I would like to open this review by discussing the rapidly moving airsoft world. I initially made the error of reviewing this product as the TSD Tactical M4 which has an MSRP of about $270. I embarrassingly discovered after a week that I in fact was reviewing the TSD Sports M4 Commando with an MSRP of $150. Now how did I make this mistake? The TSD Sports M4, the “lower end” AEG, comes with an M110 spring, metal gearbox, steel gears and bushings, is compatible with aftermarket parts, and is comparable to a Tokyo Marui in the external build. I just assumed it could not have an MSRP of $150, and I assumed wrong.

I have been airsofting for six years now, and when I first began it was basically Tokyo Marui as the front runner and Classic Army and ICS playing catch-up. Now the Airsoft world is composed of many different companies producing high quality products, and many times cheaper products as well. I remember a time when I paid over $100 for an HFC XM-177 spring rifle. Now for $30 more than the price I paid I could have had this AEG. So pardon my digression but I felt the need first off to apologize to all of you who read my review before I realized my error (about 500 or so). I also wanted to use this story to help explain how this gun is of a high enough quality to make me believe initially without doubt that it was a TSD Tactical with a $100 higher price tag. Anyway here goes the modified review.

I received this product over the weekend, and for its quite modest price tag I was interested to see how well it performed, and also how it stacked up cosmetically with other Airsoft products. This gun I thought would be most appropriate to compare to the Tokyo Marui M4 Boys AEG as the prices are similar, and both are the cheaper version of a more high quality product. I quickly realized that I was wrong, and that this gun should be compared to regular high grade AEGs, because out of the box it performs up to their standards. The first thing I looked at was the box and to see what points they chose to advertise on the front of the box, and was surprised to see a 330-380 FPS velocity estimate, 11-12 pounds (it is not that heavy but does feel solid and weighs about the same as a Marui), and 720 RPM. From a glance these are startling numbers for a product which is nearly half the price of a standard Tokyo Marui. We will see in this review if the numbers prove true, and also if they tell the whole story on the quality of the product.

As a bit of a side note this gun is manufactured by SRC. Some may be concerned at this but they clearly put more effort into these more expensive products, and TSD specifies what they want and throw in a 60 day warranty to back up their quality. I really like the idea of the 60 day warranty as not many companies provide any sort of warranty, and it is nice to know that if you get a complete lemon you will be compensated accordingly. 

Look & Feel

I was very impressed with this gun out of the box. I obviously took in mind the price tag when assessing it but was pretty amazed at the quality of the build and the weight it had. Its weight and feel is very much like that of a Marui as I mentioned above. Nothing was wobbly or loose, it was a pretty tight feeling gun. All the metal parts you have come to expect on an M4 are metal on this product. These include the outer barrel, magazine, rail (under removable handle), carry handle knobs, adjustable iron sights, the beam which the stock slides on, trigger, magazine release, sling wivels, etc. All the metals seem to be of decent quality, and I have no complaints. The finish on the plastic parts is black and slightly shiny though not overwhelmingly so. It is not as high quality of plastic as a Marui, nor does it look quite as real up close, but I will admit I did have to tap on it once just to make sure it was not metal. The Tokyo Marui plastic is also more of a gray color while this is most definitely a black.

For those of you who will not settle for anything less than a metal body on your gun, TSD Tactical makes a gun with similar specs and a metal body for a higher price tag. Feel free to look it up.





This gun possesses no trademarks besides that of the manufacturer. It does not try to imitate any sort of Colt trademark, the plastic is simply blank. It really does not matter to me, the trademarks have no value in my mind. I do know it is very important to some airsofters out there so I decided to take the time to mention it. The carry handle on the product is removable like on the real M4a1 along with most Airsoft replicas out there. It is well done, a solid structure, and easy to get the handle on and off. This part of the gun I have absolutely not problems with and TSD Sports produces this part of the gun just as well as any company out there it seems. The iron sights are also metal pieces of the gun, realistic, and done the same way as every Colt modeled Airsoft gun I have had the pleasure of using. They do seem to wobble a little bit though; I will make an update if this ever becomes more of a problem.





The stock feels pretty solid, I always make sure to check on this point because this is the part of the gun which typically receives the most physical stress, and if it is weak is the most likely part to break off. So far so good, and shows no obvious signs of any problems. The only way to tell is to really use the gun for several months which I have not yet done, but once I do I will report back if anything goes wrong. For now however, you can assum the quality to be good. The stock is also adjustable allowing you to make it easier to shoulder in the case that you are outdoors with space, or easier to maneuver in the event you are indoors and in a CQB situation. This stock is adjustable to six positions, not the usual four. This does not make that much of a difference but you can never complain with more options. This would be a perfect time to point out something which may be obvious to some when looking at the picture, but this outer barrel is shortened. This is the Commando version as TSD Sports calls it and is not the M4a1 model which would have the extended barrel. I would not expect much difference in performance between the two guns besides the obvious maneuverability implications of one being shorter than the other. For those of you interested in close quarters action, you may want to choose this model over the M4a1 model. Otherwise there will not be much of a difference.





Performance

At this point in the reviewing process the gun had already blown me away. It was far superior to the Boys AEG by Tokyo Marui, which felt like a flimsy toy in comparison. This gun was definitely made for big kids to play with. Since the product had far surpassed all expectations so far I was expecting a flop on the performance when shooting. I kept thinking there was no way it could fire at even the lower end of the advertised (330 – 380 FPS), and I anticipated many feeding issues. I was waiting for issues that would never come.

