by league 4 » Tue Mar 08, 2011 12:00 am
I've said it too much.... But, after going through 5+ G&P, 2 KWA, SRC, VFC, 2 CA, G&G,2 ICS, built from the ground up M4's, and a lot more (not counting any ACM), and working on almost all of them, I confidently say G&P beats the rest by far. Externals are commonly known to be the best, which I agree with being true. People say VFC is about equal but I disagree, the body is more like a CA being too smooth with kind of bad trades IMO. G&P also offers a LOT more variety externally with a ton of different AR platforms theres one for just about any preference or requirements as you could go from a stubby M4, up to M16's and XM110's. The internals are also easily my favorite. The metal cylinder head and nozzle get a perfect seal with the cylinder, and are also just as good as the best upgrade parts you could put in. The motor speaks for itself, the G&P M120 is used in tons of aftermarket builds, same with the piston and sometimes the piston head. The gears themselves are strong, I don't think I've ever had a G&P gear tooth strip, just the axles break which seems to be, or at least have been a pretty common problem. 8mm bearing gearbox shell, ball bearing spring guide, hopup holds its setting well, deans connectors are a HUGE plus... Inner barrel is nothing special but most people get tightbores anyways. The price starting at $250 for a basic M4 with crane stock is really appealing too. KWA has always had some of (if not the worst) externals of any high end manufacturer. the crane stock just feels bad, but it does use a kind of good design, but installing a MOSFET didn't look like fun. Magazine comparability is horrible... The only mags I could get to half work in my Gen 1 bodied KWA's were STAR pmags and even then they didn't feel very well, and the gun had a VFC mag catch installed (it helped a little with the pmags). Upgrading was a pain, I ripped several buckings getting the parts back in the oddly tight hopup chamber (which is a flawed 2 piece design for some reason, that is NOT compatible with TM/JG), and their tinkering with TM specs really got to me. After the gears in both of mine stripped, my only extra set didn't fit the bushings and so some AIM 8mm ones had to be put in. Thankfully the ones with the one 9mm bearing didn't strip though. The cylinder head really just fell apart for some reason and had to be replaced and my others didnt get very good compression with the KWA nozzle (which is off of TM spec). The GB shell is more reinforced though, but I personally find it as kind of overkill as I've never cracked a standard GB shell anywhere but the trigger post, even at 450FPS/25-27RPS. My teammate had a KWA SR10 that he bought new from ASGI, and he had problems from day 1. It never even fed decently with his MAG midcaps or my G&P/S arms ones... He eventually traded it away after it fried his lipo for a CA M16 and was very happy with that trade.
tl;dr I like G&P from a lot of past experiences with them.