CA or not

[techobo]

My CA M4 went through it's trigger assembly and tappet plate within 4 games. Booerns.

[Enox]

Originally Posted by ThunderCactus

I believe Enox is referring to his CA249, in which case it IS typical for a stock CA gun to break down quickly (from my own experience seeing alot of CA's break down), especially an LMG. Classic Army internals are certainly nothing to brag about, but there are a few specifically weak parts that are prone to failure (tappet, gears, piston). It does have a fantastic gearbox shell, however, and upgraded properly, a 249 can be made to be very reliable.

Thundercactus is bang on with his statement.The 249 has had about 12,000 rounds thru it so far and am alittle upset that within 2 months it's broken.So I've decided to upgrade it to the nuts and hopefully it will last more than a few months this time.For $1500 you sure don't get a reliable gun!
P.S. Frank thanks for clearing my post up alittle!

[CDN_Stalker]

CA M249 seems to fuck the piston if it has a heavier spring in it and the hop up is set up a bit too much. At least that's the info I've gotten from local M249 owners who found out the hard way.

[trufret]

When i got my CA M249 I read tons of material about it before I ordered and the very first thing I did when it arrived was open the mechbox and replace the piston and piston head and then the inner barrel and added a steel bipod kit shortly after. it's been running like a champ. just keeping my eye on the triger switch right now.

[CDN_Stalker]

Trigger switch is a piece of crap design, am surprised anyone would come up with such a peice of shit design. Understandable if it was a home mod, but for a company to design it that way for mass production.............. fucking ridiculous! I've had to replace a few switches and push bars on one, switches are easy to find at local electorincs stores, but you can't use them because they are only rated at 20A and fuse the contacts together first trigger pull. Stcok CA one is rated at 30A, and I've only had uyse for the local store bought contact press bar & body and discarded the cotacts themselves.

[namloot]

I found this interesting:
http://www.theqproject.com/review-caguns.shtml

[ILLusion]

Maybe it's because the only CAs that I ever handle are ones that pass through my workshop requiring repairs, but I don't like Classic Army guns. Period.

For years, I have stood the ground of: "avoid CA, their quality is shit."

But then CA released their new generation of Armalites, and the hype on them was massive and the market was hit by a storm of them. Wave after wave, they came in, as CA offered extremely low wholesale pricing to retailers. If you ran a business and wanted to make money, CA was the ticket. Everybody wanted to check it out. I haven't had a chance to handle and work on any of them until the past several months, and I have my final verdict:

CA was, is, and will probably still be a really shitty purchase for the next while. The amount that my clients have had to pay just to get their guns functional or field-worthy have been at times... disgusting, even going as far as a complete gearbox overhaul.

The pistons are shit, most get stripped to crap in less than 1000 rounds, I've seen broken spring guides, tappet plates, melted trigger assemblies & selector plates, the hop up rubber is garbage (upgrading to a Systema one will yield a 5-10fps gain, btw), the piston head o-ring is garbage on most that I've worked on (almost 100fps gain by swapping the piston head), the SR-25 nozzles blow (literally. They're the STUPIDEST designed nozzles ever - causing air to blow out the SIDES and away from the BB, rather than AT the BB)... I could probably go on with the list.

The best example so far of how poor the guns are out of the box, is RonaldChang's CA-25 which entered my shop shooting about 185fps. This is with a spring that I tested to shoot almost 440fps in an efficient setup. I'd equate it to an M130 equivalent spring:

- The piston head gave almost NO seal
- This gun has seen... I'd estimate 500 rounds and the piston was already stripping
- The cylinder head was letting air out around the sides
- The air seal nozzle was a NO SEAL nozzle - like I said, CA cut notches in to the SIDES of the air nozzle - which, as I understand it, ports are cut around the exit on Marui air seal nozzles to prevent a vacuum buildup in the compression chamber during the piston drawback portion of the cycle. The difference is that Marui cuts the ports in a way that air is still directed AT the BB when the compression cycle begins, whereas CA's ports are cut so far down the sides that a very noticeable blast of air is wasted as it escapes out the sides rather than towards the BB. Even after upgrading the cylinder, piston head, cylinder head and hop up rubber to a rock solid air seal, the garbage air seal nozzle would still cause the gun to only shoot 335fps MAX. Did I mention that the air seal nozzle is garbage? And to put salt on a wound, THE PISTON HEAD IS ALREADY VENTILATED!!! The air seal nozzle ports are 100% redundant and unnecessary! Whoever Classic Army hired to be their engineer should be shot, hung, dragged through the streets, dropped in to a mulcher and then shot again, just to make sure he couldn't ever have any offspring with dreams of being an engineer like daddy.

The gears are okay... I haven't seen any major problems with those, but given the faults of all of the other parts, I can't honestly recommend a Classic Army gun to anybody who's looking to buy.

The only way I can recommend it is if the buyer is after a reasonably solid all metal external and is planning on dropping in a gearbox / hop-up overhaul.

Even still, I'd recommend the buyer look elsewhere, such as G&P, before looking at CA...

so sad. I'd had hoped they changed... I guess not.

I had such a hatred for CA before, that I charged 50% more on my labour rates just to work on them. They caused so much grief and headaches at times, that it was astounding to me that such a product is even so welcomed on the market. Maybe it's just me, but I'm a stickler for quality, and CA is extremely lacking in that department.

[Ronan]

I love CA. Sure their internals are shit (which is annoying) but they know that their clients will just replace the internals one way or another so they don't bother making good quality internal parts (thats no excuse but heh...).

Their external quality is AMAZING. If you want a gun that looks good and doesn't cost an arm and a leg get a CA. Just change the internals ASAP.

I had the oportunity to compare a G&P SR-25 and my CA25 and altho they look similar the CA has a higher built quality externally... so if you want a good looking gun grab a CA but PLEASE change the internals, they are THE SHIT.

[CrunchBite]

my 249 has 25k+ through it, with an upgraded spring.

Still shoots great.

[kalnaren]

Wow, I must have got a fucking awsome CA gun from what I've been reading. My G36 has seen one season of gaming, over 10,000 rounds (I'd be willing to bet it's pushing 15-20k), and here's what I've had wrong with it:
1) Electrical Faults in the trigger and forward wiring (too much wire, cut about 3 inches out of it now no problems).
2) Aftermarket CA tightbore is shit.
and here's what I've done to it:
1) Guarder bearing spring guide
2) Promethious MS100SP

And ah yea, that's it. I love this gun, it's awsome. I have had no problems with the mechbox that wasn't a direct result of problem #1 above. Last time I had it open (about 2,000 rounds ago) I gave the mechbox a good once over and I noticed no wear on the bushings, gears, or piston.

[hutch1970]

what about Lerch's KSC 33? I'm familiar w/ the fact that it's spring cock and electric, but what about quality? How's it holding up? Sorry about draggin' this crap out, I work offshore on call 7-24, so I have to come back when I can.