Sniper Rifles

[Harry Furness]

Well Hello there,

So i have been air softing for around 4-5 months and have a decent AEG that i am happy with and have recently purchase a trusty MK23 as a side arm in the eventuality of getting myself a sniper set up. problem is there are 100's if not 1000's on the market and i have no idea what i am looking at. i dont have the kind of budget for an ssg24 (other makes are available haha) but i find myself getting lost constantly trolling through the various retailers just looking at guns with no idea what im actually looking for. wondering if someone can help me out with recommendations for a decent reliable sniper rifle that can teach me the basics of sniping in air soft that is reliable and doesnt weigh a ton to carry around the field. i like the look of a few guns but i have learnt it is nothing to do with whats on the outside (although we like a pretty gun).

Thanks in advance for any help or recommendations that can be brought to my attention   

 

[E21A]

If you’ve not got the budget for ssg24/SRS then good sniper rifles are built not bought. Find what you like the look and then check the availability of upgrade parts etc before buying. 

 

[Harry Furness]

Thanks Bud,

I'm guessing your saying go for ascetics and find something i like the look of and then over time get the necessary upgrades in order to preform as well as the more expensive guns do out of the box? 

If that is the case do you have any recomendations for newbie friendly snipers?

 

[AshOnSnow]

I advise you keep it simple:

If you want out of the box performance, and willing to pay a premium for that, you can either go with the traditional rifle type of the SSG24, or the Bullpup type of the SRS.

If you want to go down the base gun and upgrades route, then you can go with a VSR or suitable clone such as the CYMA or JG ones.

 

[E21A]

Pretty much, but like I say, check there are plenty of upgrade parts available before you buy anything. 

2 examples would be VSR-10 or clones thereof and the ares striker 

 

[Harry Furness]

Ok so thanks for all the advice, looking at the VSR-10 looks like a really nice gun and easily upgradeable. 

Does anyone one have any idea what sort of cost I would be looking at to upgrade to the same sort of standard as an SSG24 or SRS? 

 

[Rogerborg]

Given that you'll end up replacing just about every internal part anyway, I keep coming back to suggesting the cheapest available VSR-10-ish knock-off, the Well MB-03 (or MB-02).

About £55 + surprise fees + ~£12 postage from TaiwanGun or Gunfire, or £83.79 delivered from BBGuns4less if you put it in your basket then wait 24 hours for the super secret 7% discount code.

Out of the box, it's not awful.  It puts BBs downrange at about 400fps / 1.5J.  Sure, you'll be hugely outgunned most of the time, and when you're in that 5m sweet spot where you just barely outrange all of the honest AEG players who both chronoed at under 350fps, you'll miss more than you'll hit. But... you know all those YouTube sniper channel 4,000,000 killstreak videos?  [Looks around, stage whispers] They're heavily edited.

Really, you can buy that and you can go and play with it entirely as stock with 0.36g BBs or thereabouts, and see if you enjoy the very different tactics required.

If you stick with it, then you can start flinging money at it.

Spring / piston upgrade = £18.50. Careful now - that got me to an eye watering 600 fps / 3.33J.  It's likely that you'll need to cut the spring down.

Then you're into barrels (£25 and upwards), hop arms (Airsoft Pro, £13+) or hop units (Action Army ~£50), barrel spacers (I use electrical tape), rubbers (~£10) and trigger gubbins to fix problems that you might not have.

But first, find out if you like sniping.  That means buying cheap, or buying used, or better yet, borrowing.

 

[ghostsniper]

I would choose the VSR range loads of upgrades available I currently use the TM VSR Gspec awesome gun but its took a lot of upgrades to get it where I wanted it. But you can start of with small subtle upgrades and work on it gradually  I believe the cyma versions shoot around 450 fps from stock hope this helps 

 

[Yukarin]

Personally wouldn't recommend the WELL MB-03 because the cylinder group is offspec to the original TM, sure AirsoftPro make parts for the WELL spec and they are good but at the end of the day that does limit you to only using AirsoftPro cylinder group parts. JG BAR-10 is hands down the best clone of the TM VSR-10 on the market.

 

[Rogerborg]

Personally wouldn't recommend the WELL MB-03 because the cylinder group is offspec to the original TM

Thus "VSR-10-ish".

It depends how determined you are to throw away and replace every single part inside your toy gnu.  As above, you can do spring, piston and guide for £18.50.  With the stock cylinder and nozzle, that gets you Well over 500fps.  You don't need any more energy out of it - you'll probably need less.  And I've had no issues with the stock trigger (yet) with that spring and piston.

Let's say that the piston or cylinder head or trigger group does let go.  An entire new gnu with a fresh new set of all those parts will only run you £60 or so.

So it comes down to how much more you want to spent on a platform that lets you spend even more on more parts.

 

[Prisce]

If you the like the VSR, have a look at the AA T10, bit different but takes same internals.

If you like the SSG though, A&K is a decent M24 that requires very few mods to male it better than the SSG for half the price. Cyma do an either cheaper version, but those I have seen do not have the QC that other brands do.

 

[Yukarin]

Thus "VSR-10-ish".

It depends how determined you are to throw away and replace every single part inside your toy gnu.  As above, you can do spring, piston and guide for £18.50.  With the stock cylinder and nozzle, that gets you Well over 500fps.  You don't need any more energy out of it - you'll probably need less.  And I've had no issues with the stock trigger (yet) with that spring and piston.

Let's say that the piston or cylinder head or trigger group does let go.  An entire new gnu with a fresh new set of all those parts will only run you £60 or so.

So it comes down to how much more you want to spent on a platform that lets you spend even more on more parts.

