Army Armament R85A1 Review

[kalnaren]

Having gotten a few PM's about this my buddy suggested I write an initial review of it. There are already two very excellent reviews of this gun on Arnie's Airsoft and Airsoft Retreat, the thread on Arnie's being over 60 pages long, so I'm not going to go into a ton of detail. Keep in mind too I've only had this gun since Monday, so I haven't skirmished with it yet or anything . I'll update it in a month or two after I play with it a bit.

So, on with the review...

I've wanted an L85 for quite a while, I just never could justify spending a ton of money for one. The two current versions are the G&G L85, which retails in Canada for about $950, and the STAR L85 which retails in Canada for about $1,150. I've never handled either of those two, but from what I've heard the G&G one doesn't have amazing externals and the internals are prone to horrific cascading failures. The STAR one is probably up to normal STAR quality but comes with a very hefty price tag, more than I was willing to spend on an airsoft gun while I'm still in school. Hence I was overthrilled when I read about this gun in Airsoft International.

First off, this gun is an exact copy of the G&G L85A1.

Specs (from WGC with me filling in the blanks)

Gear Box: Hybrid V1/V2, clone of the G&G L85A1.
Motor: a shiny one!
Magazine: 450 Rounds
Length: 758mm
Barrel Length: 510mm
Weight: 3630g
Battery: Custom Large Type Battery ( 8.4V Included ) (more on this later)
Muzzle Velocity: 280-300FPS with 0.2g Bbs (more on this later)
Package Includes: Gun, Magazine, Manual, Sling, Battery, Charger ( EU Type Plug / 220V Only ) (er, more on this later as well)

Ordering and Shipping

I asked both Ken at 007 Airsoft and Mark at A&A for a quote on the gun. Ken's quote was $560 including taxes and shipping, Mark's was $550 plus taxes and shipping, for a total of $648. Needless to say I ordered it from Ken. It took a while to get here as there were some delays before Christmas, but I got it and I'm happy with the service from 007 Airsoft.

What's in the Box

The gun, the battery, magazine, unjamming rod, a crappy screwdriver, and the charger. For some reason none of the ones Ken received came with a manual or a sling. The charger is the 240v European style plug, so it's useless. Frankly I wouldn't trust it anyway.

First Impressions

This thing is HEAVY. I knew it would be, but considering my other AEG is a G36 (which is light for a gun of it's size), the L85 felt quite heavy. I was immediately impressed with the solid feel of this thing. I also remarked to my friend how it was a little longer than I thought it would be, considering it's a bullpup. Just looking at the thing it really is impossible to tell it's a China clone.



Weight

I haven't (and probably won't) weigh it, but WGC and UN Company put the weight at about 3.6kg. Personally, I think it's a little more than that, but I have scrawny arms so it may not be. Adding the battery doesn't really increase the noticeable weight, but it moves the weight forward a bit making it easier to balance.

Build Quality

You know with most airsoft guns they list what metal parts they come with? Well, this one it's a shorter list of what is not metal:

-foregrip
-pistol grip
-bolt dust cover
-bolt-catch lever
-cheekpad

The buttpad is made of a really comfortable squishy rubber. That's it. The rest of the gun is metal. It's not made out of zinc-alloy or some other light weight metal either -this thing is full steel. A couple of pieces, like the hinges on the flip-up hatch over the foregrip may be a lighter material, but for the most part it's steel.

This thing is SOLID. No flex in it anywhere. Even the grips are solid as hell. The barrel is very well braced and doesn't flex at all. The carry handle is well built and I have no worries at all about carrying the gun around by it. The foregrip is secured to the gun by a large screw through both halves. This screw threads into the sling mount on the other side, both metal. The sling mount can be moved to each side and the screw inserted from either, so it's ambidextrous.

As for bad parts about build quality, there are only 1 place I have concern: The entire front sight/foregrip assembly is secured to the gun with a small hollow pin that looks like it could sheer off. As long as you don't hold and shake the gun by the foregrip it should be Ok. It could easily be replaced with something more sturdy if you wanted to anyway.

