ECHO 1 M28... An In-depth Review

[kirzach]

And that is, perhaps, the biggest mistake of many a fledgling sniper - FPS does not make the gun. Case in point, a certain Kokusai classic gas-powered M16 carbine, shooting no hotter than 400 FPS yet still capable of making 90 meter shots accurately.

Accuracy is more important with a sniper rifle than power. To a degree, power, accuracy, and range all go hand-in-hand. But honestly, when I upgrade sniper platforms, the first thing I do is try to get the best accuracy out of the gun. Max FPS is of only secondary concern to me. That's what I was referring to with my comment about the M28's out-of-box performance. I don't care how powerful it is if it can't hit the broad side of a barn.

[DRAGON64]

[DRAGON64]

This is a work in progress, and will be updated often...

Table of Contents:

History
Ordering
Basic Information
First Impressions
Included
Rifle Specifications
Externals
Magazines
Performance
Internals
Modifications
Pros/Cons
Overall


History
Introduced in 1988 as the Army's designated sniper weapon system, the M24 SWS the first bolt action rifle to see dedicated service with the US Army since the .30-06 caliber Springfield Model 1903. Chambered for 7.62mm NATO (.308 Winchester) the M24 is based on the Remington Arms 700 action and is very similar to the civilian 40X target rifle and the Marine Corp's M40 series rifle.

As with the M40, the M24 utilizes a custom-built fiberglass stock but with an adjustable cheek pad as well as an adjustable pad on the butt stock to adjust length of pull. Both utilize an internal 5 round magazine, are scoped, and are adaptable to the use of night vision devices and weapon scopes. The greatest difference between the two is the fact that the M40 is a "short" action and the M24 is a "long" action. The reason for this difference is the Army ultimately wanted to adopt a more powerful .30 caliber cartridge (such as the .300 Winchester Magnum) which would require the "long" action to extract the larger cartridges in its re-chambered sniper rifles.
The M24 Sniper Weapon System is a bolt-action rifle chambered to fire 7.62mm NATO. The Kevlar-reinforced fiberglass stock is custom built and incorporates an adjustable cheek pad and as well as an adjustable pad on the butt stock to adjust length of pull. The 24" barrel is bolted to the full-length aluminum bedding block in the stock to reduce vibration and loss of zero. The scope is a Leupold & Stevens Mk. IV M3A day telescope and is mounted on the rifle using Mk. IV rings and base.
Paraphrased from the following source:
http://tech.military.com/equipment/view ... rifle.html





Ordering

The rifle in this review was obtained from Airsoft GI, taking advantage of a holiday sale of 15% off total order plus free shipping, Airsoft GI provided acceptable customer service for the sale. The retail price of the ECHO 1 M28 is $175.00. This appears to be right in line as a direct competition with the UTG and WELL L96 rifles, to include the WELL MB04 and MB05 platforms. The ECHO 1 M28 price also comes in far under the price range of well established Tokyo Marui VSR-10 platforms. Although comparing Tokyo Marui to ECHO 1 is like comparing apples to oranges, the platform rifles are similar in size and appearance, and this was deemed appropriate for the comparison.

http://www.airsoftgi.com/product_info.p ... ts_id=7404

Basic Information

The ECHO 1 M28 is a bolt action sniperā€™s rifle. The rifle has adjustable hop-up, accessed by a slide lever on the left side of the barrel. The rifle is equipped with a functioning safety switch, which can be engaged at any point of rifle usage. This rifle can, in NO-WAY, accept real steel components, and therefore cannot be made to fire real rounds. It is a simple spring piston design.

First Impressions

The M28 is packaged in a half Styrofoam, half cardboard container, with each rifle component having its own separate compartment for storage and shipment. Out of the box, the M28 grabs your attention as the weight is impressive, and the gun feels quite solid. The stock makes up much of the weight and is nicely balanced. The exterior is textured nicely for a comfortable grip. The barrel, trigger group and bolt assembly groups are pre-assembled and also feel quite solid. The barrel assembly and stock assembled with three screws, two of which are socket head cap screws for mounting at the rear and middle of the assembly, and the third is the screw mount for the bipod. There are no creaks shakes or wiggles, and the build quality seems to me to be the best I have seen yet, for the price range. I say this as I only have two other Sniperā€™s rifle platforms to compare this rifle to; and these are the WELL and TSD VSR-10ā€™s, and the WELL, UTG and Tokyo Marui L96ā€™s. The biggest short-fall of this rifle lies with the two supplied magazines, which I cover in-depth further down in this review. The M28 brings back very nice military styling with this new rifle. This rifle is completely void of trades.



Included

Included in the box is a two 18-round mid capacity magazines, a small speed loader, an Allen wrench, bipod, barrel extension adapter, un-jamming rod which also doubles as a cleaning rod (see picture). There are no manuals supplied with this product.





