FCC 416D: From the Outside In
 

Well, as promised, here is my review of the complete FCC 416D that I received from Double Tap Tactical about 2 weeks ago or so for $2920. Now that I have had some time, I have put together a review of this product. Some are going to like it, and some are not. Too bad. I didn't build the gun, FCC did that, and good or bad, this is the result.

Now, I do not have a picture of the gun as it arrived, as I have gamed it a couple of times, it has had to have some functional and performance enhancements to make it usable. Here is as close to factory as it looks, excepting the ASAP and trigger guard, and the two trigger faux pins that were missing have been replaced:

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Now, when I first received the gun, it came without sights. The sights on it now are FCC as they supplied them. You will noticed how much of the screw sticks out past the sight block. It is nearly 1/4", and needs to be cut and the end painted black to prevent it catching on your skin and gear. Or, you can just not install them and go with something else:

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Next up was the immediate noise it made. It was a "Cha-Chunk" everytime the gun was moved past the horizontal. This was from the gas piston rod, which although invisible with the rail system on the gun, it is nonetheless necessary to retain the realistic replication of the 416. The spring designed to operate this rod in the real gun was too loose for the job in the FCC version, and the rod slammed forward and back. It required me to remove the RIS and stretch this spring to give it the required tension. The kit that I assembled immediately after work on the complete gun required this as well. There are no pictures of this, it was remedied within minutes of openning the box. Sorry.

Next up was putting the upper receiver onto the gun. Immediately I noticed that the buffer cap was different, and it had 8 shims on it. Now, I have assembled and worked on hundreds of Systema PTWs and done every modification possible, and never have I had to use so many shims. Maybe with a real buffer tube or some aftermaket DYTAC for example I might have to use 4 or maybe 5, but never 8. I removed the factory buffer cap and installed their parts buffer cap instead after I threaded the buffer tube in one more turn.

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The factory cap is on the right, and their aftermaket parts cap is on the left.

If you will notice, the factory cap has simply an indent into the material rather that a through-and-through hole. This was problematic as it did not allow for a proper fit of the cylinder lock bearing. In order to accomplish closure of the receivers, the tension on the bearing was reduced to near zero, you could push it in with your finger and it would sometimes spring back. This has two problems. First, it renders that 416 cylinder unsuable in any other PTW as you now do not have a positive lock between receivers and the play that allows you to open and close receivers is now translated into movement forward-back of the cylinder. This introduces and airseal leak at the chamber, and can vary FPS wildly. The second problem with this cap is that it is impossible to install another cylinder, in my case factory 2011 Systema cylinders. The tension on the lock bearing is too great to allow closure. The only solution is to replace the buffer cap, remove the spring guide from the cylinder and retension it properly to allow compatibilty between guns and cylinders. Part of the reason we buy this platform is to have modularity of components and compatibility. I got out of AEGs because shimming this or that is a pain in the butt, but acceptable for a $299 gun. It is not acceptable in a $2900 gun.

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This photo shows how much of the buffer cap sticks out into the receivers. In any other PTW, this is no good, you would not even be able to close the receivers. This is required for the 416, and should be a good indication that these receivers would not be compatible with other lowers. Not that this is a problem, but it is something to be mindful of when assembling the kit, changing buffer tubes, etc.

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Next up is the motor. Now, the FCC 2.5 motor has been out for some time, nearly a year now. The first one I installed was last summer. I noted then that it had some QC problems, namely that the brush hoods are too large and that they stick out past the endbell on both sides. This makes installation of your grip a son-of-a-bitch, and makes removal even worse. The hoods catch on the grip and scrape all the way down and dig in during removal. I was worried that I was going to snap the hood screw and brush spring post. But, seeing as how FCC uses metal screws, this is less likely.

FCC 2.5 motor. Note the extra brush hood material extending past the endbell:

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Systema 490 motor. Note the flush finish of the endbells:

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In no way am I making any assessment of the longevity or durability of the FCC 2.5 motor. We all are well aware of the failings that Systema has had with their 490 series and now their 7511 series of motors. The entire problem Systema has relates solely to the armature and in particular the windings. Their motors are machine wound, and often you get tension changes at the bends on the armature core. This results it damage to the Litz coating on the winding, and will lead to a short across winding points and result in the inability of that winding pole to generate a magnetic field. In other words, a dead winding and a dead spot on the motor at that pole. The only solution is to buy another motor and risk the same problem, or get the armature rewound. This has been the solution I have chosen.

Now, FCC may have solved this issue, and time will tell. However, their motor has other issues. First off, the brushes. They are carbon brushes with little appreciable silver content. This has one advantage in that the brushes will wear and not the commutator. However, it has one main disadvantage, and this is excessive wear and the risk of breaking. In a properly balanced armature with a true commutator, this is not an issue, and brush longevity and durability are more desirable traits. Increase the brush silver content to 30% and those things will last years and they are unlikely to break.

Next up is the brush lead wiring. FCC has installed the brushes outside the brush hood for entry via the back of the brush. This is the least desirable method as there is now a bend over sharp metal that results in poor movement of the brush as they wear. First thing I did when openning up the grip was to reroute this wiring into the spring channel so it moves with the spring. Easy fix, but it should have been done at the factory.

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Next up was the metal screws holding the brush hoods down. After seeing the flash on the hoods, I fully understand why metal screws are used. They are a solution to snapping the screws while fighting the grip on and off. However, this was not the solution. The solution was to have brush hoods of the correct size installed, and use nylon or similar material for the screws. As it sits now, only small fibre washers prevent contact bewteen the screw and the endbell of the motor, and as such, the entire motor. This whole system is contingent on these washers being installed correctly and staying that way. If one is not, you will energize the motor with one pole of the DC from the battery upon firing. The only thing keeping you from a blown fuse or a dead FET board is keeping the other washers in place and keeping conductive debris out of a highly magnetic motor. That is another issue I have:

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This is the FCC MOE grip that came on a 416. What is a Magpul grip doing on a 416 anyways? At any rate, they used a copy of the MOE grip cover to hold the grip in place. As you can clearly see, it now leaves one whole side of the motor open to the elements, be they water, metal, dirt, anything. This is utterly unnacceptable. The motor in a TW platform has very strong magnets, is finely tuned (if it is intended to last) and has upstream electronics depending on smooth and continued operation. This is a very easy fix, use a different grip or use a proper cover, like this:

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Next up was the hopup. Well, I took the gun out for a day with the factory hopup. It became clear pretty quickly that I could not use my 0.30G Green Devil BBs. The factory hopup simply could not apply enough pressure to the BB give it any effective hop. This was a problem on two fronts. One, the factory adjuster was garbage. The pin was not glued in place, so applying tension to the adjuster screw forced the open end of the adjuster cage to open up and induced wobble around the inner barrel. It also meant that the roller would turn, effectively negating any pressure that did exist. Second was the adjuster spring. It is not as strong as the Systema adjuster cushions, but a steel spring is going to be less affected by temperature changes from summer to winter play for example. Anyone who has taken their Systema out in the cold knows this. However, this is an issue of pure performance, and considering most game play in Canada occurs in summer weather, the spring is simply too weak.

I replaced the spring with Systema adjuster cushions:

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And I got rid of the factory adjuster and installed a modified adjuster. No milling of the inner barrel required:

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Now, these are the improvements and oversights that I have had to correct on a $2920 gun. Some of them have needed to be done to a factory Systema gun as well, but my last Systema purchased 1 year ago cost me $1750.

There is, however, another issue that I will not be able to correct. The takedown pin holes are too large. There is an excessive amount of play of the takedown pin that, over time and with wear, will lead to poor operation of the takedown pin. FCC has obviously realized this as they install a nice steel detent pin that is a tad longer than even a real one to prevent the inevitable enlargement of that hole and loss of the detent pin. This issue exists in both the complete gun and the kit I received.

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Systema takedown pin. Note how precise the hole is in relation to the pin:

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Play in the FCC pin:

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Play in the Systema:


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Next up, the cylinder. The surface finish on the Velocity-branded cylinder is poor. It wears very easily from only a few insertions/removals:

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Inside the cylinder, I noticed that FCC had used silicone-based grease for the lubricant. Now, silicone is great for cold weather performance, as it has superior viscosity to the the lithium grease Systema uses in their cylinders. However, in Canada, play is primarily in the summer when temperatures are above freezing, so I will disregard any cold weather advantages of silicone in favour of the tried and true lithium grease. Now, the design of the TW is such that the piston head o-ring needs to retract upon the decompression stroke and quickly expand upon the compression to preserve the cylinder air volume. This results in better shot-to-shot consistancy in velocity, which means your BBs end up in the same place, or pretty darn close to it. A thicker grease allows the piston head o-ring to seat itself quicker, thus preserving that volume. Years ago, when getting a little tub of the Systema cylinder grease was expensive and time consuming, I experimented with silicone greases as an alternative. The results were poor, with wild variations in velocity and inconsistant hopup as grease tended to exit the cylinder and travel down to the adjuster, fouling the rubber. The TW hopup performs best when kept bone dry, so this would not do. The factory cylinder with factory hopup with an M115 FCC spring installed gave me a nominal velocity of 355 FPS with a deviation window of 20-30 FPS using Bastard 0.20g. After removal of the factory grease and installation of Systema cylinder grease and a modified hopup the velocity is now 370 FPS with a deviation window of 7-10 FPS. A remarkable improvement just from a change in lubricant a better hopup. Now, the range of this gun is closer to that of my 2011 Systema PTW, but still a little short and not quite as consistant, but the new hopup needs some bed in time and I am confident it will be on-par soon.

The buffer tube on this gun is not milspec, it is slightly oversized. I have this same buffer on another FCC/real hybrid and over the course of a few weeks has worn enough that the stock is now moveable and can be installed and removed by one person.

The fit and finish of the body is fine, and barring the items I have noted here, I find no other issues or problems to date.

Now, this review to date has been solely on the technical merits of the construction of this 416D. I am going to update this with a gearbox teardown soon as well as an overall performance review. However, the gun in its factory form was ungamable and required a modified hopup, so the performance is going to be much better than the factory. As well, the cylinder grease was removed and substituted with Systema grease to keep the consistancy between shots within an acceptable tolerance. Longevity of the motor and wear on the gear train will come later, as needed.