The Sights

Not much to say about the sights... they're metal, and fully adjustable. When I fired a few rounds through it at a range of about 15' they were bang on. The rear sight has the standard full open and a smaller sight for 200 meters.



Trademarks

Like most China guns, this one does not have authentic trades. It does have something however. In small text across the right side of the foregrip it says “RIFLE 5.56mm ARMY R85A1”, on the right above the receiver “R85A1 SERIES”, and on the left back “ARMY MADE IN CHINA”. None of the trades stand out, and on quick glance they look like they belong.


Front trades blend in pretty well... crappy picture too

Magazine

This gun comes with a metal high capacity 450 round magazine. It's of very good quality, but needs winding a lot compared to my Classic Army G36 high-cap. However it can be wound by inserting a hex key into the side or by the wheel on the bottom, which is kind of cool. I don't use hi-caps though so I don't really care. An interesting thing about this magazine though is that it's larger than normal airsoft STANAG mags. One review I read said it was a 40 round and not a 30 round replica, but I thought real 30 round STANAG mags were larger than airsoft magazines anyway, so I think it's closer in size to a real one.

The only other magazines I've tried in this gun are King Arms M16 magazines. By default they won't lock into the receiver, so the tab on the magazine needs to be bent out just the very slightest at the top, and then they lock in quite nicely. However, this probably means you won't be able to use plastic magazines with this gun. At first the KA mags are very tight but they loosen up once they've been in and out a few times. Both the high-cap and the KA mags leave between 3 and 5 BBs in the loading nozzle, so out of 68 rounds expect 63 to feed.


Left is the Army magazine, right is the King Arms one.

Internals

This is where this gun gets interesting. Field stripping this thing is even easier than a G36. The foregrip is removed, then one pin is taken out of the upper receiver, then the whole upper half slides forward. It is very stiff at first. The pin is held in quite well and I have no worries about it falling out, unlike G36 foregrip pins.

I haven't opened the mechbox yet, so all this is second-hand info I've collected. The mechbox is a G&G version 1/2 hybrid. The shell is made of very good quality metal. The gun comes with an 18-tooth piston instead of the normal 16 tooth, and thus has a proprietary sector gear. The reason for this is because in repetition (semi-auto) fire mode, the spring is pre-tensioned after each shot, similar to a PSG-1. This means the response on a trigger pull is very quick. In order to replace the piston with a normal 16 tooth one you either have to modify the sector gear or replace it with a TM standard one. If replaced with a standard TM sector gear a spacer is also required to avoid lost compression. These kits are available on Redwolf for a modest cost. Another thing about the piston -it's slightly wider than TM standard, so a normal TM piston probably won't sit in the piston guides along the side of the shell. It's recommended to use a wider piston like a CA or Systema for replacement. The upper half of the mechbox (piston, spring, spring guide, etc) separates from the gearbox making spring changes easier. Also, like the FA-MAS, this gun has a spring-tension release switch.

The gears inside are all metal, the nozzle is metal, and the spring guide is of the bearing type with a metal base and plastic guide. Other than that I can't tell you much. The reviewer (Fareast) on Arnie's put over 20,000 rounds on full auto through it without failures, whereas some have had the piston fail in under 1,000 rounds. I've probably only put 100-150 through it to this point.

A major problem with the G&G L85 was the blowback mechanism. On the G&G this mechanism was made of plastic and broke very easily. Worse, broken parts had a habit of falling into the upper part mechbox and damaging the internals, resulting in a cascading failure of doom. Army has replaced all of the plastic parts with metal ones. That's right -the entire blowback mechanism is metal. Apparently with the stock battery it holds up really well. And damn, it's fun hearing the thing chatter as you fire. Very cool. The blowback mechanism is liberally lubricated where it contacts with the receiver. I put a little silicone oil on the side of cylinder where the bolt rubs it to reduce friction. I imagine keeping this mechanism well lubed will help prolong its life.

