upgraded clone vs. upgraded real thing

[gvanzeggelaar]

I have been reading a lot lately about the vsr-10 and the cheap knockoff versions from jg and agm..... and its pretty clear that you pay for what you get. The tm is a far superior gun. I was wondering i you are planing to upgrade the clone anyway such as zero trigger, new piston, cylinder etc.. wouldnt that shoot just as well as an vsr-10 with the same upgrades. Or am i getting this wrong.
Thanks in advance.

[Greylocks]

You answered yourself. Think about it.

[Drake]

It's a weakest link in the chain kinda deal, really. It really depends what you're starting with and what you'll be swapping out. I can think of a few examples:

In the Doctor's Corner section, someone recently posted about a Well MP7 clone they'd upgraded; clear body aesthetics aside, the gun is advertised as being an exact clone which is "fully TM compatible." The upgrades fit, so in terms of sizing this was true, but not in terms of build quality as the mechbox ended up breaking pretty fast.

Had the power upgrade not been installed, the mechbox would probably have been okay, but given the lower quality of the mechbox you have to assume other parts (like gears) will be prone to breaking sooner.

On the other hand, you have people who purchased XM8 kits and threw in G36 internals from TM or other brand guns, and/or aftermarket parts. Looking at it, the body isn't particularly stunning, but I've seen folks do paint jobs and other cosmetic work on it and it ended up looking okay. This one worked, but you still needed to have or buy a "proper" G36 for parts (or buy those parts piecemeal).

Some low end guns have crappy internals and externals, and given the Canadian market prices for them it just doesn't make sense; by the time you're done buying upgrade parts to "fix" it, it'll have cost you as much as a proper gun would have to begin with, minus the grief and effort.

There are SOME guns which are appealing for this kind of project however, namely the relatively inexpensive full metal AK-74SUs coming out of China. But like the XM8s, it's more about buying an inexpensive body so you can drop in good internals.

Much like building a gun from aftermarket parts, this usually comes out more expensive than buying a decent gun to start, and is really only an option when no other alternative exists (such as with the XM8s, or FN2000s) or when you have a specific gun in mind which can only be achieved with conversion kits etc. e.g., if you really wanted a Stag Arms receiver (King Arms) with a LaRue rail (Element or other Chinese clones, or a real one), a Magpul CRT stock (Magpul CTS or Chinese clone) and a realistically-size AN/PEC for the battery (VFC); there are too many parts from too many different sources, and if you started with an off-the-shelf gun, you'd end up with most of a complete gun in leftover parts (I've built three this way, so far, trust me).

But then nobody sets off to do something like that expecting it to be cheap, if only because of the price of the aftermarket parts involved.