TSDTactical/SRC Gen II G36 E2 Rifle

A while back, I had been planning to buy a G36 variant for some time. I owned a JG G36C that I ending up selling to one of my team-members. One of the other members has a highly upgraded Tokyo Marui G36C, and another member has one of the Classic Army full length G36 rifles......so I had previously seen and used several of the G36 rifles that are available. The Classic Army G36 rifles initially were the most attractive to me, because of the unique look and feel of the fiber-reinforced ABS, that the body is made of. However, the plastic proved itself to not be as strong as most people would imagine when the person in my group who owns the CA G36 tripped-over, and snapped the folding stock in half! That still didn't change my opinion in general on the CA rifles, but it made me realize that they are less "Super" than they pretend to be.

So, I decided after seeing the specs, that I would go out on a limb and purchase the new SRC GenII G36 E2. I liked the look of the gun much better than the regular G36, or G36K series, thanks to the long top rail as seen on the G36C rifles. I purchased the rifle from a new eBay retailer, who had the rifle listed for $169.99, with $29.99 shipping. The rifle was at my door 3 business days after the payment was sent, which I thought was phenomenal!

The Box

The box that the rifle came in was rather bland in nature, and nothing special to look at, so I didn't include a photo of it here. The negative thing about the box is that it does not have any kind of form fitted support for the rifle inside. There were basically two layers of foam, one above, and one below the rifle, but nothing to stop it from sliding around in the box. Of course, there isn't much to harm the gun inside the box, because it does not come with either a battery or a charger. The markings on the outside of the box make it obvious that the rifle is marketed by TSD, but manufactured by SRC in Taiwan.

Box Contents

SRC G36 E2 Rifle (Duh!)
Short instruction manual, in good English
SRC Catalog
Cleaning/jam rod
200 .20g BBs
2 x Hi-Cap Magazines

Some people may like the fact the fact that the package includes an extra magazine instead of a battery and charger.....I certainly do......but others may be disappointed that they are required to buy a battery and charger separately. I personally never use the horrible 8.4v batteries that come with most new Echo1 guns, or the cruddy plug in chargers, so the lack of both of these items was fine with me.

Advertised Specs

Weight: 2790.0g
Barrel Length: 495mm
Barrel Caliber: 6.08
Bullet Capacity: 470
Bullet : 6mm BB
Initial Bullet Speed: 350 fps
Battery Type: Mini Type
Gear Box: Version 3

The Exterior

Let's get this straight before I go on......The exterior materials and construction of this rifle are no-where close to the quality of a Classic Army, or Tokyo Marui rifle. I never had any misconceptions that it would be. It is however quite good, and as usual with the G36 series of rifle, the body is very solid and suffers from no flex whatsoever. Some web sites that sell this rifle state that the body is fiber-glass (glass-fiber or whatever they think it is), but after looking closely at the material, it appears to simply be ABS plastic, and not any kind of fiber reinforced material. The Classic Army G36 rifles are obviously fiber-reinforced because you can see and feel it in the plastic, but that's simply not the case with this rifle.

The gun weighs in at around 10 pounds, which is significantly heavier than that of the Classic Army G36 series. This is due to the multiple extra metal parts on this rifle, that are usually plastic on the competing guns. Personally I like a heavier gun, so this one feels great to me.



The front end of the rifle is tipped with a metal flash-hider. Please excuse the photo, because I re-attached the flash-hider after I had stripped it, and applied the first layer of primer, just for the sake of these photos. The flash hider was of course blaze orange, as per the law. The paint was a little more resistant to my usual automotive paint stripper, and took several more applications of the chemical before it would strip off easily.....unlike the JG flash hiders that peel quickly and easily. In this photo you can also see the metal barrel, barrel connector and sling mount.



The markings on the side of the gun are not real trademarks, but they do look a lot like them. It consists of the SRCG36 logo, the real-steel caliber rating, a warning, and a "Made in Taiwan" mark. It also includes what appears to be a serial number, but I have no way of knowing if these are real serial numbers or not.

