AEA-What model to review?

Crosman999 said:

Hope to get some help from fellow AGN members that have some experience with these products. I have been wanting to review these airguns since they first arrived to the states and have been met with some difficulties. Generally I charge for my work but in some cases I review products out of pocket if it's something worthy and I see may help the community. I have reached out to AEA directly in March and was told they stopped offering free guns to YouTubers and if I want to get AEA product to review to please contact dealers. Well I have reached out to several well known dealers and have been ignored by all of them, to me this is somewhat of a red flag. I will be purchasing one or several of these guns out of pocket for field review. My question is, what model would be a good fit and something people would like to see? They have so many models so I'm having a difficult time deciding. Any help is much appreciated, Cheers

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Element
Zues 24" .72

I would do the Terminator .30

Personally I'd love to see you review the Element or Terminator.

I personally wouldn’t throw them a free bone. Thats just me. A standard challenger regulated is pretty new and something people would want to see. Terry fox did a video with the 30 cal 32” barrel regged and it was basically a bull with its nuts totally cut off. Dollar sportsman did a 24” 30 cal and the reg didnt seem to really be working. Would be interested to see a 25. However you might not want to spend your own money without knowing if its worth it up front.

Something that'll possibly push .22 NSA slugs if there's something in their catalog that is capable.

I had one of the AEA Semi-Autos (HP Carbine in .22 cal) and I didn't get along with it all that well. It didn't help that it ate both of its original magazines pretty quickly (but that was a known issue with these for a while, and UA replaced both free of charge).

I recently got a Challenger Pro in .357 and based on the OEM capabilities of that gun, and the first owner's work on a great tune, it is a fantastic gun.

Semi-auto can be gimicky to me as I don't normally require ultra quick follow-up shots for my little hunting. But side lever cocking guns like the Challenger Pro have truly changed my mind about AEA products, and the .357 is a pretty effective caliber.

I think that the Challenger Pro is a real winner in AEA's line-up from a price & performance perspective, and wouldn't mind seeing more reviews of it in non-big bore calibers. One of those in .22 or .25 cal might be in my future. And .30 cal performance might be interesting to a lot of hunting folks.

well if they dont want to see a good review i think they dont wanna see the truth about the guns they offer so heck with them guys i had a semi aoto thing long time ago. i think since then they upped the game some rather see a rti 2

AirArcher66 said:

I would do the Terminator .30

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Having recently purchased a Terminator 30 and so far very impressed, I would like to see some reviews anyway. It was hard to find much info about it before I bought the gun. Most reviews are the 357 but there are some differences.

The new M50 which is through BinTacLLC also looks to be interesting. 400 FPE 50 caliber or shoots arrows. It's probably the most stout arrow shooter out there. But it's never been reviewed.

Also wouldn't mind seeing a review on .22 or .25 Challenger with the regulator kit. Not sure if they are selling those with the kit preinstalled yet. It's the poor man's Challenger Pro!

TerryE1 said:

Something that'll possibly push .22 NSA slugs if there's something in their catalog that is capable.

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Their cheapest gun is the Challenger in 22 and it pushes over 70 fpe. This will shoot heavy .22 ammo. You would have to turn down the power to shoot pellets or light ammo with accuracy.

Crosman999 said:

I could care less about the money, that's the whole point of a review is to see if it's worth it.

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Yeah but you are too well known to toss these guys a bone. To each their own though. It’s been done a lot but I think you would like the challenger pro.

douger said:

well if they dont want to see a good review i think they dont wanna see the truth about the guns they offer so heck with them guys i had a semi aoto thing long time ago. i think since then they upped the game some rather see a rti 2

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What @dougger said.....

Element is interesting. Love to see more about it, especially hunting/pesting.

Yes, I agree that the Element is interesting. There is still the unresolved question in my mind about how the CF parts hold up over time and a lot of shooting. Those in contact with moving metal parts. So any more data to come out of an Element review would have to include long term/high shot count to be most beneficial.

Seems to me like a number of these are all basically the same exact gun with different barrel lengths, air tube sizes, and with/without semi auto kit, which I think is by design. Hard to say which random combo of parts is worth a review.

Where I think things might get interesting is with stress testing. What is not needed is another review where no more than 50-100 shots go through the gun and we get to see the power of the gun and how well you did on the old barrel lottery (not saying that that would be your style - don’t know what your reviews are like).

How about how the poppet or valve seat are holding up after 500 or 2000 or more shots because the question is (for me) will my .25 hp carbine still be shooting in 5 years when no one carries it anymore?

I also would love to see some modification ideas and results… i wonder if the guns have room to be opened up a bit for more power, for example, or if they are already pretty much maxed out and would benefit from a decrease in power.

Anyway that’s my 2 cents since you asked

If Mr. Webb is buying the gun out of pocket, who's buying the 2000 rounds? If anyone wants to check out some good hunting and reviews, you should subscribe to his youtube channel MountainSports Airguns. A little support like that might help bring us more of these reviews. Hope it's ok to mention the channel.

The HP Varminter in .22. I'd like to see how that does with different slugs. The Challenger Pro is too heavy and the Element too light IMO. Not having a regulator is a plus in the HP Varminter for cold shot first hits, to me.

I wish AEA would ditch the stupid bolts and go side lever on their manual action guns. I would probably buy a couple more.

The side lever action on the Challenger Pro is nice - maybe AEA is starting to see the light and will go further in that direction with other manual guns.

It seems like AEA has been a company which attempted to use as many of the same parts as possible across their different guns. Good business sense, especially for a new business. And I think that they had seen a niche for themselves with reasonably priced semi-auto guns, so many of their initial manual action guns used parts from their semi-auto line.

But now they have been producing guns for a bit, and I think that both their semi-auto and manual action gun lines are maturing. And both seem to be getting better as parts commonality not quite as important as it was for them as a new manufacturer.