SA80 / L85A1 - ArniesAirsoft

Author

Pendra

Surprise and Terror!

Registered: April 2005
Location: The other side!
Posts: 787

Review Date: 28/9/05

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: �55.00 | Rating: 8

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	Metal parts, rugged receiver
Cons:	Plastic and non standard internals, no hop-up

Ever since I started to play airsoft I looked for something different. The M4/MP5/AK/G3 series just too general. The AUG and the FAMAS on the other hand look like a laser gun from Star Wars.
The L85 looks modern yet feels classic in the same time. I see people disagree on this part, but I think it is a love/hate relation. You either Love the looks of the L85 or Hate it outright.
I wanted to get the Academy L85, but the steep shipping prices (almost as much as the gun itself)and the horror stories kept me away from ordering one. So I dreamed and dreamed until I got the chance to save the shipping. My relative went to Germany and came by an AS Store. He phoned me if I wanted anything. Luckily the store had one L85. At that time didn't really care who built it from what material as long as it was a full size L85.

Few days of waiting and there it was, a big cartboard box with no marking at all. Rather unimpressive, but who cares as long as the gun is inside. The inside of the box was the opposite of the outside. It held the gun perfectly with compartments for mags, batteries and other accesories. Almost like a TM.
The gun is nicer than I expected for the price. No creacking and metal parts here and there. The first problem I found was the weight. It is only 4 pounds, while the real one is around 10.
The finish of the receiver is not too good. While the receiver is strong and well detailed, the paint is cheap. I think they wanted to create a metalised look but they failed in the process. The shiny light gray just won't cut it in my opinion. To remedy it I bought simple matt black paint and resprayed it. The spray didn't damage the plastic, and improved the looks dramatically.
The green plastic parts look good enough without extra paint.
As I mentioned there are plenty of metal parts on the gun. The outer barrel, the mag-catch, the cocking plate, the sling catches and the trigger are all metal. You have to be carefull thou, because the paint wears off easity and after that they tend to RUST! Few days after a rainy game, rust dots started to appear where the paint was missing.
Now some words about the internals and the skirmish-ability.
It fires around 0.5 J out of the box. I'm not sure, but I think it was downgraded a bit to apply the German law. The accuracy and the range was comparable to my KWC P99. You can fire BB-s to around 90 feet. The lack of hop-up is evident. I used .12 and .20 and it looked that there is no real difference. While the .12 flew longer they also had WEIRD trajectories rendering it useless over greater distances. The .20 had a good flat trajectory but reduced range of course. The cocking is very confortable. You can empty a whole mag in a very short period of time if needed. On the other hand the handle has a tendency to unscrew itself. You need to glue it or tighten it once in a while.
The mag is strange. Not your regular TM springer mag. It has a capacity of 25 BBs. The feeding is good, but the loading is just weird. You gotta push down the spring with a rod then insert the BBs one by one. It is made of shiny black plastic.
As I'm a curious guy I took a look on the internals. You gotta unscrew quite a few screws in a given order to take the shell into two pieces. There is no easy way to access the internals. You gotta remove all screws from everywhere. There are plastic screwholes all around. Beware that the self taping screws will kill them over the time, so try not to disassemble it to often. Luckily some of the important screws have metal mothers and there are plenty if redundant screw holes. Meaning if you waste one the other would still hold for a while.
It has a plastic gearbox with plastic internals. The are very simle and clean design, but I doubt they can take an upgrade. But if you have basic machine knowlede you could replace them with metal parts. The spring if somewhat more narrow than a standard AEG spring, so you cannot install them. It is likely that you need to get a custom spring if you want to upgrade. The barrel is about 30 cm long and made of aluminium. As it is thicker than a Standard AEG barrel it is unlikely that you can simply replace it. You can also add a fix homa made hop-up if you like by cutting a V into the barrel and adding an O ring. Time consuming but it would increase the range by about 30 feet.
The SUSAT looks nice and does not wobble. On the other hand it is almost useless. You would be better off using the emergency sight (which is metal btw). You can install a red dot into it if you like. There is plenty of space inside the house.
I used it for skirmishing for a few times, but it has no chance against AEG-s. But using it against pistols or LPEGs was fun. Later I used the body to make an AEG out of it, but thanks for the gearbox design I could still use the internals to make a working AS gun.
All in all, this gun is good average compared to the other springers in its price category. While the performance is strictly average the build quality is good (Excellent after you repaing the receiver). I'd say the looks is better than the Academy L85, because it has more metal parts and stronger plastic shell.

I'd say it is a good collectors item with only limited skirmish ability.

It is also fun to turn it into an AEG Smile

. Not as easy as converting an Academy but way more fun Wink