Alternate Weapon Ideas For A Strike Rouge

Still fiddling with Gundam kits at the moment. I had recently bought the Strike Rouge and Skygrasper/Aile Striker set. A month or so later, I finally completed it in a state that I'd consider "partially acceptable". There's plenty of reviews about the kit, so I'll spare you the crappy assault of "build progress" photos and "poseability" photos demonstrating how the articulation works. This is the Vortex! Only useless information that no one wants will be shared here!

For the inquiring minds, the PG Strike (and presumably all other Perfect Grade kits) stand roughly 12" tall, which conveniently is the same scale as a 1:6 scale figure. Unfortunately, their hands are quite large and don't translate well to a 1:6 scale figure, and feel more like 1:5 scale hands in size. While off scale, this does provide an opportunity to all you PG Strike owners who want something more desirable in their arsenal than the included beam rifle, shield and shiny sword. What if you wanted to give your Strike Gundam something more... interesting?

Let's put on our thinking glasses and brainstorm! Where else could we find some crap to give our Gundam to use? Stuff that's roughly 1:6 scale, and would be used by a military fighting robot? 
 

 To the gun rack!

 Since the hands are a bit larger than 1:6 scale, the Strike is limited in gun options. Guns like the M-4/M-16 with small thin grips are almost out of the question. Even if you happen to have one that sort of works, the fingers tend to overhang the trigger guard, so you end up like the Heavy Weapons guy holding... practically anything other than the minigun. My solution was to cup the grip with just the fingers, and that placed the trigger finger around the right area so it doesn't look oversized.

Guns with a stock work well, as the grip occupies more space in the hand, allowing you to use the thumb more. So if you want to give your Strike some 1:6 scale guns, stuff like hunting rifles, shotguns and the like work well. Pistol grip weapons, not so much. I'm certain that a MK23 or a desert eagle would fit nicely. A Tokarev... not so well. I also tried out the MGL, and that didn't work. The fingers just didn't want to work with it.

Now, what about heavy weapons?

The Strike's hands seem to fit a Dragon Browning M2HB quite well. All four fingers fit around the rear handles and the thumbs are close enough for the trigger. However, the main issue with giving your Strike the M2HB is that you really need to put your Strike in a trench. It can do some prone poses, but not enough to make the M2 work without putting the gun a little higher. Not quite a satisfactory addition. It's acceptable if you wanted to make a support gunner out of your Strike. 

After a long while, I finally found a use for my ZACCA bazookas. They look great on the Strike Rouge, and the size fits nicely. However, there's a significant problem with giving 1:6 scale bazookas to a PG Gundam, and that's related to how their hands work. They don't have enough wrist articulation like you get out of most 1:6 scale human bodies. They're on ball joints, so you have a limited cone of range whereas human figures get wrists that can almost go 180 degrees. That makes most bazookas unsuitable for a Gundam.

I tried out most of the bazookas/rocket launchers I had and found a lot of not-at-all surprising results. I took photos of the ones that worked best.
 

Soldiers of the World/ZACCA M20A1: mediocre. Hands fit around the trigger perfectly, but the limited wrist motion prevents you from holding them correctly. Shoulder armor interferes with the shoulder rest, so you'll need to be creative with your poses.
 

ZACCA Panzerfaust 3: Great.  Nothing interferes, and there's enough range of motion to hold it properly. Can almost look down the scope as well.

ZACCA M136 AT-4: Great. Since you hold it with one hand on top, the oversize hands for the Strike work well. The front grip's easy to hold. The shoulder strap should be glued together on the AT-4, but otherwise a good addition to the Strike. It's one of the more elegant rocket launchers you could have in your collection.

 ZACCA Panzerschreck: Mediocre. You're going to have to hold this with one hand like the M20A1.  No chance in hell you can get the second hand to hold it in any decent manner. Looks great, but you just can't hold the thing. This is where a better wrist motion would help a lot.

Other notes:
I couldn't get the FIM-92, FIM-43 or the SA-18 to work due to the wrists. If you wanted a Strike Stinger combo, it'll look awkward. Don't even bother with panzerfausts. Other models from the ZACCA collection simply didn't work due to the shoulder armor interfering.

