Post by SANDMAN on Oct 27, 2005 21:56:36 GMT 8
As soon as I held the XM8, I was immediately impressed by it's weight and solid feel. This is much heavier than the BE AUG and the Body is more solidly built. Balance is also more conventional since it's a standard layout rifle(as opposed to the Bullpup AUG).
Initial field test showed that XM8 to be more powerful than a stock BE AUG. It easily penetrated my single wall cartons and it even embeded some BBs on my double-walled cartons.
As my poor mans chrono(cans are getting hard to find here since I stopped drinking Coca Cola), the single walled carton cannot be penetrated by a BB @220fps or below and the double-walled carton cannot be penetrated(fully) by a BB @300fps and below.
My best estimate puts the stock XM8 pushing around 230-250fps with .20g bbs stock.
Accuracy was miserable at first but close inspection of the flash hider showed that the flash hider internal clearance was insufficient. The exiting BBS were banging against the "prongs" of the flashider and going wild! Several strokes/minutes with sandpaper and needle files quickly solved that problem.
I've now made a custom tool that cleans up this area with a few strokes/seconds instead.
ROF was impressive considering the small size of the batts. However, don't let their size fool you- these batts are 9.6volts and 1200mAH NiMh! I'm still running my XM8 on the initial factory charge to this very day and I've run through more than 8mags already!
The retractable stock is a bit difficult to manage. You have to press a button on the underside of the stock to retract or extend the stock but it is very very sturdy. The stock retracts/extends with a loud clacking sound - so you'ld better do it before the game begins or else you'll end up attracting everybody's fire. Hehehe...
When H&K design THE FISH- they went out of their way to make it ergonomic- and ERGONOMIC it IS! Sarap hawakan ng AEG na 'to and the sights fall readly to the eye when shouldered! Too bad the "optics" are just as bad as the ones with the BE AUG. Fortunately, they are usable to a limited degree.. a man-sized target squarely centered on these "peep sights" will also be struck squarely by the BBs from the FISH!
Close observation will reveal that there are NO SCREW HOLES visible anywhere on the XM8!
Everything is held together by take-down pins. Though this means that there are no screws that may be stripped due to repeated assy/disassy, it also means that you should have a small sharp object to punch out these pins if you need to disassemble the AEG or simply access the battery.
==
Here is the XM8 broken down into it's basic sub-assemblies. You just have to remove 3 pins to get to this level.
BTW-I wouldn't go into a detailed disassembly guide since the XM8 comes with a detailed disassembly guide already.
Removing another PIN will allow you to remove the top rcvr and see the gearbox mounted on the lower receiver.
==
here is a detailed shot of the hop-up assembly showing the way they "heat soldered" the wiring onto the gearbox(by melting the plastic tabs to hold the wires(yikes).
The gearbox is made of the same material they USED to use on the BE AUG gearbox. This is the CLEARER version of the plastic gbox. Mas matigas 'to in my experience. You know you have this type of gearbox when you remove the screws of your gearbox- walang plastic bits na sasama. Malinis ang pag-tanggal ng screws at di madaling ma-loose thread. I have yet to damage a BE AUG gbox made of this "clearer" material and I have an M100 installed on mine for the last 3 months!
==
Here is another shot of the hop up assy. I've already opened up this assy and installed a hop-up bucking from GUARDER. It realy wasn't necessary but since I was going to install a TM M4 Crater cut barrel- I decided to go all out and replace the hop-up bucking in one step.
The design of the hop up assy is an exact clone of the Classic Army/TM HK G36 AEG and it works exactly the same way. Hop up performance is as-expected. You can easily tune it for .20, .25 and even .30bbs if you prefer. I still haven't tried it with .12bbs since I got rid of all my .12s when we started playing 300fps games here in Davao.
==
Here is the rear of the gearbox showing another shot of how they secure the wires of the XM8. Oops, I forgot the de-c*ck the AEG before disassembly...
;D
==
Before I go any further- please note my earlier warning regarding the POLARITY of the XM8 wiring. It is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the common wiring practice of Tokyo Marui, Classic Army or even WELL!
DO NOT INTERECHANGE the batteries or charger of the XM8 with any OTHER AEG!
If you have several AEGs- I suggest you rewire your XM8, Wall charger and Batts to the common polarity(exact opposite) in order to avoid any accidents. I almost shorted out my TLP-15 fast charger when I tried to charge the XM8 batteries coz I didn't double check the wiring. Buti na lang may fuse protection ang charger ko.
==
The Gearbox- seems like an exact clone of a Ver3 gbox for the H&K G36. I don't happen to have one on hand so I couldnt say for sure...
==
Close up shot of the fire selector mechanism. It works great. Semi-auto and full-auto settings always give you what you ask for. Unlike most WELL R5s and R6s that sometimes give you full-auto bursts even if you set the selector on semi-auto.
