WE SCAR-L Gas Blowback Rifle

Dom

20 Oct 2010

Not long after the release of FN SCAR AEGs, we are lucky to have a GBB SCAR on the market as well. This one is made by Wei-Tech and based on the experience they collected with their previous models of the Advanced Weaponry Simulator System (AWSS). We are talking about a very well- priced airsoft product ($220-$260) which is certainly cheaper than most of the Taiwan made AEGs and this is exactly why I couldn’t refuse the offer coming from Airsoft Buddy. It took only couple of days for EMS to deliver and Customs let it straight through without even opening the box. I’ve asked for the black version instead of the desert variant and I ordered two extra CO2 and regular magazines as well since this model is capable in operating with both. There was little or no information about this gun at the time of purchase but Airsoft Buddy answered all my technical questions right away. Great customer support there William!

Long story in short: Some units of the United States forces needed a replacement for their M4. A new platform was born which is highly configureable, reliable, and simple. The argument is still ongoing about how accurate and reliable it is compared to the M4. Currently around 600-700 units are in deployment for field testing and the only thing you hear is that the SCAR breaks too many fingers. Another rumor says in parallel with the first statement is that FN is working on a version which has a non-moving charging handle just like the M4. All the non-rumors (facts) can be found on Wikipedia, www.fnherstal.com or www.defensereview.com.

Some say the packaging is bad because WE just put the SCAR in an empty cardboard box and fixed it with cable ties. If you ask me I say I like it because they shipped much less material to me which would ended up in the garbage anyway, just like the foam out of other boxes. Some say the cable ties will scratch the product but I say it’s only important for collectors and everyone else will scratch it anyway during the first take down. The gun comes with one magazine and a booklet which could be important if you break something because it contains an exploded view of the GBB with part numbers. My new toy is as close to the real one as legally possible and both its length and weight match the real one but I cannot write about the feel because I never handled the real one. Solidly built and only the front sight wobbled a little because the small screw on the gas block was loose but that was an easy fix. The gun is dry like a good Martini so do not fire with it until you’re done with the proper lubrication of every moving part. Some people use Silicone spray and others put weapon oil on it like the big boys. Either of these will do the job because this gun won’t reach extreme temperatures. In order to properly lubricate you will need to learn how to take down your new toy just like I did. I never had a SCAR before and this is my very first GBB rifle so pretty much everything about this gun is new to me. During my Taiwan visit I’ve fired a couple of blanks at the WE workshop but that was it.

On the outside, the SCAR is full of nice features. The foldable stock is easy to operate with its three buttons. There is one button on the back to change the length; there are two more on the front to fold the stock and to adjust the cheek weld. You have six positions to choose from when you set the length of the weapon with the button on the back of the stock while the cheek piece has three positions to choose from. The cheek piece will be useful and I always raise it up whenever I’m not wearing a face mask. but otherwise it’s sitting at the lowest position.

The SCAR has no battery compartment under the cheek rest unlike the Masada’s stock where you can hide two flashlight batteries in this area. The nice rubber buttpad will give you the necessary grip at your shoulder during operation. The stock can be easily folded by pushing the lower button on the front part and finally there is no force needed to operate the stock unlike the FAL or some AK versions. Our stock firmly locks in place right next to the receiver. While folding the stock, the hinge looks strong enough and no wobbles present whatsoever but only time will tell for how long since most of the stock is plastic except the hinge pin itself. I don’t really trust plastic parts on airsoft guns and the whole stock feels too light for me but I couldn’t find any issues with the quality. No sharp edges or moulding flaws are present, all the functions of the stock are working.

Two foldable iron sights can be found on the SCAR and both of these are removable. The rear sight is rail mounted while the front sight can be removed by unscrewing a hex bolt on each side because the sight is fixed to the gas block instead of the rail. The quality of the sights are excellent, and they look accurate and uselful enough for CQB games. Some people use only iron sights and this rifle could be the right one for them although I would drill a larger hole on the rear sight to have bigger aperture. This part of the rear sight is removable but I can’t remember seeing ones with larger apertures anywhere. The front sight can be folded by pressing a pin on the bottom right side of the iron sight while the rear just flips up the traditional way. By the way, both need minor lubrication for easier flip-ups or flip-downs.