There's one outlet left for 1:6 scale weapons: Melee!

Let's say you felt the Grand Slam sword was a bit lacking, and the beam sabers were pretty dull. We can fix that with a Moonfire/Bloodberry! I did find that the fingers worked well to hold the hilts for my Bloodberry and Moonfire, but unfortunately the Moonfire's weight was too much for the fingers to handle. I had to play with the fingers to get them to clasp shut around the hilt. I could use some blue tack to attempt to hold the sword in place, but you will need to use quite a lot to hold it in place. Moonfire's the heaviest sword I have currently, almost twice the weight of the Grand Slam, and without hand pegs to hold it into place. The hands are capable of holding thin objects such as polearms, so it's feasible to have other swords (much like the Red Frame Astray) without relying on the hand peg.

It's convenient to know that a PG Strike can use about half of the possible 1:6 scale stuff on the market. The biggest problem is the wrists. I would recommend experimenting with other melee weapons than guns or rockets, as they offer the best results. Don't settle for energy blades when you can use a slab of metal to impale your foes.

Presenting the worst implausible plane ever

Decided to take a break and build stuff that doesn't require me busting out a slide rule and protractor. Picked up a Perfect Grade Strike Rouge and the accompanying Skygrasper. I had finished up watching Gundam Seed Destiny recently. That anime makes a good drinking game if you take a shot per every 5 minutes of re-used footage, and have a death wish. I actually don't care for the Strike Gundam much, but I read it was a very good example of a perfect grade model, and I need more puppets/test subjects.

I liked two things about the entire SEED series. The Moebius Zero, and the Skygrasper. Well, three if you count the pilot for both of these. The Moebius Zero model involves a lot of painting. Anything I paint looks five times worse than if I left it in primer, so that was out. What was left was the PG Skygrasper, which doesn't involve painting. Hooray! I decided to roll with that. And since it comes with a Aile Striker pack, I figured I'd get the Strike Rouge so the pack isn't worthless.

I found myself liking the Skygrasper less after examining how the model was designed, as a vehicle and as a model kit.

Landing Gear
This model does not offer any folding landing gear. There's actually NO space in the fuselage or engines to modify to fit the landing gear in. The space under the cockpit  has room for half the wheel diameters before touching the pilot's feet. If you were dreaming of modding this to have working landing gear, no luck buddy.

The front landing gear actually can't fold in even if wanted to. The canards and the region where I presume hardware exists to control them blocks the region where the wheels would fold into, and there's actually a panel that obstructs the wheels anyways. The panel lines don't even suggest that this panel moves. It has a protective flap to top it off. The front flap's existence is to solely allow you to get a fingernail under the landing gear cover to remove it.

The landing gear has four wheels, two on the front and one on each rear strut. The wheels are molded separately, and are attached by friction pegs. They do not freely spin at all. If this is the case, then why did they put a flat on the wheels? To stop the non-existent movement the wheels have from making the model not slide? Now you have to precisely orient the flat sides of the wheels on the ground, otherwise it looks odd. I guess it's to replicate a loaded tire?


The Main Cannon
Oh boy, do I hate this stupid cannon. How bad can it be, you ask?

This gun is a detriment to the plane in so many ways, it's not even funny. Actually, it is quite funny. First off, it's the size of something that should be mounted to the side of a battleship, and not a plane. Its so large, that if you turn it perpendicular to the fuselage, the profile of the gun would theoretically disrupt airflow to the tail fins and create control issues. The turret can spin around and easily smash the tail fins with the cannon barrel, so the tail fins are doubly worthless.

The best part about this cannon is the elevation. It can change the elevation to aim at targets in a fairly good cone. It's great for tracking targets. Its also great if you had a really bad day and wanted to kill yourself, as it can shoot into the cockpit. And the engines too, if you wanted to go out in a fireball.

