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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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1
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44797
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8/9/06
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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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None indicated
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9.0
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Description:
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Long in depth review of the Classic Army SAR M41 Offizer. many pictures and lots of reading.
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Keywords:
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CA, Classic, Army, M41, SAR, G3, Offizer, Classic M, 41, gun, HK, Schwabem, Arms, Schwaben Germany
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Homepage/URL:
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www.battlesim.com
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Guy_with_a_gun
Registered: September 2004
Posts: 75
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Review Date: 8/9/06
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 9
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Positive aspects of the product (pros):
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Build, FPS, Acuracy, Range, Looks
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Cons:
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Hopup, Stock,
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Classic Army SAR M41 Review. By GWAG (Guy_with_a_gun)
Copyright 2006 – Unauthorized reposting of this review will be dealt with.
Before you begin
This is a review by GWAG…meaning its very long, if you have ever read my past reviews you might notice that each time they get longer, and more in depth…this being the 5th Review on high end guns, I know now as I am writing it that it will be a long one. If you don’t like books this review isn’t for you, if you have the mind set of a young kid and all you want to do is look at the pictures, this review isn’t for you. If you however, like to read about gun, explore every aspect of them, and enjoy some artistic pictures on the side, welcome. I hope you have a good read, a lot of time and typing has gone into the following review, I write it as a story, not as a factual picture book. With that being said grab a coke, sit back and read on…
Fist things first
The moment I had seen the post production models via pictures of one of Classic Armies show stands, I knew I had to have this gun. I had a G3 SAS, was thinking about getting another G3 type gun, because, hey, I really love H&K guns, specially their G3 Series. So when I heard news that Classic Army was planning on coming out with their G3 series, it was a no brainer. The original design had the normal, MP5/MC51 grip in the front, but that got changed in the production model to the current model with the RAS/RIS rail assembly. After waiting and waiting, it was finally released, but I didn’t buy it yet. I waited some more, my money accumulated. I tried to find every possibly tidbit of information I could find about the gun itself from owners of the gun posting information... Most of what I read said very good thing about it, but with all guns, they has their few errors. Finally I had the chance to buy it. I recently had turned 18, so why not celebrate. On August 21st at about 12:45, I went down AirsoftNW, www.airsoftnw.com and bought my gun. Since AirsoftNW is located in Seattle, Washington, I was able to drive down there and save on shipping. The cost of the gun was 320$ plus an 8.4v 1800mah battery, came to about 350$. This gun will later be remembered as the 5th “good gun I’ve owned. TM AK47 (sold), Tm G3 SAS, TM G-Spec (sold), WE Hicappa, and now the Classic Army M41. I wanted something different from the rest of the people I know, and as I love the G3 series, it was a good choice for me.
First Inspections
Well the first thing I did was take it out of the box. The box was the normal foam molding that the gun sat in, and included an instruction manual, CA catalog, as well as the cleaning/de-jamming rod. About a month before when I had held the gun for the first time, it did seem smaller and lighter that the pictures portray it out to be. Picking it up now reaffirmed that. The total length is about 31.5 inches, not to short and not to long. After adding a scope mount, vertical grip, flashlight, red dot, battery, and a magazine, it comes to about 8.5-9 pounds, heavy compared to my G3 SAS which weighs in at about 4-5 pounds. With that being said, it’s still comfortable to hold and move around with.
As it has a quick takedown feature I immediately took off the stock via the 2 pins to see how that worked out, first thing that happened was the wire connecter popped off, now I’m left with two metal prong which I now have to reattach, not CA’s fault, I failed to take better care when taking the stock off. Easy fix though, you just push them back into the plastic connector piece and the prongs hold it in there. After taking out the third pin near the mag release took out the lower receivers, NOTE, the plastic assembly that holds the wires will appear loose, do not tighten it. It will make it extremely impossible to add the third pin back in when putting it all back together. I think its best to have it very loose when putting the lower reviver back on and then tighten it one the lower receiver pin is in place. Moving on…
Body
As this is a Classic Army gun, its entirely full metal save the stock, grip, rail covers, etc…the upper receiver and lower receiver as well as the RIS/RAS assembly are all made entirely of metal, some kind of aluminum I’m guessing. It’s very strong and there is no flex or creaking noticeable at all. The metal is cold to the touch, and adds to the realistic feel of the gun. The black finish pretty solid on there, but some places on my gun now have a few scratches revealing the silver metal underneath. These parts include underneath the cocking handle due to rubbing since it’s a bit loose, under the end cap from taking it off, and a few scratches when I took the RIS/RAS off. All these are from what I did and not from poor manufacturing.
