G&G GR16 A3 & King Arms ACOG review

[Shaun655]

Well you all have probably read many reviews of this gun, since it is now becoming the Honda Civic of airsoft, cheap reliable and well built you will probably read a lot more. To offer you a little extra though this review will also include a review of a King Arms ACOG red dot site. To begin I would have to say what a great package for the price. You get a great gun, cleaning rod, peak charger and 9.6v1400mah nimh battery, 450 round metal hi-cap mag, and some adjustment tools. Most people probably went with the M4 style, but I love the look and feel of the full size M16. The gun with magazine, sling, and ACOG weighed in at roughly 7 ¼ pounds. I personally don’t mind this, but it has draw backs in room clearing or close quarters, but you can make up for that in the open areas. As for the King Arms ACOG I find it to looks great, ya I am vane, but I do believe they have their purpose, and make for quick target acquisition in my opinion.

First impression of my GR16 A3 has been positive in almost every aspect. The gun feels very solid and although new, has not lost its solid feel. It helps that the stock is one piece I’m sure, but none the less a great gun to play with. The gun comes with a charger and battery and I have contacted many stores who have told me that the stock charger will support a larger G&G battery the 9.6v 4500, so for those who want an upgrade this will work, and run you around 89.00. Other upgrade options I would seriously take your time to consider if they are internal. One the barrel is a 6.035 tight bore, so no real need to mess with it, and the Version 2 gear box, is well built and very solid, already equipped with ball bearing spring guide, and a complement of metal gears, and full metal gear box. There is much more information which you can find at many sites on the net, but the point I want to make is just how stable this gun already is, and you should really consider how you spend your money since the performance gains may not be worth the investment. After putting about 1000 rounds through the gun I chronographed it with .25g bb’s, sorry didn’t have .20g to get a base FPS, but anyway it shot 1st round 315fps 2nd round 315fps 3rd round 310fps 4th round 313fps and 5th round 315fps.
Recently I have taken apart the gear box for maintenance and upgrades. I was very excited to see how well the Version 2 was holding up. Everything still looked bran new in there. Ball bearings were all moving smoothly, there were no metal shavings anywhere that I could find. The box was very well lubricated around all the components. I also found something out that I did not know until the tear down, and the gun is equiped with a ball bearing piston head. I knew of the spring guide, but the piston head was news to me. After I cleaned the gun up, and made sure the gears were properly aligned then I installed a PDI spring. After reading reviews on spring charts I decided to go with a PDI 150% spring hoping to achieve around 380FPS with a .20G bb, but I ended up get 383FPS with a .25g bb. and around 423fps with a .20g bb. I may try to order a PDI 140% to get the gun a little closer to 400FPS.
The King Arms ACOG that I am using with my gun is a solid 5 setting red dot, with windage and elevation adjustments. It is coated with an anti reflective lens coating and is covered in a type of rubber. There are only 5 brightness settings, but I can assure you that they cover all needs. In doors in the dark the 1st setting is perfect, if not a touch too bright, but nothing to worry about, and the brightest setting is visible outside even if you are facing in the direction of the sun. For those of you that want to mount this on the M16 carry handle with an adapter mount please note this did not work for me. I could not adjust the elevation of the ACOG to go low enough and for some reason it did not give me enough adjustment to center the dot either. Once I dropped it down these issues were gone, and now its dead center, but I did waste my money on a Guarder carry handle mount.

I have had the chance to fire roughly 5000 rounds through my G&G and it has been very reliable to date. The accuracy is still right where it was new, and I have had no need to fix or replace a single thing. I was fortunate to be able to get a feel for accuracy in an indoor environment that was roughly 70’ long with a gun rest and the groupings were predictable and tight. At that distance almost all shots were within a three inch diameter of one another. Full auto grouping remained tight, but did increase the total are to maybe a 4 for 5” diameter. One issue that I have heard other G&G owners talk about is a feed issue, but this has not been a problem for me. At first I was using the hi-cap mag and if not wound up a lot it would sometimes not feed on full auto, or if shooting bursts. I started using King Arms 68 rounds metal mags and this problem decreased, so it may be an issue with the hi-cap and not the gun, but it is something some G&G owners deal with.

