A few days ago I received a test sample Lonex M4 AEG, which I believe to be the first in Europe.
Lonex Airsoft Official webpage http://www.lonex.com.tw/en/index.html
Commercial pics of the M4:
Out of the box
The AEG feels good in your hands. The texture of metal and plastic fibre is nice, can not compare to your regular china AEG-s.
Plastic handguard and M4 stock are high quality and sturdy. There is a little play in the handguard as usual. A bit more then I would have expected. A RIS or RAS will fix that though. No play what so ever between upper and lower receiver. Body pins don´t fall out, the have securing clips like the real deal.
Stock tube attachement has got a new design - they don´t use a bolt to screw into the gearbox. The stock tube screws on to the lower receiver and is fixed by the stock tube ring. This pretty much means that you can extract the gearbox without taking off the stock. I don´t know if it will fare well for the spring guide though, since it isn´t fixed anymore by the bolt that goes through the stock tube.
The upper receiver slides forward with little effort revealing a standard plastic M4 hopup chamber that is snug and fits together definietly better than your average M4 hop. Brass stock inner barrel as usual.
Internals reveal a 8mm Lonex gearbox with superb build quality for a stock AEG. Reinforced gearbox is something new that I haven´t seen before (expect KWA which is not a standard V2 anyways). The only modification needed is either use a Lonex tapet plate with cutouts or use your own tapet plate after 5 mins of filing. All other parts are compatible Ver.2 gearbox parts. This is good news for people using their Armalites in colder climates. In minus Celsius weather I have seen all types of Ver.2 gearbox shells brake (KA, G&P, all china, Systema etc.) A regular ver.2 box has 2mm thickned in the front cylinder area where they brake. Lonex has added 1mm of material which makes a big difference. I tested the Lonex ver.2 gearbox in -17 celsius that can be seen here:
Shooting the rifle?
This is where you get a good grin if you haven´t already.
The sound of this ver.2 gearbox is smooth, which tells a lot about gearbox build quality. Shimming is spot on and the motor is adjusted correctly.
Chrono with 0.2g bb-s show 122-124m/s with hopup off. Stability is good. Outdoor testing show that with 0.28g bb-s hitting a torso sized target is no problem at 50 meters. The shot group is tight, but mostly I have to admit that this M4 hopup chamber does its job very well! I usually do not even think about playing with regular Armalite, but this AEG has changed my mind. With 7.4V lipo battery the semi was crispy enough and full auto gave 13-14 RPS. At 11.1V it hit 18RPS.
First problem occours when testing the rifle with different magazines. It comes stock with one Lonex M4 Flashmag which fits well. All other M4 mags that I tested fit in, but want to come out really easy. A little bit of playing with different mags and most of them come out with pulling down or to the sides. Problem is the magazine well, which is a bit too wide (large). I will let Lonex know about this and I am sure they will remedy the problem before large scale production.
Selling price is still up in the air, but expected to sell in Europe under 300 eur. (same level as King Arms, G&P and other Hong Kong companies). Whilst the Lonex M4 AEG probably can´t compare pricewise to China AEG-s, but then again its quality is in my opinion way higher than HK based products.
Pros:
Good quality materials used all around
Great internals for a stock AEG
Very nice accuracy and range for a M4 AEG!
Cons:
Needs some tweaking. Wobbly handguard.
Main problem is the mag compatibility which needs some more research and development. (Will let you know about the progress).
Conclusion
I haven´t been this excited about an airsoft M4 for a long type. This isn´t your standard "copy of Marui another company M4". This one actually has some innovation and new quality in it.
NB! I am not affiliated with Lonex Airsoft. I have tried their products and absolutely love them.
A short videoreview about the rifle will be here as soon as it is uploaded to Youtube. Stay tuned folks!
Bjorn