The SCAR uses standard WE M4 GBB magazines and other M4 magazine brands won’t fit. This product can be powered using CO2 and regular gas magazines without changing any internals so I figured I will try each to see and feel the difference. The upper part of the magazines all look the same regardless the gas used: BB storage, gas outlet port, bolt stop activator with switch and the outlet valve. CO2 magazines have a removeable bottom plate and by removing this plate we can acces the port where a standard 12g cartridge goes inside the magazine. This port has a screw cap and the inner side is shaped in a form what will hold the cartridge in the right place the whole time. The screw cap can be operated using the magazine base plate as a screwdriver but sometimes you need a bit more torque and the plate can be bended way too easy, of course it depends on the brand of the cartridge you use and only my experience with Umarex cartridges makes me say this. It’s always helpful to carry a large coin with you which helps you to lock that cartridge every time. There is no internal reservoir inside the magazine and the cartridge is connected straight to the outlet valve so perfect fit and adequate pressure are required to avoid leaks. Lubricating the screw cap threads will help you easily change the powerlets. Probably the combined weight of an internal reservoir and the cartridge itself would raise the weight of the magazine too much and this is why WE chose this design.

The magazines (both CO2 and regular) are massive with decent weight and this could mean only one thing: bigger force on impact. No worries for anyone playing MilSim in the forest but for all the CQB guys out there: protect your investment by using Magpul grips because a magazine dropped on a concrete floor could be damaged to a level where refilling it isn’t possible anymore. With a price of $40-$50 a mag you definitely need to treat these things extra care. Another option to keep your magazines out of harms way is to practice reloading to a level where you can do it with your eyes closed but the factor for an accidental drop is still there. Magpuls, ranger plates, or speedplates aren’t too expensive compared to what you paid for only one magazine.

One Phillips head screwdriver is needed to remove the pistol grip which reminds me of the standard AR (M4) pistol grip. The grip itself is hollow, no lid or secret compartment but I don’t expect too much in this price range although a lock washer would be a nice thing to see under the screw which holds the grip in place. Removing the grip isn’t necessary in order to disassemble the gun and I just wanted to show what you can expect.

The lower receiver is the other main part of the SCAR which was made out of plastic, good quality but still plastic and the only thing holding it in place is the front body pin. Pulling this pin out will let us remove the receiver first by pushing it down and then forward. The body pin cannot be pulled out completely so don’t force it, this way you can avoid losing the pin. You’ll only find two things inside the lower receiver: the trigger group assembly and the ambidextrous magazine release. Since this gun has no gearbox the fire selector works on both sides of the receiver. Removing the "lower” is often enough for basic maintenance and hereby I mean lubrication and visual check.

In order to get to the internals the stock needs to be removed and this can be done by simply pulling it downwards where it’s connected to the upper receiver. As soon as the stock is gone the return spring pops out in the back and this is the first thing we can freely pull out of the upper receiver.

The return spring is a steel spring on a steel rod which returns the bolt carrier in its original position after the shot was fired and by doing this the nozzle will chamber the next BB at the same time. To remove the bolt carrier group first we need to pull it back until it stops and twist / pull the charging handle which is the only thing that keeps the carrier in place while the stock is removed.

The bolt carrier looks very similar to the one used in the real SCAR but the only thing what’s missing is the bolt and instead we have the nozzle/valve assembly. Let’s rename the bolt carrier to nozzle carrier or valve carrier? Nevermind. The carrier has an interesting feature over the one in the real SCAR: four steel rollers on top side. These rollers provide smooth route for the carrier so lubricating is a must. There is a lock ring on the back of the carrier and it holds the valve assembly in place and centered so whenever you remove it proceed with caution because it can be bent easily. The valve distributes the gas between the barrel and the bolt carrier and this balance can be controlled by moving the inner part of the valve backwards or forward. The more gas you send out through the barrel the less recoil you will have and if the amount of gas is insufficient to move the carrier then the feeding will stop. The pictured setting is the original setting and it gives me about 380FPS with 0.20g BB.

Accessing the barrel has never been easier. No more delta keys, alignment issues. By undoing four screws and removing a spacer the outer barrel can be pulled out towards the front. The torx screws on the side of the receiver can be opened with the key found in the gas block and they all spring loaded / locked. These won’t fall off the upper receiver so one step closer to making field strip easier. Two longer screws are holding the bottom rail in place but these are regular ones so keep track of them.

The take down video produced by WE shows that there are four additional spring loaded screws that need to be removed before you remove the barrel but on My SCAR these aren’t long enough to reach the outer barrel so it’s pointless to remove them unless you wan’t to remove the part where the front body pin connects to the upper. In that WE video the presenter was using one key to open all the screws but on my SCAR an additional hex key is needed because the bottom rail is using hex screws instead of torx ones. Other than this, I had no problem taking the SCAR apart and access the barrel.

