G3 SAS (metal) - ArniesAirsoft

Author

Shao14

Misopethamenos

Registered: September 2004
Posts: 306,044

Review Date: 15/12/06

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: �76.00 | Rating: 7

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	Heavy, solid, good rof and accuracy, simplified design (more rugged), hi-cap, metal gearbox, relatively inexpensive
Cons:	Weak power, flimsy foregrip, reversed battery polarity, simplified design (less realistic, fewer upgrade (both internal and external) options), mag not compatible with TM or CA's

Introduction

To say the Bell G3 SAS is a clone of Tokyo Marui�s G3 SAS is a slight over-statement (Marui�s G3 SAS has been cloned by Well, which is not to be confused with Bell). The two AEGs (automatic electric guns) may look similar externally (even the packaging), but there are significant differences both internally and externally when one takes a closer look. Hopefully, this review will provide you enough information to decide whether this AEG is good for you and the scenarios you intend to use it in.

A side note, the G3 SAS is a fictional gun first created by Tokyo Marui (along with the TM AK Beta Spetsnaz). Evidently, Marui liked the compactness of an HK MP5K and the large magazine of an HK G3, thus the G3 SAS was born. TM, however, neglected that a real steel G3 uses a bigger magazine because it chambers the 7.62mm round, but the charging handle on an MP5K, which uses 9mm, travels only about two and half inches, not enough to move the bolt to chamber a 7.62mm round, so this combination is not practical to say the least in the real steel world. In the airsoft world, the G3 SAS exists, and can be a formidable CQB weapon.

In the rest of the review, I�ll refer to the Bell G3 SAS AEG simply as G3 SAS unless otherwise explicitly specified.

The G3 SAS is kindly provided by <a href="http://www.airsplat.com/">Airsplat.com</a>, but the opinion in this review is solely that of the author, and is independent of Airsplat.com.

First Look

The G3 SAS comes in a sealed compact styrofoam box. The styrofoam holds the gun, one hi cap mag, a mini battery, and a charger securely. There are also a small bag of 0.2g BBs and a nylon sling and an un-jamming rod.

There is, however, no paperwork inside at all. There are simple operating instructions and warnings on the side of the box cover; and some specs and some simple box arts on top of the box cover. As typical for Chinese toys for the US, however little writing there is on the box cover, it is filled with bad English and sequence of letters that resembles German (possibly a token to Heckler & Koch), and some Japanese (imitation of Marui). Now I�m glad there�s no other paperwork inside. (Bell even goes so far to mimic the HK and TM logo on the box, the little warning sticker on the gun, and the label on the small bag of BBs.)

Picking up the gun, I am impressed by the weight of the full metal body. It is quite heavy for its size, 3.1 kg according to the box. Unlike the TM (or HK) design, the upper and lower receivers are actually just one piece on the Bell G3 SAS, and it�s all metal. The plastic parts are the foregrip, the rails, the front sight, the flash hider, and the ejection port cover. The ejection port cover and the side of the foregrip have nice grainy texture, but the other plastic parts look like cheap plastic, especially the rails. The metal part has a matte black finish. The paint is pretty thin, and a few places have some minor scratches and blemishes already, but overall, it looks all right, and feels solid.

A Closer Look

On the left side of the gun, under the warning sticker, it says �2006�; on the mag well, it says �G3.SAS�, and on the lower receiver, it has fire mode indicators. Funny thing about the fire mode indicator, there are four labels that seem to suggest three-round, safe, semi, and double-round, but the selector switch can only switch between safe and �triple� (rather �off� and �on�. More details below). The other two labels are just decorations.

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The selector switch clicks well into the safe position, in which the trigger is locked. Outside the safe position, the switch can be halfway between the two positions, and the trigger can still be easily pulled. None of the fire mode labels are painted, but all the labels and text are clearly and deeply impressed on the metal.

Coming around the back, unlike the other G3s (or MP5Ks), the back end is molded, so you can forget about installing any aftermarket G3 stock on it. There is a sling loop, which is not molded on, at the back.

On the right side, there�s a fake molded selector switch, and �MADE IN CHINA� above the switch.

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The rear sight, luckily, is not molded on, but it has only two apertures instead of four. It has a small circular aperture on one side, and a V-shaped rear-sight on the opposite side, and it can rotate easily. In fact, the rear sight is a bit wobbly.

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The front sight and the flash hider are orange plastic. The flash hider can be screw off and on easily. The front sight is secured on the front end of the barrel by a side screw.

