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.