ARES Full Metal M4 (Advanced?)

This is the new ARES M4 Advanced, but not sure what's advanced!

Out of the box: Includes gun (full metal) , black metal CW flash hider, cleaning rod, 130rd metal mid cap. No instruction manual included.

First impression: The finish and feel of the gun are very realistic. The first thing I wanted to do was shoot this thing, so I loaded a mag and headed for the chrono!

Performance: Something was wrong! Out of the box the gun only chrono'd 177fps, so I knew it was time to start taking it apart. The first thing I normally check is the hopup, and that's where I found the problem. The gun had been shipped without a bucking in the hopup! At that point I also noticed the hopup itself was very poor. I replaced it with a G&P hopup / bucking, and back to the chrono. With the stock spring it fired 310 fps with .25 bb's. Now it was time to try out the quick spring change feature on this gun, so I replaced the stock spring with a M120 spring and that brought the fps to 360 with .25 bb's. The bb's were going everywhere, so I also added a 363mm Prometheus tight bore inner barrel. Much better!
I also noticed the motor was quickly getting very hot, so I replaced it with a Guarder high speed revolution motor.

Conclusion: Shoots and sounds great once these parts were replaced, Although I do not feel this many things should need replaced right out of the box. If you don't mind replacing these parts, it's a very good AEG in the end.
Parts replaced:
Hopup
Bucking
inner barrel
spring

New features: ARES has added a quick spring change that lets you change the spring in the rear of the gun without removing the gear box. This is nice, but due to this feature you can not replace the plastic spring guide that comes with the gun. There is a screw that holds this in place, and will not fit other after market spring guides. It also has a functional bolt catch.

Bottom line: I really like this gun, and think I will be using it as a back up at OP IRene this year. I would say it's a great full metal gun to purchase for the price ($230) If you don't mind replacing a few needed parts.

After posting this review, I noticed all the pics are chopped in half. Is this a site issue? They were not like this before.

Maybe the advance part is a Factory upgrade of the Ares Full metal M4, to make airsoft players say oooo. It looks good

Update: This gun did not pass the lipo test. At 26 rps, it shredded the piston head and shot it out the barrel!

I have that exact same gun and it has given me some problems as well

First, it jams frequently. I can expect this with any gun that is fully automatic; whether it be an actual firearm, airsoft, or paintball, but I think there may be something out of alignment in the feeding mechanism, because this became a serious problem when the BBs would get caught up in the action, and i had to sit down and tinker with it for a while to clear it out.

Secondly, it randomly stopped working in the middle of an airsoft war. At first, it was just jammed a little, no big deal, right? Well, I was able to shoot out the BB that was jammed and when I went to shoot it again it just wouldn't shoot. So I listen to it and the motor played its little song that it plays when it shoots but in the background, I could hear something that sounded like a "woomp" sound when it shot. This was coming from directly above the trigger, so i figured it had something to do with the bolt, spring, or firing pin. I then unloaded my magazine, and fired it, just to see what would happen. I noticed that the bolt wasn't coming forward all the way. One of my friends suggested that it was out of alignment or getting caught on something.

As of right now, my gun is being looked at by the guy who sold it to me. Hopefully he can fix it for me and I dont run into many more problems with it. Suggestions on what might be wrong?

Hey Ghost. Thanks for the excelent review. Good, bad, and not so ugly. It's a good looking weapon.

My original thought was $230 stock and $100+ in upgrades for a decent weapon system may not be my ideal system. But then I was QUICKLY reminded by my wife of what I have spent on weapons and upgrades in the past few years. Some good and some failed choices. It doesn't sound like an insane amount of money for a full metal, but it's more than I keep in my little change jar.

I did have a few questions about it if you could elaborate a little for me. The plastic spring guide is not upgradeable to metal, due to the retainer screw, got it. Any chance a metal spring guide could be threaded and installed or is it just a different guide all together? Noticed the stock tube is threaded for that screw. How dificult do you think it would be to replace it with a crane or solid shorty stock? How is the overall wieght and tightness of the weapon? How happy are you with it after the upgrades? (pre Lipo )

It's too bad all of the experiences so far have been negative. I will have to remove it from my Christmas list now.

MunkyGunzz,
First off I would say don't waist you money getting this gun! There are much better aeg's to be purchased. It's now just a box of spare parts, but I will still try answering some of your questions. I tried several things, and there's really no way around the cheap spring guide. As for replacing the stock, not much luck there either. A full / shorty stock is really out of the question, and the buffer tube has a little larger diameter than other airsoft guns so other stocks such as a crane will not fit. The weight, tightness and realistic look were good.

Also, The gearbox had a slightly different shape, so a regular V2 gearbox replacement was not a option as they advertised.