I can also presume that the Skygrasper has no ejection seats.  If you consider that ejection involves shooting out the canopy first, you'll also need to eject the turret too, otherwise the seat will collide with the long barrel. Then again, pilot safety is low on a Gundam series' mechanical design department.

The turret is the only outlandish part of the design, and it would have been acceptable if the rest of the plane was designed in an absurd manner. I removed the turret and plan on replacing the hole with some sort of cover or fan or anything that isn't an obnoxiously large gun. I find that the plane looks much better without it. If I was so inclined, I'd cut away the turret ring and make it transition to the front fuselage better.

The Color Scheme

I just don't like the blue. It's too bright and not fitting for a military plane.  So despite my original plan, I decided to paint this. I chose to replace all the blue with "gunship grey" which turned out to be the same as "Bandai plastic grey". Whoops. Still looks better than an elementary student's coloring sheet. I did like the yellow though, so I kept it on the intakes. I would have kept it on the engine/gun pods, but I damaged those with a large fissure, and required painting to hide that.

I've finished my first attempt at painting over the blue, and have removed the turret. I think it looks a lot better.  Just need to detail the cockpit.

Anyways, enough about the plane. The kit comes with three pilot figures, which is weird since the plane is a two-seater. I've also never recalled two people being in one Skygrasper in the series.

Gundam Seed was a bit hazy. I recall the pilot's name for the Skygrasper starting with an "M". I did my best to paint him like I remembered how he appeared in the series. I think I was spot on.
 

And who can forget the scene where the Skygrasper pilot M-something docks with the experimental Mobile Pants, and riverdances over the enemy forces in a might of Celtic flurry.

I still have quite a bit of work to do on the Skygrasper before I'm happy with it. Once that's done, I'll have the Mobile Pants part to fix up. I think I can see where the next few months are (not) going.

Mobile Suit Biker Sinanju

No new projects involving cards or guns. I did however finally buy something that I always wanted to have in my collection: a Master Grade MSN-06S Sinanju. Just liked the design and the color scheme. It'll make a good addition to my desk, having vacated some slots. Also, it'll finally make use of those Gundam Action Bases I've bought a while back.

No review of the kit here, since there's plenty around. I did end up breaking two parts during construction, and the fuel tank caps ruptured due to thermal expansion during painting with thinner. Had to make some repairs, but they're not noticeable. I haven't gotten around to the decals yet. Waiting for my topcoat to arrive first. In case you're interested, I opted to hand paint all the gold after painting the parts black. No stickers or water slide decals were used, nor will they be used. Going to build this with the default stuff they give me.

I found that the kit was larger than I was expecting, and the scale was a tad under 1:6. I could make Sinanju hold some 1:6 scale weapons to some extent. I did have something lying around that was much better than a 1:6 scale weapon. Something that fit perfectly.

Lego Technic set 8422! Managed to finally get some more use out of it. Color scheme matches somewhat as well. I'm rather fond of this motorcycle's styling and overall design. I could get one of the newer mototcycles, but none of them have the same appeal as this one.

Agile in space, and on the ground.

 I also had the time to buy some more Obitsu stands. Somewhat wobbly for trying to do a wheelie pose.

Unfortunately, Sinanju doesn't quite fit on Fenrir. The color scheme didn't fit anyways. At least now I can have mounted combat. 

J.Norad Reviews: ZYToys MGL-140

Haven't had any projects in a while worth pursuing. Or ones that were physically feasible. I did miss National Build a Grenade Launcher Day this year. I did liquidate my Demoman, so I no longer have a 6 shot grenade launcher or someone appropriate to showcase it.

I've also had an interest in obtaining a Milkor M32 after browsing some reviews on onesixthwarriors.com about the ZACCA P.A.P. chase model in their 1:6 grenade launcher set. I never managed to get one. Well, I finally got a Milkor MGL after a bit of shopping around for a cheap deal. 

I picked up the MGL-140 in black over all the other variants. My reasons were simple. But in general, it seems to be the least desirable model based on overall pricing and demand. As of writing this, it looks like the shorter versions are higher in demand. My reason was "get the biggest one in black". I don't care for desert color schemes either. I paid $15 shipped for mine, purchased through a moderately reputable black market dealer holed up in the South Asian seas. They MSRP for $12, so don't expect to get one for under that unless you get lucky. You'll be looking at $17 after the usual price gouging.