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The foregrip feels pretty cheap. The rails, being plastic, don�t look any stronger. It feels like it can be easily torn off if I just put a little pressure on them. I wouldn�t mount anything on them. Unlike the Marui rails, the Bell ones are screwed on from the inside, and can not be easily taken off.

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Performance:

The G3 SAS comes with a Ni MH 8.4v 1150 mAh mini battery and a charger with output rating 8.4v and 300mA. It's a good thing that the battery and charger are included because all the connectors (AEG, battery, and charger) are installed with the polarity reversed. I certainly hope this is un-intentional, and future batches will correct this problem, or else one has to re-install the connector on this AEG to use regular AEG batteries. Charging the battery is straight forward as long as you use the included charger because of the reversed connector. There's a red indicator light that I think it should go off or turn green when the battery is done charging. I don't know if the charger has auto cut-off feature since there's no paperwork of any kind, but the charger looks pretty cheap, so I doubt it. I left the battery charging for a full 5 hours, and the indicator light on the charger is still red. The charger was a bit warm, but the battery was not. According to the usual battery charging time calculation, 5 hours is about right to charge the 1150 mAh battery with the 300 mA charger (although the ideal charger voltage output should be about 20% higher than the battery voltage rating to fully charge the battery). Didn't want to overcharge the battery, I disconnect it from the charger.

Installing the battery is also pretty simple. You need to unscrew the flash hider, and there's a little button in the front of the fore grip. Push that button up a bit, and the foregrip can be slided forward about half an inch, and then take down.

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Unlike the MP5 series, there's no pin holding the foregrip in place, so one fewer thing to lose, but the down side is that this locking mechanism is not secure. Without pushing the button, one can almost as easily slide the foregrip off. The inside of the forgrip, there's some padding holding the mini battery securely in place. With the battery connected, putting the fore grip back on can be a small challenge. The connector is kind of in the way, but there's enough room to fit. Just be careful not to bend the wire too much, or the insulation wrap of the wire may break as it happened to mine. With the battery in, the foregrip feels a bit more solid.

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Filling the mag is also straight forward, and like filling any hi-cap mag. The mag is made of metal, and feels quite solid too, but the paint can be scratched off easily. NOTE: the mag is not compatible with the Marui G3 mag due to the slight different feed location and the top edges of the mag.

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The mag holds around 500 BBs. The winding spring feels pretty strong, but winding should be easy enough. The mag also clicks into the mag well very well with little play. The mag release lever, on the other hand, is quite wobbly, but it serves its funtion and will not break easily or fall out.

Now, I'm lock 'n load, and ready to rock. I set up a BB trap about 15 feet away, and switched off the safety (remember there are only two positions for the safety, on and off), pulled the trigger about half way. A fairly loud pop, and the BB hit the target. With the trigger pulled all the way back, the gun shoots in full-auto. The half-pull single shot is by design and not the same as pulling trigger half way on a Marui AEG (which is not recommended on the Marui designs). This type of trigger design eliminates the selector plate, so one fewer part to break. More on this design later. The trigger pull is fairly smooth, and the two positions are easily distinguishable, but in the heat of a battle, one's likely to just hold the trigger all the way down and spray in full auto.

The sound of the gearbox is very healthy and clean, none of that grinding noise of a some poorly shimmed gears. The rate of fire with the stock 8.4v battery is quite good as well. I recorded the muzzle noise over a few seconds period on full auto, and there are 29 shots over 2.5 second period, so that gives an ROF of 696 RPM.

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The power, on the other hand, is quite disappointing. I do not have a chronograph, so I can�t say specific numbers, but I did the coke can chrono. This AEG with .2g BBs can only make a big dent on one side of a regular Coco-Cola can. For reference, my CA M15 or ICS AK74 in stock settings can all penetrate both sides of a regular coke can. The box cover claims the fps with .12g BBs is 330fps, and that translates to about 255 fps with 0.2g BBs, and according to my coke can, I'd say the actual number is even lower than that.

Accuracy is decent if shooting from a supported position. The terrible sights, the lack of a stock, and the heavy weight, however, all make it hard to shoot accurately. In practice, I strongly advise against using this weapon to snipe, but for CQB, it's more than adequate to spray a target 20 feet away, and it's more than capable of putting a gaping hole in the middle of a letter-sized target at this range with a short burst. I didn�t get to test it on longer ranges at the moment. The hop up is adjustable, but at CQB range, it doesn't really have any effect.

