A year or so back I was deciding on what road to go down in terms of an airsoft replica build project, I wanted something just slightly retro. I knew I wanted a proper Colt M4A1, but I wasn’t quite sure which exact variation to go with since the M4 has appeared in many different guises within the US military over the years. I eventually decided that I would most enjoy recreating the rifle that I had wanted to build since I very first took an interest in this hobby in the early 2000s – the M4A1 SOPMOD featured within the free-to-play game America’s Army.
AA didn’t originally feature the M4, just lots of M16s, since the M16 was the standard issue for USA infantry personnel in 2002 when the game was released. But with the ‘2.0 Special Forces’ update the M4A1 was added in SOPMOD kit form and players could customise the rifle with various optics and other attachments before entering in to a round.
I commissioned what was, almost, a scratch build from Negative Airsoft, since I wanted a regular AEG base gun (rather than GBB or NGRS) and in 2023 when I was looking around there were extremely few of those on the market that actually had US military Colt markings. A couple of weeks back I collected the base gun from Negative which features a nicely anodised receiver set and very snappy internals, then I set to fitting the real KAC forend and the proper pistol grip and stock myself.
While aesthetically there is not much difference, certainly as far as 99.9% of people would be concerned, there is a big difference in terms of feel when you actually pick up the replica. Starting from the top half of the image, I changed the following in order to reach the bottom half:
- Airsoft ‘Crane’ stock swapped for M&A parts replica N1 stock
- Budget A2 pistol grip swapped for VFC A1 grip
- Unknown 2-part 14.5″ outer barrel changed to plain 5KU single piece outer barrel (5KU required extensive work with a milling bit in a dremel in order for FSP pins to fit)
- Standard airsoft A2 bird cage swapped to VFC KAC M4QD Flash suppressor
- Budget airsoft RIS/RAS replica changed to real KAC RAS (same for cover panels)
- Budget airsoft delta ring assembly including barrel nut and relevant spring swapped for higher quality parts with much stiffer delta ring spring
- Basic airsoft handguard retainer with black paint swapped to G&P retainer in a nice contrasting grey
- Budget airsoft A frame gas block/FSP with lots of telltale molding marks swapped for higher quality version that’s fairly close to a real FSP, with proper length faux gas tube fitted
- Budget airsoft faux crush washer changed to Krytac washer with smoother outer appearance
- More modern USGI AR style front sling point added, which is not in the game, but they also never use slings in the game whereas I will do when out playing in an airsoft skirmish
Again, the aesthetic changes wouldn’t be worth the few hours that it took me to make these alterations to anyone with their sanity, but there is now less movement in the overall assembly of the forend and it looks a lot more realistic when examined up close. Far from ‘clone correct’ I’ve no doubt, but the idea is to replicate a low-poly video game version of an M4A1 from around the turn of the millenium – not an actual M4A1 from that time.
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