Straight out of the box, you get a simple plastic tray with the foregrip, scope and grenades packed separately. No hidden surprises like an insert sheet with info or a display peg board.

Every other site probably has an exploded view of the parts. Probably none as half-assed as mine. There's six metal grenades, an adjustable cloth sling, and everything else shown in lovely injection molded plastic.

Features and Flaws
I don't think anyone expected this review to be all sparkles and sunshine. The Vortex brings out the suck in everything. And my MGL has a good quantity of suck. Let's see what magnitude of suck you can expect.

The Stock

I personally encountered an issue on the stock where it swivels up and down. The U shaped fork holding the arm in place was noticeably bent outwards like a V. as a result, it was quite easy to pop out the stock. I'd like a locking pin than two stubs that will wear down with repeated dislocations. Could be an isolated incident, though.

The slider part of the stock slides quite freely. There's not much of an end stop for the slider, so expect it to completely come off as you adjust it. Due to the way the parts are molded, it's not practical to rig a solid end stop like HotToys did for their M-4's for the Modern Firearms Collection. I can feel a little bump inside the stock where the stop mechanism is, but you can overpower it with little resistance. I'll try thickening the material inside the stock to make the fit tighter so it doesn't slide too easily.

The Scope
The scope is great. Great if you never want to move it to an angle other than horizontal. There's basic detail on the scope; no fake amber lenses or see-through light pipe. Just a solid block, but that's fine. The optic is loose, and there's no ideal way of making it hold mid position without making some frictional modification to the hinge. The scope base is molded from two pieces with a shared mounting pin, resulting in a pin that isn't snug due to an undersize. The scope fell off enough times during  photos that I've thickened the pin with some super glue so it stays on better. Suggest checking your scope mount and making this the first priority modification.

 

One of the details I liked was the elevation numbers printed onto the side of the sight. From a distance, you'd think it's just a bunch of white lines. It's tough to get a good photo with a crappy camera, but you can see it. The numbers are a bit crisper than my photo shows it to be. 

The Chamber and Grenades

The revolver chamber comes marked with the current grenade position on all six chambers in crisp detail. Mine seems to be molded not quite perfectly cylindrical. It has binding spots in certain areas when spun. The cylinder isn't loose enough to do Russian Roulette. As a plus, it stays in place where you want it for photos. If you push the chamber into the front frame, it fits snug so you can hold the MGL by the chamber and not have the rest of it slide away. I don't recommend modifying the chamber to spin freely because of this benefit.

While on the subject of the revolver chamber, I should cover the grenades. They're metal with a fairly thick coat of paint. Part of the grenade tends to hang on a lip in each chamber, so they don't all immediately slide out when you tilt it downwards. Great if you don't like fishing out 1:6 scale grenades in the grass in your backyard. The firing cap is painted on and not molded, so if you do wear that part down for some reason, be prepared to repaint that. Over time, the grenade rims will chip paint.

The Frame

The frame is a two piece construction, held together by a swivel pin joint. This is perhaps where most of these models will break over time. It's a mere 0.06" diameter plastic pin holding it together. Normally, this would be fine, but from handling the model and opening it a few times, I noticed that it's a fairly stressed component. When you open the grenade launcher to swivel it out, the revolver chamber has a pin that normally locks into a little detente in the rear frame. You need to either slide the rear frame back until the revolver chamber pin disengages, or bend the frame outwards like most people will do. Bending the pin repeatedly will eventually stress the plastic and cause it to snap. A suggested modification would be to drill out a hole in the pin, and reinforce it with a metal rod (or in my case, a paper clip). This will provide stiffness and keep it from snapping off prematurely.

Overall Impressions

You may be asking "Should I buy one?" 

