Airsoft Action - September 2022

TECHNICAL
WETECH L85A2 GBBR
game. The safety bar is somewhat stiff to begin with
which ensures you do your ‘idiot’s wave’ safety drills
appropriately and are very deliberate with taking it
off safe when ready to fire, although I also found
the trigger and transfer bar don’t always reset fully;
you sometimes have to push on the back face of the
trigger body to fully seat it forwards, and while this
doesn’t affect the operation during firing, it can make
it even harder to push the safety cross bolt back to the
safe position without manually reseating the trigger
forward.
OPERATING SYSTEMS
The operation of the firing mechanism is at least crisp
and consistent, and of course also reminiscent of the
other WE ARs I have, albeit the recoil may be a little
more pronounced due to the different shape and bulk
of the bolt carrier, and the fact that the ejection port is
right next to my ear so it can be pretty loud at times!
I’m grateful I managed to dig out my in-ear throat
mic comms set for the last game I used this at, it’s
probably saving my hearing somewhat, but that’s all
‘part of the fun’ for me I suppose… you have to get
used to the smell of gas too, I might add!
The bolt head and gas blowback parts themselves
are basically the same as the other AR platforms I
have, I haven’t put my callipers on them as yet but
visually there’s nothing much between the HK416
and L85A2 bolt heads aside from the carriers they’re
mounted in. The L85A2’s does, however, seem to have
a habit of sticking or binding more perhaps due to
the carrier’s shorter body and thus likely its less stable
movement compared to the smooth telescoping of
the HK416/T91’s within the machined surfaces of
the AR15 style receivers, the upward force of the
magazine in place and movement of the bolt carrier
on the guide rods makes the nozzle slew upwards
and bind a bit, liberal use of low viscosity silicone oil
can help, although I’m also considering an RA Tech
magnetic locking NPAS adjustable bolt unit to improve
not only the cycling and feeding function but also
allow better power output adjustment.
In terms of stock power output I chronographed
the L85A2 using a variety of ammunition weights and
the same somewhat industry standard ‘12kg’ green
gas I use for all my GBBRs here in Taiwan. Running a
10 round string of BLS 0.2g BBs resulted in a range
from 121.3m/s - 132.2m/s (398 fps - 433 fps) with the
majority of shots in the 127m/s region (416 fps) - this
translates to around 1.5 Joules. Using 0.3g BLS BBs
the velocity dropped to 98.6m/s - 111.6m/s (323 fps
- 366 fps) again around 1.5 Joules on average, and
finally 0.4g BLS BBs gave a range of 83.0m/s - 96.1m/s
(272.2 fps - 315 fps) again around 1.5J - somewhat
odd that I didn’t experience more Joule creep with
the reasonably long barrel and heavier ammunition,
as I have seen be far more pronounced in the VFC
PSG-1 during my testing of it with similar ammunition
weights. Nonetheless, a throttle nozzle or NPAS valve
would likely be required to make it more compliant for
fielding.
The slewing bolt head is what seemed to cause
the very first failures or stoppages, and also tends to
wreak havoc with any magazines that develop even
slightly loose feed lips. As anyone who’s seen the 12th
player’s choice awards by Popular Airsoft will have
seen, I opened my video segment with a stoppage
that saw my entire magazine load of rounds spewing
out of the ejection port; the sticking of the bolt gas
nozzle causes it to rest right against the rounds in
the feed lips at times and facilitate them all flying out
loosely at once, or sometimes individually during a
firing cycle, which then leads to stoppages and other
issues being incurred. The latter caused a pretty messy
stoppage at one of my more recent games fielding
the L85A2 for this reviewing process, and I ended up
having to drop the mag, shake a few loose rounds
out, and then rinse and repeat when it still didn’t
work properly after I thought I’d cleared it. At least
I had plenty of good cover and teammates, and bad
language!
Again this is also an issue I’ve encountered in the
other WE AR’s and largely a case of keeping an eye on
your magazine feed lips and changing them as they
wear out. The benefit of the L85A2 at least is that due
to its AR18 heritage rather than AR15, it has a boxy
stamped sheet steel receiver with plenty of free space
around the barrel extension and trunnion, so at least
those loose BBs floating around in the bolt carrier’s
workspace have some chance of escaping more
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SEPTEMBER 2022