KWC M16 Review
By Imports4Life
“What would you want to use a gas gun for?” Sometimes we gas gun users hear that. We hear AEG’s are better, AEG’s are more fun, AEG’s are less maintenance, AEG’s don’t take money to shoot, etc, etc. Not quite so true, my AEG toting friends. I hope to prove that gas guns can be just as good if not better than an AEG in some cases. In this review, I hope to go over the basics of the gun. From the way it looks, to the way it shoots.
When I first started looking for a new rifle, I had only two guns, an HFC M16 and my KWC Desert Eagle GBB. Naturally, my desire was a bit larger than my budget. One day while day dreaming, I realized my budget couldn’t withstand the impact from my dream gun. Slightly despaired, I looked toward the KWC M16. After reading the specs of the rifle, I knew that this was going to be the rifle I bought.
Once I scrubbed up enough money to buy one, I put my order in to Plycon’s Armory for the grand total of $225 ($180 for the gun, $20 for 3 day select shipping, and $25 for one extra 68 round mag). Not a bad price for a full size, fully automatic rifle shooting at 400fps. But would it hold up to my expectations? That’s what we’ll have to see.
Before we get to the gun, I want to talk about Plycon’s Armory. The first rifle that I received, while it worked, was a horrible performer. When I would fill the gas tank, the gun simply wouldn’t shoot. When it did, it shot at a laughingly low FPS and an even lower rate of fire. It always seemed to me like the gas was too cold, so I had the idea of sticking it by a heater and thinking that would work.
No luck. Stupidly, I stalled until my warranty was over. Finally, I let Plycon’s know what was going on. He promptly told me to send it back and he would replace it, free of charge. Keep in mind this is after my warranty had been up for at least two weeks. He let me know when he received the rifle, let me know what was wrong with it (Apparently the rifle had cracked somewhere and that was the performance robber), tested the new one, and even gave me the tracking number on the shipment back home.
Great customer service from Plycon’s, I would never hesitate to order from them again, and I highly recommend them. There’s nothing but praise from me for Plycon’s.
Anyways, back on track. When the rifle arrived, I was excited for the second time. It’s especially exciting when you’re used to picking up an HFC M16, let me tell ya. Here are the package contents:
- M16-A2 TCS (Tactical Carbine Shorty
- One 68 round magazine
- Loading rod
- Front sight adjustment tool
- Silicone oil
- Sling
- Bipod
- ‘Instruction’ manual
- Allen wrenches
- Complimentary bag of 100 BB’s
The rifle of course is the meat of the package, with everything else stuffed in little cut outs around it. The magazine is of course, made completely out of metal except for the internals. The internals are a relatively thin black plastic that holds a spring in a sort of sideways ‘S’ that’s been squished together. The mags are sturdy and don’t wobble at all, which shouldn’t happen with any gun anyways.
There’s a slight wiggle inside, but nothing that would be of any large annoyance. The loading rod is just a big clear plastic tube with a black plastic rod inside of it, nothing special here. The front sight adjustment tool is just a round piece of metal with 4 little ‘claws’ coming off it, if you will. The little ‘claws’ slip into place on the front sight pushing down a spring loaded piece of metal, which allows the front sight notch to be adjusted up and down.
The silicone oil included is a small 100 gram or so container. The silicone oil smells awful. It smells like rotten fish, but it sure does work well on your gun. The sling is a pretty nice piece. Made of 1.25” wide olive drab cotton, it fits the gun perfectly. Works pretty well when your arms get tired. The bipod, on the other hand, could use some work.
The bipod is basically a metal attachment that screws through the bottom foregrip, with two legs hanging off it. The legs are just welded on to stay in place. One of the welds broke on my bipod however, so if the leg were to open suddenly, it could pop off its perch and go flying at someone’s face. Not a good thing. The allen wrenches that come with the rifle are for the bipod, and tightening the screws on the end of the butt stock. Now that I’m done describing everything no one really cares about, I’ll move on to the rifle itself.