You have no choice if you want an MGL, honestly. You have the illusion of choice between the six variants ZYToys has to offer. That's about it. You're not going to find the ZACCA M32 for a price under $30. You either want one or you don't. Now, if someone would build an RG-6 in 1:6 scale...

My suggestion is to buy the one you like the most, hope QC wasn't asleep/busy whipping the slave labor, and be mindful of the weak points. I don't see any reason to buy the whole set. You don't need all six MGL variants unless you're a ham fisted giant who breaks things by merely touching them.

J.Norad Reviews: 1:6 scale Dragon Browning M2 Model Kit

Went to Brickworld 2011. Ended up browsing the local shops after lunch and I picked up this: a 2008 Dragon 1:6 scale Browning M2 Heavy Machine Gun model kit. I wanted to add this to the collection for some time (an M2, not particularly this one), and here was my chance. Not quite the best decision I've made regarding model kits, unfortunately.

I've seen one review of this model kit floating around. Not too surprising since not a lot of people review model kits, especially model kits of infantry weaponry. However, I've gone through the joy horror of building this kit to tell you how it really is.

Phase 1: Misinformation
I picked this up at the cost of under $19 at a hobby shop, all ready to get me a heavy machine gun. I opened up the box and beheld the presence of a foul and unholy mass of injection molded plastic and metal. Yes, there's metal. Is it awesome metal, as in "metal barrel and other assorted parts to enhance the flavor and detail"? Hell no! It's the "purely decorative but essential to make the kit annoying to build properly" type. We'll get to that in a bit. First, let's look at the biggest problems with this kit: the instructions.

 Here's the first sheet. Top gives you an overview of the model, same as the box cover. Middle covers the runners and what each part is, in case you cut them all loose and have no idea what they're called afterwards. The bottom covers a painting color guide, which luckily is composed of 5 colors, and only two are essential to the gun. Take note at the grey section on runner set A. That designates parts that are not used in this model. My first question is, "why do you even include parts on the runners if this model doesn't use them?" Second, "what set does this get packaged with that uses these parts?" And lastly, "why the hell are these spare parts not duplicates of essential but potentially fragile parts?"

The answer to these questions is "they're actually used in this model kit, but the instructions writer decided to troll the kit builders who actually bother to look at the sheet". Because, who reads the instructions anyways? Certainly not the 4-13 year olds who buy this model, since this package certainly says that it's for 14 years+ only. We all know that getting a 14 year old to read a book is not particularly easy, so they added a visual instruction sheet with numbers on it. That's what the back side is for!
 

Phase 2: Deception
Side 2 of the instructions is where Dragon likes to whip out the middle finger and also take the time to poke you in the eye. I don't know if they fixed this for subsequent releases, but there's numerous errors with the instructions. I've handily corrected them in red. Notably, I've labeled where the "unused" pieces actually go on the model. Part A19 corresponds to the swivel tripod lever handle. Optional parts A29 and A30 turn out to form the "integral" leg clamp assembly for the right side of the tripod. Of course, you could have figured that out without the drawing by looking at the spot at the end of the leg and then at the runners. The handle isn't integral, but it's actually depicted on the cover photo, if you notice.

Per the numbers, you're supposed to be issued three B17s which correspond to the gun's firing mechanism assembly, and are supposed to glue them into the tripod legs. Great! I always wanted my tripod to shoot holes into the ground so I can have an easier time digging them into the ground. In a pinch, they will also serve to provide a last point of defense for the tripod carrying guy, so he can at least get some shots off. Dragon thought of everything.

Lastly, the instructions conflict with the product photo. The tripod feet per the instructions have the feet one way, and the photo has them the other. Which is correct? The product photo, apparently. I checked with what the actual M3 bipod looks like and it matches the photo, with the spades pointing all the same direction.

Phase 3: Lack of Information
At this point, you can argue that I'm being nit picky and deliberately bashing a decently designed kit for the sake of your entertainment. Now here's the point where Dragon takes their other hand and gives you the finger, and also jams it into your other eye. The METAL PARTS. Nowhere on the kit does it say that you need to have needle nose pliers for this kit. YES you need them. Why? Because the metal parts can't be assembled onto the other parts otherwise. And they're tedious.