FCC asked me in a previous thread to email them in regards to their products. This is the exchange up until today. I wonder sometimes why I bother:

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Now, FCC can do what they want with the info I have presented. I should be grateful, I suppose, that a manufacturer has even bothered to listen to their consumers. God knows Systema never did. That being said, anything FCC decides to do with this matter is out of my hands and firmly in theirs. They can chose to listen or not, it is their product. As a consumer, I paid for the right to voice my concerns and make whatever changes I deem necessary to make a $2920 gun perform as it should, and not be seriously lacking when placed beside my $1750 original.

Update, June 9/13

Well, I got to play around with the Velocity cylinder this weekend. It was originally shooting about 350 fps with a pretty wide deviation window from factory with an FCC M115 spring. The original spring that came with this cylinder and gun was the M160. I never bothered to chrono it as it is a waste of time and never will be used anyway.

I cleaned the factory silicone grease out of it a month ago and have gamed it a few times, putting about 2000 rounds through it. It was shooting 370 fps after I cleaned out the grease out of it in favour of Systema lithium cylinder grease. The fps increased to about 370 fps and the deviation window dropped to around 10 fps. As I moved this cylinder from gun to gun, I noticed that it just didn't feel like the nice, positive lock I have come to expect from years of Systema use and dozens upon dozens of cylinders. Even with the retensioning of the lock bearing, it was still a bit spongy. So, I decided to replace the spring guide with a Systema spring guide, and the difference was immense. The fps increased to 404 fps with a deviation window of 4 fps.

Clearly, the Velocity lock bearing is a little off-spec, and increasing the tension on the spring did not help, it simply does not fit well with the hole in the buffer cap. This allowed an airseal leak to be introduced into the chamber as the cylinder moves back and forth, just like if the buffer cap isn't shimmed correctly.

Update June 17/13

Well, the first round of comparisons has been completed. I had a total of 3 guns sent to me, one was an FCC blingy-blingy race gun, the other was an FCC body and some furniture over Systema internals, and the other was a Systema with an FCC motor. These were the guns sent to me, minus the stock to save space in shipping:

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For a comparison, these were the guns I compared against. Top is an FCC body with an Aero Precision monolithic upper and FCC parts. Gearbox and motor are Systema. Middle is a Systema. Bottom is my FCC 416, the subject of this review initially:

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The first gun I looked at was the race gun.

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Note the open dust cover, I will go over that a little later. Also note the two-tone paint job, I assume it was intentional.

It is a complete FCC gun, and I assume rather rare in Canada. The owner complained that he had to lob his shots to reach a target he had set up at 80 feet, and that his hopup was ineffective. Upon openning, this is what I found:

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Well, looky here, if it isn't the same useless buffer cap that I found in my 416. It would appear that there was in fact more than one of these manufactured and they were most certainly installed at the factory. Even more to this was the fact that the shimming of this buffer cap was out of control:

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Note the number of shims on the cap, they take up a third of it. I was a tad flabbergasted when I pulled 8 of them off my 416, and that was a record until this gun came into my hands. Please count them for me:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/40/ums8.jpg

Yes, there were 12 shims, that has got to be a record. The solution to this was simple, turn the buffer in once more and eliminate all the shims. The EZ-pull pins on the body are tight, but guess what, they are tight even without a cylinder in the gun.

Here is a pic of the factory adjuster cage. The rubber is small, looks like about 1.5mm or perhaps 2mm, and it is a harder material. It also spins very freely on the pin, and the pin is not glued into the cage. This combination is precisely what made up a Systema Gen 1 hopup, and they were terrible. When you did try to apply presusure, the harder material would not grip the BB well, and whatever grip did exist would be spent turning the rubber and not the BB. Add to this that FCC uses a spring, which is far weaker than Systema's rubber cushions and the hopup is essentially useless. It doesn't work, at all, zero backspin. The icing though is the unglued pin. When whatever feable pressure is applied, it tends to want to spread apart the open end of the adjuster cage, as the pin floats free and that presuure has to do something. It makes the cage want to wobble around the inner barrel. In all fairness though, FCC's spring can not create that amount of force, but if you removed it and installed Systema's cushions, it would instantly become a problem. This is why Systema has glued their pins since Gen 3.

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Another complaint from the owner was the terrible misfeeding he had been having with the gun. I did some testing with it and found that Systema factory mags feed fine, Vanaras mags (not the Rampo-rebranded-as-FCC PMags) feed fine, but the FCC and modified real PMags do not feed worth a damn. FCC sells mags that do not work in their own gun, you must look elsewhere. At any rate, the reason for it is that their magwell is cut too large, and the mags sit too far back. We have heard the reasons for it and it is garbage. If they have a problem in HK with HK law, move. I don't care about HK law, nor does anyone else outside HK. I just want my mags to work. Here is the offending area:

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Note how deep they cut, you can see the mag release spring. Their other Noveske-marked lowers are also cut deep, but not quite, and the difference in feeding issues is stark. My lower and the other one sent to me do misfeed, but when I applied a strip of loop velcro into that spot, the misfeeding is reduced to only a couple of my mags. With the strip added to the race gun, misfeeding persists. I can not really do much more with this, the owner will have to stick to metal mags for now, but other options may become available in the future. Some misfeeding was noted on the last few BBs in the mag. As the spring tension is less at this point, an imperfect alignment of mag and chamber can not be overcome with the spring tension behind the follower.

Now, misfeeding is not simply an inconvenience. It can be destructive. Persistant misfeeding leads to chopping of BBs, and the debris from chopped BBs can destroy the hopup and enter the cylinder and cause destruction of the cylinder, as shown here:

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The debris jammed up around the nozzle and piston head, and broke away a section of the head. It required a replacement of the piston assembly, as well as a thorough clean and relube of the cylinder. It was a Systema 2011 M110.

Next up, the motor. So far, there is no motor for the PTW that will last. None, not one. Everyone is doomed to fail, the differences are how long. Factory System 490-7511 and Mad Max will all fail, I have examples of all of them sitting in a box right now. Even FCC 2.5 motors will fail, the key here is that they offer 3 month warranty. Currently, I am at the end of month 2, and I don't anticipate failure in the next month. To also be fair, I personally have never had a Systema motor fail neither, and I have owned more of them than any person on this forum. But lots of other guys have had lots of failures. Now, FCC, if they have fixed the issue with the armature, should have good life expectancy out of their motors. But, there are a few minor steps they can take to ensure that. Here's one:

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They route the brush leads around the top of the brush and into the hood. they do this I think because the leads are about 1mm too short, and moving it into the spring channel as shown is tricky, but not impossible. This is where it should be. It is less of an issue in their grossly overcut MOE grips, but installed as a replacement into a Systema, those leads will be pinched, as evidenced above. This will stop brush movement and your motor will cease to function.

I have noted this before and have been saying it for the last year.

Other than these issues, everything seemed fine with this rifle. Trigger response is great, the gearbox and motor sound smooth. My main attention with this gun was spent on the hopup and buffer cap and shimming. I installed a replacement FCC buffer cap from my parts, the black one with the hole. I was given 3 cylinders with this lot of guns, one was a Systema Mad Max M170, a 2012 stainless M130 Systema and 2011 blue M110 cylinder. The M110 needed repair from the persistant chopping and misfeeding, and the M130 suffered from an offspec machining of the piston guides. This is an issue I have seen several times now, and it results in too much play in the piston and leads to a chewed up rack gear. This problem is not repairable, the cylinder shell is the problem. To resolve this, I installed the M130 spring into the Mad Max cylinder, and removed Systema's silicone head o-ring as it would not seal quick enough and resulted in a 30-40 fps drop. The end result was that this gun saw this FPS with the M110:

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And with the M130:

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Now, on to the FCC/Systema hybrid. This gun came to me with the dust cover from FCC with the lock that means it must stay open. It is a nice sentiment, but very impractical and dangerous for the durability of your gun. This gun failed at the RAAT Season Openner a couple of weeks ago. It was torrential rain, and from what I heard there were lakes and flowing streams through the middle of the field. I had another buddy at this game who also suffered failure of his Systema 2012 PTW, but his failure was his gun went 3-burst in both modes, a sign of water on the selector board. But at least it worked, with a closed dust cover to prevent 90% of water entry into the interior of the gun. The fellow with the Systema also put grease on the receiver joints to prevent ingress, smart fellow.

Now, you can see the mineral deposits on the exterior of the gun:

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Open dust cover:

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Water made it onto the gearbox:

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And around the gearbox:

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Onto the selector board:

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And into the gearbox. Note the brown rust and byproduct of water and minerals reacting with the lithium-based grease Systema has used for their Mad Max gearbox:

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This grease was replaced with Systema gear grease, the corrosion was cleaned out. This was a result of such a large openning allowing large amounts of water to literally flow through the gun. You may have "waterproofed" boards, but no amount of spray-on varnish will stop all water, and the motor certainly is not waterproof, and the motor in this gun failed during this game. The best way is to keep water out of the gun, but little cracks here and there is a far cry from a 3/4" x 2" open gap, with a nice guide (the cylinder) to allow water to flow right on top of the gearbox. Sure, having a "realistic" looking dust cover with a nice logo printed on it is cool, but this is an issue of style outweighing durabillity. Not cool. FCC, stop building those ridiculous dust covers and start building closed ones. Sheeesh!!!

I did also find another problem with this gun. It uses an FCC outer barrel, the sectionable fellow. And, it was more crooked than a lollipop-theiving politician:

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See if you can spot the bow in the barrel. Nothing I can do to fix it. It still shoots OK though, but kind of looks ridiculous under a swanky KAC rail.

Now, onto performance. I took all three guns sent to me and installed modified Ver. 1 adjusters. These use a larger rubber than my Ver. 2 and require in most cases to mill down the inner barrel to allow them to sweep the required distance. They are still my favorite, and all my guns have them.

The best overall performance in distance and consistancy was my Systema CQBR, followed very closely by the Systema M4 sent to me and the FCC race gun. The differences in distance was a mere 10 feet, with the M110 giving nominal range of 245-250 feet, and the M130 250-265 feet. I did the testing last Saturday in the morning, after 10 days of rain, high humidity and temps at 8-10C. The wind was a solid 20KM/hr, and I oriented shooting to occure at 90 degrees to the wind. It meant my POI was about 8 feet left of my aim point. I used a Trijicon TA31 ACOG to follow my shots and used a spotter to mark location and to adjust hopup as he could watch the flightpath as the BBs neared termination. BB used were 0.30G Green Devils primarily with some .0.28g and 0.20g for chrono.

