A&K: M60 Product Review?

[zekew64]

I was looking online a few days ago, and saw a weapon that I want to get: the M60 by A&K. I was wondering if anybody has this weapon (it's the 4000 round box with auto spin-up), and if so, could they post a review?

As this weapon is retailed to at least $250 or more, I'd like to make sure that I'm getting what I pay for.

Also, I noticed in other threads that retailers shouldn't be trusted. However, I was wondering about distributors, such as airsoftmegastore.com. Can they be trusted to get good equipment?

One last note, although not an inquiry: Amazon.com is an amazing place to shop online...a friend of my got an H&K-licensed MP5 and his loadout, spending perhaps half the cost to shop elsewhere. So, what I'm trying to say is, if you can't find it online for a decent price, try amazon.com...you might just get lucky and get a really good deal.

[puggy33]

Can someone tell me what is spin-up.

[zekew64]

Spin-up is what a shooter in airsoft has to do when the ammunition in their magazine's loading chamber runs out--this is usually accomplished by turning a wheel or spring, drawing more ammunition into the magazine's loading chamber to be fired.

The A&K M60 has an auto spin-up feature, meaning that the shooter will never have to pause in the middle of a firefight to add more ammo to the magazine's loading chamber; the weapon powers the loading chamber to continually do so until empty.

[Knief]

He's talking about winding his hicap mags. I've never heard it called "spin-up," but I'm sure there's more than a few dialectic differences between communities. For what it's worth, most serious airsoft players in Michigan don't play with hicaps, and most games don't allow them (except on designated support weapons like an M60 or M249).

Zekew,

I'm sure there are a ton of reviews on the A&K M60 and M249 (they'll be the same gun internally with the same quality externals) posted on hobbyist sites across the country. A quick google search should bring up a lot of solid information. I'd check out Airsoft Retreat and Airsoft Forum for reviews on clone guns. But beware, a lot of the players who post on those forums aren't exactly experts. Read a lot of reviews and compare notes between them, then make your best guess as to where the truth lies. Especially given that most reviews don't deal with long term reliability, which is an area where clone guns really fail to cut it.

As for trusting retailers, you're right, you shouldn't trust their reviews. The same goes for wholesalers, and often times individuals reselling their guns. It's called a conflict of interests, and it's a basic and common premise for why you should never trust somebody who stands to make money off of your decision. The retailer wants you to buy their product, which puts them into a position to talk up the product on their site in order to persuade you to buy from them. Not every retailer does it, but it still doesn't matter. The simple existence of a conflict of interests makes any claim from a retailer suspect. That's why you're much better off looking for reviews on hobbyist sites like this one.

[Beast]

Here is a quick quote of a review of the A&K M60 Vietnam that I had written for a different site a year ago when they first came out, along with some follow up reports from playing with this weapon for a season.

Beast on Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:56 pm

.I just received my A&K m60. I purchased it from Airsoft GI for $399.95 and it arrived in 6 business days, which isn't bad for a retailer all the way out on the left coast. It came double boxed and upon opening I found that the original box was in decent shape. It's a big box!

Inside the box is the typical styrofoam clamshell protection. This works great for protecting the gun during shipping, but is a pain in the butt due to the fact that static cling always has bits of styrofoam stuck all over the gun.

After blowing the styrofoam off, we are left with the meat and potato's of this aeg. In the box is the gun,a box mag, instruction booklet, and the correct style flashhider (already installed in these pics).

First impression is that this is one beefy weapon. Everything looks nice and has a pretty good fit and finish. There is a lot of metal on this aeg which adds to it's heft. The only plastic is the foregrip, buttstock, and pistol grip just like the real deal. The trades on the side are a little hoakie, but with a little work can be removed. The next thing I noticed was that it needed a bolt check as typical of most of the Chinese guns lately. A quick run through with the allen wrenches and tools tightened everything up real nice and removed any wobble from the gun.



The full metal gear box can be serviced though the open feed top. Typical of most support aegs, it has a quick change spring set up where with the click of one lever you can pop the old spring out and slip the new one in without having to open the gearbox. The only disappointment here is that it does not have a release button to put the spring at rest after firing. With full auto only, there is no semi fire to reset the piston position.

The box mag is a nice sturdy plastic box held in a nylon pouch similar to the real ammo pouches used. The pouch is attached to the feed rails by slipping the upper strap over the top notches on the feed rail and then has a Velcro strap to secure it to the lower section of the feed rail. My only concern here is that the upper strap may eventually wear through from rubbing on the edges of the feed rail. The mag is powered off the main battery and is activated by the trigger. Meaning that the only time it is winding, is when the trigger is pulled.



The feed rails on this aeg are full metal which is an improvement of the plastic ones on the Star M60 I had before. But the big problem I noticed is that it is too small to fit the standard 7.62 ammo the real M60 uses. So to add some rounds to it you have to cock them funny to get the top to close.




