Introduction:

The M4 carbine is a lightweight, gas operated, air cooled, magazine fed, selective rate, shoulder fired weapon with a collapsible stock. A shortened variant of the M16A2 rifle with 80% parts commonality, the M4 provides the individual soldier operating in close quarters with improved handling and the capability to rapidly and accurately engage targets at extended range. Like all the variants of the M16, the M4 can be fitted with many accessories and is capable of mounting an M203 grenade launcher. In 2005, M4 carbine became the standard issue infantry weapon in the US Army.

In their first batch of releases Live Resin presented several basic M4 kits and various weapon accessory sets (optical sights, laser designators, forward grips, etc.), providing modelers with an option of building almost any M4 setup possible in 1/35 scale. Now, Live Resin decided to produce US Army M4 Carbine Easy Kit (LRE35150) offering a slightly diverse approach to assembling different M4 carbine setups.

Review:

The US Army M4 Carbine Easy Kit (LRE35150) is packed in a zip-lock bag secured between a hard cardboard. The CAD box art shows all the kit parts, stating 20 different M4 variations can be assembled using the parts supplied in the kit.

The kit consists of 9 resin parts for building 3 complete M4 carbines. The resin cast is perfect and I found no evidence of air-bubbles, seam lines or flash. Also, as we came to expect from Live Resin, all the tiny and delicate details are nicely delivered in scale, with even the muzzles featuring small openings. The fit is really good with the parts intelligently engineered featuring protrusions and indentations which help in aligning the pieces correctly. The parts include:

3x different M4 front end parts

- Front end #1: Knight type RIS handguard, standard front sight, AN/PEQ-15, forward vertical handgrip, Surefire weapon light

- Front end #2: Knight type RIS handguard, standard front sight, rail cover panels

- Front end #3: Knight type RIS handguard, standard front sight, M203 12’’ grenade launcher, AN/PEQ-15, Surefire weapon light

3x different M4 receivers

- Receiver #1: Picatinny-type accessory rail on the upper receiver, standard pistol grip, 30 round magazine w Magpul Ranger Plate, Trijicon ACOG 4x32

- Receiver #2: Picatinny-type accessory rail on the upper receiver, standard pistol grip, 30 round magazine, Aimpoint CompM2, flip-up rear sight

- Receiver #3: Picatinny-type accessory rail on the upper receiver, standard pistol grip, 30 round magazine, Trijicon ACOG 4x32, flip-up rear sight

3x different M4 buttstocks

- Buttstock #1: standard M4 stock (retracted)

- Buttstock #2: standard M4 stock (extended)

- Buttstock #3: LMT Crane SOPMOD stock (retracted)

As most of you know, Live Resin uses state-of-the-art 3D prototyping technology to create their sets, delivering products that are actually miniature copies of the real weapons. This set is not an exception with M4 carbines featuring incredible level of details in 1/35 scale. The originality of this Live Resin set comes from introducing a new concept for assembling slightly different weapon variants…By combining the weapon modules fully equipped with various weapon accessories included in this Easy Kit, modelers can build 27 different M4 setups. If Live Resin produced additional Easy Kits and introduced new weapon modules, even more M4 variants could be assembled. This concept offers an interesting alternative for modelers not willing to invest in all the different M4 and weapon accessories Live Resin released individually.

Conclusion:

This kit features the most common infantry weapon in US military arsenal today: the M4 carbine. It includes 9 modular parts for building 3 complete M4 carbines (with optical sights, laser designators and various other accessories) in 1/35 scale. The resin cast is really good with extremely well defined details. The fit of the pieces is perfect and the assembly is easy.

The Easy Kit approach provides another concept of building slightly different weapon variants using weapon modules. The modules are fixed with various weapon accessories, which are then combined to produce fully equipped M4s. This idea offers an alternative to the first Live Resin “fully modular” concept, where the weapon and all the accessories had to be purchased individually.

References:

Global Security

Federation of American Scientists

World Guns