Just to give you a visual reference of distances involved, from shooter to target:

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And from target back to shooting position, just beside my truck at the picnic table:

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The consistantly worst performer was the 7lb shorty of mine, which with the 7.5" FCC barrel set is consistantly 30 fps less regardless of cylinder from any other TW with a longer barrel. The range reflects this, with 230-245 feet being the best it can offer.

This is the difference between FCC complete guns and Systema complete guns. Not much, my camera to Jonas:

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And my lowly shorty:

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It should also be noted that my CQBR has the most rounds through the hopup, being perhaps 35-40,000 rounds, and the hopups on the race gun, the FCC/Systema hybrid and the Systema M4 being new, with perhaps 1000-1500 rounds each through them. I fully expect some improvement as the hopup beds in and the BBs form a concave profile to the rubber with repeated application. The end result is that with a proper setup of buffer shimming to preserve the airseal and a modified adjuster, the FCC rifles will be equal performers to the Systema, no better, nor worse.

End result?

The issues I noted with my 416D were present on the race gun. The exception being the sloppiness of the faux gas piston system, which is a 416 exclusive. The buffer cap, shimming, hopup and motor were the same. The MOE grip has the open base. The dust cover was open. I left the dust cover open on the race gun at the request of the owner as it is a showpiece gun not likely to see much action. But for the others, mine and the the one sent to me, those had the lock ground away and spring reversed to keep that cover closed.

I will have another 416 to review soon to verify once and for all that I did not get a one-off lemon. It is looking pretty good so far.

More will follow.

Now, what is the end result of all this? The obvious question is, do I recommend their product? The answer is a cautious maybe.

If this 416D were priced at a retail of $999, then it would be a definite yes. Sure, there are some issues, but it is a great platform to build on and make some upgrades.

If this gun were $1999, it would be a maybe. You are dumping $2K into a gun, it needs some work out of the box. This would be the dividing line for most, and only the most committed should really look into it and take the plunge.

But this gun is $2900, and considering what I have seen and the modifications required, this gun is a no. I have the technical skills, knowledge and experience with this platform to make this changes. Most other users do not and can not, and the obvious performance shortfalls apparent in my gun are unfair trade for an out-of-the-box user.

In short, FCC, step up your game. Until you do, I can not in good conscience recommend your product.

thanks Brad, absolutely spectacular review.

I was on the fence about getting the conversion kit for my PTW, or selling it and buying the 416D, but with this info, I'll just keep my current PTW.

Nearly everyone talks highly of everything FCC, and its hard to tell who knows what they are talking about, and who is some young kid who thinks they know everything. So when i read a review coming from you, I know to trust 100% what you say, as there is probably only one other person who knows more than you about PTWs (Tac himself) and TBH im amazed FCC doesn't know how good you are with PTWs, they are on the PTW forums and you are a big name there as well.

Please keep reviewing FCC stuff as time goes on, I'm interested to hear more about them. Including the gearbox, i have heard mixed stuff about them, cant wait for you to add that info here!

Thanks
Shane

Wish this review had come out before I sold both my ptw's to buy FCC guns. I got a cheery email yesterday telling me my expected date to receive my ambi gearbox is now pushed back almost two full months. Yet I was told in our email exchange early may, should ship mid to late. I now have no gun to use I had to email them to ask how my orders doing, then days before end of may I had to contact them to find out my order was pushed back. Again my orders been paid for and in since early January.($1300+ Order)

So far that's a repeat of IMperial right now. I do not mind delays what I have an issue with is having to contact the seller to find this info out. Also my issue is I was told in the emails yes you are on the list for our next batch that's just going through qc. Yet local retailers will be receiving there ambi boxes by end of may go figure that right there tells me I'm not on the "next batch" as promised and agreed upon.

Ill be honest thousands of dollars tied up in FCC 416 guns and nothing to show for it.

At least with systema I knew to expect no customer support.

Sorry for jacking the thread, ill create another review once I actually get the rest of my product.

Sorry, I would have done this sooner, but I ordered the gun in December and received it two weeks ago.

Haha ouch I hear you it's ok I wasn't really serious on that I'm just disappointed and discouraged so far with the experience, makes me miss my PTW.

The reason they put a MOE grip on the 416 is because their motor doesn't FIT into the standard grip, and they probably left the cap open because the motor gets so damn hot lol
I really hope they revise the motor though, that should really be their flagship product

I think the reason that their motor doesn't fit is due to the excess flash on the brush hoods. I have installed the 2.5 motor into a standard PTW grip with a good deal of force, some swearing and some concern.

Brad, Buddy i don't know how to say this except a big WTF?? I don't know whether you have a lemon or what bro? because your 416D compared to mine is like two different guns the only thing that is similar to mine is the coating on the cylinder, they do suck Lol but everything else is a complete opposite down to the buffer tube cap (mine is a see through). The only upgrades I did was a enlarged bolt release button silver race trigger and later on a QD body pin and a RS Magpul STR stock. So far my 416D has been ran by two guys (one as a loaner) with no issue everything on my gun is still stock, running stock motor and Hop Up. Plus I actually dunked my 416D and lost it for 10 minutes in snow with no issue. I still stand by my message to you to returned it and get a new one, I still can't believe its the same gun from the same manufacturer.

Well, there are 3 possibilities:

1) My gun is typical of the manufacture of this model/brand

2) It is so atypical as to be unbelievable

3) It was pieced together with whatever parts were left over from their previous production run, the results are what I would expect.

From what I was led to believe, the 416 production run ended last year, and the batch of guns mine came from was the last one.

Now, as far as returning it to the manufacturer, well, that was never really an option. Would they have fixed what I found, would they have even found it or found cause to believe that it was atypical of their manufacture or performance? Would I have to wait for months to get it back, or not at all, with perhaps nothing but a refund or a substitute I didn't want? I committed to buy it, and better or worse, I own it.

Now, I have spent a pile of my time to make it correct, I am simply not willing to give that up to get another unknown or a refund. It is what it is. It may be difficult for you to grasp my position here, and from a business standpoint it is better to have a refunded and quiet customer than a vocal customer who refuses a refund or exchange. That is understandable. But I look at it from the perspective of the Ferarri mechanic who refuses to return his new hotrod to Italy because somebody in Italy forgot a few things and missed some others. He will just fix it and bitch the factory lackies out for his trouble.

I know for certain I won't be buying another FCC gun just to find out if they took me seriously. Somebody else will have to tell me.

Well I will see if it is really indeed #2 and 3 on the sample of the new 416D ambi that we ordered because its not #1 for sure, I've seen quite a few 416D aside from mine that have no issues that you mentioned above and they all are made and arrived the same time as yours from DTT or FCC direct. this is truly the first abnormality of this rifle that I have seen, if this review were written by someone other than yourself I would have written it off as a rookies opinion but its not and as such I'm concern about it because its totally opposite from what I have experienced myself, to the point where I re-examine my gun in detail especially your problem points and have found nothing or issues with the exception of the cylinder coating. Now considering that we both get the them at the same place and from the same manufacturer but at different times (I got mine in January and the rest of them in around March/April) It ios weird and I can only classify your gun as a lemon, I'm not saying that you are wrong but even Ferrari can have lemons and they do. If I pay for a Ferrari, mechanic or not I will certainly returned a lemon back to Italy and demand a new one if the one I receive is a lemon.

cheers
Jay

I find this review fairly interesting.
->Everywhere in the PTW forum community seemed to suggest FCC is good but not as good as Systema value-wise (which Brad is resonating)
->If I remember correct FCC was once on PTW forum, but the rep was banned -unknown reason, it is considered verboten to speak about it. People reviewed FCC (gearbox and motor) suggests there were still fault with it (the review is 1-2years old though)

Now, I don't consider my 416 to be a lemon. Of the faults/issues I found, some on both the complete rifle and the kit, the ones that are systemic (all FCC rifles share this, unless radical changes have occurred very recently) are:

The construction of the motor

The MOE grip, and I have used this on several other guns to date

After consultations with several FCC customers who have contacted me after I posted up my thoughts, the following also seem to be present in their products as well:

Poor hopup

Poor QC on "fluff and buff" fit and finish

It should be noted that I covered some issues, yes. This does not mean that these 100% of all issues present, just that this is all I have found to date. It also means that as of this date, everything else is 100% fine until, and if, I determine otherwise at a future date.

But, my analysis still stands. For $2920, I should not be finding any issues, and the issues that I did find are easily correctable at the factory with minimal cost in materials or effort at the manufacturing level. They should not have been allowed to creep into a rifle in this price range or with the performance demanded by users willing to pay it.

I really don't think Brad's being too picky for a $3000 gun, perhaps others aren't being picky enough?
What stands out here is for ~$800 less you could have a PTW that performs just as well, with hop and motor mods, that *may* have a more durable mechbox. So what's my incentive to buy the FCC PTW? So far it just has a better stock motor

If anything I am over critical of my gear.

I have had the worst luck with Systema Rifles, from the original 07 CK's, to Factory, to 08 upkit's being a stupid waste of money which made me abandon the entire system for 2 years.

They were expensive then, and they are still expensive now.. my Team member's 2012 evolution PTW ran him about $2,500.00 and it was plagued with problems which needed to be corrected, in the end he was up to the price of an FCC rifle having the motor swapped out just to get the @&^$ing rifle to cycle.

My only saving grace was when I purchased a DTT custom M4 from Double Tap Tactical, and it revitalized my faith in the PTW system, however it was still plagued by the same old Systema design flaws caused by low quality metals being used, and practically non existant customer support. Thankfully DTT pointed me in the direction of FCC. I switched over to using FCC parts, replaced everything. My PTW now runs smoother, quieter, and no longer has issues with moisture due to our temperate climate conditions here in Southern Ontario.

I've had a FCC Motor winding fail, a FCC hop up malfunction and a FCC pinion gear strip, and have documented these problems on this forum. Yet due to the warranty and customer support I suffered no game downtime, and it didn't cost me a dime, just the time it took to write an email explaining the problem. When those problems occurred on my 07 PTW, I was down waiting weeks for parts, and roughly 700 dollars in the hole after upgrading to the 08 upkit and hopup/barrel assembly.

For me, that extra bit of cash has been a worth while investment. I promptly offloaded all my Systema stuff shortly after and have never once looked back.