The actual rifle is quite heavy for someone used to springers. Weighing in at about 7.5 lbs, it can get a little tiring to lug around all day. The build quality of the M16 is pretty damn nice for the money. Here are the metal parts:
- Trigger
- Outer barrel
- All of the internals
- Flash hider
- Butt plate
- Magazine
- Front sight
- Rear sight assembly
- Charging handle
- Dust cover
- Magazine release
- Trigger guard
All of the metal parts make up for a pretty sturdy rifle. Barrel wobble is non-existent because of the thick outer barrel. On the KWC’s, the outer barrel is not some skinny twig like the TM AEG’s. The outer barrel is a 3-piece design, but it’s plenty sturdy. The only wiggle is the front sight, which is only a millimeter or two at that. Nothing largely annoying. Surprisingly, the flash hider simply slips on the end and is kept in place by a tight fit. No threads here, seeing as how the outer barrel under the front sight is plastic covered metal.
Both the front and rear sights are fully adjustable. The front sights are adjustable for elevation, while the rear sights are adjustable in both windage and elevation. The receiver is all plastic. An ugly light grey plastic at that. I haven’t seen a Tokyo Marui Armalite in person, but judging from pictures I’ve seen, the KWC receiver is a little lighter than the TM’s. The stocks have a nice smooth texture to them, but the color is just… blech. It’s a shiny black plastic that shows any oil on it. From fingerprints to cheek prints, it shows everything.
The hand guards have a nice smooth texture to them too, but aren’t nearly so glossy. They don’t have a large amount of sticky, football glove grip, but they have enough grip so that the rifle isn’t likely to go flying. The metal parts are done in a high gloss black, which combined with the light grey receiver and the shiny stocks, make the rifle look nasty. I ended up painting my whole rifle flat black, including the stocks and hand guards. See the pictures for before and after shots.
As far as upgrades / accessories go, I’m pretty sure most real-steel AR-15 accessories will fit. The reason I say this is that the KWC M16 is closer to the dimensions of the real AR-15 than the TM AEG is. There’s not a large pool of accessories made for the KWC M16 like there is for the TM M16 series. I haven’t actually gotten the money to buy any real AR accessories yet, so, unfortunately I can’t confirm they actually do fit.
I’m also not sure whether TM M16 series accessories would fit, but I’m guessing not. If all you’re after is extra mags, they can be had for $20-$30 USD brand new. If you’re going for your uber-high support mag fetish, there are currently no high cap mags made for the KWC series. The only way I know of getting a high cap is either custom making one, or buying a classic JAC mag and fitting it to work.
Next on the list, field stripping! Want to field strip the rifle? Just pop out the two body pins and slide it apart. It comes right apart in two orderly pieces. Want to take the bolt out? Just slide the receivers apart, and pull the charging handle until the bolt slides out of the upper receiver. It’s an extremely simple and easy way to open up your gun for maintenance / upgrading. I’ve included some pictures so you can see what it looks like field stripped.
To take the rifle down completely, it just involves taking out a few allen screws here and there, and the whole rifle is in pieces. It takes no more than 5 – 10 seconds to pop the two halves of the receiver apart, as long as you have the right tools handy. I normally use the smaller allen wrench that came with my rifle to push the pins out, since they’re basically impossible to get out with your hands. It’s definitely a nice feature to have for cleaning.
On the subject of cleaning, it doesn’t need to be done every day as some may think. The only time I’ve cleaned my rifle is after playing in dust, rain, or when I played in an area with a lot of mud or soft dirt. The bolt’s easy to take apart if you want to make sure all your internals are running at full speed and make sure everything’s all clean. Seeing as how most green gas (If that’s what you use) has silicone inside the gas, it keeps itself pretty well lubed on the inside.
I would say regular maintenance for lubing is every 2-3 games, just to make sure you don’t get anything too dry. As far as actual complete take down and cleaning, that’s up to you. It depends on your environment you play in, and how tough you are on your rifle. It’s still a good idea to take it apart every 10 games or so to give it a thorough work over. Plus, it’s kind of fun!
