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The M16 is all about modernism: in it’s time, it looked more like something out of those old science-fiction movies than it did the next tip of the spear of the United States Military. It had one of them “new-fangled” small cartridges, something the top brass (and, in part, the grunts) of the Army hated. It symbolized a revolution not only in our military, but also in the philosophy itself of combat rifles. It is, to an extent, the definition of the stage in which we currently reside in the grand scheme of all things small arms related…which makes it all the more harder to believe that it has been the service weapon in our military for a longer period of time than any rifle before it.

Eugene Stoner, the man most famous for the development of the Armalite series of weapons, began designing rifles after he left the Marines. His latest design was called the AR-10, a 7.62 caliber rifle, and it would be from this weapon that the battle rifle still in use today would be born. Since the new cartridge allowed him to use aluminum and plastics in construction, the AR-15 was extremely light for it’s time. While designing the AR-15's new round, Stoner used a type of gunpowder called “IMR powder.” The AR-15 was very reliable when used with this powder, but it just so happens that the Army was then starting to convert the type of powder in use to that known as ball type powder (which was cheaper to make and had more “umpf” to it). This is where the downright stupidity comes into play, as this switch to ball powder would be the number one reason for the M16 getting such a bad reputation for unreliability.

Eventually, the M16 was adopted for service. In 1963, Colt received an order for 85,000 rifles for the Army and 19,000 for the Air Force. The M16 was advertised as being a self-cleaning weapon, thus no cleaning kits were issued. As a result of this, along with the conversion to ball powder, the M16 quickly started being accused of being prone to jamming in the jungles of Vietnam. Indeed, there is at least one example that comes to mind: when one of our positions was overrun in the earlier days of the war, it was found later that every single M16 left behind was jammed. In 1967, they finally figured out that these problems were the result of the ball gunpowder used in the 5.56 round. The problem was solved by reducing the amount of preservative in the powder. A cleaning kit was hastily issued, along with a new stock that had the ability to store it. Finally, a program was formed to train soldiers on how to properly maintain the M16. Also, a maintenance manual was created, which was ingeniously written to resemble a comic book.

I won’t go any further in the history of the M16…remember, this is a review of the Vietnam version, and that is where our little history lesson has already brought us to that point.

I got this AEG from the same place I always do – Olympus Airsoft. As always, it arrived at my house without incident and I was very pleased with the transaction. I removed the cover and laid my eyes on the big, black, beautiful M16. I was immediately pleased to discover two things: The (fully intact) trademarks were covered only by easily removed tape and there would be no orange removal to worry about – the gun comes with a plastic orange “flash hider” attached, which screws right off so you can screw the metal, black, three-pronged flash hider on in it’s place.

I was somewhat surprised at the length of the rifle…I had expected it to be shorter than it really is, the sheer length of the gun was impressive. I had only briefly handled a VN-style M16 once before, but I had plenty of experience with A2s and M4s. So when I pulled the charging handle back, I was expecting the dust cover to pop open like it does on newer-style Marui Armalites. Unfortunately, the dust cover has to be opened by hand, and it’s spring loaded so it will always snap shut if you don’t hold it open manually. The bolt inside is also immovable, the front of it simply having a hole cut out of it to fit in the hopup adjustment knob. About the only thing I liked better about any of this was the fact that the bolt was of a silver color, so it at least looks like it is separate from the receiver. One thing I always liked about the earlier-style M16s was the triangular forward handgrip. In my opinion, it both looks and feels better than the newer, cylindrical ribbed style hand guard. Something that I had not expected to be of such high quality was the gas tube (the long skinny cylinder above the barrel that can be seen through the vent holes of the hand guard which, on the real steel, brings excess gas back down to force the bolt back and chamber a new round). I had not anticipated it to be made of metal and be of such rigid construction, for some reason it adds to the overall feel of the gun.