I'm very new to the using the TW platform and it's been all Systema. On my brothers gun one of the springs that applies pressure to the brushes snapped, easy fix if i would have seen it. On mine, I had a worn down brush and abused uncleaned gearbox.

I don't think Brad is unjustified in his opinion of the platform considering his experience. A lot of people had bad guns and some people had amazingly reliable PTWs. Most likely I believe the 'average' user is not picky enough.

Broken nozzles due to chopping/jams, dead motors/electronics are the overwhelming majority of the problems that I have heard about regarding the system, and those occur whether you are running PTW/FCC, (more common on CTW from a couple years back).

I don't get the argument of "more reliable" gearbox, Since i opened my first AEG gearbox until i stopped doing gunwork I have yet to see a PTW have an issue with the drive train other than stripped/damaged teeth on the piston rack.

The VUKs were only intended to be used on a gun 1 time. The performance and safety feature upgrades are well worth the money.

I am not sure to what you are referring to as being a waste of money.

There is only 1 problem with a Systema that will cause it not to cycle, and that is the motor. You can get a brand new 2012 with a Rewound armature for well under $2500 with a modified hopup. The performance andvantages leave the FCC way, way behind, snd for alot more money.

The only materials deficiencies between FCC and Systema are in the Systema receivers. In every other way, Systema has far better quality materials and surface treatments on their gear train. As proof of this, look at a Systema gearbox with 250,000 rounds and then look at one that has FCC gears installed with only a few thousand rounds. The wear on the FCC gears is striking.

As far as being quieter, not even close. I have several guns up here with a mix of pure Systema to pure FCC, with a smattering of parts mixed throughout. The Systema guns are noticeably quieter and have a more authoritative SNAP!! when fired. We compared this two weekends ago amongst a coupke teams of experienced and long-term PTW users.


Systema has not exactly been the benchmark of good customer service. Warranty is nice, for sure.

For me, the extra cash is nowhere near worth the investment. I can take any beat up $700 used Systema and for a small investment in parts and a few hours labour make it a better performer than any FCC rifle. I have seen their construction and how they assemble the little things and there has been nothing to convince me that they have better QC, in fact, quite the opposite. If it was found in my gun, it was found in others, as another convenient review of a 416 has recently shown.

I have already spent more than a few hours labour on a $2900 gun just to get a minimum basic performance that FCC could have and should have done at the factory. It is really very easy to do, the only reason it wasn't done is because they either don't know, don't care, or have let profit direct quality. Neither of these attributes makes me feel any better.

If your hopup sucks, get a more precise jig, teach your people to assemble them properly, the costs of not doing apit are nowhere near worth it. As FCC grows, and it will, they are going to get caught in the same labour/tolerance/QC crunch that all companies must face. When you are small, you can afford attention to detail, when you are big, you can not.

Without criticism from experienced users and modifiers like me, FCC is not going to learn from their mistakes, and are not going to be motivated to create a better product, or at least one which meets the expectations of the consumer.

The only three bitches I have ever had about Systema has been their hopup, which I can remedy, their motor, which I send to England to be rewound, and their body, which has never caused me any issues in hundreds of thousands of rounds, but has for many others. The price difference to remedy all those is still way less than an FCC, the reliability, compatibility, smoothness of operation and consistancy are miles, miles ahead of the FCC.

I realize you guys are in a retail scenario with FCC, and my assessment is probably the last thing you want to hear, but you need to step back and look objectively at the whole picture. As much as I wanted an FCC 416 (ask Chris about that), the hype has not lived up to the reality. My sincerest hope that an honest and forthright forensic analysis of their product will bring to light issues for FCC to rectify, should they chose to do it. These are not big issues per se, but can very easily become that and the obvious performance shortfalls are factory rectifiable.

In essence, I have thrown down the gauntlet to FCC. Make a better product.

It would appear that as of today, FCC has announced that they will be sending out Tango Down style grips for those who have purchased their 416. This is a positive step. It should have been done during production, but late is better than never.

This is one of my bitches that that FCC has decided to fix, though not necessarily because I complained, this could have been a while in the making.

Because you know, nothing says HK416 like an MOE grip and an LMT sopmod stock.

I should also note that FCC has not contacted me further regarding my gun. Not that it really matters to me specifically at this point, there is nothing for them to do. I am confident that my warranty period will come and go with no failure requiring service, but likely my teardown would be viewed as voiding their warranty obligations anyways.

c3sk had asked in the other thread to update you all with their responses and communications. Everything that exists is posted up here, with nothing further to add.

Personally, I would be just tickled if they never contacted me again but fixed their issues much more than if they emailed me with pleasantries but did nothing.

They DO have really excellent customer service though, I think anyone that's dealt with warranty issues will agree
I hope they do take your criticism to heart and improve their manufacturing process, it's REALLY not difficult to do.
Looks like they're using a MIAD grip end plate for a MOE grip
Ream the body pin holes on a machine rather than what looks like by hand, or maybe they tried to ream them with a standard drill
New, slimmer, brush housing for the motor
And what precisely is the issue with the buffer tube? Is the FCC cylinder shorter than a systema, or is it the receiver that's the issue?

The issue was the buffer cap, and how it was shimmed as a result of the buffer tube not being turned one extra turn.

More may be to come, I still haven't torn down the gearbox yet.

This whole thread is really making the TM EBB sound better every day.

fuck it go straight to the original airsoft.. the slingshot.

not unless you put velocity reducers on them, freakin things shoot 500fps with .36s

I purchased another Magpul MOE stock in milspec on the weekend. Just in case anyone is wondering, I have several Magpul stocks, some civi, some milspec. This most recent stock fits exactly the same way the last one did, tighter than a bull's ass at fly time. Now, I turn a screwdriver for a living, I can generate alot of force in a controlled manner when I need things to move, it is what I do. But holy hell, you need to be in great physical shape to use that stock.

This is an issue that extends to all FCC buffer tubes, anyone who says different is trying to sell you something. I personally have two of them and have installed a few more over the last year, and everyone has been the same. They are not milspec.

In fact, of the sampling of three that I just measured, they range from 1.149-1.158 inches along the length of the buffer. Milspec needs to be a max of 1.150, where civi need to be a max of 1.170", with nice operation being slightly smaller than the maximum. On the three FCC buffer tubes, none was under 1.150" over their length, and the two newest ones did not dip below 1.150" at any time. The surface finish on the newest one is rougher than on the oldest which has had alot of cycles in-out of the stock (I know some of you like in-out, so I'll toss out the first BAHAHAHA!!!). It would appear that the more in-out cycles of the stock, the closer it gets to the max. 1.150", but still not below, leaving operation tough.

Solution?

Pump that stock lots, and it may loosen up.

Buy civi spec.

Buy an airsoft stock that falls somewhere in between.

As a comparison, factory Systema stock ranges between 1.164"-1.167", and at no time hits 1.170". Perfect for a civi stock, no good for milspec. The stock has to be one or the other. If it is slightly too tight for milspec, it will have wobble with a civi stock. True milspec will be universal, so long as you don't mind a little wobble with your civi stock.

Thanks for the great review. It is good to hear some downside about the FCC 416. So far i only heard good review and good comments about it.

+1.

And thanks for this very detailed review and update. For sure a gun at this price should have a much better design, QC.

Well I have been in HK for the last week or so, today I finally get to play around with their stock tubes vs the real Milspec Magpul that was bought at Target sports in Toronto vs the Magpul bought here in HK at Supreme CO (their equivalent to a RS TAC shop) the difference between the two is literally minor as in the one bought in Toronto being a tighter fit, the later has a bit of movement. The issues of RS milspec stock not fitting the tubes in your gun still baffle me again th econclusion that I can come up with is your gun is a one off, I tried the MAGPUL CTR stock that I brought with me with the one of 14 AOR they have here and they fit, a bit tight but they fit and they have no wobbling

FCC is a growing company with such growth there are bound to be issues, with each issues that was presented they have dealt with it swiftly however changing specs during production run can be costly that is why changes seem to be slow or non existent but rest assured changes are being made and are coming
QC and design is definitely there, being here firsthand has educate me in how much time that they put in preparing the procedural things to make their products and all the failures and sucess before a product is launched, I can confidently say that aside from FCC there are no other company in HK that are willing to tackle the huge tasking in getting a large CNC manufacturing process done even company like Prime which I had the pleasure of speaking with the owner during one of teh games here in HK and coincedentally the office and warehouse is conveniently located just down the street from FCC claimed that there is not enough profit for them to make their body CNC like FCC and PTW market is too small for them to survive (Prime main factory is in China), their warehouse have little or no stock for PTW so the rumor of Prime abandoning PTW market is almost true. FCC 3.0 Motor has gone though 12 different changes before an actual sample has been done and each and everyone of those failed samples has a cost, the third working sample I've seen that they tested outlast a BNIB Systema motor sent out by some of their friends in JPN

Being here in HK with FCC have answered a lot of question I got and concerns I was shown every manufacturing process from the design to final assembly(which is slightly different from assembling a Systema specifically their AMBI gearbox), your 416 Brad is truly a one off wonder that I cannot see here and has puzzled even the head tech here in regards to the body fitment issue you mentioned. Unlike other Airsoft manufacturer they don't have a slew of old ladies and men assembling their products with powertools either, every single FCC custom assembled gun is done by three of their technicians.

*Even if I'm their dealer, I'm looking at this issue as a player and as a player first their reliability and performance will come first and by far aside from the gun that Tony build these FCC guns have given me no issues except for a minor issues with their selector for triburst and that was based on my own stupidity and taken care off by their warranty, dealing with them from the beginning as a player three years ago and owning 4 of their full build guns I have the total of 5 days down waiting for parts to arrive, the same cannot be said about my PTW with the exception of the one Tony build (which took 4 months) and my TW5. Your concerns about their motor has been addressed and they are releasing their 3.0 which from what I have seen is byfar the best one yet, new hop up spring and rubber to make it more applicable in the cold and of course their AMBI and other release.

I appreciate your position, Jay, however, I have not one, not two, but three FCC buffer tubes that measure the same. This is NOT a one-off anomaly that is my gun. One came on my gun, and the other two came as parts. This tells me right now that this is a systemic thing, as these buffer tubes span in purchase from last summer to last month.