You can also see in this photo that the body pin that passes through the mag-well is a push-out type pin......another photo of these pins can be found further down the page.



The quality of the metal parts on the outside of the gun are not great, but acceptable. When you look closely, it's possible to see surface imperfections on the metal, under the paint. However, the metal appears to be thick and heavy in nature. When I pulled the rifle out of the box, the barrel connector was very loose on the barrel, but this was solved by simply tightening the hex head set screws on either side of the piece.



Below is a photo of one of the two metal body-pins included with the rifle. It's a solid lathed piece of metal, with a sprung ball near the end to lock it in place. I personally find this to be much nicer than the equivalent pins in the TM and CA and JG rifles.



I was pleasantly surprised to find that the entire charging handle is also metal on this rifle. None of the other G36 guns by other manufacturers employ metal for this entire part (that I know of). Even though again, the finish of the metal isn't the best in the world, it still feels nice and solid when you (pretend to) cock the gun, or pull back the slide to access the hop-up adjustment wheel.



All of the wiring in the front portion of the gun is the thin type, that tends be not incredibly flexible. It is still 16 gauge wire like in most AEGs, but the insulation is thin, and hard to the touch. While the wiring is acceptable, I will definitely be replacing it with Deans wire when my folding/retractable stock and battery come in the mail. The fuse doesn't want to seem to stay put in it's grove on this rifle, as it does on some of the other variants, which makes installing the front grip a bit more of a challenge than it should be. Again though, it could easily be solved by using a little electrical tape to hold the fuse in place......or just eliminate it completely like I plan to do.



The seam in the plastic on the top side of the front grip is quite evident, but not really any worse than most of the other rifles on the market.



This is the motor plate, and motor height adjustment screw......not much to say about this really, other than that the screw that helps to hold the gearbox in the grip has a hex-head on this rifle, as opposed to a phillips head on the Classic Army and Tokyo Marui rifles. This doesn't matter either way, it's just an observation.



Here you can see the hollow under-side of the metal charging handle, the metal cartridge ejection port (Hop-up cover) and the metal hop-up.



Here you can see the inside of the front grip. It appears to be regular plastic to me, because I don't see anything that is obviously fiber reinforcement......I do however see some molding imperfections in the form of bubbles on the bottom of this portion.



Below is the firing selector switch as found on the left side of the rifle. Once again the metal finish is no-where near as nice as the ones found on the CA, TM, or even the JG rifles. Even the white painted line bleeds over the edge of the switch just enough to make it look cheap. If someone was really worried about this, they could certainly purchase a set of replacement switches to spruce-up the look of the rifle a little......personally, I'm not worried about it, as long as they do what they are supposed to.



The switch on the other side is of course the same, except that the white line on the one in the photo below does not line up with the corresponding firing mode, as marked on the body of the rifle. :-(



This is a feature that I really like on this rifle, and have not seen on any of the others in the series. Not only is the mag-release made entirely of metal on this rifle, it also has an extension, that allows you to push the mag-release with your trigger, or middle finger. This is a welcome feature for me, because I have always had trouble pulling the magazine out of a standard G36C, while holding the mag-release with the same hand. This fixes that problem for me quite nicely.



In all of the photos and descriptions of this rifle at the various retailer on-line, all of the photos show a picture of fake bullets inside the magazine. I didn't like the idea of that at all, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found both mags to be devoid of any silly fake bullets! The magazines are very nicely made, have the markings in the right places, and closely resemble the CA and TM versions of the same mag. I have never liked the fact that the JG G36 magazines are solid black, and not transparent at all, because I like to be able to see my ammo level at a glance. The fact that the rifle comes with two hi-cap magazines is also a very nice value addition to the package. I would personally rather have an extra magazine than a crappy battery and charger, any day.



When the stock is folded, the rear end of this particular rifle is unlike any other that I've seen. For some reason the manufacturers decided to leave the back of the gun open, so that the gearbox is easily visible inside. It kind of reminds me of "Plumber's crack".....because while I don't particularly like looking at it, it's not going to do any harm, except to disgust the people that see it.



