DBoys BIAR HK416 Review

By Brandon
July 15th, 2009

One of the rifles I have lusted after since I began my career so long ago.  Really it began with Guarder releasing their $215.00 HK M4D body way back in the day, which on top of the stateside price of a TM M4 made things quite expensive.  Then Prime came along, releasing their HK416 full conversion, which while gorgeous, raised the bar again for high prices if one was to want an HK M4.  About 2 years ago, the advent of VFC brought us the first remotely affordable HK416, at around $450.00 for the full gun.  Having a full HK416 for $450.00 was shocking then, until a year ago when Jin Gong released their HK416 for a little over $150.00.  While it was another stunning advance in the price point for the HK416 crowd, the JG still came up a little short.  With an unmarked plastic body, only one front sight configuration, and a number of missing details, the JG was cheap for a reason.

Which brings us to February, when DBoys announced that they were breaking out of their popular AK line and moving into AR series rifles.  The first offering was an FN trademarked M16A4, and the second was the subject of our review today; their version of the HK416.

Real Steel History

Caliber: 5.56x45mm NATO
Action: Gas operated, rotating bolt
Overall length (stock collapsed/extended): 10″ barrel: 686 / 785 mm; 14″ barrel:
Barrel lengths: 10.5″ / 267mm; 14.5″ / 368mm; 16.5″ / 419mm and 20″ / 508mm
Weight: 3.31 kg w. 10.5″ barrel, 3.5kg w 14.5″ barrel
Rate of fire: 700-900 rounds per minute
Magazine capacity: 30 rounds

Following the revision of the OICW Block 1 / XM8 program, the Heckler & Koch company decided to enter the US military and law enforcement markets with the alternative design, which, in fact, looks quite promising. Based on the experience, gained during successful upgrade program of the British SA80 / L85A1 program, HK decided to cure the existing M16 rifles and  M4 carbines from most of their problems, inherent to this 40-years old design. The key improvements, made by HK, are their patented short-stroke gas piston system, borrowed from HK G36 rifle. This system replaced the direct gas system of standard M16 rifle, so no powder residue will remain in the receiver even after long shooting sessions. The “new” gas system also is self-regulating and will work reliably with any barrel length. Other improvements include new buffer assembly, improved bolt, and a cold hammer forged barrel, as well as free-floating handguard with integral Picatinny-type rails. Originally developed as a “drop-in” upper receiver assembly for any standard M16/M4 type lower receiver, HK416 is also available as a complete weapon, with HK-made lower receivers.

From worldguns

Movie Appearances:

Even with the relative new-ness of the gun, one wouldn’t expect it in many movies, but it has indeed made it into a couple of recent and recognizable films.

Christian Bale as John Connor uses an HK416 in Terminator: Salvation in between growling about the resistance.

One of the random toughs in Hancock can be seen with an HK416 with mounted AG36 during the bank robbery scene.

Other appearances of the gun include TV appearances in Season 6 of 24, and others in The Unit

Initial Impressions

So, on to the replica.  In April, I got a call from Mike saying he had received our most recent RSOV order, to which I had skeptically added my HK416.  After getting to his house, I was greeted with this;

An enormous brown customs nightmare!  I was panicked, what if I lost my gun to customs?  After a second I pulled the box from the brown-paper mess to find it taped shut with more customs tape.

This was rapidly turning scarier, but the package was pretty heavy.  To my relief, I was greeted with my rifle, intact, and not missing a thing.  Sorry for a lack of pictures of the packaging, but customs had really made it clear that they didn’t want the box to be photogenic.  The gun comes in a Styrofoam clamshell, and includes the gun, mag, battery, PEQ box, vertical foregrip, China-charger, barrel extension and a little bag with the rifle-style folding front sight, flat-tipped screwdriver, and the mag winding crank.  In all, a pretty feature packed gun!  Pulling it out and getting it into a usable configuration, one is greeted with this.

The gun is quite hefty, and that is immediately evident when the gun is picked up.  The gun is solid, with minimal rattles, the biggest of which was the plastic adjustment tab on the stock.  We’ll get into that later.

From a distance, the fit and finish on the rifle look remarkably good.  The only noticeable niggle from a distance shot is that the body is a medium matte grey instead of the black found on the real rifle.  I know opinions only count for so much, but I’m not uncomfortable in saying that this finish looks better than the original.

So lets move on to some close up shots of the finish, and consider how it stacks up.  Below is a shot of the receiver in all of its glory.  Part of the reason that this replica is awesome (and by the same token why I was mortified by the customs tape) is that this gun carries full, unadulterated HK trademarks.

As can be seen in the below picture, the left hand side of the receiver reads HK HK 416 D Cal. 5.56mmx45, along with proofing marks along the upper rail, and the serial number above the trigger group.  A great start for any trademark junkie.

Note the difference in the HK style markings from the drab standard Safe-Semi-Full markings of most ARs.  On a slightly less optimistic note, some scuffing and blemishes can be seen in the magwell area.

Remember how I was mentioned that this gun looks good from far away earlier?  That’s because these things suffer from either poor handling at the factory, or bad finishing in general, as many of these guns as new come scratched up.  The polish on the final product leaves some to be desired, as gunner’s product page for this rifle even has a warning about the poor finish.