If you have spoken with FCC on what I have found, and they are rectifying it, great. It means that it took me to really tear into their product to identify issues to be corrected. Unfortunately, it meant I had to spend $2920 to do it. That is overall my biggest beef. I should not be finding these things at this price level or performance level.

Now, I will take it as some manner of vindication if they are addressing these issues, as it means my gun is simply not a one-off anomaly. If there is nothing wrong, why fix anything? You can't fix what isn't broken.

For $2920, I would expect a perfect and flawless working gun. That is a lot of hard earned money. The exchange to HK dollars is @6 times and pretty sure they made profit.

Is the receiver CNC or pot metal?

profit margin on their CNC guns are not that high, if it were every airsoft manufacturer will be doing it in HK. There are a few places (3) here in HK that can do the CNC quality the same as FCC but out of the three none of them are willing to do anything bigger than triggers and flute valves (TSC) FCC also use T6 Aluminum which is as close to a controlled materials as Titanium in North America as there is not much use for T6 Aluminum here in HK other than making gun receivers, All their CNC items are either steel or T6 Aluminum no Pot metal.

Well after being here more than a week Brad I can tell you without any hesitation that out of all the 416 full guns and kits (over 1000 units) that was sold in Europe, Asia and Canada there are about 3 that came back plus one (yours) with issues, the three that came back one of them were a failed unit that was accidentally packed as QC unit the other two were kits that was damaged during shipping. they do have a big box of failed units from the combination of CNC misallignment and blemishes from painting etc. As I have stated before they are a growing company and as such there are bound to be mistakes along the way, i agree that on a $2900 gun there should not be any lemons but there will always be imperfections, however you cant ignore the fact that there are more than a dozen of other 416 owners in Canada that have none of the issues that you mention, they were quite concern about the review so much so that they stopped the production of my 416 AMBI to re check all the specifications and measurements, my first three days here was in meetings from 8am till 2am talking about each and EVERY parts that goes through the CNC. The buffer tubes issue could be explained as only a mis labelling as it is Illegal to sell anything resemble RS dimension (especially after the whole UN company fiasco) and when you are dealing with hundred of parts between scheduled production there are bound to be mistakes, issues that happen quite often in small factories especially in tight places in HK and their buffer tubes are one of the three items that is not made in the in house production, the issues was already identified and rectified.
Things in manufacturing are and will never be perfect especially if you are selling them, if it were perfect than the company wouldn't be in business for long changes and acknowledging issues is part of reaching that close to perfection plateau. Systema for the price that they charge and years of experience in the PTW business is not perfect either but at least with FCC acknowledging their imperfection with support is either a phone call away or a few strokes on your keyboard the same can't be said about Systema don't you agree?

So Brad got shipped a QC failed gun is pretty much what they're saying lol
So we've established that they have a responsible attitude and WANT to build a super high quality product.
But are they going to do anything about Brad's gun? He IS the guy to please in Canada on the matter afterall...

Brad and everyone that purchased FCC products have three months warranty its up to him whether he wants to use that warranty providing that the item is in original condition I have had customer returned a full complete gun because there were a improper combination of upper and lower from another retailer with no issues. Brad is not the only customer that matter in Canada in the eyes of FCC, everyone is. there are no special priviledge all warranty applied the same to all.

Great review, but if both wildcard (a dealer) and FCC themselves insist that your gun was an one-off lemon and are willing to either replace or fix the issues at no cost - why not take up the offer?

As a comparison, I didn't expect any defects when I bought my brand new 2013 C350 for just a little over $65,000, but within a month the power seats completely failed. I called up my dealership and they sent a tow-truck to pick up the car free of charge because I couldn't drive it (as the seat was moved all the way forward for some reason). They gave me a rental car and fixed the problem for me within the same day covered completely under warranty.

Akin to your situation, I could have probably fixed the issue myself, but Mercedes-Benz was more than willing to resolve the problem properly. I understand that you made your own modifications to rectify the problems and probably don't want to risk another lemon (and having to redo all those modifications all over again), but by not giving FCC another chance - this review is a little unfair. Both the product itself and the after-service should be both considered equally for a review that holds any real merit.

If the gun is really as poor as you state and you aren't willing to risk a replacement, why not just ask for a refund and use the money to buy a SystemA instead - just like what you suggested in your review? I'm sure FCC would be willing to accommodate you.

I do not believe for one second it was a one-off lemon. You need to understand what I do for a living. I am an electrician, but not just any old run of the mill electrician. I get called when other electricians have problems and can't solve them. I get called to do investigations and inspections. I get called to service large multinationals that others have been unable to to, for whatever reason. I also get called to change lightbulbs, and everything in between. I am a service electrician, and we are a special breed, we get called to fix things, discover problems and fix them so it doesn't happen again.

With this in mind, I can tell right away when a problem is a tolerance issue, or simply a defective component, or perhaps simple execution errors in assembly. So, what does this mean? Basically, it means I could send it back, sure, but what would I get in return? Another of the same? At best, yes. A worse one? Possibly. A refund? Why? I purchased a product of my own free will, and I expect the product advertised, even if I have to do what the manufacturer failed to do.

You might have been able to fix it. Or maybe not. I can for certain make this gun better, but I shouldn't have to. Nor would I be willing to wait another 4 months to get a replacement, only to have it show up with the same issues, and require the same work all over again.

Ummm, no, it is not unfair in the least. FCC built the product and released it to a retailer who sold it to me. I do not hold the retailer responsible in any way, he did not build the thing. The factory did that. What I have noted is not a simple bad part here or there, if I found it my gun it is 110% guarranteed it was found in others, as I found out from other FCC customers after I posted this up. For better or worse, once FCC released the product, they took their chances and got hammered on it, and that is the most fair and honest part of manufacturing and retail industries. When a customer has an issue and calls the manufacturer out on it, that triggers the self-preservation mode if a company wants to survive or a We Don't Care response if survival and future business don't matter. What is unfair, truly, is that they let this product go. Luckily, I guess depending on your perspective, is that it came to me and not some guy who sunk his last penny for the next 3 years on his dream gun, only to get a let-down after openning the box on delivery.


I have several other TWs already. The gun is not poor, it has issues, and these are systemic upon further analysis, and there is nobody on this side of the Atlantic or Pacific more qualified than me to make it right. So sending it back is huge waste of my time, it would take less hours off my life to fix what the factory did not.

I wanted something a little more unique and little more top-shelf. At this point, I am waiting to see what FCC does, and I paid for the right to see. I dropped the ball in their court. My racquet is getting dusty.

This review is still by no means over. There is still the gearbox to open.

And what is there to warranty? The problems which I can fix have already been done, and much better than factory, if they would have even caught them, let alone rectified them in the first place. The others may yet to see warranty, time will tell, at least until my warranty runs out.

Had this gun gone to someone else, sure, it should have been returned. The performance would have suffered greatly as well as cosmetic issues, which may not have received as much attention had I not been so fussy. But fussy is good, fussy means attention to small details today that prevent big details tomorrow. Mind the pennies, and dollars take care of themselves.

I am glad that FCC cares about all their Canadian customers.

Essentially, I think of it as chance I happenned to get this gun. Some other issues were present on Jonas's kit, as well as on a multitude of other parts I received that are not included in this review, but noted in the other review on FCC. So, is a QC failed gun I received by chance? I know what you do for a living, what do you think?

At this point, what is FCC to do? If they are designing better parts and components, great, future guns will be better for and customers happier. I have not seen the tolerance issues in a hundred Systema guns as I have seen with FCC so far. Systema got their guns 90% perfect after many revisions and changes and departures from initial design. FCC does not need to reinvent the wheel here, we are talking simple replication of the proven components and improvements where they are warranted, and not wasting resources where they are not.

Some things, like an MOE grip and LMT sopmod stock on a 416 was just so shocking as to be laughable, when the correct items are easily and readily available. That bodes poorly for the attention to details I mentioned earlier and displays the attitude of the manufacturer. Either they don't know what their customers want, don't care or simply chose to build whatever they want, damn the consequences. I hold none of those in high regard.

I think their buffer measurements may have been fine, but their surface finish and/or machining on the tube is inconsistant. Too much paint has the same result as milling it too large.

Or they did not account correctly for the thickness of the paint when calculating the dimensions of the raw tube.

Like I have said previously, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Systema spent years, much money and quite a few unhappy customers to make their product what it is, and with alot of tuning and mods from guys like Tony, myself and others. At this point, they simply need to copy what we know works, make a some simple changes to things we know need improvement and male their innovations based on functional and performance enhancements like the ambi gearbox, and not try to worry about a low friction gearbox idea.

Thanks for clarifying Jay, Not going to buy a FCC "milspec" buffer tube. I really dislike the shiny systema factory tubes and doesnt appear to be an "option" out their.

What i would REALLY like to see is a system that can shoot ~10+joules reliably. Electronics that can survive full submersion and continue to function.

uh....why not just buy a GBBR?
1050fps, might be able to do that on N2 pretty easily lol

Stories like this are why I stick to buying good AEGs and upgrading them with Lonex and other high quality internals. I have seen my custom M4 perform alongside PTWs and it easily keeps up with them performance wise; total amount spent including the base rifle: $950+/-. Sure it doesn't quite have that pretty Systema sound or the millimeter length trigger response (more like a half cm), but range, accuracy, and overall quality are up to par.

Not to bash Systema/FCC as there are people I have met with very finely tuned PTWs that look and operate beautifully, but most of them had to be finely tuned by the operator before gaming. I have read far too many threads, posts, articles, heard through word-of-mouth, what have you, of guys receiving ungameable systems and having to dump another load of cash, and frustration, just to get it to good performance. Ultimately, if someone is spending $1700+ on an airsoft rifle/carbine, that bitch better be spectacular out of the box with ZERO upgrading/modification needed aside from external additions to the user's preference. I would LOVE a Systema/FCC, but these stories keep me in check from burning a hole in my wallet.

But, what do I know, I'm only an airsofter.

I appreciate the thread macguyver.

Thread derail...

I've read about some people with very deep pockets doing HPA conversions to their magazines at around 1100+ / mag using second air scuba tanks custom sized. N2 or He magazines would be the holy grail.

HS5 had a video of AEG chrono'ing 950's, highest bolt action spring i've seen to date is 1057ish i believe. 5j guns are pretty easy to build nowadays.


