SIG SAUER ProForce MCX VIRTUS 11.5" Barrel PDW AEG w/ VFC Avalon Gearbox (Model: Tan / Gun Only)

"**This review is for those who have thoughts about getting this gun or have gotten this gun and dealing with the Area 51 grade adhesive on the orange muzzle break.**

So - after searching through Reddit and google, it seems people tried different methods or combinations of boiling water, acetone, heat gun, and hand torches. For me, I was able to get the tip off with a heat gun set to high/maximum (the model I used was able to generate over 1000F in heat) and pointing it directly where the threads would be on the muzzle break. I did this for a few minutes after giving the heat gun time to get hot enough. After a few minutes, the muzzle break was able to turn using a flat head screwdriver wedged into the muzzle break's spokes/teeth. Remember to twist in the opposite direction as this gun is 14mm negative thread (righty loosy, lefty tighty)! I've had to do this few times since the glue would cool pretty quick while I was twisting the muzzle break off but it did come off with little effort and much diligence!

It is possible to remove it and won't take a feat of strength and/or willpower as some of the reviews/reddit posts would suggest. I think they used Locktite - Red or something like it, which is kind of ridiculous but hey I guess they have to abide by national laws. Hope you guys enjoy the MCX, I look forward to using mine soon!

Just be careful with the heat gun and use the appropriate safety measures when trying this method. YouTube has a lot of videos on removing stubborn nut/bolt/threaded devices using heat guns/torches. Cheers!

"So I just received this rifle a couple of days ago and have been able to field it for a whole day. I can officially say this is one of my favorite airsoft guns and you should absolutely buy it if you want something different than an M4.

Build Quality: Sig really went all out on the design of this rifle. It looks and feels just like a real MCX. The trades are all there, the metal and plastic parts are all durable and won't bend or break, and its just a very well put together rifle. The only thing that sucks about the design is where they decided to put the battery, which is this tiny space up in the handguard. The only battery that would fit for me was a triple cell nunchuck 11.1v

Shooting: This is the best out-of-the-box rifle I've ever seen. I could hit consistent targets at up to 200 ft with .28g bbs. The trigger is solid and the full auto with an 11.1v battery is stupid fast.

Ergonomics/feel of the rifle: This is a really important category for me when I decided on a rifle to buy, and this one is perfect for most situations. The three position stock is handy for CQB, and I usually keep it all the way folded in to keep it as compact as possible. The front handguard needs a grip or a handstop like I have on mine, and you will absolutely need m-lok covers, as the hand guard was CNC milled, so it is quite sharp. You have plenty of rail space on the top for whatever optics you like, and the rear grip is very comfortable.

Cons: one absolutely massive con on this rifle is the orange tip this gun comes with. Omfg it is a NIGHTMARE to get off. I had to take a diamond dremel blade and cut it off. Hopefully no one else has this problem, but this is just a PSA to anyone who gets this gun. Aside from that, the only other con I have is the battery placement, but with the correct battery you can stuff it up above the barrel and into the upper receiver to get it out of the way.

Overall, this gun is great for all situations, CQB or milsim. The build quality is second to none and the range and accuracy out of the box is top notch. As I said to my friend, it's the Bugatti of AR-platform rifles.

"Pretty good so far. Basically a VFC Avalon with a different body.

"The gun works and shoots great, however, the barrel and handguard came super wobbly and loose and the only fix I could find was spending another 100 bucks on the Lylax barrel lug. The gun looks great but for 450 USD it shouldn't be loose anywhere on the rifle.

"The lipo safe bag included in the "go airsoft package" is not big enough for the two included lipo batteries. It is just not long/tall enough to close without jamming/kinking the wires to the cells down..

Otherwise, the gun and other items included seem great so far.