The manufacturer’s claims of 330-380 FPS are extremely generous. The gun advertises a M110 spring on the front as well, which should tell you right there that both statements can not be true. It shoots about at where an M110 would, 320-330 FPS which is still impressive for the gun, but is not 380 FPS. Either way this gun is slightly upgraded above the standard velocity for AEGs which is about 280 (what Marui’s are), but it does seem that the new standard is becoming this 330ish range, as most new companies are putting their velocities at or around that mark. I personally think the velocity is a perfect velocity for skirmishing and seems to be a good balance between performance and durability in Airsoft products.





I did some research on the product and saw some complaints of BB’s jamming, misfeeding, double firing etc. but did not experience anything like that at all. The gun actually fed perfectly through several hi-capacity magazines, and the hop-up unit seemed to get the job done as I was able to put considerable hop on the BB’s with no effects on feeding or anything like that. The gun shot consistently, and was fairly accurate. I would not say it is as accurate as a Marui out of the box, but it is perfectly acceptable and will undoubtedly do well in the field once I get out there with it. While this guns groupings may be an inch or even a couple inches wider than a Marui, this will not make all that much of a difference in your typical skirmish conditions. While firing it I used TSD Tactical (Stealth) .25g BB’s as that is what I have used for the past couple years fairly exclusively, and for most of my reviews as well.





An interesting point on the gun is that the rate of fire is noticeable slower than that of a Marui, and when firing it was the first thing I noticed. The box does point this out with this 720 RPM which is lower than the more expensive AEGs out there. I asked about this and they were able to confirm that they have a “standard motor” in it. I was firing with a 8.4v 600mAh battery which I felt was pretty standard for a mini battery, and I would consider even getting a 9.6v battery for this gun just to boost that ROF up a little bit. Do not get my wrong the 720 RPM is probably a plenty high enough ROF and may even benefit some who feel they run through ammo too quickly. As a side note I am not sure how the gun will handle a 9.6v battery as I have not tested it.





Magazine

The magazine like the body of the gun is shiny black, unlike the duller grays used by Marui’s. It is a metal magazine, and all signs point to it being your typical hi-capacity M16 magazine. Holds about 300 rounds, you wind it from the bottom, and it shoots nearly all 300 rounds. I like the fact that they went with the black just simply since it adds some variety out there. I have Airsoft Elite, G&P, G&G, Tokyo Marui magazines and now a TSD Tactical magazine and they are all slightly different in color. The magazine that came with this gun (the TSD Tactical magazine) is definitely the only one I would consider black, the others are shades of gray. This magazine has not yet been tested with time or in the field, but seems to be fairly reliable for now. The gun is compatible with other magazines. I have tested it with the Tokyo Marui M16 hi-caps and it worked flawlessly. I will update this section if I run into any sort of trouble or anything noteworthy concerning magazines.



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Other Notes

All things on this gun appear to be designed off of the Marui version. Obviously they are both off of the real version of the gun which causes most of the similarities, but in addition to that all of the little functions of the gun are what you would expect if you have experience with other Airsoft guns of this type. For example the battery loads as expected in the front fore grip. There is plenty of space for the 8.4v mini battery and I would assume though I have not tried that the specialized M4 mini batteries that are out there would work just the same. The ‘T’ charging handle can be pulled back, and it will reveal the hop-up unit where the shell would normally be ejected in the real steel version. The hop up unit is the usual M16 hop-up with the wheel, forward for more hop backwards for less. The similarities to both the Marui version and the real steel version open up a lot of possibilities for aftermarket parts and accessories. So far it seems like anything out there (as mentioned on the box) would be compatible with the product despite its drastically lower price tag.





The sights as mentioned are fully adjustable just like the real M4a1, one knob for moving it up and down the other for horizontal movement. You also have the two different sights, one which is smaller for taking closer aim, and you can switch between them by flipping it up or down. This gun is also as you would expect sling ready, it has sling swivels on either side of the gun in order to attach any sort of a sling you might want. The gun also sports a metal gearbox, steels gears, metal outer barrel, metal hop-up unit, and according to the box is “upgradeable and compatible with aftermarket parts and accessories.”



Overall

Overall the performance out of the box is unbeatable at the price it sells at. What you get is a gun that is skirmish ready and competes with nearly any AEG on the field, and also is externally acceptable. You obviously will need to buy a battery and maybe another magazine or two, but for a decent price you will be ready to go. The big question on this product as with any product is how long will this last? Out of the box it seems too good to be true to have a solid gun shooting 330, for less than $200 total. The gun if it proves to be durable would be an incredible buy and would definitely shift the Airsoft world overtime to these lower priced AEGs. Although this gun is not as smooth, and has not yet mastered the perfection in every aspect as a Marui, it does come a long way in that direction. I plan on doing further tests on the durability of the product. I would imagine that durability would not be as good as a Marui but it does not have to be at that level to be worth the price. But then again it is not fair to assume that it will break easier simply because the price is lower. I hope that some readers can post their comments and their experiences so we can get a better feel for how long this gun will last without some serious maintenance. If you have experience with working on guns this also may not be a bad deal, since if it does break you probably can fix it just like any other AEG out there and keep it running for a bargain price.

I am always wary when offering up guns to new airsofters out there, because I never would want someone’s first Airsoft experience to be of a broken gun they can not fix. At the same time I know that if I was a new airsofter I probably would have bought a product like this, since it is cheap and has pretty much everything the more expensive AEGs have to offer. To experienced airsofters this is a economical way of adding to your arsenal. If you have the urge to get a CQB gun, an M4, or just something new this may not be a bad way to go since it will not be your primary and taking on a full load of action and will be cheaper than most other options.

Hope you all enjoyed the review! Please post comments and make sure to check out this gun’s video review!



- Meatball