On topic:
After reading this thread and seeing some more FCC guns, i'm going to "wait and see" unless I got a deal. Far more interested in the CTW/DTW/A&KTW platforms as cheap throwaway's that could potentially take quality TW components. Next on the list would be de-activating a gun and putting in a complete gearbox or GBB.

I was here too until I got married and don't have the time to work on, and maintain my own guns. I only ever owned 1-2 AEGs at a time so having a gun and backup became a pain especially since they were different platforms. Cleaning and clearing the cylinder on an AEG is a PITA, sure the ICS/Katana system are available, but it's an ICS... Katana wasnt available when i took the TW plunge, and i got sick of waiting for the real sword TW/Katana thing that was advertised back in 2010.

Define gameable. Some people are incredibly picky and want to have the absolutely best that the system/platform can perform. We can debate this around forever but I am happy with the 08 SCK gun I have and the 2011 that I recently got my grubby hands on. Yeah I had problems with the 2011 but if it was a new AEG I would have done the ER hop / M nub mod + barrel shim + opened it up and relubricated and cleaning and re-shimmed, replaced the wiring, added a MOSFET, new bore, hopup rubber blah blah blah blah......


Another props to Brad here.

Hey look, it's an argument from 5 years ago :D lmao

What he said.

Full submersion in the water capability is not going to happen anytime soon but the moisture resistant coating that is applied to their boards are more than sufficient to allow gaming on normal condition.

Anything capable of shooting 10J is illegal and you might as well stick to RS

I never had to tuned my FCC (not yet anyways) with the exception of the fine tuning the Hop Up, I have my first FCC rifle still on ALL original parts and been running strong still even after shooting in excess of 200K of bbs in the last two years from the combination of testing, gaming and loaning it out the same can't be said about my other AEG and my Systema. Most of the players who criticize Systema/FCC for their price have never shoot or game with them trust me when it comes to ready to go no fuss and high performance AEG, so far there is nothing that can come close to a PTW even a finely tuned AEG, are they perfect? NO will they break? HELL YES but when in comparison with a finely tuned AEG PTW still wins hands down, I've seen guys with their fine tuned AEG with all the mosfet, bells and whistles have their gun failed in the middle of a shootout. in over 2 decades in this hobby there are countless of argument on which system is better gas vs aeg, classic air vs gbbr, ptw vs aeg. in the end its still a toy, toys break, toys cost money and airsoft is definitely a endless pit where we continue to dump money into it much like a vicious ex wife.

After seeing the A&K version and shooting them here in HK firsthand I can tell you that aside from their strong motor I would'nt touch them with a ten foot pole the CTW is a better platform the A&K looked like a copy of both the old Systema and CTW and from what I was told by one of the retailer, they were made with a slew of different parts after the big raid in China on all ACM airsoft company. The one I was shooting that day was already tuned by one of the head tech from Guns N Guys which he replaced 70% of the internals

I wouldn't touch A&K Unless you are willing to shell out money for the electronics, they are built quite weak and do need some fine tuning to make them last or they will burn out quite easily. The exterior is good for the price and makes a great entry gun into the TW world but thats about it. The DTW is the same way, cheap TW gun but you'll have to replace the parts as they break.

The quote you're referring to isn't from me, just sayin'.

well one of the first thing they replace is the boards it failed after the first round due to the humidity here in HK they did a complete tear down and discovered that despite their strong motor they found that the core was completely exposed so it will fail eventually and teh similarities of the motor to the DTW (the motor on the current release is slightly different) the body is similar to CTW so you are right it is a good exterior and definitely a good entry PTW

Well what we used to do with AEGs is buy a gun for the body quality, and spend $600 replacing EVERYTHING on the inside....just sayin...
The method hasn't changed, just the cost of the parts

My personal preference. Luckily with drop-in gear box sets this is a much easier task now.

You attributed the quotes to wrong people.

High energy games are growing. Before paintball or simunition or airsoft avid gun owners would make their own rubber bullets to shoot at each other to "play" (that used quite liberally). Maybe things are different in Ontario.

However their is a niche group individuals that -want- higher energy guns. 5joule is the current "high energy" standard but their are many people working on the 10j AEG. I see no reason why the TW platform cannot meet the same energy performance.


Also full submersion for electronics is possible:

Apple iPhone 4 Water Test With LIQUIPEL - YouTube

Above 5.7j it's a firearm
Then comes the question of what KIND of firearm is it
You have to store it like a firearm, but most other common sense rules of airsoft apply.
Not sure if you're allowed to shoot people with it though...

Question is, why would you WANT a 10j AEG? I'm pretty sure there isn't a heavy metal on the planet that could satisfy the weight needed for optimal performance at 1000fps anyway. You'd need a new projectile.
You could potentially make an M4 shoot a 5.56 round at 4000ft/s, but it'll never get more accurate unless you make the round heavier.

Lol dafuq is the point in having something that shoots at that high a velocity? You may as well petition to make civilian use simmunition legal.

simunition is really expensive...
I understand people wanting to play at 3-5j, there's provisions for it, it's easy to make GBBRs operate at that level. A bit more risky but still very possible for AEG's, and especially PTWs, to operate in that range. And physics wise there is ammo heavy enough to get optimal performance at that FPS, and I'm sure the range is pretty good.
But there's no BB heavy enough to make use of 1000fps, you'd have to switch to 7mm spheroids or something, which means simunition might actually be cheaper.

If your goal is to have more realistic engagement distances like 400-600ft, although I'll be the first to admit we don't know what the maximum potential of a 6mm spheroid is, I know enough to say you'll never get a 6mm BB of any weight to do that with any sort of reliability.

I was using the simmunition statement in hyperbole. Only rich people could afford that.

So, thanks to Jay, I think we can sum up that FCC does not have RS dimensions to comply with HK law. OK, I understand that, and it explains why some of their parts gave me difficulty when integrating with RS components. This is something that Systema does not suffer from as they are built in Japan.

However......

We are buying a TW platform. The absolute number one construction feature is that it has RS specs in areas where the user is going to be looking to upgrade. Things like chamber size, barrel nut threading, magwell sizing, stock sizing, etc.. I could care less about pin locations, they are cosmetic and a MM or two here or there is irrelevant. I do care that I can fit their outer barrel into a RS upper without and hour on the Dremel.

This is an extremely disappointing revelation that all prospective buyers need to be aware of. If you want their product but don't want a 416 or don't like their Noveske rail for example, you might end up with a TW loaded with airsoft parts because the real ones don't fit or you aren't in the mood for some modifications. FCC needs to think really hard whether that is worth it or whether they should be shipping manufacture to a jurisdiction where this is not an issue so that they rest of us can get a platform we want, not one that conforms to HK law that I could care less about and will never be a legal problem for me.

FCC put in RS dimension where ever they could ie buffer tube they use a LMT buffer and they have a slew of RS flshhider, but the lower are modified slightly to prevent any RS magazine to fit, this was done in response to teh whole ATF fiasco. the dummy pin holes are off slightly to make their lower not being able to retain real firing mechanism without extensive modification and evenso it would have damaged teh lower to the point where they would not be useable. as the usage of airsoft parts I can assure you that all their parts are made in house including their new released cylinder (they dropped velocity) dont forget Canada is still a relatively new market to FCC ( their main market has been Europe, south east asia and Japan) even in HK FCC is hard to find because they do not want any unwanted attention from the local authority. The fitment of RS rails have been a non issue for me (I have a RS TROY TRX on my FFL) FCC do have real Gissele and URX fitted to their demo guns and most recently a URX3 brought in by me, I know some of other makes rail do not fit their body ie DD, they do have a RS DD that they cannot fit on their body without extensive modification. As for Systema they are still in the blanket ban with WA and WETTI in the states so being 100% compatible with RS do have their disadvantages.

Don't forget that the most famous saying in business is "the customer is always right.". Even though North America is a "newer" market doesn't justify that a sizeable percentage of the North American market isn't satisfied with the product. This is something that needs to be considered as well.

Update to post #3.

Customer is surely entitled to his or her opinion but it does not make them right all the time everytime. 4 returned products out of over 1000 produced is not sizeable and each and everyone of them are very satisfied with their new guns. FCC will always stand by their products and retailers.

I am assuming that those 4 returns are from Canada. Because 2 people have contacted me via PM and told me that they have returned guns for service, 2 people in Canada.

Now, what I have expressed is my opinion based on what I have seen and measured. My experience in this regard means that my opinion carries weight. I would not bothered to have posted what I have if it could not be justified. But hey, you could be right, mine could be the only FCC gun out there that has exhibited all the things I have found. Let's find out.

Here is a challenge to ASC. I know there are guys out there that have FCC guns. Want to find out what you have, I do? So, I will put my money where my mouth is. Send me your gun, I will tear it down and see what is inside. I will cover the cost of shipping to get it to me and back to you. If you want performance enhancements, like a mofiied hopup, I will do it no charge.

I will detail the internals and see how it compares to mine. This should be able to put the issue to rest once and for all.

Any takers?

PM me if you are interested.

just throwing in my experience with my FCC 416 kit did have to do some modding to the barrel nut for the cross nut to fit and I had to return my lower due to the fact that it was machined to large so the motor pins would fall out and would not retain the motor and the two screws that hold the gearbox in wouldn't thread in. I contacted Chris from DTT and had the lower replaced in 3 days for shipping and haven't had a problem since

OK, thanks ASC for the responses this far. In order to keep it so that I don't have 40 guns in queue for my workbench, I have accepted only a few for comparison. I am only one guy after all with other things on my plate.

If you have been in conact with me already, no worries, I will be getting back to you today.

Massive update to post #3.

Enjoy.

Well, I took the 416 out today. It performed fine until near the the end of a hot day (30 degrees), and after about 3000 rounds, it made an awful grinding noise from the gearbox. The only possibilities are a stripped pinion gear or perhaps the sun or bevel gear.

I will update tomorrow.

Another Systema gun with FCC electronics died and smoke came out of the buffer tube.

All my backup PTWs went into use today, I would say 1/3 of all AEGs in our group failed. The heat was brutal.

Wow. I wasn't expecting this from a 4 figure airsoft gun...
Updates and photos of the damage, it's an interesting read on how poorly these look made.

gonna have to go with mac on this review, anyone that knows me might take a step back, i pretty much think systemas are the antichrist of airsoft, but cant deny the shit and abuse that mine has taken and i have been in the company of the fcc guns that are going down in the almost identical use and rounds that my seems to continue to function. the bright light at the end of the tunnel is that fcc seems to listen so they are willing to improve. so as a team member of a team looking at setting up completley with tw platforms, i will keep watching this verse of the systema bible be written and begrudgingly agree.... so far... cheers boys.

