STAR M249 MKII

STAR M249 MKII

Postby Variable » Sun Feb 12, 2012 11:49 pm

Published on: Tuesday, September 11 2007

Externally the Star 249 is a good looking replica, all the little bumps and grooves in the right place and a good finish that you would almost believe is metal. When you pick it up you know that its plastic, its about the weight of a metal M4. With a loaded magazine and battery it weighs a little more than that, but the balance is well centered just forward of the pistol grip. True to form there are two firing modes; rock & roll and safe controlled by the push button safety next to the trigger.

The Hopup adjustment is underneath the feed tray and can be adjusted using a metric alan key.

Stock performance:
Stock right out of the box the Star 249 shoots at 325-335fps. Mine had some variation that could be because of the RoF screwing with the chrono, or because of BB weights or some other factor.
With an 8.4v battery the RoF is very high. You wouldn't gain any more RoF by going to a 9.6v battery because the Box Magazine simply cant feed fast enough.
The box magazine will take 2000-3000rds plus a large battery. You'll have to get an adapter to go from the small plug in the magazine to the large plug on the battery. A large battery is a tight fit in the box mag, but it will fit. The magazine runs off of 2x AA batteries, the batteries last approximately 10000rds.
Before you can rock & roll you have to dry fire for 2-5 seconds to prime the feed tube because the magazine only winds when you are holding the trigger. You could make a bypass switch that allows you to wind it without firing quite easily.
Due to the long barrel, stable hopup, and nice stock FPS this has some of the best stock performance of any AEG I've seen yet. At 120ft I was placing most of my shots onto a 10" target without any holdover.

Maintenance:
After shooting all day, open up the feed tray and hit that big black switch near the back of the gearbox. You have to press it pretty hard before it disengages and releases spring tension.
Next take your alan key and turn the hopup off. Due to the design, changing the hopup on this replica is a very difficult process and you don't want to put extra wear on your rubber. Spray silicon into the feed tube like any other replica.
Last you need to take care of your magazine. What? maintenance on a magazine? Yes. It has a gearbox just like the gun.
Open your magazine and remove your batteries, BBs, and AEG battery. Take a can of compressed air (like the stuff you use for computers and cameras) and spray out the inside of the magazine for dirt and debris. Take care to spray into the gears to clear debris as anything besides BBs in your magazine WILL jam it. Next spray into the feed tube. The feed tube is just a coiled spring and it likes to pick up dirt and debris in the field, this will lead to jams. I recommend covering the feed tube and magazine with plastic or cloth to protect it from dirt.

Pros:
Light weight
Excellent stock performance
High RoF, large capacity
Low Cost ($550 from ASGI)

Cons:
Box mag is prone to jamming in dirty or wet conditions
Externals aren't as nice and realistic as the CA or G&P
Hard to get replacement parts
Difficult to access hopup/barrel assembly
Must dry fire to prime feed tube
Cant fit a large battery in stock without mods
Small battery connector and no included adapter
Cant take m16 mags

Final thoughts:
This is an excellent replica overall. Mine has seen 50K-70K rounds and hasn't decreased in FPS, RoF, or any other measure of performance. The plastic is good feeling and very tough. For realism fans though the light weight and lack of external cosmetic moving parts may be a turn off. The battery connections can be moved to wire it to the stock although the stock will not fit a large style battery without some dremmeling.

I would buy this replica again.

UPDATE: Recently the gearbox cracked and caused a piston failure. At the point of failure the gun had about 70K rounds through it and it was in stock condition.

Pictures:

The stock with my team's name painted on:
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The magazine with batteries and BBs. The box actually bends a little bit when you put a large battery in it.
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The clear polycard gearbox has no problems with durability.
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The gearbox and hopup.
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