Also, the bolt catch on this gun actually works. When the cocking lever is pulled back all of the way it locks back (sometimes you have to give the bolt catch lever a bit of a push down to reset it). When locked back the blowback is disabled; handy for doing things like adjusting the hopup. Pressing the lever up releases the cocking lever.

The inner barrel is brass, not sure of the quality. It was filthy though and took me 4 cleanings to get all the grime out of it. The hop-up is plastic and doesn't look like amazing quality, but I won't really know until I can skirmish with the thing.

Performance

The websites say this gun shoots 280-300 fps, but Ken chronied it when he got it and told me all the ones he tested shot pretty consistently at 350 fps. This makes the spring slightly stronger than an MS100SP. Rate of fire isn't amazing, partially due to the battery (which I will discuss next). The blowback slows it down slightly but nothing major. At 15' the thing was very accurate. I'll see if I can do some more accuracy tests on it but I don't really have a long range to shoot or anything.

*UPDATE*

Picked up some parts for this at TAC-08. Our friend Amazon won the chrono in the draw, so I actually had a chance to chrono the thing Saturday night. Stock it shot basically 345-350 fps, which is what Ken told me it shot. I also tested the rate of fire on the stock battery. It clocked in at a pretty dismal 9.0 rounds per second with the blowback enabled. Disabling the blowback didn't make much of a difference. For someone who cares about ROF this is pretty low, but I primarily use semi auto so I don't mind a whole lot. As well, the lower fire rate makes it very easy to leave the gun in automatic and fire off 3 round bursts.

For new parts I installed a G&P metal hopup unit and a Systema 6.04 high-precision barrel. After chronographing the gun again it was shooting 335-ish, which is about what the results from Arnie's put it at. I know I shouldn't have gotten an FPS drop when upgrading, so I'm chalking it up to a bad seal between the nozzle and hop-up. I may try to solve it, but I've had this gun apart 4 times in a week and I think I should stop before I break it

The Battery

The battery is a China battery, so quality may be iffy. It was 100% dead when I got it and my friend has my charger so I haven't tested it yet. The thing about this battery is that it is NOT a standard size. It's in the normal 7-cell configuration, but it uses 4/5SC cells. Mini batteries use 2/3A cells, large batteries are SC cells, so this one is somewhere in between. According to the wrap, it's an 8.4v 1800mah Ni-Cad. However, many people on Arnie's report that that the battery is actually closer to 8.0v, not 8.4. I'll throw my multimeter on it when I get it charged. On the bright side, it fits nicely in the foregrip.

*UPDATE*

Battery, when fully charged, puts out about 9.4 volts. A fully charged "standard" 8.4 puts out about 10.

Modification

Well, it's an L85. There isn't a whole lot of mods out there. For some reason the G&G rail isn't the same as the STAR, so to fit the STAR SUSAT you either need to sand the rail or purchase an Army Code rail. Personally I won't be doing much to this gun. 350fps is just fine for me so I won't be putting in a new spring and I'm not planning on replacing anything unless it fails or, in the case of the hop-up, it's of terrible quality. I'll probably drop a tightbore in it as well.

Initial Pros and Cons

Pro's

-Excellent build quality
-Blowback
-Full metal L85
-$400 cheaper than the G&G L85, $700 cheaper than the STAR.
-Pre-tensioned repetition

Con's

-Hard to find 18-toothed pistons
-Proprietary sector gear
-crazy-odd mechbox design
-foregrip pin not too strong
-Pre-tensioned
-No real trades (personally I don't care that much, but some might).

Conclusion

This is a full metal L85 with good internals for less than 600 bucks. Do I have to say anything else? I can't wait to get it out to a game. I'll update the review after I skirmish it a few times.





UPDATE
Haven't updated in a while, I thought I'd throw my final thoughts in.

I ended up trading this off after a single game. No matter what I did I couldn't solve the misfeeding issues. After dropping a significant amount of money into it for upgrade parts (all of which made the missfeeding even worse) I decided to rid my self of it.

