Hey Woogie.
I bought a Star SL8 (the grey one) a month ago. I'm still in the process of writing up a formal review. But I have posted a quick bare bone review of the gun in my thread: Advice SL8 in the Other's section of the forum.
In summary:
0) There are no more SL9's anywhere in Hong Kong (scratch that. Classic Army still has them).
1) Don't expect a great external finish as its grey and the color isn't evenly distributed on the entire gun. The material also scratches pretty easily. You also see the mold injection points.
Oh.. they also put a hole at the front of the foregrip, right on top of the hole where you put the out barrel through - I still don't quite get why.. maybe to look through as the entire foregrip doesn't have any holes?
2) make sure you have a battery that fits in the foregrip. I still haven't bought a battery to fit it, but I think any LiPO or stick type NiMH will fit. A normal 8.4v nimh paired arranged pack WILL NOT FIT
3) Replace the hop up sleeve and nub - the first game I went to, the BBs were flying upwards even when there's no hop. It could be due to the little lever thing that keeps the BB down. You might also find that you have to wrap some telfon tape around the sleeve as the hop up chamber is abit big.
4) Be really really really really x 100000 careful when taking out the foregrip. 1st, unscrew the outer barrel (btw, DO NOT SCREW IT ON TOO TIGHTLY), then take it off. The piece that holds the front part of the inner barrel and which the outer barrel screws on to, is attached to the mock gas chamber bya thin piece of pot metal. Mine broke off quite easily and I had to superglue the part back on (so far so good, fingers crossed)
5) The gun is really silent stock! I think its the amount of grease they have in the gear box.. its good grease though
6) There's no fuse. You plug the battery directly to the gearbox wiring.
7) I originally planned to put the battery inside the rear stock, but there's alot of drilling, and not much room in the stock if you're planning to adjust the back with those steps that length or shorten it.
8) Great looking gun. It does use a V3 gearbox.
9) The balance on the gun is pretty good. I can hold the grip with both hands and not feel any imbalance (i.e. not front heavy).
If you're planning to get it from Ehobby, get it now. They only had 2 left when I went to check on them (note: I live in Hong Kong, I actually went to their showroom and asked to see all their SL8s.) I hope you'll get the better looking one of the two.
Oh, if I sound excited/angry etc about this gun, its because I really enjoy tinkering with it. There's so much space to do things. I'm in the process of adding some memoryfoam and such to further minimize noise coming from the gun. 2 screws an the entire gearbox/stock comes right off!
That may be next week or in 3 months, who knows. If they are gone by then I will find something.