The scratching is again evident in the picture below, but I want to highlight another small disappointment from this gun; the bolt catch.  The DBoys 416 is touted to come with a ‘working bolt catch’, which locks the bolt cover back after pulling the charging handle and releases it at the push of the bolt release… In theory.

On my particular example, the bolt cover locks back with ease.  The real problem comes with trying to allow the bolt cover to come back to battery.  Pushing my bolt release vigorously yields nothing but disappointment, as the bolt cover remains defiantly locked in place by friction from poor fitment.  The only way to close my bolt cover is manually, by pushing it shut.  This constitutes another strike against the polish on this rifle.  On the positive note, attention to detail is good with the HK logo stamped into the bolt cover.

Working our way around to the other side of the receiver, the markings on the front and right hand side of the magwell become evident.  The front reads “Warning: Read operators manual before use”, and the side of the magwell reads “Heckler & Koch GmbH Made in Germany, Heckler & Koch Defense Inc. Sterling VA”  The completeness of the receiver’s markings is commendable.

Another shot of the right hand side of the receiver shows off the markings again, as well as the location of the wiring.  Note the relatively thin wire gauge on the gun side wiring.

This may seem like a dead horse beating, but I had to show off some more of the scuffing and wear that came as a present from DBoys.  Also, the right-side of the fire selector is also shown, but don’t get excited; it doesn’t move.

Moving on to some of the other interesting external features of the gun, we have the sights.  The rear sight is of the Diopter type found on MP5s and G3s.  It has 3 closed apertures and one open notch.  All 4 are marked, and the numbers are appropriately filled in with yellow paint.  This is one appreciable detail that isn’t taken into consideration on most G3s and MP5s.

The front sight is an interesting low-profile ring sight, with elevation adjustment only.  The taller folding ladder sight mounts on the gas block in the hole visible, but to be honest, it looks like garbage and I can’t be bothered mounting it.  Also of note, the flash hider did not come as its shown in the picture.  The wear is the result of the orange removal process.  Both the flash hider and the gas block came absolutely drenched in orange.

The overall sight picture is clear, and actually pretty good.  The open aperture leaves plenty of visibility, and the closed apertures offer decent precision.  These are great for those of us who started off on MP5s and G3s.

Here’s one of the PEQ box included with the gun.  I can’t say much other than that it is cheap, it comes with some cheesy stickers (just because they’re cheesy doesn’t mean I can’t use them, right?) and doesn’t actually tighten down onto the rail.  It will attach, but limply hold on for dear life rather than clamp down on the rail like it should.  Being generous, it serves its purpose in the most basic sense of the phrase.  Being realistically cynical, toss it as soon as you have a more solid replacement.

Next up is the stock.  From outward appearances, it looks like a regular 6 position LE style stock.

Appearances can be deceiving however.  What this really is is a terrible 6 position stock.  Yes, it does have my beloved trademarks, and yes it has the interesting ambidextrous rear sling swivel, but it really is bad.  The locking mechanism for the stock doesn’t have a strong enough spring, letting the plastic lever bounce around all over the place, rattling.  This is one of the few rattles on the gun, as mentioned in the opening paragraph.  All manner of tightening the locking mechanism down has been tried and failed, the long and short of it all is it needs a new spring to work well.  Also, the fitment of the stock to the stock tube is poor.  Its as if the stock was made for a totally different tube.  I don’t mean to be rude here, but this is nearly as bad as the PEQ box.  On a more positive note, the stock is made of a nicely textured nylon polymer that feels really good to the hands.

The magazine is interesting on this one.  A lot of the HK replica mags have a standard AR curvature and size to them.  In real steel, HK mags are slightly longer, and have a different curvature.  DBoys pulled this off accurately, along with the proper markings, having the rifle caliber stamped into the mag.

The floor plate for the mag has the HK trademark stamped into it. The quality of the sheet steel on this one is actually pretty good.  But like any good cynic, I have another niggle, and that is the absence of a winding wheel.  From the above picture, you can see the location of the Allen crank, which is all well and good aside from the notional insanity of having to carry a tiny bent Allen wrench into a game to rewind your hicap.  I agree that it adds to the aesthetic look of the magazine, but at too much expense to the skirmisher.

Another neat little bit that hasn’t caught mention is the barrel extension.  This is pretty standard fare, just a metal pipe that extends your barrel another few inches.  It works well, and in my opinion makes the gun look quite good.  It offers no functional effects aside from making your gun longer thus less wieldy (but the compensatory barrel length makes everyone feel better, doesn’t it?)

Another talking point here is the monumental hunk of metal that is the RAS on the front end of this thing.  The RAS itself is one piece, super solid, and actually came out of the box free of blemishes!

Free of blemishes that is, until you try and remove it.  The only chore needed for removal is removing the screw visible on the lower side of the RAS.  And prying.  One can see the little pry mark on the top rail at the joint between the RAS and the receiver.  Have no doubt, that the mounting of the RAS on this gun is rock solid to the point that maintenanceto the battery wires under it is a chore.  Removal took Mike and myself holding separate halves of the gun and pulling opposite each other to get it apart.  The fitment is extremely tight.

