JG SA58/LK58 30000 FAL carbine owner's thread

[RostokMcSpoons]

As mentioned in the 'What Have You Just Bought' thread, I've picked up one of these bad boys for a bit of a song from Action Hobbies' boneyard.

Had to stick a barrel extension on it for a more SLR feel, and an old red-dot 1.5X sight cos it suits the aesthetic, and bingo, it's close to the classic battle rifle look I really love.

 

I was expecting a polymer receiver, so was delighted to find this has a metal upper.

It seems to have been upgraded - the rate of fire with a 7.4v is great.
The advert talked of a Gate Aster inside.  It seems that's true, I watched a video and it follows the expected Gate Aster behaviour from the trigger programming.
I think it has a longer inner barrel too, its poking into the flash hider when in normal carbine configuration.

Accuracy seems merely 'ok', but I've only chucked 0.20's down the garden for 15m so far.   Might need a fresh hop rubber.
 

But of course, it was boneyard for a reason.   It seems to have been upgraded, but there is an issue with the single shot function where it doesn't always fire.   You can hear the gearbox cycle but I suspect it's not getting all the way back to the point of release.  Next trigger pull releases the pre-cocked spring.
 

 

I've tried changing the Active Braking from 'auto' to 'off', but that didn't seem to make any difference.

Any ideas on things what could be wrong?   
Breaking open the gearbox will be a last resort, given I don't seem to have much luck with the darned things, but damnit this gun is a lovely bit of kit and I'll want to run it a lot if I can get it fettled.


Oh yeah, a handy hint for anyone averse to reading instructions before playing with their new toy - the screw in the buttplate is fake - don't expend masses of effort trying to undo it   And be complaining about cheesing the screw head when it's made of plastic  
The butt plate slides straight down and off to reveal the battery compartment!

Edited June 15 by RostokMcSpoons

[Lozart]

It would be worth investing in the USB link for the Aster so you can interrogate it properly. It's possible that it's not been fitted correctly and isn't seeing the cam on the sector gear correctly.

[JinxDuh]

Has anybody managed to fit an FN FAL handguard to one of these? I’m considering getting one and building it up to be a “good enough” as the ares is shit, and the VFC is out of my price range for a while 

[Colin Allen]

18 hours ago, JinxDuh said:

Has anybody managed to fit an FN FAL handguard to one of these? I’m considering getting one and building it up to be a “good enough” as the ares is shit, and the VFC is out of my price range for a while 

I probably wouldn't go so far as to describe the Ares as shit; it isn't great out of the box but, once the problems are fixed, it is a decent rifle.

[JinxDuh]

5 hours ago, Colin Allen said:

I probably wouldn't go so far as to describe the Ares as shit; it isn't great out of the box but, once the problems are fixed, it is a decent rifle.

The only experience I had with it was that I bought it brand new, took it to a game, chrono’d fine and then roughly 10 minutes into the first game it made a horrible noise and never worked again. One of the gears had broken, which led to a refund and me never wanting to touch another one 😂