Trademarks
Quoted from ArniesAirsoft
“Offizier is German for Officer. SAR is Schwaben Arms GmbH, a German firm that manufactured the G3 under license from HK. In case you haven't noticed, HK doesn't license their trades to airsoft companies. The "SAR Offizier M41FS" is a real gun.
Quite frankly, I like the fact that CA has responded to HK's snub by saying "Fine then, we'll go find companies that make the exact same gun and give THEM money for their trademarks instead.”
The trades were untouched by the dealer which pleased me, since CA has rights to them, and are located on the right side of the gun. Next to the end cap reads:
MADE IN HONG KONG
CLASSIC ARMY
These are only imprints in the metal and not colored so as they don’t stick out to much. The real trades are to the right of the S E F and read:
SAR OFFIZIER M41
The second trades are located on the mag well and read:
SCHWABEN ARMS
Kal. 6mm
And then SAR inside this little house thing, see picture
You can view the Schwaben Arms website here and will notice that they have the Classic Army poster about the gun. If you look at their products you will notice a few guns that are familiar looking HK clones
http://www.schwabenarmsgmbh.de/pages/bluerings_indexpag.html
The real M41 differs a bit according to the Schwaben Arms website, view the real thing here
http://www.schwabenarmsgmbh.de/pages/page_12pag.html
One more thing to add: the gun also comes with a real serial number, making my gun number 370. It reads: 000370 NT
Hop up
Classic Army’s CA33, and M15 both have similar hop ups. You pull back on the charging handle and you are looking at a few small gears and you rotate on left or right, this presented a problem, as some people complained that the movement and force of the piston slowly made the hop up wheel turn, throwing off your previous adjustment. As for Classic Army’s new G3 series, the hop up is almost exactly like a Tokyo Marui G3. Simply pull back on the charging handle, lock it into place, and you see a wheel/knob which you rotate side to side rather than front to back. The force of the piston won’t have as much effect on it this way and is probably why CA decided not to make the wheel very tight. (More later) Also every once in a while I get a crazy shot that goes up or down. I also noticed that I am curving a bit toward the left with the only option to rotate the gun slightly right when firing. With that said a Tightbore and new hopup are on the buy list.
Stock
The stock it very solid, it made of some type of plastic, attached to the end cap. The end cap attaches to the body of the gun via two metal pins. It is very solid and I can pick up the gun by the stock itself, although it not recommended you always do it, I’m just saying you can because it’s very solid. The butt plate is made of rubber, and adds to the comfort when wielding the gun in a game. Total length of stock from end to where it attached to the end cap is about nine inches. Pulling down on the rubber end cap reveals the battery chamber. My 8.4 battery fits snugly with the stock but has a bit of side to side wobble. A simple fix is to take a small piece of sheet metal about 1.5 inches by .75 inches, bend it in half, crimp the bended edge with pliers and slide it in between the battery and side of stock. I can easily run now and there is no rattle whatsoever.
RIS/RAS
The RAS/RIS unit was a change Classic Army made to the M41 design, the first production model had the Mp5/Mc51 front end, but CA opted to put a RIS/RAS on it in the end. It’s kind of a circular assembly, curving around the end of the gun with rails on the sides and bottom. The curved part of the assembly has on the top, 8 circle holes on each side, and on the bottom, and 5 bigger ones on each side. The metal that makes it up is very strong, and I have no trouble attaching my sling to one of the holes, as I’m not too fond of the sling mount next to front sight. The gun comes with 2 rail covers which you can slide over the unused rails. At first they tend to slide around a bit as the metal clasps on the covers only clamp on the side of the rail, if you bend them down however, they will lock into the rail itself, bringing movement down to zero. After looking around the RIS/RIS, I think it might be possible to rewire the gun to the front and power it with 2 num chuck batteries stuck in the RAS/RIS, if you wanted to say, but a slither stock, or a folding stock, or an M4 stock…
Sights
Well this is fun, um, look at any other G3, that’s the sight that this gun has, Imagine that! The rear site has the 3 holes and the one cut out section. On the real steel, "The number one open slot is for firing at targets up to 100 meter. 2 is for 200 meters. 3 for 300 and so on. 2 is the norwegen armys standard setting. It is called combat sight. Since the bullet is acurate at both 30 and 200meters."(Thanks JazzBond for that) The rear sight is adjustable left to right, but I wont bother messing with that as the guns pretty accurate. (More later)
Magazine
The gun comes standard with a 500 round magazine, its metal, with the plastic internal casing almost identical with the Tokyo Marui G3’s. The reason I say almost is because I noticed that the CA magazine does not well into my SAS, while all my TM magazines fit flawlessly. I had no feeding issues when firing off a standard TM magazine. The mags do fit in a bit more loosely than the CA, but that doesn’t present a big problem. I found the CA mag will fit in a tm if you bend down the top flaps down a bit and push hard, while pushing the mag catch into the gun. It will fit in very tightly. Some guns that use hicaps and have a high rate of fire misfeed because the hicap can’t keep up with the gun. This is not an issue with the CA hicap that came with the gun. I was easily able to fire long bursts (for testing purposed only) without any misfeeding. The surface of the magazine is a bit rougher that the TM magazines which have a smoother feel to them. Both brands of G3 magazines lock into place securely into the M41 and I have no trouble holding them with my left hand when in a game, which is a constant habit of mine. (I don’t know, it’s just comfortable?)
