for the VFC gas block to tuen up I decided to have a go at doing the trade marks.

 

 

I also added a end plate sling point.

 

Trades were cut on a vinyl cutter and then spray painted. Once almost dry the vinyl is pulled off to leave the trademarks. The the whole thing is given a coat of matt varnish to stop them wearing off.

[Zarrin]

Nicely done, did you add pieces of roofing felt to the Pmag indentations  ? Looks good.

[mightyjebus]

1 hour ago, Zarrin said:

Nicely done, did you add pieces of roofing felt to the Pmag indentations  ? Looks good.

naa they are Pmag grips. Not seen them on sale for a bit but they do add extra grip when removing the mag.

[Zarrin]

2 hours ago, mightyjebus said:

naa they are Pmag grips. Not seen them on sale for a bit but they do add extra grip when removing the mag.

 

looks like they are probably quite effective and the two tone black on tan looks good too.

[mightyjebus]

added the rest of the trademarks

 

currently 3D printing a fake gas plug as I'm impatient.

[mightyjebus]

 

Resin 3D printed Gas plug installed until the VFC one gets here from Japan.

[mightyjebus]

VFC gas block fitted after much swearing. It's not a direct fit and took a bit of filing, bashing etc to make it work.

 

[Mawky]

Very nice review. I'm kind of on the fence about picking one of these up. I recently finished my AEG build and was looking for something cheap to turn into an HPA platform. I've always had a soft spot for the HK416 but getting the VFC is simply too expensive if I'm going to gut the thing. At first I was looking at the Specna Arms sa-h02 but I can't find them anywhere and again the newer version, the sa-h20 is too much because of the Gate Aster. Long story short I'm only looking for good quality externals. 

 

Would you recommend the Double Bell HK style replicas and would it be worth it to upgrade the hopup chamber as well as the inner barrel (shorter version)? 

 

I kind of like the fact that the DB ones don't have 'trades' like the SA one so I can have them laser engraved locally. 

[mightyjebus]

These externals are the same quality as the Dboys AEGs. I think the material, fit and finish is good and the hop up and inner barrel do the job but its always an option to upgrade especially if you want to increase the range.

[Dennydays]

Hey! What tan paint did you use for the buffer tube and Selectors 

[Naster]

@mightyjebus I've just got my hands on my replica. I want to get a dummy silencer, but I'm not sure how to get off the gas block/ outer barrel. I figured out how to remove the flash hider, but the other part is not moving at all. Maybe there is a screw somewhere that fixes it, can you help me?

[Nick G]

Can you be a bit more specific about which bit you are trying to remove ? a silencer would generally just replace the flash hider. 

[Naster]

4 minutes ago, Nick G said:

Can you be a bit more specific about which bit you are trying to remove ? a silencer would generally just replace the flash hider. 

The part in the red rectangle in the picture I've posted. I thought the flash hider is only the small part in front of it
I want to to put the silencer on the thread that sticks right after the rail

[Nick G]

7 minutes ago, Naster said:

The part in the red rectangle in the picture I've posted. I thought the flash hider is only the small part in front of it
I want to to put the silencer on the thread that sticks right after the rail

that should just unscrew , sometimes they can be very tight, and remember it'll be a ccw thread so unscrews the oposite way to a 'normal' thread . You going to run the silencer hard against the rail ? that'lllook very cool !

if you want to take the birdcage off of that extension there is usually a grub screw under the rear of it that needs releasing

[Naster]

3 minutes ago, Nick G said:

that should just unscrew , sometimes they can be very tight, and remember it'll be a ccw thread so unscrews the oposite way to a 'normal' thread . You going to run the silencer hard against the rail ? that'lllook very cool !

if you want to take the birdcage off of that extension there is usually a grub screw under the rear of it that needs releasing

Yes, it is CCW thread. I've tried to unscrew it using pliers, but didn't move it at all.

and yeah- the flash hider has this tiny screw on the rear that releases it before you are able to unscrew it, but I've didn't noticed anything on the big part behind it that I need to remove in order to put the suppressor on the outer barrel- green rectangle on this picture:

[Nick G]

That is tight then. I've never had a barrel extension that had a grub screw so I doubt there will be one. You might try some heat, ended up dunking one of mine in a mug of boiling water to get it to shift . There is also a verey very slight chance it is a 'normal' thread but I'd be incredibly surprised they are quite unusual in airsoft. I'd go with heat and see if that helps, might have been thread locked.

[mightyjebus]

I just checked and it's a -14mm thread. mine was hand tight but the QC from China probably means your one has threadlock applied unlike mine. Heat is probably the only way to get it off unless you have a strap wrench.

one other option if you don't want the barrel extension is to remove the inner barrel and drill a hole through the outer barrel and stick a screwdriver through the hole and twist.