External Fit and Finish

The gun uses a solid stock, which closely mimics the real m24 in shape size and weight. The stock has a texture to it that can only be described as ā€œRhino-Liner.ā€ The stock is also ambidextrous and seems to fit comfortably deep into the palm of the shooters hand, as seen by the width in the palm area in the picture below. The barrel assembly is fluted, and appears to be of very nice quality. The paint on the barrel is easily chipped. The barrel assembly mounts solid to the stock, with the afore mentioned screws.

The bipod, when mounted seems a little loose, but works as designed. It remains to be decided whether I will run with the bipod attached, as the rifle is hefty without it. It should be noted, that the rifle balanced nicely just in front of the trigger guard, with the bipod attached. This is due in part to the nice adjustable shoulder pad at the rear of the stock. With the bulk of the weight aft, and balance at or near the leading hand, the rifle is not front heavy. This should keep the player from getting fatigued from aiming for long lengths of time, since the rifle is not overly front heavy. With the supplied bipod and without bbā€™s, the ECHO 1 M28 weighs in at a hefty 9 lbs.

The bolt handle seems a little small, but appears to be quality made. It has a much more comfortable feel than the VSR-10 handle. The only wobble noted is in the bolt assembly, as it would seem that the bushings surrounding the bolt are a little loose in tolerance. The bolt also makes noises that I find hard to describe; but the sounds are related to the spring, as it gets bound during the charging operation.










There are no iron sights on the rifle, but the rifle is outfitted with a small top mount weaver rail that will accept most any rifle scope. The scope and rings selected should allow for use with larger goggles such as Arena Flak Jakā€™s or a paintball masks.

The safety selector lever sits on top of the rifle, at the back of the charging handle, and is activated by the shooters thumb. Although not ambidextrous, as I am a righty who shoots lefty, the selector lever works very crisply into each position.

The orange safety tip is removable, with a little force, so that the player can install barrel extensions and mock silencers using the supplied adapter. But once the orange tip is removed, the player also has a very nice ā€˜bullā€™ barrel sniper rifle, should the use of a barrel extension or silencer not be employed. It should be noted, that the orange tip appeared to be mounted to the rifle tip while the paint on the barrel was still wet. I mention this because the tip was removed with little or no effort, and the process removed some of the paint exposing some of the raw metal surface underneath. I will also mention here, that when you unscrew the barrel tip from the rifle, you will see that the exposed inner barrel is full length and fits flush with the outer barrel.



The fit and finish of all components are, are quite acceptable in quality. There are no gaps between any components, and everything is held together very securely. Color wise, all painted parts are a flat black, and the plastic components are a very, very dark black. The finish applied to the metal components does not hold up well, and has so far not resisted scratching.



Trademarks

The ECHO 1 M28 is utterly naked of trademarks or text, save for the small sticker over the hop adjust slide lever on the receiver.



Magazines

There are two magazines included in the ECHO 1 M28 package. Sadly, the magazines are by and far the short-fall of the ECHO 1 M28. The magazines are a stark contrast to the rest of the rifle, as they do not share the care and quality that was put into the rifle platform over all. The magazines are made of the cheapest light weight materials, that require some care in handling. The magazine operation appears to jam in the spring release operation, so installation into the rifle is not straight forward, the player will need to take some time when installing so as not to damage the magazine. I have made two videos that can better communicate the issues with these magazines. Should the magazines fail, I will produce a third that will document the fallout. Once installed, the magazines appear to work as designed, but time will tell.





The magazines have are a design that was attempted to merge two well know designs into one; The VSR-10 and the WELL/UTG L96 magazines. See the pics and video below for more detail.


UTG mag on the left, and a VSR-10 mag on the right of the M28 magazine


The loading nozzle of the UTG magazine


The loading nozzle of the VSR-10 magazine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZOJkDTyzx4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jlwwncN_XU

Performance

The ECHO 1 M28 is advertised as the hottest shooting rifle out of the box, firing a hot 500+ (plus) fps using .20 bbā€™s!! I just received a new Chrony, so I will be testing the performance of the rifle over time with various weight bbā€™s. As I continue to evaluate this rifle, I will update this section with performance results

Pics of performance review to follow testingā€¦

Internal Build

I will not open the rifle until the warranty has expired (30-days). Until then, I can report that the rifle is sporting a measured 6.03 tight bore barrel. Although measuring the internal diameter of the barrel at one end with a digital caliper is not conclusive, it is encouraging.



The trigger box is very familiar, as it is the 45 degree trigger borrowed from the VSR-10 family. The trigger box and components are all metal, and lends itself to all kinds of trigger tuning. Although not necessary, the trigger could really benefit from a two stage configuration. This would have been a nice compliment to the all metal construction.





