Upgrading base gun or build from nothing?

[Fallen]

I had time to kill today while waiting for calls at 911, so I decided to add up the total price it costed me to upgrade my King Arms stock M4.

I bought one of the cheap King Arms M4 back in 2011 from Halifaxwhole sale for 350$(250$ now). I thought it was something good to start with and upgrade when I would have cash to throw in. Full metal body, good external material with nice features, etc. And i still think it's something good for a starting kit

So here is what I got at the end: (with today's price)

M4: 250$
Gun comes with plastic handguard. Changed it for a cheap R.I.S: 60$
Changed to switch unit for back wired one: 20$
Then I bought a crane stock: 40$
KA internal are quite cheap, this winter after some trouble last year, I bought full lonex internal(except gears set) . Cost me about 95$
Added a mosfet: 70$
So I spend 275$ + 250$(Gun itself)
525$

Now I need a new hop-up unit: 25$
Motor: 50$
Gear set: 30$

Total price when finished: 640$
Adding new aiming device, let's throw an other 60$ in
700$ Little bit less with parts in classifieds
Nothing fency, but still a nice gun, very reliable and nice performance.
_____________________________
Then I said to myself, how much would it cost to build from nothing?

External:
Let's get a nice receiver: VFC goes for about 200$ with all the misc parts we need ( mag release, chanrgin handle,etc.)
Barrel: 40$
hop up + inner barrel: 55$
Pistol grip + motor: 65$
Buffer tube and I nice stock: 50$
And why not put a complet lonex gearbox in this: 180$ (airsoftparts.ca)
MOsfet: 70$
Aiming device: 60$
So a complete gun for: 720$ and we can save about 50-80$ if we find nice price in the classifieds !!

What do you think of this? From your experience, better to upgrade, or to build?

[lurkingknight]

upgrade. mixing and matching gearbox to receiver and hop up unit can have issues.

Just start with the gun you want.

[BioRage]

Depends on what you want.

VFC's have extremely pretty externals, I built two uppers off a base VFC SR635.

[Fallen]

Machting aftermarket hop up unit have some issue with my M4 ;p
On forum, you can find what receiver brand work with each gearbox I think

[Vivek92]

I'm a fan of building from the ground up. Especially gearboxes. It takes a little more time (and occasionally a lot of time with a file/dremel/grinder) but building a gun to your exact specifications is very rewarding.

[zzzzsleepy8]

Depends on your budget. Building yourself with off market parts can get pretty expensive pretty quickly

[Stealth]

Unless you know what you're doing, start with a base gun.

That having been said, the 2 most common mistakes I see people make when "upgrading" are
1) Not assessing whether or not the stock part is good, then purchasing upgrade parts in hopes that it will work properly with the rest of the system (hop-up units, tappet plates and nozzles are the most common areas)
2) Assuming that because a certain upgrade part is expensive or is "CNC", it must be better. Or that if a part worked with Brand X gun, then that same part must give the same good results on Brand Y gun. Nope.

[Comeau-SCS]

Unless I want to do something very specific or unusual I'd go with a base gun. You will have outer barrel, stock, metal body, grips, for a good price. Most of the time the gearbox shell and gears are good too so this really make it for the price if you just need a custom m4.

[ThunderCactus]

Are you pricing OEM and chinese clone parts or what?
Your estimates on prices are all too low
Add another $300 to the scratch build then add in shipping and taxes on top of that

And for the mod build, don't forget hop rubber and barrel. Changing the wiring on the switch is a matter of soldering which you'll have to do anyway if you're installing a mosfet so no need to buy a new switch.
And there are parts in the mechbox that don't NEED to be changed that I bet you're probably changing.
And don't forget, the things you take OFF that M4, can be sold to offset the cost of upgrades.
It's always cheaper to upgrade a gun than it is to build one from scratch

[Danke]

The other thing left off the list is waiting six months for that must have part to come back into stock and then waiting another six because it got lost in shipping or the guys in Hong Kong sold the same part to a few people and you're a the list.

The best thing to do is buy two guns. Play with one and upgrade the other. Then when it's all done sell the other or use it as a backup. Otherwise you're one of those folks who jumps into the sport and then departs before they've ever played a game and are selling a mongrel list of parts that seemed cool at the time but no one wants now.

Check out the classifieds here. That's a common theme.

[Smokes]

For AEG's I'd say buying a kit to start with would be the ideal approach for the former reasons above. In my less-than-experienced opinion if someone wants to build a franken-gun they might want to consider GBB, as to my knowledge there aren't as many parts in a GBB as are needed to have an operating AEG and it's a simple, less intricate series of mechanisms than AEG alternatives. Many drawback though as you would assume, GBB is a dying market and for good reasons.

[Jimski]

Originally Posted by Stealth

Unless you know what you're doing, start with a base gun.

That having been said, the 2 most common mistakes I see people make when "upgrading" are
1) Not assessing whether or not the stock part is good, then purchasing upgrade parts in hopes that it will work properly with the rest of the system (hop-up units, tappet plates and nozzles are the most common areas)
2) Assuming that because a certain upgrade part is expensive or is "CNC", it must be better. Or that if a part worked with Brand X gun, then that same part must give the same good results on Brand Y gun. Nope.

very important advice here.Some guns have outstanding performance with crappy stock parts.It's nice to know exactly what is operating finely and what is not.
Also mechbox parts behave differently when power, bore or ROF change.

[jordan7831]

If you're costing this out, would you consider looking in the classifieds for a upgraded gun that you could cannibalize for parts, or use as a base platform?

There is a unwritten rule here that a gun never sells for the sum of its parts. Guess it's a case of the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

With that said, it is possible to pick up a nicely upgraded gun for far less than that $700 figure you are throwing around, and still have quite a lot of wiggle room to purchase some of the newer parts you are looking at.

Like what Danke said, buy two guns. Then you can strip one for parts and upgrade your gun for far less than buying all brand new. Or you may find the perfect gun you want sans some minor parts here and there.

This is actually the course I take for some of my one off builds. At one time I had bought 4 hi capas each with various expensive upgrades to make a really sweet pistol. And as mentioned before, you can sell parts off to offset the cost.

[lurkingknight]

There are a number of parts interactions I do not like fucking with.

nozzle to hopup, hopup, hopup to magwell.. even fire selector may or may not function well if you randomly collect parts together.

Further more there are parts inside the gearbox that have weird interactions if you randomly fit stuff together.

Unless you have a shit ton of spare parts laying around, it's ALWAYS more economical to upgrade from an off the shelf gun. Even if you change a ton of stuff on the outside, the mechanical interactions are not something that will always work when you piece it together from different brands.