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The mag feeds very well, and I only need to re-wind it once to empty all 500 or so BBs shooting on semi and short bursts. The mag starts skipping feeds when the spring tension is low, and that's when you need to re-wind the mag spring. During my testing, I shot around 2000 rounds, and I didn't get any jam or double feed. At one point, the gears appeared to be locked up, but another pull all the way to full auto sorted that out.

Does it have the guts?

As I mentioned earilier, the body of the Bell G3 SAS is simplified one-piece receiver/grip design. More accurately, it's two halves joined together by 9 screws. To get to the gearbox, one simply unscrew all the screws on the body, including the ones on the front and rear sight. Each of the screws on the body is hidden by a little piece of rubber stuffed in the screw hole, so the screw holes are less noticeable, and the screws are less likely to fall out by accident. Make sure you make note of which screw goes where because they are not all the same size, and again, there's no manual, so if you don't remember, you're kind of screwed, and have to just try every hole.

After done with the screws, take off the sights, and the two halves are easily separated revealing the gearbox/motor housing, which is metal, the wires, the barrel, the hop up unit and the charging handle assembly. It is actually very clean inside the body.

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The gearbox, which is not standard V2 gearbox that Marui uses in its G3 series, and the hop up units are screwed to the left half of the body, so find those screws and unscrew them. Now you can lift the gearbox and the hopup/barrel out.

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As I mentioned earlier, there's no selector plate, and instead, the full auto trigger contact is behind the trigger. There's still a trigger housing inside the gearbox similar to Marui's design, and when the trigger is pulled half way, the first trigger contact in the gearbox will engage and make the gun shoots in semi. When one pulls the trigger all the way back, the second trigger contact is engaged, and the gun shoots in full auto.

Unscrew the full-auto trigger contact, the rest resembles a generic Marui gearbox. All of the wires are soldered to their contacts, so if one wants to upgrade the motor or wires, make sure to have a solder iron.

Inside the gearbox, everything appears to be standard. The spring guide, piston, cylinder, tappet plate, bushings are all plastic. The gears are metal, and appear to be fairly good.

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The seal on the piston feels kind of cheap. Unfortunately, I don't have spare parts to upgrade this gun with, but it seems the gearbox will take standard parts such as main spring, piston, and gears without much trouble. Whether the stock motor is able to power a stronger spring is a different story. Speaking of the motor. There's no label on it, but it sits securely in its housing, more than can be said for my ICS AK74.

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The gearbox was also very well lubed out of the box. In fact, it was a bit over lubed. I wiped off some of the excess grease, and put everything back together without much trouble. Just be careful with the small trigger spring and anti-reversal latch spring.

Miscellaneous

The included sling is much better than the one included with the UTG MP5, but unfortunately, the sling loop is too weak to hold the weight of the AEG, and it�s bent just after couple hours of plinking.

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The small bag of BBs included is also of poor quality with visible seamlines and deformation.

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The un-jamming rod is even more miserable, and it cannot serve as a cleaning rod as that with high end AEGs.

Conclusion

The Bell G3 SAS is pretty much what you can expect of AEGs in this price range. The only other mid range AEG I have owned was a UTG MP5. Compare with the UTG, Bell made some bold design changes from the usual Marui design, and the result is a more rugged product at the expense of compatibility and realism. From a practical point of view, the G3 SAS is the better of the two, and is great for casual CQB games, which benefits from the decent ROF and accuracy. The weak power, incompatible magazine (with other G3 AEGs), inability to take any aftermarket G3 stock, and the reversed polarities on connectors leave the G3 much more to desire. To end on a positive note, this AEG costs less than half of the high end metal AEGs, and it functions as intended with no upgrades necessary at all.

<a href="http://www.airsplat.com/">Airsplat.com</a> has generously offered to send me some aftermarket internal parts such as main spring and piston to test the G3 SAS with, but I�ll be off for the holidays in a few days, and the results of the upgrade will have to wait till I come back after the New Year�s. Be sure to check back for updates then.

Update:

Bell G3 SAS upgrade potential

As promised, <a href="http://www.airsplat.com/">Airsplat.com</a> has generously supplied me lots of standard aftermarket upgrade parts to test on the new Bell G3 SAS. The parts I received are:

Systema BS precision inner barrel for mp5
Systema motor (short)
Systema helical gear set (original ratio)
Systema piston
Systema cylinder
Systema cylinder head (version II)
Systema piston head
ICS M120 spring
Deepfire 6mm hard oilless metal bushing set

Out of the above, the inner barrel and the bushings do not fit without some significant modifications with power tools, but the rest will all fit easily, but you may want to finish reading before rushing out and buy the upgrade parts.