Fire Selector
The CA SAR M41 has the SEF trigger markings instead of the emblems like on my SAS, you pull the selector down to select semi, and farther down for auto. Going from safe to semi is easy, but going to auto is a bit harder, like its rubbing against something. I’m sure it will wear in with time though. The one thing that I look for in HK Airsoft guns is the clicking trigger selector. Unlike on TM, ICS, and AE’s MP5’s there is a distinctive click on the G3 series by TM and CA. Another peeve of mine, no clicking. (Its just gotta have that click yeh know? Nothing like a fire selector with no click…)
Grip
One other thing i lie about the G3 series over the Mp5 series, is the contoured grip. It holds very comfortably in your hand and is very easy to hold. The motor adjustment is located on the bottom of the grip.
Cocking Tube/Bolt catch
Well the gun is advertised with a Metal cocking tube assembly and it is very strong. It is functional as its how you access the hop up. Simply pull back the cocking handle (which folds against the gun when not locked back) and lock it into the grove. Pulling it back also pulls back the dust cover and you now have access to the hop up. I’m a big fan of doing the “HK Slap” and as this is all metal it sounds a lot better than on my SAS. Although the gun is strong enough to do it, it’s not recommended you do it on a routine basis. Another thing worth motioning is that when the cocking handle it folded against the gun, it rattles, due to the design of the cocking tube assembly, not a big issue, I can still run with the gun with no trouble, but you can still move it up and down a bit with your finger.
Takedown
Take down is very easy, as mentioned before. First, simply pop the 2 metal pins on the stock. Then slowly pull the stock off until you can see the wires that connect from the gearbox to the stock, and disconnect those wires. Then, pop out the pin in front of the trigger guard. Now grab hold of the handgrip and slowly pull toward the back of the gun, and the lower assembly will slide out. Now you can reach inside, and pull out the barrel as well.
Accessories
As the M41 has a full RIS/RAS system preinstalled, add-ons are a breeze. I’m not to find of adding things to side rails, so the rail covers will stay on for now. As for the bottom rail, I have a flashlight and a vertical grip. I also added a low profile mount to the top so I could add a red dot sight, which makes target acquisition a lot easier. I’ve seen on picture of where someone added a M203 to the bottom of the M41, I’m not sure how I felt about that. As I mentioned earlier, adding a num-chuck battery inside of the RIS/RAS might allow for different stock options. It’s not the easiest thing to get the RAS/RIS off, so if you want a different stock you might want either a battery pack or a PEQ box. As for different stocks, you could add a slither stock, folding stock, or an M4 stock if you want something really different. (Check out my guide on how to add a M4 stock to a G3, you’ll need a G3 SAS end cap.)
Future Modifications
I was thinking to myself about what to do to this gun, and probably the only thing in the near future will be a new hopup and tightbore barrel. My current barrel will then go into my SAS, extra barrel housed by a short suppressor, that combined with a MC51 slither stock will make that gun short and very effective.
Field Uses
Most of the times ill be using this gun will be at games hosted by www.battlesim.com, but for now ive only gotten 2 games under my belt with it.
The first time I used this gun was at my friends 13 acres he owned. It was a small game, but it gave me a chance to field test this gun for the first time. The accuracy proved itself worthy as I was able to hit a guys head from about 75 feet out. Carrying the gun was not too tiresome, and I had a 2 point sling setup, attached to the stock an RIS/RAS holes. Diving to the ground didn’t bother me, as I’m not that afraid of this gun breaking, again, its rock solid.