As far as performance goes... Well, that’s a little different. Hooked up to an external green gas rig that I bought from Airsoft 128, it’ll punch through both sides of a coke can or almost through the bottom in one shot. I’ve gotten it to go through the bottom of a coke can in one shot, but that was only one time. The rate of fire is pretty fast. Fast enough to lay a good amount of fire in one direction to scare the OpFor. The gun doesn’t completely stop firing when you’re out of ammo, but it makes this distinct gas leaking sound that’s easy to differentiate from actual firing.
Listen to the attached sound to hear the beast shooting. I’m guessing the RoF is probably around 800-900 RPM, but I might be wrong. It’ll empty out the whole 68 round mag in a couple of seconds, easy. The RoF coupled with the bipod makes the gun a pretty decent support rifle. Getting easily 1000 rounds off of one 1000mL tank, laying down cover fire is always fun to do, especially if you have enough ammo to keep the enemy’s head down for a while...
The internal tank is a bad thing in my eyes. A bad, bad thing. I’ve heard a lot of people saying “I don’t want a stupid cord hanging from my gun! I’ll just use the internal!” Well, sorry to tell ya pal, but it doesn’t work like that. The amount of cool-down you get with the internal is ridiculous. The first time I used my internal was my last. Now, it could’ve been related to the cold Washington weather, but it seemed to me like there just wasn’t nearly enough pressure to actually make the rifle shoot worth a damn.
Full-auto is nothing like an external, as it should be. The rifle seems like it just doesn’t want to cycle when it’s using the internal tank. It’ll shoot, but it’s not going to annihilate targets like with the external rig. Semi auto is weird too. When you pull the trigger, you can hear the bolt moving inside, but you can’t really tell if it’s going to shoot or not. You can get close to 2 or 3 mags out of the internal, but you start to get pretty bad inconsistency after the 1st mag.
Accuracy, on the other hand, isn’t quite as consistent as the firing. The rifle has no hop-up, which makes for some pretty inconsistent groupings. The rifle having no hop-up is a big disappointment for me. A simple hop-up can be made by drilling a small hole in the top of the inner barrel and using o-rings to make a small hop-up, but it’s not very useful. Using HFC .2g BB’s (Not the best, I know), the gun is accurate enough to hit someone at 100 – 110 feet, although by then the spray is about 2 – 3 ft. in diameter.
Almost looks like a shotgun at long range. It’s a struggle to get every BB inside a 2 x 2 window at 70 ft., but it’s do-able. I’ve heard that adding a better inner barrel will tighten the groupings immensely and add a little bit of range, but I haven’t witnessed it first hand. I have two stock AEG barrels on order now hoping they’ll do what I want them to do.
From what I hear, the stock KWC M16 inner barrel is 6.1mm inside diameter. That’s an extremely loose barrel for trying to hit something at a long range. For comparison, the stock Tokyo Marui AEG barrel is around 6.08mm inside diameter. That’s a difference of .92 mm, which is enough to throw the BB’s off target.
In the end, I think the rifle was more than worth the money. It looks great, sounds great, and feels great. There are no problems with the rifle, other than the slight creaking and the minor sight wiggling. Although the accuracy is a little off, you can easily tighten it up by buying an inexpensive tighter inner barrel.
In comparison to AEG’s, I feel that my gas gun is just as good. In comparison to an AEG, I feel that my gas gun is just as good. The accuracy may not be there, but I get a higher stock fps, more realistic sound, heavier weight, comparable build quality, a more solid rifle, and even a bipod and sling out of the box. All for less money. The internals are relatively simple, even for someone who doesn’t have very much experience. If you’re looking for a cheap rifle to use, don’t want an AEG, or want to rub it in your AEG toting friends faces that your gas gun is just as tough as their AEG, I suggest getting one.
| 
