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Reviews
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Date of last review
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1
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14156
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5/1/06
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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Average Rating
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100% of reviewers
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7.0
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Belt Fed Doom
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Hillslam
Belt Fed Doom
Registered: August 2005
Location: Ohio
Posts: 837
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Review Date: 5/1/06
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 7
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Positive aspects of the product (pros):
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Construction, features, optics, materials, accessories, price
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Cons:
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Single screw mount not as stable as twin mount designs
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This is a review of the TGS ELANE M1A5 elcan clones.
First question, why the TGS? Couple reasons: Its 3x power, so it has some magnification, but not too much (4x), or too little (2.5x). Its illuminated. It has some accessories. Priced between the Guarder and the Samurai. Eh, who am I kidding? This pic from a rooftop in Iraq convinced me. Looks better, IMO.
Ok, first impressions.
Packaging. Arrived via UPS and was well packaged (vendor was AirsoftExtreme). The box itself is a typical cardboard box, suitable for storage. Everything came wrapped in a resealable baggie, and included a flashkill, rubber lens covers, and a cleaning rag.
Of note - the box lets you know this is not the "real one" and not to put too much force on this product. I'll be returning to this point later.
Also, the box serves as your operator's manual. Since this isn't a computer or anything complicated like that, and you won't be tearing it down, the lack of an exploded view or parts list is understandable. Flashkills are purchasable separately, but thats it. So the instructions on the box side are all the information most owners will ever need.
Second impression: this thing is big. Weighty too. Here it is next to an M9 for comparison (later pics I'll have it mounted on a CA M249 for scale).
The unit itself is exceedingly solid. Its metal with a rubberized boot over it. How solid? I stood on it. 225lbs, no problems. The clamp screw and illumination dial are on the left side. Here is a shot with the flashkill screwed on the front, and the rear and front lens covers slipped on. Left side:
And the right side. At the rear is the elevation dial, and at the front is a windage dial (operated by a coin or screwddriver):
As you can guess from the last two pics the base itself is one solid piece of metal. Meaty. You can also see that from the right there's no hiding the girl's name, Elane. Owned by trademarks yet again. Oh but its the M1A5. Yes. But still, Elane? I guess there could be worse things than mounting an Elane... on your gun. Perverts. Moving on...
Eye relief is usable from about 2-5inches. Its a really impressive range. Perfect for SAW shoulder firing placement and easily useable with goggles on (I've tried it with Bolle T800 and ESS turbocam profiles and both worked fine for a good view).
The optics themselves are topnotch. I've peered thru a few scopes in my time, but I'm far from an expert, however, putting these next to my three pairs of binocs, vid and digital camera, and Leapers sight, the optics were on par with my best pair of field glasses.
The sight itself is black and illuminates either red or green in a range of 5 brightness setting for each. Very nice.
Red in full brightness setting could be seen in full daylight easily against a bright snowy field, in fact. although why you wouldn't in that case just turn off the illumination is up to you, but if you want it on its there. Red of course works better in daylight. Green at a low illumination level seems to spare your nightvision well, after I adjusted my vision to a pitch black room, I opened a windowshade (at night) and used it - I had no ghosting in my vision from semi long peering thru it.
Red illumation full:
Red minimum illumination (sorry for the blurry shot):
Green illumination (some mid setting):
And no Illumination - black non-powered crosshairs:
Again, how about that eye relief? I had no problems getting a full scope picture even looking thru a camera.
One thing about the lens covers - you'll need to remove them to use the elcan. They don't flip up enough to be usable leaving them on. They do have enough range of motion to get out of the way, but when you let them go they droop into the LOS. The rubber covers slide off and on easily enough, however, so I don't consider that a big disadvantage.
Just like the real elcan's rubberized covering - there's a massive seam along the top probably from the rubber boot production. I've yet to see an elcan clone without this seam, and its there on the TGS.
Once you get your elevation and windage dialed in, you slide down a locking switch, shown below. With that down adjustments cannot be made and the sights cannot creep. The lock cannot accidentally be moved to unlock. Nice feature.
So far - I've been really impressed with the features and build of this elcan.
Now for the cons. And they, or rather it, revolves around one aspect. Which I admit I was leary of before I even received the sight, just from views of it. you can probably guess from this underside picture:
The mount. Its not so hot. Oh its fine material - hard steel, I had to get out one of my harder dremmel heads to etch it, so its not pot metal. The build materials aren't the problem. Nor is the workmanship. The tolerances look fine. The problem is that single tooth design.
When you're mounting the elcan to your top rail you adjust a single thumb screw. And its spring loaded on a cam so you cannot strip it. At first I thought; great attention to detail, nice feature. Here you can see the thumbscrew and its spring-loaded cam that prevents over-torquing the mount.
The problem is this - its loose. Now either the feed tray cover rail on my Classic Army is non-standard (which I highly doubt, even though its not a boutique rail like a G&P unit, it is the stock Classic Army rail, and two other red dots clamp to it like pitbulls) or the elcan mount itself isn't gripping or seating.
At first I thought it wasn't seating - perhaps that single bar on the elcan base isn't fitting into one of the rail grooves completely. So I made sure to apply a hefty amount of top pressure to it and then tightened. I eyeballed the front and rear and it looked to be seated flush against the rail top. And that did alleviate the wobble. Good. Ok.
But just to be thorough... I tested to see if I could loosen it. ...Yup. Here is the state of affairs after a bit of strong wrangling it left and right, note the circled areas (yes I know the camera angles are not exactly the same but regardless there is probably 1mm of play already in the connection).
Left tilt:
Right tilt:
If I worked it long enough I could probably loosen the clamp enough to allow the elcan completely off its mount.
So then I looked at the clamp itself. The clamp sides run the full length of the elcan base, so there's plenty of grip surface. The problem comes back to that spring loaded thumbscrew cam. It doesn't allow you to turn the clamp tight enough such that you can't muscle it off. My guess is that pitching that over-torque prevention cam and spring would allow you to do so. But even so, the single screw design is inherently not as stable as a dual pin design. Be sure to check the tightness from time to time as you skirmish.
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So, in conclusion. The TGS Elane M1A5 is a nice bit of kit for the price, with good durability, features, and accessories. Excellent optics. Dodgy mount. However, any loosening that occurs would occur over time and not suddenly, and would require multiple impacts or wrestling/leveraging before the unit was in danger of dismounting. My opinion is due to the excellent usability of the unit itself, I don't mind having to occasionally mind the thumbscrew.
PROS:
- not as dull looking as a Guarder
- not as expensive as a Samurai
- excellent optics
- illumination in red or green with 5 level brightness per
- good non-illuminated crosshair
- good materials
- outstanding eye relief range - very usable for airsoft
- lens covers and a flashkill are included
- windage and elevation adjustment
- sight settings lock
CONS:
- single anti-overtorque thumbscrew does not allow suffcient tightening on mount
- single design is not as stable as a twin screw mount, may loosen over time, requiring retightening
------------------------------
A&K M60 Mk43 Mod 0 review - no better info elsewhere
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Registered: August 2005
Location: Ohio