|
Statistics
|
| Users |
34,768 |
| Products |
477 |
| Reviews |
196 |
| Views |
10,412,479 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reviews
|
Views
|
Date product posted
|
|
0
|
16819
|
Sat October 10, 2009
|
|
 |
|
Recommended By
|
Average Price
|
Average Rating
|
|
No recommendations
|
None indicated
|
None indicated
|
|
|
|
|
|
Description:
|
AGM Sten MKII review by XavierMace
Discuss this review here.
Real Steel History from world.guns.ru
The STEN Mk.II submachine gun was most widely made gun in entire STEN series, with about 2 millions of Mark 2 being made during the war. It was slightly smaller and lighter than Mk.I. Basic design was the same as Mark 1, with omission of all wooden parts of Mk.I and shorter barrel jacket, which made the Mk.II lighter than its predecessor. Magazine housing could be rotated for about 90 degrees down to close feed and ejection apertures during transportation and off-battle carry (this feature caused much troubles as the rotary unit was not very durable and magazine could be misaligned during combat, what led to feed malfunctions and jams). Another source of problems was magazine spring, so magazines were routinely loaded with 28-30 rounds instead of "full capacity" 32 rounds to reduce strain on the magazine spring.
Basic Information
The AGM Sten MKII is available from Airsoft Atlanta for $179.99. The gun includes one standard capacity metal magazine, speed loader, 7.4v 1300mah LiPo battery, LiPo charger, tools, and a cleaning rod. The gun does not include any manuals. Fortunately Airsoft Atlanta posted pictures of how to install the battery and adjust the hopup on their website.
Product Description/first Impressions:
My first thought was impressive. The gun is easily the best packaged China gun I have owned. It's packaged the same way Star/Ares packages theirs. The box is filled with a foam slab which is custom cut to hold the gun and it's accessories. A foam cover is put on the top and then the box is closed. This means there is zero room for the gun to move around and the box should survive getting banged around a bit. Personally, I feel seeing a gun packaged well shows they are willing to spend a little extra money and do things right.
The battery is inside it's own little box to help insure it doesn't get punctured during shipping. The included speed loader is another nice touch. The speed loader functions perfectly and makes loading the standard capacity magazine a breeze. The charger is pretty straight forward with taps for both 7.4v and 11.1v LiPo's. Unfortunately the charger included with mine is not a North American model, so I won't be able to test that. But I already have several LiPo chargers, so that won't be an issue. The standard magazine is metal and has "Made In China" stamped on the bottom. There's not much to say about the cleaning rod, but the gun does also include some tools. There's two Allen wrenches and a Phillips screwdriver. The large Allen wrench and the screw driver are for removing the stock to install the battery. The small Allen wrench is for adjusting the hopup.
Externals
The stock has a bit of wobble to it but other than that, the gun is quite solid. To install the magazine in the gun, you must rotate the magazine housing. This is accomplished by pulling down on the catch on the front of the gun and rotating the housing to the left. The housing rotates firmly and locks into place. The magazine needs a little bit of encouragement to lock into place but has no wobble at all. Unlike most guns, this gun does not have a selector lever, it is full auto only.
The sights are fixed and somewhat difficult to use effectively. I have no doubt that's how the real ones are, but it takes some getting used to. The gun isn't nearly uncomfortable to hold as I thought it would be. Other than that, there really isn't much to say about the externals. It's not that they are bad or anything, it's just a no frills gun. There's no selector switch/safety, sling mounts, or bolt release. You just pop in the mag and start shooting. Those were simpler times.
Internals
Internally, the gun uses a proprietary gearbox although it does bear some resemblance to a P90 gearbox. The first thing that jumps out at you is the fact the trigger assembly is built into the motor cage. While this has a few advantages, one thing it means is no semi auto functionality.
The motor cage/trigger assembly houses a standard Chinese made Short Motor. The assembly is mounted to the gearbox using two Phillips head screws. Once those screws are removed, the whole cage just slides out.
Once the cage is removed, there's another 4 screws on the gearbox. Three on the side, one on the bottom. As with the motor cage, these are all Phillips screws.
Upon opening the gearbox, you are greeted with a large amount of dark green sticky grease. I would say they would have been fine with half the amount of grease on the gun. Other than the placement of the gears, it's a pretty normal looking gearbox. The only other oddity that's immediately normal is the fact that two of the gears have nylon/plastic bushings and the other has copper. Not sure what the deal with that is.
The spring guide is made from an off white plastic/nylon of some sort and looks like a standard V2 spring guide. The spring is your run of the mill stock spring, nothing out of the normal in that regards.