The metal parts are all confined to the ammo box lid and a carrying handle on the barrel. The barrel requires you to clamp the loops tight otherwise they'll come off. Not too bad. Next part are the lid handle hinges. You'll need to pry them apart to fit them around the lid loops, then close them while the strap is in the hinges. I have decent dexterity and I had issues keeping the parts aligned while I clamped the loops closed.

 Last is this little gem here.

 The ammo box locking plate. It's a metal plate with a metal C that goes through it. They come separated and must be assembled together as shown above. Keep in mind the C hinge piece comes bent as a C and not straight. In order to get the part through the holes in the plate, you must unbend the part, thread it through and re-bend it. It's like unbending a paperclip and trying to bend it back so it looks the same. Doesn't happen, unless you're good. Mine still came out semi crooked.

My last point of the model kit is the plastic itself. You clearly need to paint this. The tolerances are tight without painting. A bit of sanding is needed to get the tripod legs to even slide. It felt like the model I got was late down the line where the mold had gotten sloppy. The ammo insert in the ammo box is wider than the ammo box inside, and requires trimming. The halves of some parts (legs, receiver, part of the barrel shroud) didn't meet up flat. As a side effect, the barrel came out crooked when assembled as is. Noticeably crooked.

Overall

Griping aside, the model's not bad. You just need to know what you're getting into. There's a lot of moving parts. Some of the movement can be nullified by bad handiwork or too thick of a paint job, however. I honestly don't think it's worth buying the kit if your skill isn't great and all you want is an M2. However, I don't think they sell the M2 pre assembled, at least not anywhere convenient. There's a limited number of M2's from other manufacturers, and none are common. So if you're in the market for one, you're forced to go the Dragon route if you're unable to find pre-built ones. If you're absolutely rubbish at painting like I am, you'll hate this option.

 On a last note: the ammo links are too rigid. You can sort of bend them. They'll snap and disintegrate though. You'll be limiting it to just dioramas and not much else.

J.Norad Reviews: Hot Toys Modern Firearms Set 4

 Picked up a box of Hot Toys 1:6 Scale Modern Firearms, Series 4. They were still selling them at HobbyGen.com for $119 a box. There's a few other places that still stock them if you want to pick up the entire set, but before you do that, let's find out whether it's worth the bother.

They come 12 to a pack, and take up as much volume as other blind boxed trading figure sets. I was quite surprised when I opened the first one, with how loosely secured the box was. Seemed like they used hot glue to close the packages and did a poor job with it. There were no descriptive cards with any of the weapons, unlike Furuta and Zacca. Just plain old $12 of gun.

What struck me as odd was that each of the packs were labeled to what gun was inside with a stamped checkmark (see photo). It didn't look like the seller had opened it and taken the time to give me a full set of guns, which led to one conclusion: These sets aren't blind boxed, meaning they're not randomly packed. Buying a full box gives you a guaranteed set. Not sure if this was the same as Series 1-3. If you guys happen to know how those were packed, let me know via the comments. 

Sadly, they don't come with a display stand. I'm still using the display board that came with my 1:6 scale bazooka sets. It's fine though, but it would have been extra cool if they did.

The AKM
Not going to bother covering this. You either want this or you don't. Has a drum mag and a folding wire stock.  

The SCARs
 There's absolutely no reason why any of you need four FN SCARs. Seriously. 

 From top to bottom: SCAR-L STD (tan and black), SCAR-L CQC, SCAR-H-LB

 For those of you who do, here's the lowdown:

• All four have extendable stocks and can be folded to the right
• Silencer on the SCAR-H LB is removable
• Bipod on the SCAR-H-LB is removable, and swivels
• Scopes are glued on except for the SCAR-H LB. Rear sight can move along the rail. Iron sights can be folded down or propped up.
• SCAR-L STDs have a bipod stored in the fore grip that can be pulled out. which is nice
• The SCAR-H LB is properly stamped as being 7.62mm cal on the side

 Unfortunately, while the details are well done, they had an issue with the text. Apparently, this gun's made by FN Heatsel, Belgium. It shows up on all four rifles. The text on the scopes does read "For law enforcement/Military use", which was nice. Wondering if the typo was a usual engrish copy error, or a deliberate typo to not get in trouble for copyrights. Then I noticed that they had the brands for all the scopes labeled correctly. Guessing it's engrish. All four SCARs are about the same to me but I'd have to pick the LB variant.