You can also do a similar upgrade to the BAR-10 and still have an on-spec cylinder group and a cylinder that is the strongest stock cylinder on the market.

 

[Harry Furness]

Wow, firstly thanks for all the feedback guys.

ok so basically it depends on how far I want to take it but what your saying is if I want out the box performance then front the cash for an ash or srs but if I want to start from the bottom then I’d be looking at getting a nice shell that I like and basically gutting it over a period of time. 

Great.

so far I have recommendations for the vsr-10 or an equivalent and the Bar-10 and be looking between 150-300 on upgrades depending how far I want to go. So realistically your saying that and out the box cheap gun I’ll be getting like 50-60 meters range wise? Hhhhmmmm sounds terrible. My issue is i don’t trust second hand  is the sales side of this forum trusty?

 

[M_P]

so far I have recommendations for the vsr-10 or an equivalent and the Bar-10 and be looking between 150-300 on upgrades depending how far I want to go. So realistically your saying that and out the box cheap gun I’ll be getting like 50-60 meters range wise? Hhhhmmmm sounds terrible. My issue is i don’t trust second hand  is the sales side of this forum trusty?

Won't even be 50-60m accurately out of the box, that's actually quite a long way in airsoft terms. 

The VSR system is great once upgraded but it'll have the same ~35-40m range as everything else out the box 

 

[Harry Furness]

Ok so realistically if I want decent performance and to outclass any decent AEG then basically I haven’t much choice but to spend the extra to get something decent. 

I think I will take the advice given and see if I can borrow one for the day to see if it suits my style of play before fronting up the cash. 

Thanks again for everyone’s help

 

[sonofsammo]

I think I will take the advice given and see if I can borrow one for the day to see if it suits my style of play before fronting up the cash. 

Another option if you can't borrow a sniper is try and play a sneaky style with your AEG. It can be just as fun and gives you a good idea if you like it.
However, the other thing I would say is - feel free to ignore the advice of "go cheap until you know if you like it" (because although well intentioned and sensible, it's not for everyone!).
I wish I had.
I should have just bought an SRS from the off. I adore sniping (and my SRS) and could have saved a tonne of money had I ignored the initial advice. But, ymmv ? 

 

[Harry Furness]

Sonofsammo, 

This is thew reason i want to look into a sniper set is because one of my favourite things to do is flank HARD and pick off the enemy as they try to push the objective but i find i have to get into some dangerous positions in order to be able to hit people, i'm looking for the extra 30-40 meters so i can stay concealed and maybe survive a little longer after spending 10 mins flanking plus nothing better than shooting someone and you hear "where did that come from".

Yeah i'm thinking that its possible that i may just have to save up those pennies and go for the out of the box gun as i'm quite impatient, and not sure i can hang around doing all the upgrades haha,

Again thanks for the advice

 

[Rogerborg]

You can also do a similar upgrade to the BAR-10 and still have an on-spec cylinder group and a cylinder that is the strongest stock cylinder on the market.

I can buy two MB-03s for £3 more than one JG BAR-10.

I'm funning, no argument that the BAR-10 is a better way to go if you're going to go all the way in upgrades.  I present the Well as the cheapest way to give sniping a try.

Ok so realistically if I want decent performance and to outclass any decent AEG then basically I haven’t much choice but to spend the extra to get something decent. 

Yes.

I'm should say that I'm really just a dabbler in BASRs. I went the cheap Well route and so far have done the spring (cut down) + piston + guide as above, Airsoft Pro hop arm (which needed modified, I don't accept that it's a drop in part at all), barrel (can't remember what I went with), and electrical tape barrel spacers.

I've recently bodged a TDC mod on there (essentially just a fine threaded bolt through the outer barrel pressing directly down on the hop arm), but that was more for fun than anything else.

With that I get a consistent 495fps and can significantly over-hop 0.43g with the stock hop unit - and that was before fitting the TDC.  And it's pretty accurate.

It will shoot BBs slightly further than any legal (site or statute) AEG because BBs don't care about airsoft magical thinking, they only know how much energy and spin they have.

All good, right?

Well, not really, because "slightly further" really does mean 10m or so, not 30-40, and "pretty accurate" still means missing most of the time in that 10m range band.

While sitting safely back beyond AEG's range, I can go through whole magazines without scoring a single hit.  Add in any sort of breeze and it becomes a crap-shoot.

Well, I can go through whole magazines but that rarely happens, because (despite what YouTube shows) you typically don't get the leisure to do that.  I'll get taken out by a hot or advancing or flanking AEG, or a better sniper, or my personal bête noire, DMRs spamming BBs with near as dammit as much energy as a BASR.

When you do get a hit, it's very satisfying, like using a pump action shotgun in CQB.  But they're few and far between unless you're preying on the hapless.  And anything works against the hapless.

Anyway, tl;dr version - ignore all that and do what @sonofsammo said - just buy an SRS right off the bat.

My issue is i don’t trust second hand  is the sales side of this forum trusty?

I don't trust second hand either, especially claims about laser-snipers, and I would not drop 3 figures on a toy gun without trying it first.

Best thing is probably to ask around at your local site and see if anyone is selling theirs on.

 

[Harry Furness]

Really informative read to be honest. 

I hear claims from the guys using SSG24's and SRS's at my local site saying that in good conditions 100m is achievable and i have seen people hitting the 80m target on a regular basis with these guns, so on that basis what is the distinguishing difference between the two? and which one would you guys recommend?

 

[Prisce]

Search the forum buddy for SSG vs SRS and you’ll see my post, hopefully that’ll help you.