Bottom line with the G&G GR16 A3 is that I would recommend this to someone who wants to get into airsoft, or to someone who maybe just has not gotten around to get something from the Armalite family. The price is great, its very complete out of the box, and for myself up to this date has been reliable; furthermore, you can find video support offered on the Internet on taking apart and putting back together your G&G. You can find the selection of videos on Mach1 airsoft or by searching Youtube.

PROS G&G GR16 A3

Reliability: So far so good, just silicone oil and the gun is happy and healthy at 5000 rounds
Performance: .25g bb’s are shooting at 315fps in nice tight groupings
Value: The gun came with everything right out of the box to have a great time, so I can’t find any fault with it there.
Gear box is equiped with bearing spring guide, and bearing piston head


CONS G&G GR16 A3

Manual: The manual is very general, I would have preferred to see a full parts break down, and a walk through of the do’s and don’ts of breaking it down.

Stock: This is can be a pro to if you are a half glass full person, but the ample space in the stock equates to a lot of battery movement while on the run, so you need to wedge some foam in there to quite it down.

PROS King Arms ACOG red dot

Looks: Its very attractive rubber coated site.
Features: 5 brightness adjustments, elevation and windge adjustments, anti reflective coating allows it to get the job done for the most part.

CONS King Arms ACOG red dot

Adjustment: this only was an issue on the carry handle mount, but I could not adjust it far enough to center on the shots, thus wasting my money on a carry mount.

[marsoncoleman]

wait a second, the G&G m16 has Version 2 gearbox? isn't that going to break down really fast ?

[marsoncoleman]

oh wait , and what do i use silicon oil for? and is it nescessery to keep the gun at good working condition? and do you need to use it as soon as you get the gun or can you wait and use it after a couple of batttles if you don't have it at the time.?

[Muffin]

Originally Posted by marsoncoleman

wait a second, the G&G m16 has Version 2 gearbox? isn't that going to break down really fast ?

Why would it break down? All Armalite rifles have V2 gearboxes, the only issue compared a V3 is the motor mount.

[G36Maniac]

Originally Posted by Muffin

Why would it break down? All Armalite rifles have V2 gearboxes, the only issue compared a V3 is the motor mount.

Actually they are also a more prone to crack with high powered springs shooting like 370fps so in this gun it should not be a problem. In short, the V2 IS more prone to failure than the V3 but only under harsh conditions.

[Shaun655]

In the G&G manual it tells you to spray some silicone oil into the hop-up, but it does not tell you how frequently to do it. I spray some oil around 2 to 3 thousand rounds, but everyone has their preferences. I try not too spray to much in there, and after I do load up 100 or 200 rounds and just rip through them to blow the oil through the hop-up and to get rid of any extra oil. After shooting the oil through the gun, get a clean piece of cloth or whatever you use and clean the excess oil out of the inside of the barrel, and thats it.

Most people using G&G feel confident in the gear box to last quite a while before taking it apart and greasing the gears and piston, I plan to do mine sometime after I shoot 10,000 rounds, but again some people may prefer to do this sooner, and some later, so you better decide what sounds good to you. Hope this helps

[Shaun655]

The gun is still new so time will tell on the strength of the version 2, but G&G and a lot of users are confident enough in it. The company gives you a factory warranty, and from internet reviews on G&G most seem to have fairly good luck. The Gear box also has many built in modifications that would aid in strength, such as metal gear box, and metal gears to help increase the reliability.

I too though am interested to see how the durability of my G&G GR16-A3 will be, so after the summer season I plan to chrono the gun again, and review anything noteworthy as far as the gear box, or body are concerned.