The M4A1's

There's honestly only one of these you'd want. You do not need all three M4A1's. You probably have tons of these already.

 From top to bottom: M4A1 with XM26 LSS, and two M4A1's with M93 stocks

 Stoner's properly spelled right on these... so wondering what the deal with the Heatsel was for the SCARs. My tan M4A1 looked warped. Came out of the pack with the front barrel section misaligned by ~5-10 degrees to the left. The stock and barrel were curved upwards slightly. My magazine for the XM26 LSS was loose fitting and does not stay in securely. The clear magazines have issues from assembly, where the adhesive fogged up the inner section, making the magazine not perfectly clear.

Here's the finer details of the M4A1's.

• Flippable dust caps for the scopes
• Scope for the black M4A1 was glued on, while the tan was not. 
• Foregrip and flashlight assembly can be forcibly removed if desired; weren't glued on.
• Extendable stocks
• XM26 LSS has a spring loaded cocking lever and the barrel shroud extends out (presumably to minimize transport damage)
• Moving dust covers!

Pretty obvious what you'd want to pick up, because few manufacturers make XM26's.

 
The M-14's

These things are massive.

From top to bottom: SOCOM II, EBR with M4 stock, and EBR long barrel.

The magazines are very loose. The magazine wells for the EBRs were a thousandth of an inch wider than the magazines.You can fix that by applying some super glue to the sides of the magazine wells and letting them harden to fill in the gap. Just don't stick in a magazine before it dries. One of my magazines looked like it was covered in excess glue residue. My EBR long stock came with a scope latch missing. Not noticeable, but annoying knowing it's missing. The only fun features are the spring loaded cocking levers for the EBRs and the extendable stock for the EBR long barrel. However, there's one little surprise for the SOCOM II.

The rubber butt guard lifts up to reveal a hinged panel for where the cleaning kit goes! It seems to go in 3.5cm deep if you want to stash a cleaning kit in there, if you are that bored to build one. It's difficult to open without tools, so be warned.

The SOCOM II's the best of the batch, with its appearance, properly molded magazine (which curiously does not fit in the EBRs) and detachable suppressor.

The HK-417
I think if this set was blind boxed, the HK-417 is the best model of this series. Thing is loaded with little details that make it so much better than the other models.

 First, the biggest thing to note is that you can separate the upper receiver. It's the only model of the set that can do this. None of the M4A1s were given this feature. It has flippable dust covers for the scope lenses and the ejector port. The front iron sight can be moved. the bipod is adjustable and is spring loaded. The stock extends.

 The most overlooked feature is the charging handle. This was surprising as none of the M4's had this.

I did find some short comings with this model. The magazine is near impossible to remove. I fought hard to remove the magazine after jamming it in there. Measured the difference with my micrometer and found the well was 3 thousandths of an inch too small for the magazine. The magazine could have been given a chamfer to help guide it in the magazine well too. I had to shave the inner walls to get the magazine to not be permanently stuck in there.

The markings were fairly good, until you look at the right side. You really need to have good eyes to catch this, because at a fair distance, it looks fine. Odd how it has the HK logo on the reverse but has this misspelled.

 "Heeklor and Keeh GmbH". At least they spelled "Sterling VA" right.

The Verdict

If you want a highly detailed model of any of the reviewed firearms, Hot Toys does not disappoint. It's pricey at $13 apiece minimum compared to the lower quality Zacca P.A.P. models but you get what you pay for. They can be had for about $15 from most 1:6 scale hobby shops online, or e-bay. The redundancy of some of the models makes picking up the set a bad idea, so I highly suggest only picking the ones you like. You seriously do not need 4 SCARs.