Arp556 or arp9?

[Wolfie]

Hi all... I have a Firehawk and love it but it's performance is now starting to irritate me a little. Distance, fire rate, accuracy are all fine but its the way it fires that's getting to me... (ill try to explain)... in cqb, I come around a corner and face to face with my son. He's holding an arp9... we both pull the trigger at the same time and his gun has peppered me while motor is still spinning up... so.

I'm going to upgrade to the arp platform. My question is... Do I go for the arp9 with drum mag (£219 + drum) or the 556 (£285 but takes M4 mags that I already have)...

Any opinions on these?

[Guest]

I’ve had both, I liked the metal body of the 556 better, and mag capacity

[colinjallen]

Maybe buy a high torque motor, possibly combined with lower ratio gears.  That would be a damned sight cheaper than buying a new gun.

You could also maybe fit a basic mosfet.

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

The chap above beat me to making the same comment.

 

On another note.  That's one well proportioned car engined trike if thats what I can see in the tiny thumbnail.

[MagpieTactical]

I have an arp556 and love it.  It's nice that it's metal, but they also do a polymer one now too if you want to save some cash and still use the m4 mags. 

 

I can't say I have noticed much performance difference between my ARP556 and friends' arp9s

[Rogerborg]

While I'm not pooh-poohing any excuse to buy another RIF, why not give the Firehawk a bit of love? You can upgrade the motor without touching the gearbox, then there's a plethora of things you could do inside it: mosfet, thicker wiring, gears, short stroking.

[Steveocee]

By the time you're done messing with the Firehawk with upgrade parts you'll have spent half the value of a newer ARPx. 

 

My advice would be to go for whichever ARPx you fancy (556 makes sense if you already have the mags) and then quietly slide in a Perun ETU++ in place of the stock mosfet, then you get pre cocking, more space as it's smaller and a host of options that will take your ARP to the level above boy wonders.

[Rogerborg]

2 hours ago, Steveocee said:

By the time you're done messing with the Firehawk with upgrade parts you'll have spent half the value of a newer ARPx.

 

Eh. You might be done after a motor swap, that's why I suggested that first.  I've been pleasantly surprised by the boost in response and ROF just from dropping cheap Big Dragon M140s into my AEGs, without doing anything inside the gearboxes, or going to 11.1V.

 

Still, having a stock backup is always a good idea, and there's certainly nothing wrong with shifting the Firehawk to the back of the bag.

[BigStew]

My arp9 is accurate to 50m I.e I'll get a hit if I aim centre mass. I can lob shot 70ish metres but  I ain't hitting shit on purpose ( more suppressive fire) I highly recommend the arp9 with a drum mag (so much fun). I would say having back up is never a bad thing. Have you field striped the firehawk ever? You could take the barrel out clean it change hop rubber ( they do have limited life span) see if that improves range, accuracy might give a slight power improvement. Even if it helps I would still get another gun. Then you could start serious upgrades with out the risk of being with out a gun 

[Rogerborg]

3 hours ago, BigStew said:

[Do stuff to the Firehawk]

 

OP's only reported issue with it is semi-auto response, which is why I'd suggest upgrading the motor and seeing if that transforms it.  I mostly play semi-auto CQB and have been very pleased by the improvement just from motor swaps (and a bit of rewiring).

 

The ARP is operating on the same set of physics as the Firehawk.  Worst case, if a new motor doesn't evolve the Firehawk to its final form, it'll still be better than it was, and a more shootier backup. 

[Mixwell]

Hi all, nit sure if posting in correct place but I'll ask anyway. I have a hpa  G&G arp556 that I want to add an alternative co plete upper reciever to for different scenarios. Us the arp9 receiver compatible with the arp556 lower as I've found a nicely priced arp9 that I could use if it will fit.

 

Any help greatly appreciated, Thanks

[Fatboy40]

@Wolfie My son's first rifle was a Firehawk, and it's now his backup, so hopefully my comments will be useful.

 

It's a great rifle / platform, which as stock has a huge volume of air that with a barrel change can easily be a DMR / hit over 400 FPS on 0.20g BBs, however the trigger massively lets it down (it's not the motor). It's a terrible mechanical trigger that just seems to take an eternity for the contacts to touch each other and finally pass current to the motor, and comparing it directly to the three Double Eagle rifles we now have at home with the Falcon Fire Control system in them (a knock-off of the optical GATE Titan) we could probably shoot two to three rounds on semi before the Firehawk got off one. Also I don't know if you also get this but an incomplete pull of the trigger on semi can at times cause only a partial cycle of the gearbox, so you have to flip to auto and fire to get a cycle, then flip back to semi.

 

Of course you can buy a new rifle, with either a micro-switch trigger or an optical trigger (and hopefully "cycle detection" as well), or either work on the Firehawk yourself or get a good tech to do it. For example you could just swap in this...

 

https://www.defconairsoft.co.uk/product/gg-airsoft-etu-electronic-trigger-unit-mosfet-v-2-series-lipo-power-control/

 

... and see a good change, however a cheap optical controller and trigger would totally transform it and I expect a tech could do this for around £150? (after playing this Sunday my son and I aren't playing again until the end of Feb, so I'm going to bite the bullet and buy a GATE Titan v2 and fit it myself).