The rails are in spec, and standard accessories attach firmly to it.  The PEQ box won’t, but that’s because of its cheap plasticity.  The rail positions on the top of the gun are numbered.  Also interesting but not pictured is the fake gas piston, which is hidden almost entirely by the RAS.  Its very hard to see even in person.  Some would say this constitutes wasted effort on DBoys’ part, but I think its neat that they at least went for details on this gun.

So to summarize, what we’re presented with by DBoys is an interesting gun, which has been previously both expensive and hard to get with HK trades, but at the tradeoff of some shortcuts on the finish, and less than optimal fitment on some of the parts.

And now onto another ‘you get what you pay for’ subject; the gearbox.

Shooting Impressions

After going through the externals, the gun already has a clear character.  A decent cheap replica with quirks, some annoying and some substantial.  After charging it to shoot, I can only report that the positive side ended after the fondling.

After charging the battery and gently installing the Peq box (so it didn’t fall off), I took the gun for a few rounds downrange.  On the included 8.4v small  battery, rate of fire was adequate, but nowhere near snappy.  I did experience frustration in semi-auto, as every other trigger pull would wind the gearbox up without releasing this piston.  The frustration turned rapdily to anger as semi deteriorated to simply bouncing the gears around and not releasing the piston.  A burst on auto cleared the gearbox, and allowed semi to work a few more times before returning to the bouncing, but it is safe to say that semi auto was not functional out of the box.

When the gun did shoot, it shot averagely, with a large spread at range, but a nicely adjustable hop.  Shooting videos and pictures should come around soon.

I didn’t get to skirmish test the damn thing due to a significant and early malfunction, which brings us to the next segment…

Durability Alert!

Now my experience with this gun is limited, but sadly, includes taking it down to the gearbox.  I didn’t have the clairvoyance to take pictures of the gearbox as it came, but don’t fear.  I have to open the mechbox at least one more time, and next time will have pictures.

After an aggravating first shooting experience, I took it to the DMZ, our local CQB field to get a better feel for the gun.  After the usual preparations, taking the gun out to shoot resulted in a horrifying noise from the gearbox.  The gearbox still cycled, but it sounded distinctly of grinding.  A takedown of the gun later and I was holding a stripped piston, in less than 400 rounds out of the gun.

A new piston has been installed and is functioning quite well, but semi auto is still useless.  After the new piston, FPS bounces from 320 to 370, so I fear there is poor compression.  I will be taking it apart to add some upgraded gears, a better piston, and a few other selected mods that I believe will vastly improve the shooting quality on this gun.  Stay tuned for that, but at the same time be aware that this rifle stripped its piston in less than 400 rounds, and that’s downright frightening considering new players could experience this.  I know the sinking heart feeling of a nonfunctional gun without the knowledge to fix it, which is why I am dismayed that this gun mechanically failed so early.

Conclusion

This gun was an experiment from the start, and I have mixed feelings about the results.  To bang a drum already beaten to death, you get a smoking hot replica of a previously hard to get ahold of replica, with nice trademarks and all the extras one could hope for.  This comes at the expense of a blemished finish, occasionally bad fit, lack of polish, and what I conclude to be a useless gearbox without some competent work.  It shot, but not well, and not for long, which bothers me because this gun is in the newbie price range.

Performance: 1.5/5
Don’t buy this gun without some experience in mechbox work, or the willingness to take it to someone who has some.  I sure hope my experience isn’t common, but I can’t recommend it in good faith after one venture into the mechbox, and still not even baseline function.

External Design: 3.5/5
I like the externals on this gun.  The blemishes are minor, and its a 416 with full trades.  Its one of the first 416 replicas to get the HK mag right, and at least their heart was in the right place with the bolt cover and stock.  The included accessories were a nice touch too.  Taking the flaws into account, I’m alright with ranking it ever so slightly above average.

Value: 3.0/5
Its cheap, and you get a lot of parts for the money.  I paid $100.00 flat for mine during the early days of its release plus shipping from RSOV.  The problem here is that people won’t get much value out of it if it doesn’t turn over after your first game.  I’d say its worth precisely what you pay, if nothing else at least for the decent externals and accessories, even if you toss the gearbox into your parts collection and add a better V2 box.

Overall: 2.5/5
Averaging the 3 ratings gives us a result which is just that; average.  This rating is carried by the externals, and when the externals carry the gun’s average rating, that’s a warning sign to me.

The Final Word

I still own mine, and I’m going to make some tweaks to (hopefully) make it a reliable gun.  I like the externals, and feel that the pain is worth it.  416 lovers with some mechbox knowledge, grab one of these instead of the JG for sure.  If you’re newer, well, at least my old JG416 worked through 2 skirmishes for me, and at least 3 more that I was present for with its new owner.  Just don’t touch this one if you’re afraid of wrenching!

As always, with any questions, post a comment below or shoot me an email at brandon@chairsoft-press.com!

Surplus Photos

These are here since I couldn’t work them into the review, but some of you may find some of these interesting for whatever reason, so here they are.