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King Arms AS VAL Review
Introduction:
So recently the guys at King arms reached out to me through my blog and we got speaking about their rifles etc and whether I'd be interested in some items to review.
At the time, a few of the sniper rifles I had my eye on were out of stock, but they did have some AEG's available, one of which took my fancy...the King Arms AS VAL.
Unboxing:
So with the box opened you'll be greeted with the rifle itself and a few other items, all of which is well packaged and secure.
You'll get the rifle (ofcourse)
1 x Mid Cap magazine
Battery Holder for a 3 cell 11,1V lipo battery, which is the recommend battery that King Arms states. this keeps the battery in place so it doesn't wobble inside the outer barrel when assembled and juts makes the overall install easier.
First Impressions:
Let me start by saying that the gun looks awesome. It has a nice black finish, a good weight and minimal wobble.
The rifle is nice to shoulder and aim down, using the standard AK style sight included. The plastics on the rifle which is just the hand-guard is secure and feels high quality.
The folding stock is secured well in both the open and closed position, there is a tiny amount of wobble with the stock open, however it's very small and could easily be resolved with a bit of shimming
The magazine fits in well, with no wobble. Unlike some other AK based rifles the mags is easy to seat as you don't have to mess about to get it to lock in place.
Out the box the rifle comes with mini Tamiya connectors installed, which I suggest swapping out for deans. All my AEG's (not that I have many anymore) are all wired to deans as I just find the connection and performance marginally better over the Tamiya.
Installing the battery itself is very easy and pretty quick to do. You simply have to press the button under the barrel by the received and slide the outer barrel assembly of.
From here you can slide on the battery cradle and install the battery.
Once the battery is installed, it's just a case of simply sliding everything back together and locking the outer barrel back in place.
The rifle has juts two sling mounts, one on the stock itself and one on the left hand side of the front handguard.
Performance:
Putting in a fresh 11.1v lipo (still on tamiya at this point) the rifle chronos at 378 FPS (1.33J) on .2's and 267FPS on 36's (1.2J), with a good degree of consistency for a stock rifle, roughly 6 fps variance.
Being at 1.2J I decided to test some Hot Shot 36's in the rifle, which it had absolutely no issues hopping and sending out to about 65-70M. Again, for a stock rifle this isn't bad at all.
Going a bit heavier, I was able to get '4s accurately out to 70M, albeit they were chronoing at 1.3J and were slow to hit the target, that being said they were pretty accurate.
The King Arms AS VAL has both Semi and Full Auto function, which here in the UK can pose a small problem, if the rifle is going to be used at over 370 FPS (1.3J), then it will need to be locked to semi only.
Using the 11.1V lipo the rifle gets a RPS of roughly 19RPS.
The trigger response isn't too bad actually, I was expecting it to be a big more sluggish considering it's around the 380fps mark, but it's pretty snappy. Once the AOE and shimming is done, I expect this to be a bit better and certainly quieter.
Now following this testing I did come across an issue, I'm not sure whether this is limited to my rifle only or whether it's down to the gearbox design, however even with the selector switch set to semi only, if you don't fully press the trigger, the rifle can sometimes fire in full auto.
Internals:
Ok, so normally I'd rip this gun apart and see what it's running internally, however......I SUCK at teching AEG's and I know I'll end up breaking or losing something from the gearbox, so for now I'll just be looking into the hop unit, bucking and barrel etc.
It's worth mentioning though that the 2018 version of the AS VAL according to King Arms does include a gearbox with:
Custom V3 7mm Bearing Gearbox Short-Axle Type Motor
This is about as indepth as my gearbox knowledge goes!
So getting to the hop assembly isn't to difficult on this rifle, first thing you need to do is remove the outer barrel.
Start by knocking out the below pin by the outer barrel lock lever.
You'll also need to remove the small screw from the rear of the bolt assemble and pop it off.
With this done, you can remove the hand guard by sliding it forward, be careful here as there is a spring loaded lug.
Next you'll want to remove this screw.
Followed by knocking out these pins.
After this you'll need to remove the 2 screws holding the hop chamber to the outer barrel.
You can now move the outer barrel forward and up, this will allow you to access the barrel and hpo unit, for a full takedown you'll need to remove your connectors and the wiring through the outer barrel.
Internally the rifle uses a 420mm 6.05 brass inner barrel, AK style hop unit, a standard hop nub and a traditional style black bucking, which feels about 60 degree. These part actually work really well for stock components.
Upgrade potential:
Being a modified V3 gearbox there are a ton of aftermarket parts available from a variety of different brands.
You could go for a decent DMR setup with a mosfet to remove full auto, pre-cock etc for snappy trigger response.
The stock motor seems suitable, so perhaps a change to gears for something to give a bit more torque to increase the trigger response even more.
Pair this up with shimming and AOE, I think you'd be able to build a solid performer, but even out the box the rifle does shoot well.
Barrel and bucking wise, anything AEG spec will work or you can go down the maple Leaf route with a Crazy Jet barrel and Hot shot bucking.
Conclusion:
Overall, I have to say I do like the rifle, it's not a high end recoil/PTW style rifle, but it works. It fires at a reasonable FPS, has a good barrel, bucking and hop assembly, which gives is good range and accuracy out the box, able to easily lift heavy ammo.
If you're looking for a replica version of the AS VAL, I do suggest having a look at the king arms version, it's not to expensive and it's a good performer out of the box, with only a few small areas needing attention.
For someone who has basic AEG knowledge and a bit of time, the rifle can be made a hell of a lot quieter and certainly perform on par with other high end rifles.
My only real niggles with the rifle are the gearbox sound, internally the components are all of a good quality, however they have been assembled without a huge amount of attention to the AOE and shimming. Which in fairness is pretty common for most AEG's, even the high end ones.
For more information on the rifle you can find King Arms here:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/OfficialKingArms/
Instagram - @official_kingarms Website - http://www.kingarms.com/
Future Plans:
I have some plans for this rifle to bring it up to my expectations of a DMR which are:
1) Install a shorter inner barrel and cut down the outer barrel, so I can actually make use of the available space inside the supressor
2) Barrel will be upgraded to a maple Leaf Crazy Jet, bucking will be a 50 degree Maple Leaf HotShot and the nub will be a Maple Leaf Omega Nub.
3) Connectors will be swapped over to deans.
4) A decent paintjob
5) Get the AOE and shimming done, as mentioned above the geabox noise is very loud and you can tell it needs some basic setup.
6) Decide on whether to lock to Semi and run at 450FPS (2J) or set to 350fps (1.1J) and keep full auto.
