KWA AEGs: The Best? (Guest Blog Post by Prodigy of Airsoft Team Kilo23)

Recently, KWA has made great strides in the field of high-end Airsoft AEGs. Their 2GX series has caused quite a stir mainly because they claim to be “lipo ready.” How true is this? Such a claim would have to imply that KWA AEGs have advanced trigger systems, a reinforced piston to take the added stress, a metal piston head that will not crack like plastic heads, and a super reinforced gearbox shell to take the abuse of 400fps coupled with a speedy rate of fire.

Back when Airsoft was just getting started, it would have taken many hundreds of dollars to upgrade a Tokyo Marui M4 or G36C to KWA’s current specs. You would have to replace the piston, piston head, bushings, gears, and the gearbox shell for decent speed and reliability, at best. After having spent hundreds on a new AEG and installing everything perfectly, KWA still would outdo it today. No, this opinion was not reached by rumor. After working on many KWA AEGs for numerous clients and having owned one for bit a now, I can honestly say that KWA makes some of the best stock AEGs out there for the money.

The ability to run an 11.1v lithium polymer battery on a stock gun has always been an Airsofter’s dream since the beginning. Now, the dream is a reality. Although KWA’s gun designs are heavily based on the original Tokyo Marui original design, they have made many improvements which make it the top of a line manufacturer. First, one of the major things that needed to be worked on was the gearbox shell. Version 2 gearbox shells inherently crack at the front due to stress, prolonged shooting, and high power springs. KWA reinforced the front of the gearbox shell to make it nearly five times thicker than any other upgrade gearbox shell. In addition to that excessive semi-auto use can cause the trigger shuttle post to break. This disables the gun until you remove the cut-off lever. Even then you can only use full-auto; your semi-auto function is lost. KWA’s new reinforced shell fixes that problem by making it much more beefy. Now you can go semi-auto crazy!

That covers a few of the problems. What’s left? A Lot! Let’s continue with the electrical system. Traditionally, switch assemblies have always operated with a mechanical switch. Pulling the trigger causes the electrical circuit to close. Metal contacts are pretty durable as it is, but when you add gold plating, like KWA did, you get an extremely durable system. The gold plating drastically increases the time it takes for metal to corrode due to high voltage exposure. This way the electrical system can cycle 80,000+ rounds on an 11.1v battery while only showing slight signs of wear.

The piston is the strongest stock piston to date. It is the one stock piston I trust to pull high power springs and survive high rates of fire for a prolonged time. The piston head, additionally, is made of aluminum. However, it is not ported. If you intend to push the gun faster than twenty rounds per second I highly recommend you replace it with a ported piston head for better consistency.

Aside from that KWA has designed a set of extremely rugged gears that can handle both very heavy springs and high cyclic rates alike. On either end of each gear is a 9mm bearing bushing, six in all. Although bearings are not as durable as solid metal bushings, KWA makes some of the most durable bearings out there. Yes, these can handle high power spring along with the rest of the internal parts.

Just to be even more amazing KWA ships out all of their guns with a bearing metal spring guide, an M110 equivalent spring (about 380-400fps), and their new redesigned barrel and hop up bucking. The newer guns will include a 6.03 tight bore barrel (only the SR5, SR7, SR10, SR12, and M4 RIS will include this barrel). The crowning is also exceptional, as well as the machine work. The hop up bucking uses a “W” design which helps to put a very consistent spin on each BB as it leave the camber.

Wow! KWA has really outdone it this time. Now that I have gone over all of the improvements, I feel I should say a few things about what I think should be changed. With a few minor tweaks KWA could allow the forward assist to be functional and decompress the spring. This would be a very helpful feature. I do get tired of short-stroking the trigger to bring the piston to a resting position. Additionally, the wiring in the buffer tube (on my version, the M4 RIS) switches from a thinner 18g to a thicker ~16g. Although it is not much, this design adds some resistance to the system which can increase wear. The internal mechanical trigger safety could also be metal instead of plastic. I have had that break on occasion.

I feel that covers everything. The pros heavily outweigh the cons in KWA AEGs. In my opinion they are some of the only “lipo ready” guns out of the box. Take my word for it. If you want a gun that performs like you need it to right away, go with KWA. You will not regret it. Play safe and happy Airsofting everyone.

-Prodigy from Airsoft Team Kilo23