Firing the gun is a nominal!! The pull on the bolt is quite strong, and the pull on the trigger is extremely light. I like that; no resistance on the trigger will allow the player to make more consistent shots on target.

Modifications

Currently I have no modifications planned for this rifle. Not to mention, that the platform is so new, that non exist for much of the rifle, although Airsoft GI reports that their upgraded trigger components will fit with little or no modifications. Any do it yourself (DIY) mods that I perform will be added here, but other than a thorough cleaning, there is little DIY mods to do. I will point out that the ECHO 1 M28 comes with barrel spacers pre-installed, so there will be no need for DIY electrical tape spacers to be added.

Pros/Cons

Pros
Strong external build
Solid design
The rifle is well balanced
Adjustable stock
Spare magazine
Addition of barrel extension adapter
Cocking handle is strong
Hits hard at 500+ stock fps (not yet chronoā€™d)
Lower MSRP than established bolt action rifles with expensive upgrades
Comes with rail mount
Can take abuse and keep rockā€™n


Cons

Magazines are sub-standard
No manual supplied with the rifle
No trades (does not really matter to me that muchā€¦)
500 fps stock velocity is a bit high for stock components. There is a concern of part durability with the strong spring
Possibly no replacement parts available so early in the release
The rifle is heavy at 9 lbs

Overall

The ECHO 1M28 is a solid choice for anyone in the market for a hard hitting sniperā€™s rifle! The build quality is very nice, although quite plain, and the rifles performance is quite exceptional. The M28 also looks to be a solid upgrading platform, especially as the rifle gains in popularity. Hopefully, someone will pick up on the platform and start pumping out some nice durability upgrades. I personally feel that this platform would be a better choice for upgrading, as it is such a solid and sharp looking design. Future purchasers of this rifle will not be disappointed in their investment.

My Platform

Pictured below are some of the external modifications, if you can all it that; they included the inclusion of a Madbull ā€œBlacksideā€ mock silencer, and a UTG 4X40 illuminated reticule scope. For the near future I will add a nice M700 style sling, and that will be all that this rifle needs.











I will update the thread as I get additional helpful information, my goal is to shoot this rifle in stock form until it breaks, however long that may be. With any luck, when and if I do need a replacement part, the rifle will have lasted long enough that replacement components will be availableā€¦ thus the dark side of Beta testing a virgin product.

[Fluffy Boy 32]

Great review!

[Fridge Gnome]

Does it look like the stock would fit a vsr?

[DRAGON64]

[DRAGON64]

Since I now own a chrony machine, I thought it would be appropriate to test the advertised power of the ECHO1 M28, which is advertised at 500+ (plus) fps. In this test, I used the advertised weight bb, which is .2 grams, and I used a BB that I plan to run, which is .3 grams. Truth in advertising, this rifle shot right at the advertised fps of 500+ as seen in this video that my daughter shot for me today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z5bxuQu0yc

[DRAGON64]

I have been wanting to make a visual change to the over-all sniper's platform surrounding the M24 (M28). The change I am referring to has to do with the scope; I am unhappy with the scope I currently have mounted, and I want something that looks more like a sniper's scope instead of a hunter's scope. So here is what I am considering:

http://www.airsoftpost.com/product_info ... s_id=29201

I know that some airsoft sniper's have mounted Action M3 replicas on their rifles, but I have not researched it much to know if these are still available. I did not want to spend a huge amount of money on a new scope, is the reason why I linked to the EVIKE product.

Any thoughts from you snipers out there?

For future reference, I will be referring to the ECHO1 M28 as the M24, as this is what the rifle is supposed to represent after-all...

[Fridge Gnome]

Depends on what you want, for airsoft, all scopes are pretty much the same besides look and magnification.

[DRAGON64]

[DRAGON64]

Review Continued - Internal Components

Continuing on, I will review the internal components of the M28 from ECHO1. A dayn or so after Christmas (2010) I set up a small shooting table and rest, and tried to sight in the scope on the M28 by targeting a paper target at 40 yards.





Much to my disappointment, in two full mags I could not get the scope sighted in, nor did I ever hit the box. 40 yards (120ft) should have been a walk in the park, but even with the scope removed, I could not hit the box. The issue was, that te BB's tracked right and left when fired. It was obvious to me, that the hop up arm had too much lateral movement, causing the BB's to spin sideways. Other than that, the hop worked as designed as far as altitude and distance are concerned.

Needless to say, I could not wait for the warranty to expire in order to dive into the internals...

Action Assembly

The outer barrel is made from thick aluminum; the aluminum is 3/16" (.1375"/3.5mm) thick in the barrel length, and is nominally thin in the hop up areas. By nominally, I am referring to the standard thickness airsoft outer barrel.