"I have a love hate relationship with this gun. Starting with the barrel, you will be fighting like no other to get the orange tip off out of the box. It is righty loosie lefty tighty. Opposite of what you were taught, keep that in mind. I bought the bundle because I didn't have any gear were I am so I had to start fresh. I like the batteries that come with the bundle, they work great and last a very long time. I hate hate hate hate hate the mags that came with the bundle, not the steel mag that came with the gun itself, the mags from the bundle, they don't feed well at all and I ran into jam after jam after jam. The red dot that came with the gun is okay I guess. Its a red dot after all. The look of the gun is great and adjusting the hop up and what not isn't that bad. The gun is a little loose out of the box and what I mean by that is that the upper and lower don't sit perfectly snug so I have to put a small rubber band to act as an O-ring to make the gun not rattle. The gun does not come with iron sights, which is really dumb given the price. Also the pistol grip gets super hot after lots of shooting, its not going to burn you or anything, but you will feel it. The safety switch is tighter on the left side of the gun than the right side of the gun, and you can't tighten it from what I can tell but that might just be mine. I was unsure how I would like the stock of the gun because its not the folding stock that comes with the normal MCX but I didn't hate it, plus if I really wanted I could just order the actual folding stock from SIG. The sling attachments only work on the hand guard and the buttstock of the gun, the sling mounts DO NOT work on the mounts above the pistol grip on either side, which is incredibly annoying. Overall its a good gun, but the attention to detail lacks in several areas which is why I cant give this gun 5 stars. If you wanted to get your hands on this gun before buying the real MCX then go for it, you'll enjoy it a lot and you be able to get hands on, however, if you are looking for this or an m4/ar15. I would say that there are better options in the m4 world especially for the price. This is a good replica gun, but not the best airsoft gun. I do love the gun but I wanted to put this out there for future potential buyers.

"Pros:
-VFC Avalon Gearbox, nothing amazing but a reliable gearbox that will last you
-Takes lots of real MCX accessories
-Pretty solid external build
-True quick change spring

Cons:
-Selector is utter trash, sloppy, gritty, just overall terrible
-Screw on the stock will strip after taking it on and off a few times
-Battery space is rather trash(removing the gas block and grinding down the top of the barrel will give you a bit more)
-Does not come wired to Deans
-Very picky on magazines, many magazines will fall out on their own or can be wiggled out
-Flash hider is a bitch to get off
-Front wired only
-The two rear QD slots on the lower receiver do not work
-Does not come with any form of sights OTB

Overall if you want an MCX in Airsoft this is your only option but it really is not a great one. I would recommend to wait for a V2 where they fix the issues and maybe its rear wired.

"I recently purchased this gun from Evike. It's really good design for the guard rail, the receivers, and the stock. I'm personally a fan of the MCX design. There are some disappointments I would like to share as well. The front hand guard is wobbly and it makes rattling sounds - I hoped that it was a snug fit. The magazine well seems to be bigger than most M4 styles - and it's been hard to find the magazines that fit. Another concern is the wire in the magwell. It is already starting to show wear with some magazine testing.

"I received my rifle a few days ago and I have a few things to say about it. To start at the tip, you get a nice metal flash hider, but its painted in the brightest orange possible and is torqued on so tight i'm scared that i'm going to bend the barrel trying to get it off. moving back, the hand guard is awesome, its solid and feels great. The battery is stored in the hand guard and it is tight to say the least, I was able to fit a 9.6v 1600mah nun chuck battery in there but it was tight. A more reasonable battery I tried use was a 1000mah 7.4 nun chuck. Moving farther back to the receiver, my mag well was a bit wonky, it is decently picky on what mags like to work in it. I tried VFC metal mags, Dytac HEXMAGS, PTS EPM's, and 6mm proshop mags. What I found was that not all these mags fit 100% besides the VFC mags. It seems that the mag well is a bit wider than most others because I was having issues with mags not locking in properly, and easy fix to this issue was to shim the magazines by wrapping a single strip of electrical tape around all the mags. This fixed all fitment issues. Now to the grip and fire selector. The grip is nice, but the angle of it is a bit to much for my taste. The fire selector on my gun was loose when I got it, I tried tightening the retaining screw on each side but had the same issue of there being a lot of play in the selections. The stock is great with no wobble and is super solid, no complaints here. The rear QD sling point on the gun does not fit standard QD sling swivels oddly, but the one on the hand guard had no issues fitting one. The gun does feature a well made bold hold open for adjusting the hop up. The charging handle works and feels good as well. Moving to the internals. The inner barrel is 295mm long with what I can tell is a standard VFC 6.03 Tight bore barrel, with .20g bb's the gun was shooting around 415fps and below 350fps with the included m110 spring. The hop up in the gun is a standard VFC Avalon rotary style hop up, it is effective and is stiff to adjust. Now to the biggest problem with the gun... the gearbox. I believe I received a lemon considering this is the first batch of MCX's, and the fact I have not had this issue with any of my other Avalons. When I first test shot the gun in semi auto, it shot full auto for whatever reason, I then switched to full auto and it worked fine, but when I switched back to semi and shot 4 rounds before the gun locked up completely. Note I was using a freshly charged 7.4v. After I got the gun unlocked I tried semi again but had the same issue of it randomly shooting full auto then locking up, I had the same result with an 11.1v and a 9.6v battery so i'm confident it was no the batteries I was using. Interestingly on the second try on semi auto the trigger locked up like it was on safe. This was honestly a shame as I expected a lot from this gun considering it is an Avalon. To conclude this gun externally is fantastic and sig did a very nice job making it. Internally, my gun is not very sound, I believe it is the mosfet causing the issues i'm having but I am not 100% sure. The rest of the components, Gears, motor, Hop, etc are solid as usual from VFC.