Well, I had a chance to look at the 416 this afternoon to see why my gearbox made an awful sound, and the gun failed to shoot. The first suspect was the motor pinion gear, as it is a known issue with FCC. This is what I found:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/62/f5o1.jpg

Nothing wrong with the pinion gear. It looks fine. Well, that means the problem lies inside the gearbox. It could be anything, one tooth broken off a single gear for example. When I openned it up, this is what I see:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/15/ecd1.jpg

Please note the metal particles on the bevel gear and in the throat of the pinion hole. If you will also note, no teeth broken or otherwise missing. Interesting indeed. As a further investigation, I decide to remove the bevel and sun gear. This is what I see:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/824/ir8t.jpg

The bevel gear has a plastic collar on the shaft. So does Systema, but the Systema is ABS, this is something else. The shaft for the sun gear floats freely, and the retaining bushing stayed in the gearbox. There is also a shim installed on the sun gear. This is very telling, I will come back to this point in a little later. But, to keep things moving, I will show you the planetaries and sector gear:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/199/k0le.jpg

If you will note the gear lash and fit between the planetaries and the sector gear. There is a great deal of play, in fact, there is almost as much dead space between gears as there is tooth. This is a MASSIVE problem. As the gears turn under load, they "male" tooth will wipe across the face of the "female" notch in the sector gear. This is a point of wear, and a normal function of any geartrain. If the lash is good, and the tolerances tight, there is alot of tooth that would have to wear away before the gears are finished. In this case, there is very little material to wear, and failure is going to be much quicker than Systema in this regard. There is absolutely no way this gearbox would last a long time, and as this is the torque version, runnning an M160 would lead to a quick and inevitable death.

I hope you have been paying attention to my pics this far. Have you noticed something missing in all the pics of gears and the gearbox? I did as soon as I openned it up.

Grease.

There is no appreciable grease in this gearbox. In fact, there is probably barely enough to darken a paper towel. A lack of grease means wear at metal-to-metal contact points, like gears, and it will greatly accelerate said wear, leading to vastly premature failure.

But this is not the reason this gearbox failed at this time. That was due to something else:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/560/av96.jpg

Please note the gear lash in this picture. They are barely making contact. In fact, with the right matching of teeth between the sun and bevel gears, they will bypass each other. This is the grinding noise I heard. When the sector gear engaged the piston rack, it translated this load up the geartrain from the planetaries to the sun gear. If the sun gear stopped in the right spot, the bevel gear would just catch a fraction of a millimeter of the teeth on the sun gear. As the sun gear was under load, it would not turn and the bevel gear helical teeth would bypass and grind on the sun gear helicals. That is the failure of this gearbox.

Now, the question I had to ask was, why did this happen. Well, I found it pretty quickly. The gearbox is fatally flawed. The tolerances of the holes for gear bearings + poor gear lash + poor tolerances on gear shafts = excessive movement of the gears in lateral planes that they should not be moving in, ever. Couple this with the appalling lack of lubricant means that wear is accelerated to extreme levels. Failure was inevitable.

Now, everybody has tolerances in machined parts. It doesn't matter the manufacturer. If you were to allow a 20% tolerance in parts, you would accept probably all the parts that the manufacturer machined for you. If you wanted to accept a 10% tolerance, you might have to invest labour to measure and sort parts, and discard (at your expense) those that did not make the grade. This might drive the parts cost up 3-fold or more. If you wanted even tighter tolerances, your discard rate will be much higher, this results in even higher costs.

All this talk about tolerances, what does this mean? It means that if one gear was undersized and one oversized, the mating might be good, and likely no problems. If both were undersized, the mating would be very poor, and maybe only 10% of the tooth face makes contact. This presents an extreme load on that tooth segment, and with poor lubrication, it means failure is a certainty.

You can see how much the bevel gear moves. Note the position of my o-ring pick:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/818/nm96.jpg
http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/194/8s41.jpg

Sometimes, you end up on the losing end of tolerance differences. That is precisely what happened here. The shim on the sun gear shaft told me this right away. Systema only uses one shim in their gearbox, and it is on the bevel gear. FCC knew they had an issue of gear lash problems, that is why a shim ended up in a spot that an experienced PTW tech would find odd. This gearbox is fatally flawed, it is not repairable, it must be replaced entirely.

Now, my gun arrived to me on April 22nd of this year. Saturday was the 2-month point in my 3-month factory warranty. The question is now, will FCC honour their warranty and replace the gearbox? My review is now about a month old, and at no time have they made any effort to contact me. It is a 150% ironclad guarantee that FCC has seen everything I have written, and viewed every picture.

I have heard nothing from them. I will be contacting my retailer for further action.

Just to add icing to the cake, another faux body pin fell out. Note the miniscule glue residue:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/20/v2lz.jpg

The pin next to it is a Systema one that I had to install when I received the gun and it was missing in that spot on both sides.

I used to run, then tool, fixture, and supervise a few CNC machines, tolerances are easy to keep within .003" on the lowest quality "high end" machine ESPECIALLY if you're making parts from billet. Cast is a whole other story.
If you're making thousands, okay, a few bad parts might slip through, but that's why you have quality sampling. And they should have caught all these problems in the initial prototype before they went and made a huge run of $3000 CTWs
They have to have quality control on their production lines, so it's a pretty massive blunder if an out-of-spec gearbox made it into a finished product...

$3000 CTWs? lol

Frank, sometimes you are a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

ctw? O_o

LOL
 

LOL a little CNC and a little PTW you get a nice CTW LOL

So, I have spoken with my retailer, and he has ordered a replacement gearbox for the 416. However, it is down until it arrives, and I am not sure when that will be exactly.

At this point, nobody from FCC has been in contact with me at all since the emails I posted in post #2. They apparently have asked one of their Canadian retailers not to comment neither. I have a hard time with a company who wants to be secretive and run things quietly. I believe they are hoping that people forget about what I have found and will buy their products anyways. That is simply not right, nor is it fair. If they had come forth and acknowledged their issues, and worked to resolve it, different story. But silence does no favours to anyone.

It is therefore incumbent upon me to not recommend that anyone buy FCC's guns. Some of their parts are OK as replacement for Systema in cases where they have a unique non-OEM product, but as a general rule, they are no better than factory components from Systema and Systema is the hands-down preferred choice for replacement parts. The tolerances are simply too loose, and FCC has spent their capital trying to make themselves "different", when they should have spent it all making themselves the same.

There is another 416 enroute to me soon, and it will get a complete teardown to further validate my assessment.

So, to sum up, I absolutely and unequivocally do not endorse nor recommend FCC. This is not a permanent assessment, FCC needs to put the effort in to copy Systema and not blaze their own trail into oblivion.

Sucks!
 

I have to say I'm dissapointed. I was going to buy one but your honest review has changed my mind. I will go with a VFC and Lonex the inside! Thank you for such an indepth review and I'm sorry that you are going through all that hassle!

OK, well, I had to look another PTW that had failed on the weekend. The owner reported smoke coming out of the buffer tube. I did a complete teardown looking for burnt electronics, but found none:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/196/tjbf.jpg

This black spot on the ECU looked like a promising candidate, but it turned out to be a spot of crud.

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/401/mwpn.jpg

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/843/6sl6.jpg

Water did enter this gun. You can see residue on the selector board and the right side of the gearbox. The gun still ran during the RAAT downpour, but it went 3-burst in both modes.

The FET board looked fine, no obvious signs of smoke release, for that is the magic that makes electronics work. Once you let it out, things stop working.

That lead me to the final culprit, and here it is:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/42/79ym.jpg

The motor was caked in burnt brush dust:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/834/tid5.jpg

Now, there is always some amount of brush dust present on a motor. If it is shiny and copper-coloured, it is a sign of brush wear, sometimes premature due to a commutator that is not true. But this dust is black. That means that it has been burnt. The mechanism of this burning is the arc formed between the brush and the commutator. It can happen for alot of reasons. One of them being a damaged brush. It could also be a poor commutator, broken brush spring, poorly moving brush, weak brush spring allowing the brush to skip on the commutator.

At any rate, this motor is likely toast. It has seen perhaps 25,000 rounds, maybe a bit more or a bit less. I will look into it further once the owner and I have spoken.

Now, it would be a little unfair to readers of the previous posts on the 416 gearbox failure if I did not provide a frame of reference for the issues of lubrication, gear lash and wear. So, with this gun, a 2012 Systema, I figured I would tear it open to show you the differences. I already knew it as soon as I openned the 416's gearbox, but just to give you a comparison:

FCC:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/560/av96.jpg

Systema:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/694/6cid.jpg


FCC:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/199/k0le.jpg

Systema:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/836/59no.jpg

Please note the gear lash and lubrication. I relubed the Systema box this spring, and I do it the same way Systema does, grease in the right areas and no more than necessary, the gearbox must have lubrication, but it should not be dripping grease everywhere. Some is better than none, and too much is worse than none.

The more I look at FCC, the more I want Systema.

Hey Brad just a FYI FCC gearbox have use only Oberon lube and not the Lithium based grease systema use, so there is no need for "excess" amount like in other gearboxes in fact the amount use when viewed is almost look like non existant but they are there, so the gearbox may look like it needs lube but actually each and every part do have a coating of this Oberon lube, just a FYI.

http://www.oberonlube.com/Indust_Home.htm

If you had said "certified labs" lubricant, I'd of been extremely impressed. Coming from actually using it myself in an industrial, long term application, against other high end greases, certified labs absolutely blows the competition out of the water in the molybdenum and lithium greases that I tested.

Now I'm not trying to pick anything apart, I'm just curious if they're actually using a super high end grease. What oberon grease specifically do they use? What's the base stock and additives?

Systema only uses lithium grease in the brand new 2013 and Mad Max gearboxes. For the last 8 years, it has been a petroleum gear grease. It is still the best. First thing I did was yard that stuff out, lithium has no business in the gearbox.

The wear that occured was not satiated one bit by the the lubricant they use. They should stick to gear grease.