==
This is the safety mechanism and it's realy very very simple once you see it in action.
End of Part-1
[to be continued]
Initial field test showed that XM8 to be more powerful than a stock BE AUG. It easily penetrated my single wall cartons and it even embeded some BBs on my double-walled cartons.
As my poor mans chrono(cans are getting hard to find here since I stopped drinking Coca Cola), the single walled carton cannot be penetrated by a BB @220fps or below and the double-walled carton cannot be penetrated(fully) by a BB @300fps and below.
My best estimate puts the stock XM8 pushing around 230-250fps with .20g bbs stock.
Accuracy was miserable at first but close inspection of the flash hider showed that the flash hider internal clearance was insufficient. The exiting BBS were banging against the "prongs" of the flashider and going wild! Several strokes/minutes with sandpaper and needle files quickly solved that problem.
I've now made a custom tool that cleans up this area with a few strokes/seconds instead. ROF was impressive considering the small size of the batts. However, don't let their size fool you- these batts are 9.6volts and 1200mAH NiMh! I'm still running my XM8 on the initial factory charge to this very day and I've run through more than 8mags already!
The retractable stock is a bit difficult to manage. You have to press a button on the underside of the stock to retract or extend the stock but it is very very sturdy. The stock retracts/extends with a loud clacking sound - so you'ld better do it before the game begins or else you'll end up attracting everybody's fire. Hehehe...
When H&K design THE FISH- they went out of their way to make it ergonomic- and ERGONOMIC it IS! Sarap hawakan ng AEG na 'to and the sights fall readly to the eye when shouldered! Too bad the "optics" are just as bad as the ones with the BE AUG. Fortunately, they are usable to a limited degree.. a man-sized target squarely centered on these "peep sights" will also be struck squarely by the BBs from the FISH!
Close observation will reveal that there are NO SCREW HOLES visible anywhere on the XM8!
Everything is held together by take-down pins. Though this means that there are no screws that may be stripped due to repeated assy/disassy, it also means that you should have a small sharp object to punch out these pins if you need to disassemble the AEG or simply access the battery.
==
Here is the XM8 broken down into it's basic sub-assemblies. You just have to remove 3 pins to get to this level.
BTW-I wouldn't go into a detailed disassembly guide since the XM8 comes with a detailed disassembly guide already.
Removing another PIN will allow you to remove the top rcvr and see the gearbox mounted on the lower receiver.
==
here is a detailed shot of the hop-up assembly showing the way they "heat soldered" the wiring onto the gearbox(by melting the plastic tabs to hold the wires(yikes).
The gearbox is made of the same material they USED to use on the BE AUG gearbox. This is the CLEARER version of the plastic gbox. Mas matigas 'to in my experience. You know you have this type of gearbox when you remove the screws of your gearbox- walang plastic bits na sasama. Malinis ang pag-tanggal ng screws at di madaling ma-loose thread. I have yet to damage a BE AUG gbox made of this "clearer" material and I have an M100 installed on mine for the last 3 months!
==
Here is another shot of the hop up assy. I've already opened up this assy and installed a hop-up bucking from GUARDER. It realy wasn't necessary but since I was going to install a TM M4 Crater cut barrel- I decided to go all out and replace the hop-up bucking in one step.
The design of the hop up assy is an exact clone of the Classic Army/TM HK G36 AEG and it works exactly the same way. Hop up performance is as-expected. You can easily tune it for .20, .25 and even .30bbs if you prefer. I still haven't tried it with .12bbs since I got rid of all my .12s when we started playing 300fps games here in Davao.
==
Here is the rear of the gearbox showing another shot of how they secure the wires of the XM8. Oops, I forgot the de-c*ck the AEG before disassembly...
;D==
Before I go any further- please note my earlier warning regarding the POLARITY of the XM8 wiring. It is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the common wiring practice of Tokyo Marui, Classic Army or even WELL!
DO NOT INTERECHANGE the batteries or charger of the XM8 with any OTHER AEG!
If you have several AEGs- I suggest you rewire your XM8, Wall charger and Batts to the common polarity(exact opposite) in order to avoid any accidents. I almost shorted out my TLP-15 fast charger when I tried to charge the XM8 batteries coz I didn't double check the wiring. Buti na lang may fuse protection ang charger ko.
==
The Gearbox- seems like an exact clone of a Ver3 gbox for the H&K G36. I don't happen to have one on hand so I couldnt say for sure...
==
Close up shot of the fire selector mechanism. It works great. Semi-auto and full-auto settings always give you what you ask for. Unlike most WELL R5s and R6s that sometimes give you full-auto bursts even if you set the selector on semi-auto.
==
This is the safety mechanism and it's realy very very simple once you see it in action.
End of Part-1
[to be continued]
Speed, Aggression & Surprise.
