[Rapture Hitler]

My review of the Ares G36K can be summed up like this: :banghead:
Don't get me wrong, this is not a terrible gun...for the most part. It's just...troubled.

Packaging:
It's a cardboard box with black foam...that's about it.

(Imagine Brad Pitt from Se7en saying this) What's in the box:
Ares seems to have cut costs with this gun and only included a 470rnd high cap magazine, a short, but well written manual (with parts breakdown), and, of course, the gun (with a quality control tag attached to it).

What you really care about, the gun:
First off, I'll give credit where credit is due. This gun looks and feels GREAT. The plastic externals and finish are very nice and the materials used are comparable to that of a PTS Masada. It's that sturdy! The gun has a few nice features that you would find on most higher end G36Ks and some that are unique to this one, such as: a folding stock with a rubber butt pad, a metal flash hider and outer barrel, a small metal rail atop the integrated 3.5x zoom optic, a completely ambidextrous design, and a mechanical blowback system. Here is where I would usually tell you how each feature is and how the gun is as a whole, and I will do just that: it's...not very good.

As I said, the externals are great, but in every other aspect, it's a bit of a mess. When I picked the gun up out of the box, I went to go aim through the optic, only to discover that I couldn't see through it. I aimed in a little closer, still no sight. I aimed a little again, still no sight. I, yet again, aimed closer and finally found the zoom sight......the horrible, blurry excuse for a 3.5x zoom scope. There is absolutely ZERO eye relief on this scope. You have to be, and I measured, 7mm away from the sight to get any sort of picture. I was very disappointed in this. I put in the stock magazine and it seemed to fit just fine. I put in my DBoys G36 mid cap magazines and they didn't want to fit in the gun. Once again, I was very disappointed.

I decided to do what I do with all of my new guns, and plug in a battery and test fire. I popped in a freshly charged 9.6V 1600MAH nunchuck NIMH battery and proceeded to test semi auto. I fired the gun once and found that the mechanical blowback didn't work. On the second shot, I heard a terrifying grinding noise coming from the gearbox. On the third, and final shot, the gearbox decided it was tired of barely working and decided to die, leaving me with a whirring motor, a piston stuck in the middle of it's cycle, a mock bolt that barely moves back, a ruined spring, and a blowback system that doesn't work

I'm unsure if it was the piston or a gear that stripped (I don't want to void the warranty, so I didn't open the gearbox), but all I know is, I'm unhappy. I bought a $300 gun and straight out if the box, it commits suicide. Wonderful! The biggest middle finger to me is the fact that some a-hole at Ares signed his name on the quality control tag and sent the gun out in this bad of a condition.

I'm not going to give this gun an overall score because I haven't been able to see it perform or use it. But, I will give Ares a big middle finger.