The folding stock is the only part of the rifle that is not particularly solid feeling. When it's locked in the un-folded position it's fine, and it's also fine when it's folded. However, when it's in the transition between folded and un-folded, this stock is extremely wobbly in nature. It almost feels like the pin that secures it to the hinge on the rear of the gun, isn't large enough to completely fill the hinge hole, and hold it securely......so it wobbles.



There were a few places, like the one shown below, where there were very noticeable marks or flaws on the plastic of the gun. I can't tell by looking at it, if this was the fault of a manufacturing defect, or from the lack of padding/support in the box.



I was so amazed at the various little reinforcements and extras that were included throughout the rifle. The photo below shows the rear sling mount, that is positioned right in front of the stock. On the JG G36, and maybe on the CA version (if my memory serves me correctly), this sling mount was purely plastic with no reinforcement. On this SRC rifle however, the plastic mount is obviously filled with a metal ring for added strength, which is one of the many additional metal parts that add to the strength and weight of this rifle.



Internals

Here we see the metal Hop-Up unit, underneath the magazine well. The unit is made of aluminum, and is apparently of quite stout construction...... hopefully more so than the other plastic units on the market.

Below is another shot of the metal Hop-Up and the front end of the gearbox. I got excited when I saw the brightly colored gearbox components! Don't ask me why.



After removing the gearbox and grip assembly from the body of the gun, I'm instantly impressed by the obvious good looks of the gearbox casing and attached components.



Left side shot of the gearbox and grip.



Left-side shot of the gearbox after being removed from the grip assembly.



Right-side shot of the gearbox. The metal bushings are clearly visible.



I took this close-up photo of the right side of the gearbox to illustrate a point. On the JG Version 3 gearbox, not only is the gearbox cast out of lesser quality aluminum, but the holes that the trigger assembly, and bushings fit into are very poorly cast and far from perfectly round. In the JG gearboxes, these holes have a lot of play, and allow the trigger assembly and bushings to move around. In contrast, on this SRC rifle, the holes are perfectly fitted to the trigger assembly and bushings, and do not allow any play in the parts. This makes the trigger feel a lot more solid than in the JG.



To me the gearbox casing appears to be a lot more on par with the likes of the CA gearboxes, than that of the JGs. As you can see below, the switch plate appears to be a little beefier than in the other MPEGs. It is perfectly straight, and does not bend easily, which cannot always be said for the JG switch plates.



Once the gearbox was removed, I could then see clearly inside of the grip assembly. One thing that I did notice is that the mechanism that the selector switch on the left of this photo joins onto, is a little wobbly, and noisy. The selector was tightened down all the way, but there is still a little play between the parts, that creates a tinny sound when the selector switches are moved.

Something else to note here, is that the little sprung button (I have no idea what it is supposed to do on the real-steel version), that pushes up on the inside of the trigger guard, is metal on this rifle, and plastic in other versions.



Ok, so the orange plastic spring guide is pretty hideous, but that's a nice looking gearbox! The quality of casting, inside the gearbox casing, is consistent with the outside. The metal bushings look good, and nothing is overly greased, like we sometimes find in the JG gearboxes.



Below is the SRC High Torque motor. It sounds fine, and does it's job, but I'm definitely going to order a TM EG1000 to replace it very soon, to make sure I have the highest level of efficiency possible. As you can see, the motor wires have actual connectors on the end, instead of soldering directly to the motor like some companies do.



Below is another shot of the gearbox. The gears are definitely reinforced steel, and the anti-reversal latch is one of the beefiest that I've seen. Even the blue plastic tappet plate appears to be slightly thicker than usual.....I just hope that doesn't affect being able to replace it with upgrade parts. Obviously, the cylinder is brass, and has no hole because of the long barrel.



