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It's Still "Caveat Emptor" When Buying ACM Airsoft Products

Dom

I am really cool with my cheap and internally well maintained AEG but in order to talk about airsoft gears on these pages sometimes I need to go with the flow and jump on new bandwagons. I thought I will replace an MOE hanguard with a Keymod rail and see where the new hype takes me. My trusted retailer had one 332mm long rail on sale so I figured what could go wrong. I am awaiting Krytac products for review so it seemed like a good idea to see something else for comparison.

I ordered accessories as well to go on with the handguard: rail sections, flashlight mounts and I even crafted my own handguard panel out of old rail panels based on the open source material, because (hurray!) Keymod is open source. You would think no licensing fees means only good for chinese companies because they can do whatever they want (not that they care anyway). I even thought of coming up with a good design in AutoCAD and give it to my local machinist since the design itself is so easy, but after looking at the rail side of the datasheet a little better, I realized (at least I did) that there is more to it than keyholes cut into some aluminium.

On the website where I placed my order this rail is marketed as ACM, which means All China Made. In this case it covers Army Force but I am only guessing. I did not put a whole lot of effort into researching who is responsible because it won't be marketed under the same name anyway and I found out this out for a good reason.

Now let's look at the specifications of the Keymod rail system. Please be advised that I am not an engineer and some technical expressions might not be correct. I am just trying to shed some light on things so others can avoid paying for a rail which is not perfectly fine.

Let's not talk about the rough cut on the standard accessory rails and the fact that rail slot dimensions are not being up to spec because most accessories could deal with that problem. On the images the rail is pictured next to a GG&G (not G&G) rail which was designed to be used on real firearms, so I am guessing they know a little better and I need to state just by looking at it that they do know better.

Now that we got that out of the way, we can talk about the keyholes. At first glance, everything looks fine, hole diameters are correct and keyhole distances from each other are correct as well. The first accessory I tried was the rail section (made by AABB) even before the rail itself was mounted on the receiver. The rail section went on without problems but I found it odd that screws are sticking out too much on the inside.

Then I tried rail panels made by AABB and realized that something isn't right because they did not fit. It happened before that AABB did not get everything right so I reached for the G&P rubber panels but the result was the same. The rail is thicker than the part on the rail panel where it should grab the rail.

I figured I will use this rail anyway without the panels, but then the last drop just fell into the bucket: the top accessory rail was sitting higher than my receiver. I figured this must be a joke and sat down to my computer to look at the datasheet again. Right after that I started the RMA process with my retailer.

What's missing is a "tapering" inside of each keyhole. If you look at the drawing you can see that it isn't supposed to be a straight through hole. There is a 0.63 inches angled section of the hole where the "skirt" of the Keymod nut should fit, basically this is the negative print (if you look at it cross section) of a keymod nut and this supposed to be on the inside of the handguard. The bigger part of the keymod nut sits inside the accessory and not sticking out on the inside like with this rail. The "untapered" straight through hole runs 0.234 inches wide and 0.26 inches deep but on my rail this runs all the way straight through over three mm. The overall thickness of the rail wouldn't be a problem (the drawing only talks about minimum of 0.8 inches) as long as there is a place cut for the keymod nut to sit in but that is clearly not the case here. 

I get it. The CNC machine would have to spend more time with a correct and up-to-spec product and it requires a special tool but I seriously doubt this ever saw a CNC and more like it was made using a drill press. Edges are rough and only thick coat of paint covers further anomalies and shenanigans. This is not cool.

Don't get me wrong I have seen and used "cheap" products but at the end of the day I got rid of all of them. Here, I am talking about cheap optics only good for a day or two; rail accessories biting thread marks into the material on an expensive rail; threads disappearing out of holes after just one or two tightening; paints chipping off only by looking at it; parts incompatible; realizing that the website where you get your part used a different picture to display the product; and I could go on for days. Companies making such garbage should grow up and look around, the market is not the same anymore.

Only three messages to the company where this one is made but I seriously doubt anyone from that company is reading:

  1. Hire me as director of manufacturing because even I am clearly better in understanding technical drawings than the personnel responsible for this nonsense although I do not have engineering background (as you can tell based on the wording of the article above);
  2. Listen up because this one is the most important thing: STOP RIPPING OFF AIRSOFT PLAYERS!!!! The reason there is no brand name with your product is because people would know what NOT to buy. I think if you know that you're manufacturing defected product is the worst thing you can do; and
  3. If you are ripping off an actual brand name at least try to spell it right. This is not even funny.

Obviously I did not get this part from the manufacturer so there is one more important thing to talk about and that is the retailer. Back in the day there were a few retailers for serious stuff and places for garbage, but now everyone sells pretty much everything because competition is so fierce. I like how WGC Shop puts this in the description of each ACM item and I quote: The above airsoft gun is made in China and will be tested before shipping. We will test the gun to ensure that it does work properly ( the qualified one in the test means it is able to use up one whole magazine ). However, we do not guarantee the quality of the outer surface of the airsoft gun. The quality of finishing may be imperfect and may have slight flaws.

My retailer promised me that they will get in touch with their supplier and this error will be rectified and the item on their website will be marked so no one will get false ideas about it. I only hope my actions will save some of your hard earned dollars.

Retailers in the EU and the States probably will do the same thing but sites in Asia won't do this for you, often they don't even accept returns on ACM items. Shady corners of Aliexpress and eBay will circulate this rail and many like it for a long time.

I guess I learned my lesson again: everything probably worth as much as you pay for it. Reverting back to MOE now...

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