SL9 - ArniesAirsoft - Review Archive

Author

Ghost_Rider

Reaper Man

Registered: February 2005
Location: Glasgow
Posts: 5,248

Review Date: 30/8/05

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: �350.00 | Rating: 8

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	Powerful, accurate, looks teh sechs
Cons:	Long, custom battery required

Quote Zero One Airsoft:

A spectacular custom rifle based on the G36 carbine. This model is ideal for both styles of gameplay - its sleek sniper looks and feel, coupled with its scope and long barrel make it great for precision shooting, and it can be used to great effect in a normal role as an assault rifle.

Lightweight, Comfortable Rifle
3.5x Optical Scope with Large Carry Handle
Accepts any G36 Magazine
Semi & Fully Automatic Function
Adjustable Butt to Suit Size of User
Adjustable Cheek Piece for Comfortable Shooting
Fully Assembled Rifle with optional free 1J or M100 upgrade (if requested)
20rd Sniper Magazine
GP 2200mAh NiMH Custom Battery

The SL9 has been one of my holy grails for a long time. I'm a big fan of the standard G36, but it's becoming as common the Armalite around the local area as everyone else comes to realise just what great guns they are.

I had been promising myself one for ages but I could never quite justify dropping the requisite �500 or so quid you need for either a prebuilt version or the g36 and the kit.

With the upcoming VCR issue, I'd resigned myself to this being a pipe dream. Fortunately for me, Beano has a deep wallet and the attention span of a gnat - he'd had his SL9 for *four days* before deciding 'don't like this' and sticking it on the forums for a stupidly low �350.

Having already purchased my ICS MP5 SD6 from him I knew that if he described a gun as 'mint' then that's exactly what it was. I wasn't disappointed.

EDIT: Z1 have as of October 31st 2005 taken a massive chunk of the prices of all their custom guns - The Sl9 and the SL9 SD are now both availiable for �399, a much more reasonable figure. I would speculate that the VCRB probably has something to do with it, but to be honest I know that a lot of interest has been generated in the customs and the high price tage has been their limiting factor.

Initial impressions

OMFG, this gun is LOOOOOOONNNNG. Compared to a standard G36c, or even the K, this is a very long rifle, on a par with the PSG1.

It's very hard to tell the differences between which parts are standard TM and which are the STAR kit. Uniformity of colour is quite impressive.

I was prepared to be disappointed by the carry handle sight, but was pleasantly suprised by the magnification and the crosshair. I've not had chance to skirmish with it yet, but plinking with it it seems eminently suitable for airsoft ranges and accuracy.

Unscrewing the barrel extension shows another suprise - Z1 have installed a full length (509mm) barrel in 6.04 flavour. This makes the rifle even more accurate, and coupled with the m100 spring means the gun is shooting around 350 (falling nicely within my local sites 328+10% variance limit)

Firing

Beano had thoughtfully charged the battery before sending, so I could play straight out of the box. I loaded up the 20rd 'sniper' locap and began sqeezing off shots. With a decent rest and a zeroed sight, I was putting the bb's through the same hole at 10m and getting a side plate sized group at 30m. (I love having a huge parking garage)

Using the Hi-cap and full auto, the accuracy is naturally diminished, but is still well beyond that of a stock aeg.

Points of interest

The battery is a custom job - necessary to fit in the long foregrip. This does mean that if you run out of charge with only one battery you're out of luck, but with 2200mah you're going to have to be very trigger happy to run out in a days play.

Slinging the rifle is not easy, due to its length.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v172/24_hour_techie/detail_1.jpg

The adjustable stock and cheek rest are fixed once set - you have to screw the adjustment points into place and this means even more length added if you fully extend the stock. Making it retractable would have made carrying it easier.

The safety/fire selector is not accurate.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v172/24_hour_techie/detail_4.jpg

As you can see, the line on the selector no longer lines up with the icons; rather it is the switch itself that now indicates semi and full auto.

Summary
Of course, the SL9 kit is not quite accurate to the real steel SL9, it is more the illegitimate offspring of the SL8 and G36k, but it is still an amazingly sexy gun.

I'll post an update once I've fired it in anger, but for now, I would certainly recommend it.

EDIT: Right, Part two.

After some initial issues with poor qualitiy beebs and a barrel jammed to buggery, my Sl9 finally saw action this past sunday.

After re-attaching and zeroing the scope, the gun proved to be as accurate as I initially predicted. With 0.2 bb's the gun was chronoed at 354fps, dropping to 330 when using 0.25's.

The gun jammed on me once during the day's play after I layed down some serious suppressing fire -the tightbore barrel does not like sustained bursts. I'll be honest, I don't use the gun for sniping, but rather as an very accurate longarm, but if used as intended (single shorts or short bursts) this issue should be avoidable.

My kill ratio with this rifle was higher than any previous weapon - you lined up the cross hairs on someone's torso, and that's where the beebs went.

The length did at times make the gun a little unweildy, but never unmanagable. It's certainly worth carrying a sidearm for any confined spaces you might encounter.

I really can't pick any flaws in the gun at all - you do need to consider ammo quality, but then that's par for the course for a sniper rifle. The custom battery ran me all day without a hitch, and I was very impressed with the guns skirmish performance.

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