In this photo we can see that the spring is not connected to the piston, like it is in several other versions, which makes it very easy to upgrade the spring. The spring is a 110 equivalent, but as you can see in the photo, it has not had the ends of the spring ground down into a flattened taper shape, like most springs have. When the ends of a spring are not properly flattened out, they tend to create a hole, or an indentation in the surface that supports it.....like the metal ring on the spring guide, or the inside of the piston.....I don't really mind though, because an SP120 spring will be installed in this puppy very soon.



Below we have a close-up shot of the piston and piston head. It's all pretty standard stuff here, except that the piston head is of the vented variety, unlike stock TM guns. The screw is easily accessible in the middle, for easy piston head replacement.



We can see here that the cylinder head is a standard single o-ring type....nothing fancy.



Stock FPS

I chronoed the rifle almost immediately after pulling it out of the box. My Laylax Chrono reported that the rifle currently fires at 354fps......which is almost exactly as advertised, and a very respectable muzzle velocity. I will of course be upgrading it very soon to at or above the 400fps mark.

Conclusion

I truly believe that this is a very nice rifle, and definitely worth the $200 price tag. I find that it is definitely better internally than the JG guns, but maybe not quite as good as the Classic Army equivalent. The exterior, even with the bonus metal parts, isn't quite as nice as some of the JG guns, in terms or appearance, but I do think that it might prove to be more durable, thanks to the various reinforcements throughout the body.

SRC's reputation was badly tarnished by their first generation line of guns, and several retailers refuse to carry their line of guns because of this fact. It really seems as if they have done a lot of R&D on this, their next (and second) generation of AEGS, and it seems that they have improved in many areas. I would definitely recommend this gun to anyone who is wanting a good full size G36 rifle, that is just a little better than the JG guns, but not quite as expensive as the CA version. The SRC G36 rifle also comes in two distinct variations, one with the full rail on the carry handle, and the other with the built in scope and carry handle like the CA36 rifle. These rifles are perfectly capable right out of the box since they fire at around 350fps, but they are also easy to upgrade, thanks to the pre-installed metal bushings.

Thanks for your time, and please feel free to message me on the forum for any questions on this rifle.

Excellent review, good evaluation of the gun overall, nice features. I even have nothing to add to it!!!
Definitely moved, and keep up the good work!!

Thanks, I have a few more that I'd like to add here. I work on quite a few guns, so I plan to review all of the newer ones as they pass through my hands.

Great review, and there are a lot of details where I agree with you! I'm missing grouping tests, though. It turns out that my SRC G36E2 shoots TERRIBLY -- so bad that I have difficulties hitting a man-size tree at 100ft, even with a 6.03 JBU tightbore, SystemA bucking, and H-nub! I'm still trying to figure out what the reason is. My upgraded JG G36C (6.02mm Deep Fire TTB, SystemA bucking, H-nub) shoots much better with its short barrel... :(

Jawz

maybe you got a lemon tbb?

I can easily shoot someone 175(an estimate)ft away with mine(with JBU 509mm tbb and G&P hop-up bucking).

And your G36C has a 6.02mm tbb...

Mine had a anodized blue cylinder that is too beautiful to be inside the gun...

This post has been edited by -(eset)-HX: May 9 2008, 10:03 PM

Good review I plan on buying one myself. Let me know if the spring and motor uprades work.

Strange, because that TBB works well in my ICS M4. Let me experiment a little bit with a different hop up sleeve.

And yes, the innards are kind of colorful, although I don't care too much for fashion statements inside the gun.

Jawz

How would the internals of this stand up to being used as a poor mans support weapon? I am tempted to pick up this, a bi-pod (assuming one is cheap or just wait for the SRC one to arrive soon), the cheap d-boys plastic c-mag and a pair of those butterfly/nunchuck 9.6v intellects. I would still fire in bursts but it would have alot of rounds through it... could it handle the strain?

And anyone know any good deals on a bi-pod for the E2 version?

I plan to get a bipod grip and a c-mag too.

Yes, the gun will handle sustained burst reliably(after re-shimming, I got mine to be as quiet as a stock TM).