Pros:
Solid build construction
Great internals, minus the mosfet
MLOK compatible
Great weight (around 8lbs loaded)
Well balanced

Cons:
The orange muzzle device is obnoxious
Battery storage
Mag well fitment issues
Fire selector lose/play
Bad internal mosfet

This gun is great if you can overlook its shortcomings, it can be a potential dream for someone wanting to upgrade a gun due to its excellent externals. I'm sure I received a lemon, but it still sucks buying a $400 gun for it to not work properly...

"Very head-turning replica that is always noticed on the field, but VFC cut a lot of corners on the MCX Virtus that make me hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

The externals are awesome, but the MLOK slots on the handguard aren't properly radiused and the sharp edges dig into your hand without a handguard wrap. This contributes the worst problem with the MCX: The replica is front wired, you have to remove the front receiver pin, slide off the ENTIRE handguard to pull out the battery, and if you reassemble wrong the sharp edges of the rail will slice your wires cleanly in half. The top rail is not fully monolithic, so if you have a PEQ or laser on the top you have to put it on specific rail slots to avoid blocking the part of the rail that is removed for the battery change. The only real way to run this AEG is to have a technician rewire the battery cable so it runs through a slot in your handguard, and then use a handguard wrap to hold your battery externally.

Other small problems: The QD slot at the back of the receiver is non-functional because the gearbox shell is in the way. The ambidextrous selector feels plastic-y and clicky.

Hop up is fine, my MCX shot at 385-390 with a 0.20 gram BB. However, the motor is attrocious. The MCX chugs slower than a combat machine, even with a 11.1v 20c lipo battery. That is the first thing I would upgrade on this AEG. It's a shame, because the SOPMOD that VFC also makes is similar internally but has a much better motor and they cost virtually the same.

I would avoid this replica unless you are willing to do some upgrades out of the box and also some DIY to make the battery work.

"The MCX platform is good and bad at the same time. Sure, the feel of the thing is amazing, its ergonomic and everything, the body of the weapon is solid as can be. The physical qualities of this gun are next level.

That's where the fun ends. Whoever did the gear box for this weapon did a terrible job. Constant jams even with clean trigger pulls and quality ammo. This problem became so bad that the gear box jammed to the point of not firing at all. This sounds like a easy fix right. Just take the gun apart and fix some of the internals. Well....no chance. the way the gun is constructed on the inside makes it impossible to take the gun fully apart. Me and 3 friends all gave it a fair shot. The magazines didn't stay inside the gun at all either. The mag release would lock into place and then the mag would just fall right back out as if nothing was holding it into place half the time. You can imagine how frustrating this is in the middle of a game.

Funny enough, evike was so kind as to fix this the first time it happened by replacing the gun entirely. What makes it worse is that they replaced the gun entirely and then it happened again..... new gun, different model number and all...equally as annoying problems with gun number two.

If you buy this gun, you'll love the feel. But you better get some lower voltage batteries so that the full auto doesn't go as fast. The gear box can not keep up with it even on single fire, let alone full auto. Wayyyyyyy too expensive for this many issues.
Would be cool if you would set me up with gun #3 so that maybe you can actually fix the many many many problems with this gun.

"Very poor replica performance.

"Overall, the design of the rifle, feels different from typical M4 platforms and it is totally desirable. This is the main reason I purchased the gun. However, I will be returning this gun after some inspections...
- The orange flash hider is still (2021) impossible to get off. There are visible hardened glue on the seams.
- The front receiver doesn't snugly fit and moves/rattles when handling the rifle.
- There is enough battery space for smaller 11.1v lipos, but the wires, mosfet, and battery are exposed and are ugly.
- The dust cover does not close.
- The mag-well is big and will not fit most magazines. Lots of give/play on the magazines and they will come off at random moments. There is also an exposed wire by the hop-up chamber that will get chewed off after some use.
- Trigger response is poor and the rate of fire is not the best.
- The Charging handle only pulls back a quarter of the way, and does not spring back.
- The QD sling point by the grip, does not work.
- I love the stock of the rifle, but wish that it included a rubberized padding.

Comparing the SIG VIRTUS to other $400 airsoft rifles, it just doesn't meet the expectations of solid build construction, polished components, and good trigger response/rpm.