The second time I used it was at www.evergreenairsoft.org. (yes evergreen, wasnt to bad.) Anyway. the gun can defiantly puncture well through brush and against 50-60 people the gun performed well. This time I used a 1 point sling setup, which was attached to the stock only, which afterwards, further showed the problematic stock attachment. (more on this later) as usual more everyone there had some variant of M4 like always and it felt good to have something few people own, or have seen in person before. A few people who I let shoot including Colin, commented on how they liked the gun, others on how nice the ROF was. At one point in a game, there was a group of about 3 OPFOR behind a large stump, I was slowly going around their right, and let go a burst from my gun, after I had shot I heard one of the guys comment “wow that’s a good gun.” A guy commented to me later on between games “Nice G3 man” Oh you bet is man....you bet it is.
Range/Accuracy/ROF
(All tests are conducted with KSC .25g bbs) All tests will be redone once I install a tightbore barrel and new hopup.
First off, as I’ve said before, the rate of fire on this gun is insane; I wanted to see roughly how many shots it fired per second. So out with a gun, magazine, timer, and a simple math equation I set to find out. The magazine I’m using first holds 69 bbs. On this test it emptied all the bbs when firing, instead of the 2-3 that usually fall out when ejecting a magazine. Anyway, it fired all 69 bbs in about 3.3 seconds. That comes to around 21 bbs per second.
Effective Range
Effective range is defined as the range where your weapon has a 50 percent chance of hitting a stationary target.60-70 feet is the norm for a 290fps gun, as I know mine shoots farther, I wanted to find mine. I started at 110 feet and was able to hit a 1x1 foot target 8/10 times. I was still able to do so at about 130 feet, but that was getting difficult. Past that I wasn’t getting much luck
That being said, my MAXIMUM range is over 175 feet.
Accuracy
For accuracy tests I will be using 8.5 by 11 inch targets. 6 shots at 30 feet, 6 at 50, 6 at 75, and 6 shots at 100. Pictures to follow with results.
Pictures
30 feet
50 feet
75 feet
100 feet
Problematic Issues
Now after reading all that good stuff comes the part of my review where I tell you everything bad about it. Not that’s there’s much, just a few thing that require a quick mod to fix. CA could have easily fixed it themselves, but hey, what can you do.
Hop up
Taking out the barrel for the first time, I noticed immediately that the hop up dial was very loose. Due to the design of the CA hop up, it doesn’t lock well into place like TM’s does. You can easily ad some tape around the barrel where the wheel slides over to minimize the problem, although I think I will most likely replace the hop up assembly along with a tight bore barrel in the near future.
Stock
When I first got the stock, it was slightly loose, it bugged my a bit so I took it off to see if I could tighten the screws. Twisted a bit and BAM, thread was stripped. Turns out CA decided to take the easy way out and put plastic thread on the stock where it connects to the end cap. I then took both screws out, and put 2 slightly bigger screws in. it’s a bit more solid, it’s not going anywhere, but someday I might install 2 bolts with nuts to the stock to ensure its solid as a rock. Until then its fine, when you get your gun and it feels a slightly bit loose, just leave it. EDIT – after I played at Evergreen, I noticed that the lower screw was pulled out farther. This time I took the stock off, re-drilled both holes, and used a wider diameter wood screw on the top hole, and a bolt on the bottom, I can easily add a nut the end to further strengthen it, but for now the screws are very tight as well as the stock, problem solved.
Flash Hider/Front sight assembly
Well my original plan was to install a small suppressor to the end to house a slightly longer tight bore barrel. This issue may not be a problem with everyone as it may have to do with where you got your gun. Anyway, my flash hider was glued on, so I could not crew it off, I’ve tried heating it, using paint thinner and it wont budge, now I’m either stuck with trying a few more times, or buying a new flash hider assembly. Again, this will not be a problem with all SAR M41’s it has to do with where you bought it. Another is I wish CA made the sight assembly threaded, like on the CA33 and on my SAS, that was adding an HK outer barrel for example would able to be done a lot easier. Instead, there’s a small screw on the bottom you take out and the thread part the flash hider screws on it slides out.
Specs
Metal parts:
Upper and lower receiver
RAS/RIS assembly
End cap
Cocking lever and tube assembly
Flash hider
Front and rear sight
Magazine
Gearbox and most internals
300+ Fps
Plastic parts:
Rail covers
Hand grip
Stock
Butt plate (rubber)
Some internals
Bolt cover
Details:
High Performance Motor
Hi-Cap Magazine (500 Rd)
New Design Hop Up System
Quick Disassembly Metal Body
Real Gun Logo with Serial Number
Metal Front Cocking Tube Assembly
Movable Cocking Lever and Bolt Cover
Modified Pins on the Hand Grip & the Stock
Weight: 2,900 g
Price – $320.00 www.airsoftnw.com
Written By: David Hintze
GWAG - Guy_with_a_gun
------------------------------
Military and MilSim Photographer
Sig image limit is 400x100.
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Registered: September 2004