Note: in the pictures below, stock parts are above the aftermarket parts.

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The stock bushing appears to be slightly smaller (just 0.5 to 1mm smaller) than standard 6mm bushings, but the difference is big enough that standard 6mm bushings are impossible to fit in the gearbox, without some slight modification.

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The small alignment cuts at the back end of the inner barrel is slightly off (just about 1mm) from the standard inner barrel. Thus, the standard inner barrel fails to lock in position correctly. If one grinds down the back end of the inner barrel just a bit, or enlarge notch on side of barrel, then it'd fit.

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The stock motor is almost identical to the Systema motor except the spring on top is a bit stronger for the stock motor, but that doesn't really make much difference, and one can put the stock spring onto the Systema motor as well.

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The stock gears are standard, and the Systema helical gears fit like charm.

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The stock cylinder and cylinder head are together as one piece, and it's slightly bigger than the Systema cylinder and cylinder head, but the stock piston matches the stock cylinder, and so the stock piston head is slightly too big and will not fit in the Systema cylinder. So if you want to upgrade the cylinder, make sure you upgrade the piston and piston head as well.

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The stock piston head simply screws on from the front, and not compatible with the Systema piston head, which screws on from the inside of the piston.

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The M120 spring is much longer than the stock spring.

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Upgrading the internals of Bell gearbox is exactly the same as upgrading that of a standard V2 gearbox (except the selector plate which is replaced by a much simpler trigger contact). The wire, as pointed out in the review, is soldered on the motor contacts, and has the polarity reversed. So, you'll need either a soldering iron, or just cut the wire. And when you re-connected wires, if you plan on using the battery came in the box, connect the wires with the same polarity as before, but if you want to use standard battery, you may want to reverse the connection so you can keep the original tamiya battery connector un-charged.

Any experienced airsofter would advise one to upgrade the bushings before any power upgrade, but unfortunately, the bushings don't fit, but I put the spring in anyways hoping for the best. Not surprisingly, the AEG failed to shoot. The gears tried to turn about a third of the way, and then locked up. I tried a 9.6v battery in addition to the stock 8.4v battery, but with no success. It seems the stock bushing simply failed under the higher stress. If I take out the spring and piston, but with everything else in the gearbox, the gears (helical or not) spin as usual when the trigger is pulled. Now, even if I put the stock spring back in, the gears would still lock up easily. Note that before I tried the stronger spring, the gears never locked up. The shimming is pretty bad too, and one can see the axles of the gears shifting a bit inside the bushings. It is probably the combination of plastic bushing and the bad shimming that causes the gear lock up.

Conclusion
I advise power upgrade for the Bell G3SAS, and since this is intended to be a CQB weapon, no power upgrade is really necessary. While most of the internal parts can be replaced with standard parts, the bushings really disappoint. Keep in mind, before any upgrade, the AEG was working just fine.

Again, special thanks to <a href="http://www.airsplat.com/">Airsplat.com</a> for supplying everything seen in this review!

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SEARCH FUNDY Member My Airsoft Gallery

Stiloboy

Registered: January 2007
Posts: 3

Review Date: 4/2/07

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: �89.99 | Rating: 8

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	Price, size, performance
Cons:	lack of general compatibility, some weaknesses

I bought this as my first Airsoft gun, to use in general skirmishing and so far its been very rewarding.

There are a number of weakeness, i've found that its not compatible with TM mags, so you can't buy mid-low caps for Milsim days. The mount for the harness (only rear mounted) its very weak. First time i used it, it snapped and damaged the one plastic part on the gun (the battery holder).

Plus points, drill out rear harness bracket and fit a round clip and it'll last forever. Battery takes 5 hours to charge, definately, but it won't last a whole day of serious use, although tends to run out on me at the end of the day.

Its a weighty gun, but then it is mainly metal, so its pretty sturdy can cope with a bit of rough treatment.

It shoots straight and true, and its great that you can single shot then full auto by just pulling the trigger halfway then all the way, not like most guns in the market. Hop up is handy, but it shoots so far with it turned right down its hardly necessary.

Chrono tested today with 0.20g good quality bb's at 275fps, which it perfectly acceptable. Better that some of the guys today with their 3x the price standard TM guns.

On the whole a good gun for someone that just wants cheap performance and a whole lot of fun... although i'd say get youself a springer shotty as backup if the batter goes late in the day.