The anti-reversal latch looks like a standard V2 latch, but I don't have a replacement to compare it to so I'm not 100% certain.
It's hard to tell through all the grease, but the gears are your standard XYT gears. Once again, they look like standard V2 gears to me, but I don't have another set to compare them to.
The piston is your run of the mill plastic/polycarb, which appears to be made from the same material as the spring guide. As with the other parts, nothing catches my attention here, looks to be normal V2 parts.
The piston head is again made from the same material as the piston and spring guide and has 6 holes. The o-ring is a bit small, but functions adequately.
The rest of the airseal components continue the trend of using the same plastic/nylon as the spring guide. The nozzle looks to be a bit long and the tappet place isn't quite a standard V2. But the cylinder head looks to be a standard V2 head.]
Save for the excessive amount of grease, and the mismatched assortment of bushings (which appear to be standard 6mm) the internals look to be pretty solid and largely standard V2 parts. The hopup is of a custom design due to the horizontal magwell.
On the outside, the design seems to be pretty straight forward. However, upon removing the inner barrel I found the gun seemed to be using a small spring rather than a rubber nub which was bent in the process of removing the barrel. So, I replaced it with a standard rubber nub from an ICS M4 CQB. The inner barrel is a standard barrel save for a cut near the front to hold a small o-ring for stabilization. I replaced the barrel with a barrel from the above mentioned ICS M4 CQB. Gun performed perfectly normal with that barrel and nub. The bucking is a bit odd in that it's shorter than a standard bucking as the standard bucking gets in the way of the barrel clip. For now, I'm using the standard bucking.
Power/Magazines
Due to the size constraints on the gun, the battery choices are very limited. I really don't see how you would fit a NiMh/NiCd battery in there, even if it was only a 7.2v. The included 7.4v 1300mah LiPo performs fine, but if you want a spare, you are probably going to have to do some looking. If you are going to try to find/build a replacement battery, the included batteries dimensions are approximately 2.75" x 1.25" x 0.50". If you would like detailed pictures of the battery, feel free to send me a PM on Airsoft Retreat.
The included full metal standard capacity magazine is sturdy and performs great. I haven't tested them yet, but AGM MP40 magazines are supposed to work fine, as well as King Arms MP40 Midcaps. I am working on getting some of the King Arms mags, so I will update the review once I can test them.
Performance Characteristics:
The gun was tested with .25g Airsoft Elite BB's. The gun chrono'd at 310.6fps @ 652rpm using the guns included battery. The groupings on the gun are pretty decent for a stock gun. However, the guns sights are all but useless without some practice. I tested the gun with Airsoft Elite .25g BB's. I put 3 mags through the gun and every round fed perfectly. I didn't notice any BB's flying off course while testing but I was concentrating on determining where I was aiming.
The above target shows 6 out of 10 shots hit. Target was at 75' feet and there was a tail wind. I think with a bit more practice, I could move those groups into the 2 ring. There is definitely a learning curve with the sights.
Accessories/Modifications
As with most other World War II era replica's, there's not really any modifications or accessories for it. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a MKIIS kit for it, but that's just me. Theoretically, you could bolt some rails to the heat shield, but that's just silly. The front of the barrel IS threaded internally though, so I'm testing some adapter to see if there's a way to get a standard threaded front end.
Upgrades:
As stated above, the gun seems to largely use standard V2 parts. If that is the case, then internally you have a decent amount of options for upgrades. My first recommendations would be to replace the motor and bushings. I don't really know why you would use nylon bushings on two gears and copper on the other, so that kinda worries me. The motor pulls the stock spring fine, but if you are going for a high ROF setup, you will want a faster motor.
Skirmish Results
The gun performs quite well in CQB situations, but it struggles a bit with longer range engagements. A tightbore barrel would help with that, but the sights are the primary concern for longer ranges. The only performance with the gun is that the trigger system is rather iffy. Occasionally the gun simply doesn't cycle when you pull the trigger. If you let go of the trigger give it a second and pull it again, it's fine. You do have to make sure you pull the trigger firmly and quickly. No tapping single shot with this gun.
Conclusion:
I'm not a big fan of China guns in general but overall, other than a few minor concerns, I'm quite impressed with the quality of this gun from start to finish. It's well packaged, includes a fair amount of accessories, and performs quite well. If all of AGM's guns are going to be like this in the future, I might start looking their way.
End Notes:
Many thanks to Airsoft Atlanta for providing this gun for review.
Written by XavierMace, 9/21/2009
|
|
|
|
|
I do like pie
|
|
Posts: 6,414
Registered: January 2007
Location: Mesa, AZ
|
|
|
|
;)