The gas block can be taken off by undoing a small hex screw at the front and a pin in the middle but of course the -14mm muzzle break has to come off first. Unlike an AEG the SCAR has the inner barrel locked inside the outer barrel with a pin and this pin needs to be removed to access or change the inner barrel. The hop-up chamber is fixed to the inner barrel with a smaller pin. Pushing this pin out will let us change the hop up rubber and the inner barrel. Standard AEG inner barrels aren’t compatible with this setup so we just have to wait until third party accessories and parts show up at our favorite retailer. Adjusting the hop-up can be done with the black plastic ring which runs on a thread outside the hop-up chamber. This plastic ring will push a different steel ring against a spring and the bucking can be found under the steel ring in the shape of a small steel ball bearing about the same size they used under the fire selector switch. Simple but functional design and probably the simplest way to create hop-up effect. Inner barrel diameter 6.08mm while its length is 268mm.

Already mentioned are the contents of the lower receiver but now let’s take it apart and see what’s inside. The steel bolt stop easily comes out but be careful, there is a small spring here so keep track of it. It works the same way as the one on the M4: a pin which only shows up on an empty magazine will activate the bolt stop. The fire selector switch can be removed the same way, with a small hex bolt on the side. You only need to remove the one on the right to pull out the selector pin. Two more screws, one inside the receiver and one right above the mag release has to be removed to access the trigger group assembly. This assembly is almost identical to the one inside the WE M4 and it’s pretty obvious if you take note of the fact that the SCAR uses M4 magazines and an AR type lower receiver.

The firing pin is only steel in the inside, from the outside it looks like chrome plated cast iron and four more parts of this assembly were made using the same material including the selector pin. It would be nice to see these parts made out of steel in the future versions of WE SCAR. The spring loaded firing pin allows to insert a magazine to a non-charged SCAR and the end of the pin will drop right behind the valve as soon as you pull back the charging handle. This movement is provided by the spring inside the firing pin and the one right under it.

Converting myself from an AEG user to a GBBR user was a hard task. I was too used to the fact that changing the magazine only is enough to start firing again. The one extra step to de-activate the bolt stop was enough to confuse me resulting other players to overrun me with their high-cap mags. This is definitely a weapon for an environment where others use GBBRs as well. I am not saying you can’t survive against an AEG user but it will take a lot of practice to master. At the end of the day it’s all worth it because of the felt recoil and sound coming from the bolt carrier. The FPS really depends on your personal preferences but it comes out of the factory with about 350-380 FPS but I heard people reporting less and some of them were reporting numbers higher than 400.

The felt recoil is just amazing with this rifle. The M4 GBB never moved me at all because there are no moving parts on the outside but the SCAR has the moving charging handle plus the huge bolt carrier gives you bigger recoil. FN Herstal only wish they could sell as many real SCAR units just like the airsoft GBB ones that will show up in the future. Very good build quality and only the lower receiver is kind of a letdown for me but only because I am used to non-plastic airsoft rifles. As of the time this article was written there were no after-market parts available for the WE SCAR but a third party bolt carrier but hopefully the industry picks up the pace soon, so we can further customize the WE SCAR.

Magazines are expensive and they require protection but other than this I had no magazine related issues during the time of the test. Both CO2 and regular magazines will give you roughly 60 shots before the FPS will start to drop. That means you can reload a magazine with BBs one more time before you fill it with gas again. Maybe a 60 round mag as an option would be a nice thing to see as well. CO2 mags will give you a stronger kick but not much higher FPS and the cooldown in full auto mode is much more noticeable. Summertime results are OK but for the wintertime you’ll need to get that AEG out of your locker again so bottom line: I wouldn’t sell my AEG right now just to get one of these but it’s just my personal opinion. At a temperature of 28C measured with 0.20g BB our FPS results range between 370-380.

This version of the SCAR is relatively hard to accessorize because of the moving charging handle and short front end. Make sure you only use red dots which are not much wider than the rail itself and here I don’t mean the optical sight but the sight and mount measured together. An EOTech copy is a great option but only with the standard mount because the throw lever mounts are wider than the rail so they will be in your way while you are trying to charge your weapon and the same goes for the side rails as well. The WE SCAR won’t break your fingers but you will definitely feel the kick of the charging handle and it’s not the most pleasant feel I can tell you. At my very first shot I violated rule number one: Do not hold your SCAR like if it was an M4! Usually 3 or four times enough for one to learn it for good. To keep thumbs out of harms way equip a forward grip relatively close to the magwell as soon as you take it out of the box.

Two and one point slings can be hooked on with the SCAR without any additional sling hook adapter but some sling hooks are too thick to grab the loopholes so I used a loop of 550 cord and I attach my sling hook to that. This will also keep the hook from scratching the receiver.

The WE SCAR is well worth the price that WE is asking for and it can be a reliable partner with very little effort. The look is unique now and it is not just another M4.

The following accessories can be seen on the pictures: