EMG x Salient Arms International Metal Receiver for M4 Series Airsoft AEGs

"Bought this upper and lower receiver kit back in mid Dec 2016 and had it shipped to the UK as its not available anywhere else.
Firstly, it comes only as the receiver (upper and lower) already assembled and pinned through, the forward assist and bolt cover come in a small zip lock bag inside the receiver. The pin forwards of the magazine well was very, very tight and required the use of a hammer and punch to put through.
The finish on it is a bit mixed from very good defined lines to blurry, as if the black paint was just splashed on it. From my example the �Salient� cube logos were very defined on both sides as was the text on the left side of the receiver and the fire selector icons. On the right hand side the fire selector icons were again quite clear but the long �Salient Arms International� line wasn�t so clear. The worst past was the Top monolithic rail �T� numbers as these looked blurry, difficult to describe but things like number and letter corners weren�t as sharp as the rest of the text on the receiver.
The Forward assist gave me some problems, the hole to accept the pin to hold the forward assist in place was too small for the roll pin by quite a large amount, the pin had a diameter of 2.7mm whilst the hole was 2.3mm, for those that don�t know their metric, this is quite large amount even for roll pin standards, no amount of crushing or hammering in would have helped so I had to drill the hole out to make it larger.
On a side note if you have Anti Roll pins fitted to your M4 like I did this won�t fit the Salient M4 receiver as the anti-roll will foul a raised part just under the magazine release catch on the right side of the receiver.
Everything else fitted fairly well considering I was coming from a G&P M4 MOTS receiver which housed my Polarstar Fusion Engine Version 2 Gen 3, had some issues with the fire selector which can�t engage safety fully on the selector (kind sits halfway between safe and semi) but does inside the gun so it doesn�t shoot so I suppose that�s ok.
Overall, I�m pleased with the final look and it compliments my Salient G34 and Salient M870, just the niggling issue of some of the poorly painted engraved text and the safety selector not fully engaging safe. So for that I�ll give it 4 out 5 stars.
Pros:
� Dem Salient TRADES
� Well-made CNC�d G&P Receiver
� Fits G&P gun parts and magazines very well
� Well packaged
� Comes with Salient Bolt cover and forward assist
� Each receiver is individually serialized
Cons:
� Some poorly painted engraved text
� Forward assist roll pin did not match its pre drilled out hole
� Safety Selector issue, though this could be because of my Polarstar being fitted with a speed trigger that required a safety lever mod inside.

"First off, these are nicely made for the most part. Engravings are clean and crisp, it's a standard high end G&P receiver.

Now, it should be noted:

This receiver comes with exactly, and only, what you see in the pictures on here. No spring or pin for the forward assist.
Actually, scratch that, I'm pretty sure mine didn't come with the little black cap that goes on the right side of the receiver to cover the fire selector hole either.

Additionally: This is a TAPER receiver, meaning it accepts both G&P Taber outer barrels, and regular barrels (or at least the one I just fit to it to test). Apparently taper barrels are more stable, but who knows, mine is still in the mail, so I couldn't tell ya. From what I understand, this and a few other G&P receivers also use GBB/RS style dust covers, and are not designed for the dust cover to actually latch shut (sadness). AEG dust covers are too tall to fit properly.

Handguard/rail/barrel nut threading is standard AEG spec, so none of that weird older G&P frontend stuff, any regular rail system should work (I just tried three different ones - all worked flawlessly).

As for construction, it's give it a 8/10, I had some fairly thick flashing from the mold remaining in my trigger guard, and the holes are so exactly sized that to fit a fire selector, I actually had to scrape out the paint in them for it to fit. Still not sure if that's a bad thing or not though.

The receiver comes nicely packaged in the box with no visual blemishes. The paint, as with most things airsoft, is mostly held on by hope and prayer, but I kinda want to Cerakote my whole system anyway, so... It does its job for now, and at least any wear until then is authentic.

My one gripe I have with the design is that the trigger guard rises too much in the back - on a standard receiver, the space for the pistol grip to merge to is 1.2" long, while on this one it's only 1.12".
I know, it sounds ridiculous to gripe about that, but it leaves a rather noticeable gap between the lip of a pistol grip and the bottom of the trigger guard, almost 1/8" in my case.
It doesn't effect functionality in the slightest, but it looks stupid, which is sad, especially when on a receiver where everything else appears so well though out. I'll probably end up lasing a chunk of plastic to shape to fill that gap just so it looks better.

And yes, these are all individually numbered. My serial is lower than the one Evike took photos of for this page, oddly enough... heh.

"The design is good and looks nice feels nice and heavy/sturdy upping inspection.

Main issue I had was shortly after installation the upper receiver pin hole cracked and broke. Further inspection concluded that the receiver is cast then machined. The metal is extremely porous and making it weak in areas like that.