I bought a JG/Echo1 G36c a little while ago as my first serious airsoft gun. I have been very pleased with it. While all my buddies guns keep malfuctioning and giving them headaches with costly repairs (we're slowly learning the internals together, though), mine has remained reliable and good as new with regular lubing and maintenance. Unfortunately we play in some wooded areas nearby, and CQB is not the ideal shooting style for our field.

So, of course, I'm looking at getting more of a rifle. I stumbled across the TSD GenII G36E2 while looking. I love the aesthetic of the G36 series of guns, and I'm looking for something that will be as reliable as my Echo1 (I realize Echo 1 isn't a high-end manufacturer, but what I've gotten from them is of high quality for the price.)

Will this E2 be just as reliable, and serve as just as good an upgrade platform as my Echo1? If anyone who has one gives me a nod in this direction, I'm certainly buying this thing.

I too own the JG G36C and love it. I have other higher end AEGs but this is one of my favorites. I just purchased the SRC G36E and am in the process of upgrading the cylinder/piston and installing a Systema 130 spring. I was able to fit a KWA red alert lipo in the forearm for power cause I have been using that in my JG G36c with no problems. I'll try to post the outcome of my mods when its finished in the next couple of days.

jaws, have you found out the problem with ur gun? Because I wanted to upgrade my gun with the same parts but if it causes a problem then maybe I wont

Actually, I have bought a new hop up system (plastic) to replace my metal hop up in order to test my theory, but that project is on hold right now because of other projects, such as building props for a major airsoft event:
http://1st-sword.com/forum/index.php

Interestingly, my SRC G36E2 has now air seal problems, too, and is shooting under 300 FPS *LOL*. Problems over problems. On the other hand, my el cheapo (but upgraded) JG G36C is happily hopping along :D.

Jawz

This post has been edited by Jawz: Jul 25 2008, 01:39 AM

EDIT : Wrong post

This post has been edited by Tosuzu: May 8 2009, 01:38 AM

great review

just letting you know. that little button above and forward in position to the trigger would be the bolt release on the realsteel version of the g36

SRC is another good choice.
as I know they will have gen 3 in this year.

You can check out my comments about the SRC G36KV (3rd generation) here:
SRC G36KV Overview

So, after owning the SRC G36E2 (2nd generation) and SRC G36KV (3rd generation), I *personally* canNOT recommend them at all!!!

I'm not sure on what basis you are recommending SRCs!

Jawz

lol just sayin, I have like the same (not brand names) set up as you. great minds think alike I suppose. I have an SRC Gen 2 G36c instead of a JG, with a Bravo TBB instead of a JBU, a Systema Bucking, and an SCS nub instead of an H-nub.

ive had the same gun for 2 years. its fine in its stock form, but it doesnt really like upgrades. ive had nothing but trouble with mine. my airseal problem came from the nozzle not sealing against the cylinder head. and the cylinder and cylinder head didnt seal from the beginning. the gun does require a lot of shimming, it is wayyyy too lose from factory. the hopups are absolutely junk and cause bad air seal and accuracy issues.

the gearbox shell is not near as good of quality as a CA. I ordered a CA shell to replace my stock src, but beware, the CA bearings will not fit on the stock SRC gears(I just found out about an hour ago).

the sprung lever is the mag release

the seletor switch will always be loose. lol it happens

my spring was permanently attached to my piston head(green piston) and yes the orange guide was HIDEOUS LOL

btw the stock will eventually fall off. the pin is not big enough to stay secured. I fixed mine with a dremel and a zinc hitch pin. it works flawlessly now.


overall ive had a lot of trouble upgrading my gun, nothing seems to want to cooperate. (maybe its just me).



good review man, I liked it. makes me wish I would have done one sooner haha


my upgrades included:

G&P white piston
G&P Explosive piston head
#14 o ring
V3 bearing spring guide
M120 spring
angel shim set
CA reinforced gearbox
echo 1 hnub
systema bucking
promy airnozzle



also I highly recommend getting a 9.6V battery. I use the 1600mAh nunchuck style. it fits ok after you learn how to get it in.

This post has been edited by BushmanSniper: Jul 3 2010, 10:00 PM