Pictured next is he inner barrel, hop up and barrel spacers.



The barrel spacers are a nice addition, as I always disliked the DIY mod of wrapping electrical tape around rhe inner barrel to make my own. The ECHO1 M28 conveniently comes with three. I will note however, that although the spacers fit tight on the inner barrel, they fit somewaht loose inside of the outer barrel. It would seem that the spacer could benefit from abigger o-rings, or a wrap for two of teflon tape to better close the air-gap between the spacer and the outer barrel.



The hop up is a slightly modified VSR-10 hop up unit. There is really only 1 improvement, and that is the addition of a 3rd screw to keep the two halfs of the hop up unit closed together. I will note here, that I have no experience with a quality Tokyo Marui hop unit, all of my VSR-10 hop experience lies with the WELL and TSD clones. If you are familiar with the VSR-10 hop unit at all, albeit a clone or a TM, you would note the 3rd screw addition in the upper right hand area of the hop up unit as seen in the next picture.



Here is the hop up disassembled, note the cut on the inner barrel where the bucking would located.



closer look...



Here I would like to point out a major difference between the M28 hop and the VSR-10, and that is the hop up arms; pictured are the M28 (white) and a WELL clone VSR-10 hop up arm. The M28 has omitted half of the slot that the adjustment slide rod moves in, and the nubs are 1/16" (.0625"/1.6mm) shorter than that of the WELL arm.



As I stated at the intro to this post, the rifle was shooting left and right, and getting this far into the inner workings of the hop up is exactly where I wanted to be to find the problem.

Two other notable change between the M28 and the WELL, has to do with the hop up adjuster assembly. First off, mine was missing the o-ring that goes around the barrel, where the two halves of the adjuster slide screws together. Also, where the little nub sticks out to register the clicks you feel when you are adjusting the hop, it is made of the same white plastic as the other components. The nub on the WELL clone is made of brass or copper, is much more durable.



Removed from the hop up enclosure, the nub and spring ejected themselve...what a pain that could be to re-install.



That is pretty much it for the barrel side of the action. I will disassemble the receiver and delve a little closer into the cylinder and trigger assembly in the next continuation of my review.

[DRAGON64]

While I was reviewing the barrel side of the action, I developed a small plan and set of mods to help with the rifles tendancy to shoot left and right. Here is how the hop unit looks now, and I will outline what changes were made.



As you can see, this a far cry from the M28 original parts which used allwhite plastic parts. Essentiall I replaced all of the platic M28 components with the WELL VSR-10 clone parts that I salvaged from a WELL MB07 that fell apart sometime back.

I also replaced the hop rubber with one that came with the WELL MB07, as the M28 hop rubber was a shiney gummy-bear of a bucking...



To start, I replaced the above mentioned components with what I had on hand, which were old WELL components. I also replaced the M28 barrel with a suitable WELL barrel, that had a standard VSR-10 cut on the end.

I added the teflon tape mod to the bucking...



Finally, I cheaply modified what I feel is the most important issue that was causing the rifle to shoot left and right, and that was adding tape to the hop up arm pivot pin.



I noticed ealier, that when the slide was actuated, the hop up arm would skew to oneside due to the slack tolerance between the pin and the pivot hole in the arm. This skew would allow the nubs on the hop up arm to move to the side of the bb, thus causing it fire left or right. I added a little electrical tape to take up some of the slack, and this seems to have ultimately fixed the left right issue with the rifle.



Mind you, I have only fired two full magazines through the rifle since this fix, but every shot has been straight and true. Without a scope or iron sight, I was able to sight down the barrel and hit a 4" diameter tree trunk from 80ft...

Now admittedly, I am not an advocate for UPGRADE UPGRADE UPGRADE!! that so many airsofters love to talk about, but I believe that this rifle could benefit from a new quality hop up bucking like the Nine ball, and maybe a nice VSR-10 cut barrel... remains to be seen how I will feel about the receiver side of the action, as to whether or not I would deem it necessary for upgrading... that section is in my next installment of this in-depth review.

To finish this fix up, I will video the rifle on the chronograph again...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuPkUpQaVyA

[DMSummerhill]

i have an echo 1 m28 that i received yesterday and as i was test firin, i noticed that my bbs were rollin out of the end of the barrel when angled down. the warranty still covers it so im goin to try to get it fixed/replaced. i will let yall know the outcome.

[kirzach]

Stupid question, but was your hop up off? I've had that happen before, turned off the hop and when a round was chambered it rolled right down and out.

[Fridge Gnome]

So it comes with a bull barrel?

It seems that echo 1 has at least made a good start on a proper sniper rifle. But the change in hop up arm seems strange since that piece helps stabilize the arm...