So, revised conclusion: If you don't mind spending a lot of time fixing potential problems with this gun, then it's a good buy. Otherwise, stay clear. I know some people who have had zero issue with it.. but the quality control from AA is complete crap.. so you might get a good one, you might get one that doesn't work at all.

[SHaKaL]

Classic army and g&p have 18 thooted pistons for their sr-25... dont know if they will fit.

Nice review btw

[shifty51]

finally got it eh? man i will seet it at tit-smac, or what ever they are calling it. Looks good BTW

[jaymz1911]

NICE! Thanks for the review

[Lerch]

+1 on the R85A1.
One thing though, there's a little hook at the top of the gearbox that lets you disable the blowback.
You can also lock the charging handle back by pulling it and pushing the release tab (the little green tab on the right side) down. To release, push it up.


Oh yeah...watch out for dropped mags without the release guard you may accidentally drop a mag when you put the rifle at your side or on your back...
I've got a little fabrication planned to solve the problem on mine.

[kalnaren]

Originally Posted by SHaKaL

Classic army and g&p have 18 thooted pistons for their sr-25... dont know if they will fit.

Nice review btw

Thanks! Yea, not sure if the CA one will fit. I think someone at arnie's used one without too much issue.

Originally Posted by shifty51

finally got it eh? man i will seet it at tit-smac, or what ever they are calling it. Looks good BTW

I won't be bringing it with me.

[Lakonian]

Sexy!

I love SA80s, BUT! I'm fucking left handed. ... AND I can't imagine reloading is quick, or fun.

Good review regardless..

[Lerch]

Do what the Brits do when it comes to lefties...shoot right

The problem that most bullpups face (except the AUG) is that they cater to right hand shooting.

[Maverick0]

Nice review! I was lookin' at the STAR ones, but felt they were a bit pricey

Originally Posted by Lerch

Do what the Brits do when it comes to lefties...shoot right

The problem that most bullpups face (except the AUG) is that they cater to right hand shooting.

Don't forget the P90, it's ambidextrous, not to mention completely awesome

[kalnaren]

Originally Posted by Maverick0

Nice review! I was lookin' at the STAR ones, but felt they were a bit pricey

Yea, I always thought paying over $1,000 on a toy that I only really use once or maybe twice a month for 4-6 months of the year is a little much, as nice as the STAR is.

Don't forget the P90, it's ambidextrous, not to mention completely awesome

So is the FA-MAS.

[Brian McIlmoyle]

I thought they would be unweildy.. to load and change the selector.. but its not... both Prone and standing.. you just push the weapon forward, cradle it in the arm and change the mag.. it is very close to you .. with practice the change is easy and efficient.. Same with selector ..

[kalnaren]

Originally Posted by Brian McIlmoyle

I thought they would be unweildy.. to load and change the selector.. but its not... both Prone and standing.. you just push the weapon forward, cradle it in the arm and change the mag.. it is very close to you .. with practice the change is easy and efficient.. Same with selector ..

I've always found bullpups easy to handle. If anything makes the L85 unweildy it would be it's weight. It's not an easy rifle to quickly change position.

[scheer]

Originally Posted by Lerch

Do what the Brits do when it comes to lefties...shoot right

The problem that most bullpups face (except the AUG) is that they cater to right hand shooting.

The L85A2 (RS) can be modified to fire left handed, although it takes a load of BS & notes from the MO etc. Although if they can be given another weapon (minimi, GPMG, etc) this is done.

Actually when it comes to using my Army L85A1, due to how comfortable it is to hold & control it's one of the few AEGs I have that I can comfortably use left handed (for shooting round corners etc, I've got a few 'leftie kills' with it & I'm definite right hander!

[kalnaren]

Updated the Performance section.

[swatt13]

sounds like an excellent gun. i love my star, but this one sounds on par with mine. on the outside looking in, i would definatly reccommend this over a star (cost/ bang for buck-wise) the blow bak is a cool option, is it possible to polish the areas it contacts?