NO-THRILLS FUN
The CM.002A1 is essentially an M4A1 replica,
the no-thrills version. Right from the off
its important to remember that this rifle is
cheap, and therefore, expectations are low,
but I’m definitely not expecting miracles. This
particular model has the 14.5” external barrel,
surrounded with a 7” polymer hand guard.
There’s nothing special about the colour or the
paint used, being a uniformed flat black across
the entire rifle and all of its components. After
5 minutes of handling I had already spotted a
couple of small signs of wear on the paintwork,
but again, these things are mass produced to
meet the demands of the new starters and
those that want a project, so it was hardly
unexpected. The only other distinguishing
features were the P&J logo, with a unique serial
number underneath it, both on the left side of
the receiver. P&J are essentially a rebranding of
A&K, and are not the trademarks of a firearms
manufacturer, not that that matters at all, but
the logo and serial numbers are engraved into
the receiver before painting, and remain subtle
against the rest of the rifle.
The upper and lower receivers are aluminium,
with the pistol grip, stock, and hand guard being
polymer. The quality of the polymer components
are actually not bad at all, and the hand guard
in particular had practically zero wobble while
using it, something I was quite surprised at.
The pistol grip felt great too, absolutely no
movement or flex, and a serrated grip on the
left, right, and rear surfaces. There was however
a little wobble from the stock, but nothing
severe, and definitely nothing a little shimming
couldn’t fix. The stock is a Colt M4A1 Carbine
stock, homes to 6 positions, and features arear sling mount. FYI... if
you intend to venture out
and buy this rifle, I would
consider thread locking the
screw that holds the sling
mount in place, as this will eventually work
loose. You will also find a sling mount at the
front, underneath the front post sight, but
you won’t find one behind the pistol grip and
underneath the castle nut. A 2-point sling will
be the accompaniment of the day then, unless
you want to add your own mid-way sling point of
course. Also included is the carry handle, which
houses the rear sight. The rear sight actually has
2 different apertures, and is adjustable for both
elevation and windage. Underneath the dust
cover you’ll find the fake bolt carrier in the same
matt black colouring used on the externals. One
feature I did like and certainly didn’t expect, was
the working bolt release, where after you access
the hop by pulling the charging handle back,
pressing the bolt release catch on the left side of
the receiver slams the fake bolt carrier trim to
its home position. Not something normally found
on cheap no-thrills rifles.WHATS UNDERNEATH
So let’s peel back the shell and find out what’s
underneath. The first internal component you
come across is the unbranded motor, pretty
generic across the Cyma range, but with a
surprising amount of torque for what it is. I
believe Cyma uses these for torque rather than
speed due to the factory fitted spring, but I’ll
come to that later. The gearbox houses the gears
between a set of 8mm steal bearings, which arefairly common with today’s V2 gearboxes, but
they’re not the cheapest option with regards to
bushings, especially when a company is trying
to build as many rifles as possible for as cheap
as possible, so it’s always nice to see. Having
removed the gearbox from the receiver, the gear
set looks to be well shimmed with barely any
lateral play or wobble. The gears themselves
looked solid and reliable, although I guess all
gears do until they break, so the proof will be
revealed over time. The piston and cylinder
combo are pretty average, nothing to shout
about, but the spring guide is metal and also has
bearings. Although it only amounts to half of the
equation, a spring guide with bearings helps to
distribute the sprung load equally, and reduces
wear and tear just that little bit more, prolonging
the life of your gearbox. Finally, we come to the
spring itself, the holy-grail of Cymas ridiculous
decision making process, the M120! I’ve ranted
about this before in previous reviews, but why
‘oh’ why do Cyma insist on using an M120 spring
on products destined for the EU. I know that
you can ask for a downgrade when ordering the
rifle, but it still boggles me that the end user
could land themselves in hot water by simply
not requesting it, and to the newcomers of the
hobby, and especially those newcomers who
may not be familiar with the recent changes in
law, please ensure that if you order this rifle to
request a spring change.
Not only does the spring hold certain legal
complications, it completely ruins the experience
of firing the rifle. Ok, so it’s a pretty plain,
‘nothing to shout about’ sort of setup, but it
has huge potential to be a great ‘out of the
box’ setup. Instead though, the spring hampers
performance by over torqueing each component,
and making a fairly dreadful noise in the
process. This in turn demands more current from
the batteries, shortening your battery life and
creating excess heat build-up in the motor. Cyma,
for the love of god, just use an M100!! Rant over
(until the functional test of course).
The hopup is metal, adjusted by the usual dial,
and the barrel is a 6.08 brass barrel measuring
390mm. The hopup itself seems to be of decent
quality and well made, although my years in
this hobby has taught me to shim everything
to improve consistency, and so if I had bought
this rifle I would definitely shim the dial to
prevent losing my hop position, which it did032 032 WWW.TAIWANGUN.COMCM.002A1 AEG ASSAULT RIFLE ON TEST - IN ASSOCIATION WITH WWW.TAIWANGUN.COM
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