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an impression of the G&G M14
i got a call to have a look at a g&G m14 because it wasn't firing. i hooked up the battery and pulled the trigger. the tappet plate was moving but the piston did not seem to move at all. it should be noted that the owner said he only had about 5 or 6 mags thru it before it packed it up. thats about 2500 rds. or so. i found that getting to the mechbox takes about 30 seconds with only a hex key after you pull out the trigger gaurd. with the mechbox ready to be openned i could initially see one of the spur gear plastic bushings appeared to be reamed out. this was not a good sign.
so i proceeded to open up the mechbox to see what was up. getting it open was no problem except that 5 small springs shot out in every direction. they are used for the unique anti-reversal system, the tappet plate, and selector system. i managed to find them all, but this is going to make for a challenging re-assembly. i noticed right away that the piston gears were completely worn away (all of them believe it or not) and the spur gear shaft snapped off right at the gear. i also noticed the complete lack of lubrication and the gears were also not properly shimmed. the sector gear was heavily worn and the spur gear outer race was also heavily worn. this may have been caused by the spur gear break, but a lack of shims in this gearbox leads me to think not. the only traces of lubrication i found was in odd corners of the box and it was white lithium grease. the grease which did remain on some components had turned to a black sludge with the consistancy of tile grout.
lacking the proper bushings to reassemble the mechbox i tried other g&g bushings harvested from a previous catastrophe and they just fall out of the box. standard systema 6mm bushings are way too small and 7mm are too big. so until i find the correct parts, it will all sit in a ziplock somewhere.
i guess my impression of g&g is not very good. they make a product that has good "curb appeal" but when you look under the hood it's just a horror story. their parts are of ok quality and with the proper assembly should give the user a long life. however their assembly procedure is crap. to save money (the cheap bastards) the try to get away with an upgraded spring with plastic bushings and the try to use one grease for everything (the worst one of all too for mechboxes-lithium) instead of a proper gear grease and a proper silicone-based grease for the cylinder components. i would never advise anyone to buy a g&g aeg, but if your are able to i would say tear it down before you fire it at all and rebuild it properly. then you should be ok.
the last g&g i worked on was a umg and it was the same story. lithium grease with poor shimming, no fuse for the motor (a G&G standard feature)and plastic bushings with an upgraded spring. the previous gr16's were the same story also, so i don't think that this is a recent procedure change or anything in their assembly practices. this is just my opinion, and in no way am i an airsoft god or anything, so just take my comments as an opinion. others may disagree with me, so weigh all the evidence if you think about purchasing products from g&g. my only wish is that i had a digital camera to post up some pics so all could see what i'm saying.
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October 17th, 2005, 23:04
