[whalesmash]

I would second going with a VSR10, but if you are set on one of your mentioned rifles, I vote for the ARES.

The reason for my vote is that the ARES mag system does not use a loading fin like the VFC. In my experience, loading fins are simply horrible. If you watched Novritsch's review of the VFC m40a3, it jammed on him during the shooting test. Not a good sign. On the other hand, I know that the Ares loading system just uses a feeding tube that guides the bb's up into the chamber. It uses the spring from the magazine to push the bb's through rather than using a fin to press individual bb's up at a time. The downside to the Ares system is as you stated. There needs to be BB's in the tube and in the magazine otherwise there won't be enough pressure to move the BB's up the track. My MSR has the exact same thing. The way I get around it is that I pre-load 20 bb's into the magazine, load it in, let the bb's shoot into the tube, take the magazine back out, and then load the magazine to capacity. Kind of annoying, but it's all pre-game prep so it doesn't really matter. I don't find myself going through more than one magazine in a match anyways.

 

[whalesmash]

Can't believe I didn't think of converting a VSR10. I know we could talk about the VSR10 all day, but simply how good is the feeding system on the VSR10?

VSR10 feeding systems are generally superior to both feeding systems in the mcm700 and vfc m40a3 due to the simplicity of the system. The only adjustment you will need to do (assuming you buy the AA chamber) is to move the BB stoppers within the hop up chamber. After those are properly placed, you should not have issues from then on out.