Frank, originally they were using the G55 open gear lubricant, but they find that it was too thick, in the Systema manual they specify against using heavy lubricants so they switch to the recommended G38 Oberon Multi purpose grease with a NGLI -2 rating

I've only started using this grease recently on my other GBB and AEG I can actually see the improvement on my AEG LMG (G&P MK63) its actually quieter/smoother than my other G&P 249 and on the Illusion MEU teh action is a lot more crisp and attract a lot less gunk than teh superlube I've been using.

They don't give me much info on the site, but reading the page for the G55, yeah I agree it's too heavy. It's a heavy, high pressure, low speed grease.
What about using G56? Hard to tell without some finer details, seems like it's more geared towards our application though.

I'd agree that there isn't enough lube though. Although a thin film, in theory, should be enough, that's only in a perfect world where the gears don't wear. Ideally, any powder that inevitably wears off the gears needs to be encapsulated in grease. With a proper high end grease, particles are fully encapsulated and prevent further wear. But you need a grease thats either thick enough, or has high enough adhesion to not fling off.
A simple test you can do, is take a glob of grease, put SAND in it, rub it in there, and if you feel any sort of abrasion then the grease is no good. The grease should feel a little clumpy, but not abrasive at all.
I did the comparison between moly based chuck-ease (which is what EVERYONE uses in lathe chucks) and certified labs premalube (aluminum stock with moly added), and the difference was night and day. And most importantly, although they're both NLGI-2 greases, the chuck ease had very low adhesion and most of it ends up on the splash guards of your machine, whereas the premalube stays in the chuck SO well, and is so resistant to washout, you only need to grease it once every 2 months vs once a week.

This OBERON G38 is nothing like the superlube the "abbrasion" test definitely pass but one thing I noticed on my MK63 gearbox is the original amount that I applied have dissapeared but when I remove the gears its'a actually still there (from the feel and cloth) and it look like it bonded? to the metal so on my GBB I only applied a little in fact it was way less that what I normally put. I did play around with different kind of grease/lubricants before went as highend as the same PTFE based bearing grease as what the USAF use (stupidly expensive) but in the end the superlube took care of things until I was introduced to this by the FCC guys.

anyway BRSM sorry for the thread jack Brad.

Cool, sounds like it just disperses and has excellent adhesion.
AEG gears are generally excellent for wear resistance though, I can say I've never seen any sort of significant wear on a set of high end gears in a G&P mechbox and I've run a few sets dry just to see. Of course, if the bearing holes are off, like in a CA, wear happens a lot faster and more significantly.
Has FCC said anything about the gearbox? Have they already corrected the gear lash problem?

I have another 416 enroute to me now, it is from the same batch as mine, and is also a torque version. I got the OK to tear it down completely and see what it is all about.

I did notice though when both gearboxes were open, the bevel and sun gearin the FCC did not sit solid, but would wobble. The Systema would not. That tells me that the gears did not sit precisely in a precise hole, and the lateral movement that ensued under load accelerated gear wear.

Maybe they're drilling all their holes with regular chisel point HSS jobber drills? lol

Perhaps someone needs to let you look at one that wasn't part of your batch.

There aren't that many out there, and I think that of the ones that arrived this year, all are part of that batch. The race gun was different obviously, and in hindsight perhaps I should have torn that gearbox down. I did not expect to find what I did with the 416 gearbox.

True. Looking at a bunch from the same lot is like looking at all the Toyotas with sticky gas peddles and denouncing them all as shit haha.

Well, I have finally gotten down to looking at another 416D. This one is also a torque version, so it has the same gearbox ratio as mine. It is also from the same lot as mine, ordered at the same time and delivered at the same time from the same retailer, Double Tap.

Immediately upon arrival, I picked up the gun. The floppy gas piston is present in this one as well.

http://imageshack.us/clip/my-videos/...bitcwimvy.mp4/


The issue here is purely one of QC, and only a blind monkey with no thumbs could have missed this at the factory.

Here, you see the spring that keeps tension on the piston and guides, to keep it from flopping around. Please note the that the spring does not sit in the guide. The gap you see + the depth of the guide = the distance the piston flops around. Unacceptable.

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/38/w98h.jpg

The solution is to remove the rail, remove the piston assembly and stretch the spring. Why was this not done at the factory? This is how it should look. It was a simple fix, it is cosmetic only, but the result is a noisy rail section.

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/46/hr0n.jpg

This particular gun also had a complaint of a poor hopup. The owner complained about terrible range, and I confirmed that with lobbing I could get the BB to travel 100 feet with the hopup fully engaged. The problem is the same as before, the adjuster cage is utterly useless. The cage was openned up due to no glue on the adjuster pin, the roller was a hard rubber that spins on the pin, and the spring does not offer enough tension. If you were trying to build the worst hopup possible in a TW, this is what you would do. After many years of modified hopups being available, any company with any sort of R&D would look at those and at least attempt to incorporate those designs into a gun claiming to be a superior option to Systema. FCC has not done this, and I have no idea why they would build a gun today with a hopup Systema designed and quickly discarded 10 years ago. This offering from FCC is a copy of Systema's Gen 1 hopup.

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/841/suyk.jpg

Please note the poor fit on the adjuster cage to the inner barrel. Even though the hopup was inneffective, had the adjuster rubber been better, the resulot would have still been wildly inconsistant shots as the cage flopped from side to side. What more can I say?

When I looked now at the lower, I noticed a couple of things. The buffer tube was threaded in one more turn, so no shims present. A stark difference from mine. The buffer cap was the same, it was replaced with a Systema buffer cap, and one shim added to fit the receivers properly.

When I looked into the lower receiver though, I saw this:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/585/8ni8.jpg

The rear gearbox fixing screw was fully undone. The wear on the screw is from the receiver hitting it. My first reaction was WTF, is the threading bad on the receiver like a kit I had done earlier? No, it simply was not tightened up. Whatever. But that lead me to wonder why. So, with the permission of the owner, I decided to remove the gearbox. The reason I asked for permission is because FCC has put seals on their gearboxes. I have dealt with this issue before in my job, as openning seals usually results in voiding warranties without permission, but it would appear I am not first up in this gang-bang:

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/163/kny2.jpg

Who openned this gearbox before me is unknown. Not that is matters to me, as long as everything is OK. Well.................

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/850/mu0j.jpg

Metal shavings everywhere.

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/833/joq2.jpg

Again.

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/826/euxl.jpg

Extreme gear wear.

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/197/erfs.jpg

More metal shavings.

http://imageshack.us/scaled/medium/819/rdnd.jpg

That awesome gear lash I have come to love. Now, this gearbox has not actually failed, but failure is immenent. Mine lasted about 8000 rounds until it failed, and by failed, I mean it failed to cycle and pull a piston under load, the gears would grind. This box had perhaps 1/4 of the round count of mine, and I would be surprised if it made it as far mine. So, the decision was made to pull it for return to FCC.

Now, I have informed Chris about my gearbox failure before he left from holidays, and I was told that he would get FCC to send me a replacement. I was told yesterday that this gearbox would need to be returned to FCC and they will determine repair or replacement. Now, it is warranty, and they have that right to repair or replace at their discretion.

However, I have seen this gearbox, and as of yet I am not convinced that it can be repaired. If the gearbox shell is good, meaning the holes for bearings and bushings are precise, then the issue is gear dimensions. Without knowledge of the allowable tolerances involved here, and what FCC has done, I can not comment more on this. It could be simply bad gears. It may also be no fault of the gears themselves, the problem may reside in the gearbox shell. Either possibility leads to damage and a dead gearbox. To further add issues, it may be both, and replacing gears when the problen is also the shell is not solving the problem, and future failure is assured, albeit out of warranty, to bad, so sad.

So, my gearbox and the latest one will be returned to the factory for assessment, repair and/or replacement. How long will this take? Weeks? Months? Never? At any rate, my gun went down June 23rd, I informed Chris the next day, and he moved on it promptly. However, it is now July 13, and my gun will be down until a functional gearbox arrives in my hands. With time allowed for shipping, I think it is safe to say that I will not see it functional again until well into August, but most likely later.

Warranty is nice, but in airsoft if you offer one it must be over the counter exchange, not send to HK for review. I really hate to play Captain Obvious here, but in the world of PTW, my word carries weight, people listen to what I say because I have the technical ability to wring every last ounce of performance out of these platforms. I have also spent many a night fixing everything in these guns from the mundane to the shocking. I have given a harsh review of their products, but it has been a fair assessment and I can back it up with my skill and lots of photos. If there was anyone FCC should be pleasing here, it should be me. Unless they are hoping that it is the silent and grumbling masses who won't complain about their product, while they write guys like me off as being too picky and not worth their time to court with a formal statement or even simply just replacement parts.

I have had to deal with warranty issues for decades now, and our company service when an issue like this arises is to fix the problem RFN, and worry about warranty assessments later on our time, not the customers. FCC may chose to warranty my gearbox or not, but it will happen on my time, not theirs, and the result is a $2920 wall hanger until it does.

If anyone is looking at FCC and wondering about warranty, be it customers or retailers, this is what it is. And still, after two months, FCC has not responded, nor has any of their retailers. In fact, one has been ordered not to respond here. The obvious question is why. The answer, unfortunately, is equally obvious.

Sigged.


Brad, the bearing on the sector gear what is the gunk from about 230 to 6oclock? I would assume it's some kind of lubricant but it actually looks like rust in your picture.

I am not a machinist but the wear on the gears leads me to believe

1) Substandard materials used in manufacturing of gears
2) Gears are not made to spec
3) Bearing/axle holes in gearbox shell are not correctly placed which is common for from China AEG "CNC" aluminium gearbox shells

I haven't opened and tinkered enough on the TW platform yet but my money is on #3.

Brad , I'm not surprise they drag their heels on their warranty, you bit the hand that feed you on this -No offence but if you take a step back. How would your CS be towards someone who critisize you to no end?

What do you think would go farther for customer support:

1) Give a vocal customer service

2) Don't give them service

FCC has said absolutely nothing since the emails I have received and posted above. Absolutely nothing. Their eastern Canadian retailer has been ordered by them not to respond here.

At this point, the ball is in their court. It always has been. Do you think my voice on this matter will diminish of they don't give me fair and honest service? Would that be better for them.

I can promise you right now that FCC lost at least $50,000 in sales in Canada based on my words these last few months. And this is just the people who have contacted me, who knows how many more are out there. Do you think the best course of action for them is to ignore me?

You think I am vocal now.