CA Sportline M15A4 Tactical Carbine Review

[WARFIGHTER]

-- PICS TO COME --

Purchased from Mentosice BNIB April 29th, 2008


First Impressions

Well, lets start with the box, it is relatively sturdy, w/ very secure closing flaps, and a carry handle... Which is beautiful if you don't have a gun case for it. The whole package is designed it seems for new players so that's definately a good afterthought being able to use the box as a case in a pinch.

Everything is included that is needed to play, a 8.4v 1600mah battery, glasses, bb's, high cap, wall charger, basic sling, unjamming rod, and of course the gun.

The wall charger I wouldn't use personally unless I absolutely had to as it is my understanding a cheap wall charger will degrade the battery? I could be wrong I'm not very battery-savvy, either way I'm sure it will do if nothing else is avail.

The battery is NiMh I believe, and the capacity is quite small but, for something that's included in an already very cheap price, it's fine. I use it as a spare, and although I haven't used it much it has worked fine when I have.

The glasses, are ca branded, yellow tinted, and extrordinarily comfy. I'll be honest, I think these are the best glasses I have ever used and I've used ICE, cheap wallmarts, Wiley-X's, ESS Goggles, and many more. They do not fog easily, I have not fogged them yet although I haven't played in any extreme conditions with them yet however, there have been several times when my other sets of glasses have been fogging, and I switched to these and they didnt' fog. I feel I should do a seperate review for these glasses themselves that's how impressed I am with them.

The BB's, .2's, used em to plink around w/ so I cannot comment on their quality or accuracy.

The highcap, is the standard CA highcap, been 3500+ rounds through it it's been fine, I spritz a bit of silicon oil in it every few games or so.

The sling is bad it is a flimsy piece of 1" webbing, unfinished ends, and two triglides to secure it, but again, for the price it can't be complained about.

Unjamming rod is standard.


Finally, the gun itself. Looks good, feels good, lets have a closer look...


The Externals

Everything is on par w/ the metal body CA guns as far as the stock/barrel/buttstock/carry handle, etc, the only external difference is the body is plastic. The plastic feels very solid, similar to the CA G36 plastic, it feels more like nylon fibre, whether it is I am not sure.

The trades are engraved (laser engraved I'm assuming?) they are not painted white or anything so they don't stand out however I have no complaints, again taking into consideration this is a 350.00 gun I wouldn't complain if there were no markings at all.

There is no wobble/creaking, the gun is noticably lighter than a metal bodied version, how much lighter I'm not sure, however it feels solid as a rock.

The charging handle is functional which is a nice feature it 'releases' the ejection port cover (spring loaded door) and pulls the 'bolt cover' back to reveal the hop adjustment.

The rear sling tab snapped off at the 3rd game the gun saw. I'm not sure if this was a lemon defect, or what, I've never heard of anyone else saying it happened to theirs but there's not that many reviews out on them yet so who's to say. Either way, not that big a deal for myself as I can make a rear sling adapter and was planning on using it anyway but still, something to note.

All in all, the externals, are fantastic IMO for this gun considering the price, broken sling tab aside.


The Internals

At this time, the gearbox hasn't been cracked open so I cannot comment from first hand experience on the internals, however, there are several reviews out for the M15A4 sportline series that does show/detail the internals that I found when researching it, of course... Now I cannot find them again but I'll search more later.

I have some shims and an air seal nozzle waiting to be installed. Once that gets underway, I'll update this section with more info and pics.


Performance & Reliability

The only thing that really matters IMO.

So far the gun has seen 3500+ rounds and not had a single hiccup/misfeed/jam, or failure of any kind, now, whether this is standard or I just got lucky, I don't know. CA seems to be hit and miss, I've had several CA's out of the box with cracked cylinders/nozzles, broken hop up rubbers, doubled up hop up rubbers, etc, and several that have performed as well as this one without issues... But I'm quite amazed that this gun has lasted this long and done this well for it's cost.

Bone stock she chrono'd at a very consistent 343 fps w/ .2's.

Accuracy, is quite exceptional considering the short (363mm) barrel. I have since added a madbull 363mm barrel w/ hopup rubber, which has provided a straighter trajectory and slightly better groupings from what I can tell, however I can't complain about the stock inner barrel and it's performance, and to be honest if I hadn't already had the madbull barrel I would not have purchased it and left it stock, it was fine.

Effective range I'd say is 100-120ft, after that it seems the bb's drop quite fast although they don't veer off or go wild they just seem to drop right to the ground. Again I'm perfectly happy with this considering the overall length of the rifle and again, the price.


Pros
-Price
-Build/External Quality
-Reliable
-Great Performance

Cons
-Rear Sling Tab
-Plastic Body
-Trades/Markings


Conclusion

In my experience with this rifle for the price there is nothing that compares to it that offers the level of reliability and performance this gun has. I use it side by side with and against other's heavily upgraded and modified AEG's and it holds it's own without issues. I'm thouroughly impressed and have never been happier with an AEG purchase. Whether your experienced in the sport or are a newbie looking for your first buy I'd recommend this piece without hesitation.

[KillerCreed]

aren't CA's supposed to have metal bodies?

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Gaius

aren't CA's supposed to have metal bodies?

Sportline is CA's answer to the clone market, they use an abs body to lower their cost.

Knyte nice review. when you do crack that mechbox open could you update here with pic's/thoughts.

[KNIVEZS]

nice review bud!

[WARFIGHTER]

Originally Posted by Tex

Sportline is CA's answer to the clone market, they use an abs body to lower their cost.

Knyte nice review. when you do crack that mechbox open could you update here with pic's/thoughts.

Yup absolutely will update w/ mechbox pics and specs on the internals.

Thanks guys.

[Crunchmeister]

Originally Posted by Gaius

aren't CA's supposed to have metal bodies?

The Sportsline series are the new low-cost gun CA released a few months back. As Tex already said, they're made to compete with the popular Chinese clones like JG and Echo 1 (same guns, different name).

I don't have any personal experience with these guns, but from the bit of reading I'd done on them, the main differences seem to be the Sportsline's plastic body and non-reinforced mechbox shell and gears. I can't remember if the review I'd read said the body was ABS or nylon fiber.

Also, on the functional front, the charging handle on the Sportsline actually opens the ejector port cover and pulls back the fake bolt carrier / dust cover to reveal the hopup. On the standard CA, the charging handle has no function and the ejector port cover is held closed magnetically. So in essence, this gun is Marui clone rather than the "based on TM / TM-compatible" design of the standard CA M15.

Otherwise, at least from the info I had read, the Sportsline seems to share all the same other internals and externals as the standard M15.

[WARFIGHTER]

Ah yea I forgot about that. Added!

[KillerCreed]

thanx for the info. i actually did not know that. nice review knyte btw

[Drache]

Just to even out things, Im one of the ones who bought one of these brand new and within 30 minutes of testing it in the backyard had it seize completely and returned to the store.

[WARFIGHTER]

Do you know what was wrong with it out of curiosity?

[KillerCreed]

that does not sound like CA

[Skladfin]

nice review man.

Maybe go a little more in depth if you have the time, but it's pretty good for what it is.

[swatt13]

team mate has one, theyre nice, theyre essentially the same thing as a tm.

[WARFIGHTER]

Hmmm was it an ealier model that you had issues with I had heard that CA did some updates to their sportilne series as the original release had a lot of issues I'm wondering if I got one of their newer releases perhaps with the fixes... I don't really want to take it apart as it's running so nicely but when/if I do I'll put up more info

[WARFIGHTER]

Pics!