Loaded up and firing this beast is a real treat! It fires and feeds awesome. With a little tuning of the hop-up it was slinging the bb's out there really well. Using a 11.1 mini lipo I have and .2s it was firing and average fps of 346. And with the adjustable rate of fire, it was shooting 18 bps fully opened and 9 bps turned down. The adjustable rate of fire is a neat thing, and is done by Turning the end of the gas tube. But really is somewhat useless as everyone will most likely turn it fully up and leave it. With that rof it was wild to watch 6 or 7 bb's still in flight after letting off the trigger.


Overall I'm very pleased with this aeg. It seams very sturdy and had no problems with the 1000 or so rounds I fired out of it today while playing with it. But one thing should really be brought up at this point. This is not a gun for the little guys, it is a monster. Weighing somewhere around 17 pounds without ammo and batteries, you are not going to carry this thing all day. It is most definitely a stationary weapon setup for defense or ambush from a fixed position.


Long live the PIG!.

Beast on Thu Jul 22, 2010 8:56 pm

.Long term update. Well after running more than 20,000 bb's through this pig, it has developed a few glitches. First and foremost is that the inner coating on the stock barrel has started to flake off causing erratic bb's quite often (every 10th round). Every run down the barrel with the cleaning cloth brings back more flakes. But luckily a new tightbore for it can be found in the $30-$40 range at most major retailers. So I have one of those coming for it. Also changing out the hop-up bucking while at it. The other glitch is that this thing needs constant bolt checks. After every event, I have found that quite a large number of the fasteners have become loose. Not over tightening them and stripping them could be an issue down the road as they continue to loosen up. I think that at my next major teardown for maintenance, I be giving quite a few dabs of loc-tite around the bolts. This should help with that. Luckily those are really the only problems with it, and it still will hose the bb's downrange quite well. This has definitely been the best of any of the support type weapons I have ever owned or used. I would still buy one of these in a heartbeat to fill a support role!.

Beast on Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:49 pm

Ok, a 590mm Systema 6.04 tightbore barrel and a new Madbull hop up bucking has brought the pig back to life. Nothing but a nice stream of bb's pouring out now when the trigger is pulled. Good news for me, and bad news for all those on the other end of it.

Since all of that, I have put around an other 15,000 BB's through it and it still fires like it's brand new. Never skips a beat when firing at events. And since adding the tightbore, the FPS has climbed up above 360. These weapons are not meant for accuracy (even though it's decent) but to put a wall of plastic down the field, which they do quite well.

[Ghast]

15,000 rounds is pocket change. Come back after you've put 150,000 rounds through it and THEN I'll be happy to back that stress test.

[snafu]

Mar 2, 2011 15:00:36 GMT -5 Ghast said:

15,000 rounds is pocket change. Come back after you've put 150,000 rounds through it and THEN I'll be happy to back that stress test.

I've heard story's of Casper putting over 10,000 through his A&K 60 in one day at SFOD. His LMG is bulletproof but he has most likely done quite a bit of mods. Also he runs a pretty low ROF for sustained fire.

[TheEnd]

I have an A&K M249 and a team mate has an A&K M60. The stock gear box is mediocre. To start with they are super easy to work on. Even if you haven't worked on a gear box before a SAW box will be no trouble. The quick change spring allows you to remove the spring before you open the box so parts won't go flying. They also lack a trigger/semi auto mechanism. The compression system is decent and will hold up for a little while. My gears were junk. One of them had the axle cast off center which caused a slight bind during firing. The motor is pretty much crap, weak and slow. My team mates M60 had problems with the box mag. It was killing his batteries quickly and not feeding well. I bought my box mags used so I can't comment on the quality of them.

Externally my M249 and his M60 are both pretty good. The plastic is good quality and the metal is average for airsoft metal. The externals are decent but when put next to a higher end brand like G&P they look cheap.

In the end the A&K is about half the cost of the real deal so it's not shocking to find that they aren't the greatest AEG's out of the box. My gear set is an example of the poor quality control clones have. After replacing the gears it works just fine. My team mates M60 has worked well so far. They will probably fail at some point but they are repairable. Given the super simple gear box when the AEG does break it can be easily repaired/upgraded.

[Beast]

Mar 2, 2011 15:00:36 GMT -5 Ghast said:

15,000 rounds is pocket change. Come back after you've put 150,000 rounds through it and THEN I'll be happy to back that stress test.

You didn't read all of the post then, as the 15,000 was in addition to the other 20,000 plus that had been run through it at that time. Is 35,000 - 40,000 BB's a ton in the life of a support weapon, NO, but it is a good start. And that was the point, that after that amount it was still functioning just fine.

[zekew64]

Thanks for the info...a friend of mine wants to get an M249, so if he ever gets on here, I'll send him this info as well.

However, I've read that some of you guys have replaced/modded some of the parts that originally came on it, so I was wondering if someone could post their mods and costs to get?

Once I get it, I'll probably change out the parts that people have had issues with, that way I can be good from day 1.

Thanks again for the info.