Having trained on the SLR and just missed the SA80, I have remained intrigued by the weapon since my discharge a big number of years ago. The SLR made a small hole at the front and a big hole at the back which equalled serious stopping power. The rumour was the SA80 would make a little hole at the front and little hole at the back and the bloke that you shot would still shoot you after you’ve shot him, but now to airsoft.
Ordered from Redwolf my SA80 turned up after about two weeks, I was captured by HM Customs and Excise so what felt like a good deal given exchange rates was spoilt by Gordon Brown and his friends. On balance, I’d probably have been better sticking with a UK purchase. Still. A lesson learned for the next time. There was no upgrade option available from Redwolf and given the rifle delivers 370-400fps out of the box, there was probably no need.
Having served in the sections and finished my days in a mortar platoon where I carried an SMG (joy), I had mixed views on the need for or value of a Susat on an airsoft weapon given the SA80 serves both the sections and support functions and given you just haven’t got the range on an airsoft gat. Still, this is airsoft and there is a huge appetite for authenticity and I’ve still got the bug, so I took the plunge and bought one. They look good but given the range of the weapon, do you really need one and does the cost justify the benefit?
The weapon was well packed and well presented, although I remain disappointed that when launched it came with a carrying case for those of us who made an investment early. Today the case is an optional extra at additional cost. Given it’s a pricey weapon, I decided against the case and stuck with the gat and the sight.
Immediate impression when I looked at it was that this was an excellent piece of kit. It’s solid and well made. The plastics are well moulded and robust and ‘feel right’. The metal parts are equally solid and the weapon emanates quality. When you pick it up, you know you are picking up something that has the feel of being serious when compared with many other airsoft weapons. You have confidence that this piece of kit will not break easily.
It’s billed as weighing the same pound for pound as the real thing and I’m sure it does. Where it is seriously let down is in the balance. The working parts (and weight) is in the back end of the weapon and you know that immediately you pick it up, even before you have raised the weapon to a firing position. Its heavy, but all the weight is towards the rear of the weapon. Try as I may, I just don’t like the feel of it. On the positive side, attention to detail is excellent and small touches like the fact that Star ship a combination tool (housed in the pistol grip) smack of an appetite by Star to delight the customer.
Having fitted a battery for the first time in my living room, I knew it was going to be a pain in the field as you have to use the combination tool to unscrew the hand grip which is where the battery is housed. I knew something was going to get lost and I knew when I was going to be in a fire fight a dead battery was going to be a major pain as it would slow me down as I would effectively be out of action. So I guess my expectations on particle use of the weapon in the field were already low but I needed to use it to know how I actually felt about it.
The Susat was easy to attach and the manual was straight forward. Like the SA80, the Susat is well made, robust and has the feel of the real thing. I remained however unconvinced by the Susat and decided it was going to remain unfitted. On balance, it was a waste of money. The folding disk sight on the carrying handle is more than adequate for the job you are asking the weapon to perform given its airsoft.
So how did it perform? Shooting a target in the garden it was just fine. It’s a solid gat. The sound of the working parts emanates confidence in the user. You know it’s not going to break. It was fine is both modes. Single shot is powerful and accurate and you know you can lay down some serious fire if you need to. I just knew the battery was going to be a major problem in a fire fight.
So what’s my view in the field? We game on a large site where there is the opportunity for pure milsim as well as blatting the gat. In pure milsim where you expect to let of maybe two lo cap mags in a day at best, this is an outstanding piece of kit and I would always take it out. It’s got good range. It’s accurate and the hop up is excellent. You get caught in an ambush or a fire fight and it’s a liability. The big let down is battery life. Two lo/mid cap mags per battery at best – you just haven’t got the staying power to sustain a quality engagement and you can’t afford got the time to spend 5-8 minutes changing a battery to remain engaged. By the time you’ve changed it, you have missed the adrenaline rush, let-down you colleagues and you are dead. It’s unusable in a fire fight unless you either upgrade the batteries or get customer batteries made. Yet again, that’s more expense.
So what do I think? It’s a bit like a member of the household cavalry – looks good on a horse but use it for soldiering at your peril. Well. Not unless you want to shell out a lot of cash on custom batteries which I may well do at some point in the future. I’m still glad I bought it though even though as expected first time out, I lost a battery somewhere in the fields of debighshire on a battery change. So next time out it’s back to the upgraded LR300 (GR300) and its look at the SA80 with the thought ‘I need to spend some serious cash on batteries’. This gat is definitely an indulgence and an expensive ornament. Overall, unless you have money to burn I’d say give it a miss.
NOTE: Since writing this review I have bought a larger custom battery, in light of the new battery I find its now a much more effective weapon in prolonged contacts. I still think its an expensive gat given what you can buy for the cash though.
