Armoury KitBag
King Arms
FN FAL - L1A1
- Reviewed by Maree Davidson of Mad Badger
KA FN FAL - SLR L1A1
Being part of the re-birth of the King Arms L1A1, has been one of the delights of my time in Airsoft over the past 18 months. The first King Arms L1A1 was released in 2008 to good reviews, and immediate sell out sales. As one of the original owners of the L1A1, I had been biding my time, with many others, for its return.
King Arms is a good example of a company in the Airsoft industry which listens to customers and re-acts accordingly, the KA L1A1 is a very good example of this.
At the Shot Show over the past few years ourselves, and others, had sat down with the King Arms team and put our ideas forward for future AEG models, and the team has tried its best to react by producing both changes to production and also new models. In our case, it was always the L1A1. It was with great excitement at this year’s Shot Show that we were able to report that King Arms was going to restart production of the L1A1 in time for the Summer 2013 season. Whilst the release date was not quite made, we had the first dozen L1A1’s in our hands for evaluation and sale by mid October 2013. It was a very good sign of confidence in the project that within 24 hours the entire shipment was sold out.
When we received the L1A1, we were very pleased to open the boxes they were delivered in to experience a “Back to the Future” experience, the boxes the guns are presented in is a re-birth of the attractive and decorate box of the first release in 2008. The box is solid cardboard, with a full colour print of the gun and the usual details across it. As someone aware of the production costs in Hong Kong of Airsoft packaging, this box would not have been cheap to produce (about 3 times the cost of the most basic Airsoft box packaging), and is a sign of the effort that has gone into producing the quality, detailed replica contained within.
KingArms SLR L1A1 (click to enlarge any of the pictures)
Excitedly almost ripping the AEG from the packaging, I found myself immediately noticing a more refined replica than the earlier 2008 model. It appears that the plastic components (sorry, fibre) have been upgraded, and the AEG appears to be better finished than its earlier incarnation. Examining the AEG closely, the joins between moulded parts, and metallic components are very well done, the finish of the metal body is to a very high standard, something that you would expect to see from King Arms, and the individual serial numbering and weapon designation markings are well done, heavily recessed into the metal work and easily visible from a distance; thus giving the replica an air of authenticity.
Technical and shooting experience.
Mechanically the rifle has a Version 3 gearbox, with many interchangeable parts contained within. The quality is very good. It could be classed as a, specialised gearbox, due to a blowback plate, specialised piston and selector plate. You can disable the blowback by unscrewing two screws contained on the plate. Replacement of the piston means no blowback unless you make an adaption or get the correct one.
KA L1A1 'SLR' parts (click for larger image)
The rifles went out to eight ex-service members, who have now tested them for three weeks or so. The feedback is that the weapons are accurate, have a fantastic range, and each gun is now a very much loved part of their collection. We obtained a second delivery of the guns, and were pleased as issues with the first guns, such as random FPS between 370 and 418 have been addressed, as was the selector on the gun (the first delivery had issues with selecting auto, which was fixed by a custom alteration on each gun by our technical staff). The strange phenomenon of the rear site post being screwed on backwards was also addressed with the sites screwed on the correct way round. Thus, King Arms took our initial feedback report and addressed our issues before sending out any more deliveries. This was very impressive to us, especially considering the short time period between sending out the first and second batches.
Overall conclusions.
The rifle is has proven to be good value for money to date. Magazines are in the normal price range for high cap and mid cap magazines, and everyone who carried the gun being happy with it, we have to say that it is a great step forward. The final compliment came when a player, who contracts to a regiment in the army based in Hereford, who purchased one of the initial ones, took the rifle to show his colleagues, and they purchased one for the mess wall. So, King Arms, there is no higher compliment for such a rifle, excellent work.
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This review is copyright 2013 by Yosser's Airsoft Odyssey©/Mad Badger Airsoft and may not be copied or reproduced without permission. Pictures courtesy MadBadger Airsoft & King Arms. You may link to this page
3 comments
Sry but thats a pretty poor review. Half of it is just the story how you convinced them to produce a new batch. Where are all the details?
What are the huge improvements over the first generation? Did they only improved the quality of materials? Any changes in the construction itself? How to disassemble the rifle? Can you breach open it like the real one? Is it easy to maintain in the field? How is the compability to real liefe parts? What about original wood stocks/handguards or Dustcovers. Do they fit with without issues or is extensive drilling and modeling nessecary? Also do aftermarket dustcover fit? Like the ones needed for SUIT or IWS sights or even modern weaverrail ones. What kind of thread does the flashider use and can we mount for example tracers without special milled threadadapters? Is it possible to remove the triggerguard to use the rifle with heavy mittens?
Sorry for all these questions but the SLR is such a fine piece of a rifle and most interesting for reenecter and battledisplay players that its more interesting how much it compares to the real one then what kind of gearbox.
Hope you can write a part two :)
-Elphiel
Posted on December 2, 2013 at 4:20 PM
To sum up, a toy gun! lol It is a quick review for airsofters. Send in your list and we will answer them.
Posted on December 7, 2013 at 12:19 AM
It wont hurt to ask, so here goes: I've been scouring the web to find me a few of these, without luck. Perhaps ypu know where to get one, or have one you are willing to part with? :)
Posted on February 9, 2016 at 5:58 PM
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