For those of you out there trying to justify the extra money you have to put down for an M16A1 “VN” when you could just get a regular “A1” for substantially cheaper, I’ll try to reveal all the “extras” the VN version has to offer. First and foremost, the VN comes standard with a 190-round (20 round in real life, although in real life you never load more than 18 or 19 rounds into a magazine) hi-cap, whereas the A1 comes only with a 68-round standard magazine. Another plus for the VN is the fact that it has more metal parts, (which include the following): everything in from the tip of the triangular hand guard on out, (flash hider, outer barrel, etc.) the trigger, the bottom part of the trigger guard, the slip ring, (the thing that keeps the two foregrip pieces in place) the plate on the bottom of the pistol grip, the aforementioned “gas return tube”, the dust cover, (over the ejection port) the swing swivels, the sights, the selector switch and the bolt release, along with the things one would assume to be metal in the first place (like the magazine and the receiver pins, both metal). I have not had any experience with the regular A1 before, but I have always heard – without exception - from those that have handled both that the VN is easily the sturdiest, heaviest, and overall better quality rifle of the two. According to Wargame Club, the VN weighs in at 3700 grams and has an average velocity of “279.84” (pretty accurate “chronographing” if you ask me…) feet per second, while the A1 is down at 3300g and 269.61 FPS. Whenever I chronograph my VN, it usually hovers around the low to mid 280 fps range with .2 BBs. I also hear – quite frequently – that the A1 is prone to barrel wobble and the VN is not. I can’t comment on whether or not the A1 has bad barrel wobble, but I can comment that - despite popular belief - the VN is not exactly immune to this affliction either (more on this later).

Something a lot of people who have never owned an Armalite AEG seem to want to know (well, I did anyway) is how that gray plastic receiver/carry handle looks. It can best be put that, depending on what your lighting conditions are, it looks like plastic – but a really, really good plastic. And that’s just when you first open your box: I’m pleased to say that my M16 is a little like good wine…it just gets better with age. I’m not sure what does it, although I suspect it’d due simply to the natural effects of weathering/grime, but your receiver/carry handle area will get darker and look more and more real as you use it more and more. By now, I can hardly stop looking at that once light gray block of plastic, as (when viewed in the correct light levels) it is really hard to tell there is any plastic on this thing at all.

Now let’s talk about the other plastic parts on this rifle: the parts that are “supposed to be” plastic (i.e. the grips and the stock). When I first held my friend’s M16 A2 a while back, I remember saying, “Wow…my XM177 springer has a better foregrip than this thing!”. I wasn’t kidding, either – the grips just seemed so light and thin for a Marui gun, and I was afraid my VN would feel the same way. Quite the contrary, I am happy to report that the VN has excellent plastic furniture, the grips being of a wonderful non-glossy black color and thick, flex-free construction.

Yet another thing that surprised me about this weapon was the butt plate. I was used to Armalites having that “diamond-pattern” steel plate with the hinged door for the battery, so I was rather befuddled when I came across a rubber plate with no door and horizontal lines on it. On the VN, you have to remove the whole buttplate to insert the battery, much like a full-stock AK works. I have to admit I much prefer the looks and functionality of the metal plate, for numerous reasons. My biggest gripe about the VN buttplate is that it is relatively easy to lose. This happened to me once at an outdoor game, but I was lucky enough to find it after retracing my steps and looking all over the ground. Now, I have not tested this, but I am strongly considering purchasing an A2 stock and putting it on my M16 so that I can have the “superior” buttplate. Like I said, I haven’t tried this, so don’t blame me if you go out and buy a new stock for your VN and find that it doesn’t fit.

Before I got my VN, I used to use my AK-47 full stock version at every game – and I haven’t used it since. The VN has such a long barrel that I’ve noticed some superior accuracy, but not so long as to make it more unwieldy. The rate of fire is about the same as any other AEG, and the sound is similarly normal…granted, I have had other players inform me that my VN sounds (for whatever reason) noticeably louder than other Armalite variants. I can’t really hear the difference myself, but then again I am seldom on the receiving end of my own weapon…

One advantage of this rifle that repeatedly makes itself apparent on the field of airsoft battle is - rather ironically, given the real steel’s reputation – it’s reliability under harsh conditions. One instance in particular stands out: at a game once, I was pinned down by a sniper (with what very well may have been the most hard hitting airsoft gun in the Midwest) while I was behind a tree. I eventually leaped to one side and went straight down into a ravine (I imagine it looked cooler than it felt). Someone asked me if I was OK, but it wasn’t myself I was worried about…I landed right on top of my M16. I didn’t even want to look at it, because I knew that I had split it in half (or something to that effect), but it turned out that it didn’t even get a scratch…I had a cut or two, buy my gun was unscathed. To this day it performs flawlessly and looks great.

If there’s one Automatic Electric Gun in the Airsoft world that can be upgraded, it’s an Armalite. There are all sorts of internal upgrades, metal bodies, flashlights, RIS grips, flash hiders, even new stocks and total conversion kits…you name it, it probably exists. The one drawback of the M16 VN in this area is the fact that it has a non-removable carry handle (no fault of Marui’s, of course). This means you’ll have to find a special mount for that red-dot scope you had in mind and that you can’t make that poor-man’s SR-16 (although why you would want to do that with an A1 receiver is beyond me). Fortunately, scope mounts do exist and are quite common. They typically attach by utilizing that little hole in the bottom of your carrying handle and have the actual scope mounting rail thingy horizontal (so that it’s parallel to the barrel). I’m not sure how secure or versatile this type of scope mount is - seeing as I’ve never tried it – but they seem rather popular so I assume they get the job done well enough.

This is where I talk about the only slightly annoying tidbits and/or the things which are annoying but one would expect to happen anyways. Besides that which I’ve mentioned before, the fire selector is first on this list. It does it’s job well enough (semi is still semi and auto is still auto), but after a good amount of usage, it doesn’t quite “click” into place as it did when it was new. Don’t get me wrong, it by no means flops all over the place or can be moved by looking at it too hard, it simply doesn’t sound or feel quite as new as it did months ago. Another minor (yet present) “problem” is that the little metal pin that holds the front sling swivel in place comes loose every so often. It hasn’t fallen out on me yet, but you might want to keep an eye on it to make sure it stays in there nice and tight.

Finally, I have more a piece of advice than a con or semi-con (this will happen to any metal on any AEG if you’re stupid like me): make doubly sure that your M16 is 100% dry after using it in the rain. I thought mine was dry, but after taking it out of the box a week later, I was horrified when I noticed that all the metal parts were coated in a white crusty substance! Fortunately, it was pretty easy to scratch/scrub off, and the stuff that remained actually added to the looks of the gun.

Eugene Stoner’s M16 was not without it’s flaws, and unfortunately, neither is Tokyo Marui’s. The bright side to this is the that there isn’t all that much other than the problems I discussed back in the “First Impressions” section. To start with, I’d like to talk about the curse of the TM Armalite series: barrel wobble. You, like myself, may have heard that the VN - and the CAR-15 for that matter - are immune to this problem. If so, you heard right and you heard wrong. The spot where the barrel and the receiver come together is designed different on this gun (as apposed to other, more modern AR-15s) and isn’t perpetually loose. However, this means that once your barrel wobble sets in, there’s little you can do…but you’re not helpless (we’ll get to that in a second). The culprit in on this gun seems to be some transparent green “glue” that cracks after a while, due to too much flexing of the barrel. There is a metal tube about one inch in diameter encompassing the length of the barrel underneath the foregrips that acts as an “outer outer” barrel, (presumably existing to add weight) and it goes into a brass mount near the “slip ring”/spot where the barrel meets the receiver. The green glue I was talking about is what fills the gap between that “outer outer” barrel and the brass mount, and when the adhesive cracks it forms gaps and causes a slight amount of barrel wobble (about 2-3 mm either direction). The solution? Simple, yet effective. There may be those of you out there that have found better ways of doing this, but this is how I fixed the problem: First, you remove the grips. Then you get an old pop can or two and some scissors (or other cutting device, I imagine this little activity isn’t exactly easy on scissors) and cut some small pieces off the can and jam them into that gap we were discussing. Make sure to put them in 4 locations, as to prevent up – and – down wobble in addition to the side – to – side (you might need a pliers to help jam the can shards in there). I had to put them in about two or three layers deep to stop the wobble, so be prepared to do some amounts of cutting. When I had the can shards firmly wedged into the gap, I wrapped it in electrical tape to make sure that those little can pieces wouldn’t go anywhere. When I was done, I noticed a 60% – 70% reduction in my barrel wobble. Hopefully this solution will be more permanent than that green adhesive was to begin with…

I know I’ve touched base on the buttplate already, but there’s another gripe regarding this piece I haven’t covered yet. After a very successful game a few months ago, I was going to remove the battery from my gun so I could discharge it - but the thing just wouldn’t come off. I knew the problem was due to a wire getting jammed into the area where the plate is supposed to slide down, but I couldn’t do anything about it – taking off the stock would’ve been impossible, because you need to take the plate off to get to the screw and it wouldn’t’ slide down far enough to make that possible. Desperate, I took a screwdriver and just started prying at the thing, and it eventually popped off – panicking, in this case, actually helped. Although the buttplate plays a role in this problem, the fact that the stock is just a little too small to easily fit the appropriate battery also plays a factor, as that is what jammed the cords into the little slit in the first place. This all may sound like a big problem, but it’s only happened once and I could probably fix it the same way if it ever happened again.

For clarity’s sake, here’s a list of both the cons and the semi-cons I’ve found in this gun:

• The buttplate can be impossible to pry off when you want it removed, but simply fall off when you need it.
• The barrel wobble, while nowhere near as bad as more “modern” Armalites, is more involved to fix (even then you won’t get it 100%).
• Safety selector gets doesn’t click as positively after extensive use.
• Front sling swivel isn’t quite 100% secure.

Now on to the good stuff. The first thing I’d like to mention here is the most obvious pro: the looks. You know that feeling when you get a new gun and you think it looks that much cooler because it’s new? I’ve had this gun for almost five months now and that feeling still hasn’t worn off. It just looks so…aesthetically perfect, especially for a Vietnam War nut like me. As for more practical (and non-opinionated) good points, the first thing that comes to mind is the fact that the gun comes with a high capacity magazine. Some people who hate hi-caps might not like this, but I see it as a way to save about $40 by having to buy one less hi-cap (if you actually intend to play with your VN). I know that, up until this point, I have made it seem like barrel wobble is a serious problem on this gun – it isn’t. While the factory “wobble-proofing” may be temporary (and it still took a lot of abuse from me before it started wobbling), it still isn’t that bad even after you “de-stabilize” the gun – and if you find a way to fix it, it’s practically a non-issue. The rumors of this gun being barrel-wobble proof may not be entirely true, but they are certainly not entirely untrue, either.

Here’s a little list of some of the more prevalent “pros” of this M16:

• Barrel wobble resistant.
• Fairly accurate and shoots far.
• Hop-up is easy to get at, yet hidden away.
• Very durable – “takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”
• Looks very realistic (especially with age and use).
• Fairly easy to modify and/or upgrade.
• Real steel parts (like slings) are easy to come by.

There’s a reason why I use this gun more than any of my other AEGs. It is versatile, reliable, ergonomic, user-friendly, a little unique, and just downright cool looking. If you have an interest in playing Airsoft Vietnam-style (a new facet of the hobby I just picked up on, and I highly recommend it) this is the gun for you. Even if you are just trying to decide which of all those TM Armalites you want, I would still recommend this gun over any of the other choices – it’s the only TM AR-15 that takes a “large type” battery and comes with a hi-cap. Before you read this review, you may not have even considered the VN-style M16 for your next purchase. Regardless of your bias, I ask you to at least think about what I’ve said and consider getting this rifle. The pros completely outweigh the cons, and it would be rather hard for me to recommend this gun more than I do now. If you want to break away from the “look at me I’m a modern U.S. Army Ranger” or “hey, I’m a super-cool looking SWAT operator” crowd, yet you don’t want to go down the AK path (and you’d prefer something a little more modern than a Thompson), this is most definitely the gun for you.

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