Iron Airsoft/Matrix No.1 Mk 3 SMLE Review

Looks like the quality control is none existent.
How much did they cost?

Thanks for posting that, cracking review. Rather sad that it`s so pants, for £250 I`d expect quite a reasonable performance out of the box. A great shame that they didn`t concentrate on a springer SMLE though, I wouldn`t mind if the gun was VSR based with the mag in the wrong place, at least it would give some service.

Looks like the quality control is none existent.
How much did they cost?

Yeah, it's a shame really. They cost £250-260, including import duties. They're not a patch on my Cyma M14, which I bought for less and is far more accurate. Saying that, having stripped it down there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the design- it's just poorly built. I guess I tend to look at things as a project- a habit that has got me into a lot of trouble!
The alternative (SnS) ones are quite a lot more expensive, but they actually work! By the time we've finished with these ones, I wouldn't be surprised if they cost the same in reality.
Oh, one thing we have found is they can (just) fit a 640mm barrel

Edit: I forgot to update the review- Evike are sending us out a new magazine, new breech strip (not sure what the proper name is) and a new gas seal for the bolt. We'll keep you guys updated!

Interesting stuff... yes if the quality control issues could be sorted out and they could be tuned to a consistent velocity then they would be good.

Of course being gas guns, tuning is so, so much harder.

I did like the action... seemed nice and fluid, most of the time... so like a real one.

Until the quality control is sorted there may be a few cheap boneyard ones about ripe for a project

Great review chaps, Matrix being a rebranded China manufacturer I didn't hold much hope for quality control.

If spares were made avaliable I might of been intrested in picking one up. But.... For £250 quid it also seems a bit expensive for a project gun. Shame there wasn't an inbetween a Denix and the Matrix for a conversion. Or is there one I don't know of??

Stu

well for £100 less than the G+G Kar98 its bound to have flaw's, just think of half way between a dboys and G+Gkar 98 ,it's a real poor show that both turned up flawed but there seem's to be promise and evike seem to be up to the mark with customer support.good luck and keep us posted.

Yes Evike are excellent with their customer support & Service , im currently dealing with them about the issue(s).

like badger has said its a mixed bag atm.

Also I have to appologise about the quality of the vid, my camera/camcorder seems to be on its last legs!

I'm glad to hear Evike are doing there bit, thier customer service a few years ago was a bit questionable.

As long as they havent pulled "Well you taking the bolt out has made your waranty void" or some crap like that.

Good luck! I am suprised tho that another china company hasn't just cloned it yet.

Hi all, just thought I'd update you with the progress of the Lee Enfields, Evike has sent out a whole rifle as a replacement unfortunately it's plagued with the same problems.

1 lowish non consistent fps 60fps - 356fps - looking into the cause

2 hammer force / mag release valve spring - hammer too weak or release valve spring too strong

1 out of the 3 we have is firing fine after fetling, consistent 430fps & by consistent it's around that ballpark give or take 10fps..... More to come later

I take it you sent your old rifle back too them?

Would be nice to see what you have done to make it work.

Stu

-/+ 10 fps is ok at 430fps, any scope for lowering it to 350fps?

I take it you sent your old rifle back too them?

Would be nice to see what you have done to make it work.

Stu

Nope, they just sent another so we randomly ended up with 3 Rifles! And one of them works... 1 out of 3 aint bad is it?

Dadio: Yes, definitely. The easiest way would be to put a washer style restriction in the gas pathways, though it would take some trial and error to get it right. Another way would be to fiddle with the bolt/valve mechanism- a stiffer spring in the valve would do the job, or a weaker spring in the bolt.

Actually, as Beaver mentioned above, it would seem the majority of the misfire/low fps issues come from the valve or the bolt. I've spent a long time playing with it, and I just can't seem to free up the valve enough to get consistent performance on the other guns. I think the major source of the issue is the main O-ring seal in it. However one valve operates flawlessly (on the good gun)- so we aint touching that one! Unfortunately replacement valves are not available.

As said above, we'll post a video with what we've experienced once (if!) we have them working properly.

is it the release valve in the mag? if so does the mag give consistent power in both gun's ? or is it in the gun

is it the release valve in the mag? if so does the mag give consistent power in both gun's ? or is it in the gun

Aye, it's the release valve and it's in the mag. When we put the good mag into one of the other guns it fired much more reliably, and from memory at about 350 fps.

[...]try increase fps by using heavier BBs and a tightbore barrel[...]

How does using a heavier BB increase FPS?

How does using a heavier BB increase FPS?

I have heard that heavier BBs help up to a point because the gas pushes against it for longer and it gets more fps (Kind of similar to a real gun)

Nope, heavier bbs lower the fps. That why some try to cheat the chrono by using .25 bbs instead of .2s

Upon further research rather than just listening to a friend, the fps does indeed go down - it is the energy that increases, my mistake.

Maybe do some more research on how the energy will increase (?) if the BB is heavier

In a nutshell:
- a given volume of expelled gas/air will transfer M Joules worth of energy
- in South Africa, our energy limit for automatic weapons is 1.5J - while translates to 400FPS with a 0.20g BB
- if your gun is producing 1.5J of energy, it will impart that same 1.5J of energy to every BB, REGARDLESS of the BB weight
- taking the SA example (400FPS w/ 0.20g BB = 1.5J):
1) if the energy is kept constant at 1.5J (which it should, given an unchanged spring/gas release) and the BB weight is increased, the max FPS will decrease; using a 0.25g BB, the FPS will drop to roughly 350
2) conversely, if the energy is kept constant and the BB weight is decreased, the max FPS will increase; a gun firing a 0.25g BB at 350FPS will fire a 0.20g BB at a much higher FPS

- very important: THE WEIGHT OF THE BB HAS ZERO IMPACT ON THE AMOUNT OF ENERGY TRANSFERRED WITH EACH SHOT - this is determined by the strength of the spring/gas release and the bore of the gun

There is a lot of material on-line regarding this topic, and I would strongly suggest that you read it before going onto the field and causing an accident People tend to place a rather high value on their eyes and teeth...

The gun can fit a 640mm barrel- just. It helps to loosen the nosecap and gives the extra 3mm or so needed to hide the end of the inner barrel
BTW I removed the nosecap through very careful application of heat to melt the glue.

We've managed to get both guns shooting at about 430 FPS, and reliably, but the magazine is currently plagued by leaks. We haven't done too much on it recently due to being distracted with building a car and wotnot