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Wait, what? I've been doing it wrong for years, I've been co-operating with the other team!

Nothing wrong with being financially frugal, all the people "flexing on the Poors" can do one, having good financial sense and not getting into debt is a much bigger flex. Of the options referenced, the surefire ear plugs would be my go to, this is both on a budget and considering more expensive options. I won't do catterick again without ear pro (tag 67 frags are loud!) But the idea of even running sordins puts me off. I'll try my surefire ear plugs.

Mine was about £500. How many games did I play? Errrr. None. But the back garden looks like it's been snowing...

I used a Lee Precision Airbrake piston on a build a few years ago. Made only the slightest bit of difference to the noise (more...'thuddy'...) and I was paraniod that the air brake bit might shear off at some point (it was the delrin version). Nicely engineered otherwise. Never used one since though - I much prefer XT POM piston heads from @ak2m4

Image: @Tackle, banning any user that happens to have the letters P, H, L, and I in their username. Colourised, 2023

I made the mistake of looking at some of these falling down an internet rabbit hole and ended up hanging my nose over the gun in the title. Of course I then bought one and following are my thoughts on the gun. In case you don't know what it looks like... https://images.app.goo.gl/9mtVnfitABNswYUX6 For me it's a sexy gun, maybe the sexiest. Sexy and heavy. It weighs 3.6kg with mag, battery and sight and more than a little front heavy. It's the Blue version, so inside it should have half decent bits and clearly the air seal is ok, firing at 365 fps on a .2g BB, through its little 220mm barrel. It's happy on a 3S lipo or a 3S life. I swore to myself I would use it before taking it apart, but I didn't. It had a very clunky fire selector which bothered me greatly so I pulled off the sliding stock, which is very nice and sturdy, with a great extending action (only 1 of the 3 extended positions is useful to me, so I will mod those later) Once the body pin was out, I slid out the gearbox out and pondered the fire selector. I am used to a G36, they are V3 gearboxes and this is a V2. I don't recall working on a V2 before so of course I ploughed ahead, pulling the motor out and sliding the plastic bits off after taking the fire selector levers off ( grubscrew on the left, then pull the shaft and right selector lever through the gearbox. There's a "plastic bit" that sits in the plastic lower, through which the selector shaft passes from the right and gets sandwiched by the right selector lever. Anyhoo, the gearbox has a quick change spring, a shiny ribbed cylinder and a plastic nozzle, sans o ring. The casting is textured for some reason, it's not radiused and not shimmed properly. I noted that the plastic fire selector plate was binding leaving safe to semi on the contacts, which stuck up really high, so the copper part of the fire selector plate had a lot of work to do to get past them. I imagine it's meant to electrically disconnect the trigger as well as mechanically lock the trigger on safe, but it doesn't do the electrical isolation. I will probably rewire this given the pointless contacts. The fire selector plate and the aforementioned "plastic bit" ( a sort of cam) work together provide a crude detent, in addition to the detent in the left fire selector lever, when selecting safe, semi and auto. For safe the plastic bit has kind of beak that goes over centre on the bottom of the fire selector plate, on semi there's a nub on the plastic bit that nestles against a raised bit on the fire selector plate and on auto, the aforementioned beak engages the raised bit. To smooth all this out required: Pushing the contacts down ( they may have been incorrectly seated) so the fire selector plate would move more freely Taper the beak of the plastic bit, so it would engage safe with less force and move from safe to semi with less force. Reduce the size of the nub on the plastic bit to engage semi from safe more smoothly. Taper the top side of the beak so it would more easily engage in the auto position. There is still a detent effect putting the fire selector plate in the right place, which now works with the fire selector levers own detect, meaning it all clicks into place now. Much like my G36s. Having, as previously mentioned, sworn to not take this thing apart I now have a list of things to do. Spring change, maybe nozzle change. Shimming and consequently adjusting motor height. Filling in the 2 useless cut outs in the sliding stock so it slides to the right position. Add a MOSFET ( nothing fancy, I have a load of 3034 chips to use) Some of the MOSFETs used in the posh ETUs are really not very good. Altho the Jefftron ones are very nice. Rewire the thing in decent cable (the PVC stuff doesn't like the bends this gun seems to require and it uses lot of it, going to the back of the gun from the gearbox then to the front to the battery) Short out those weird contacts under the selector plate and get the copper off it. That's probably enough for now, please feel free to tell me where I'm going wrong or what else I might do since I am already doing this ^^^ Maybe you've noticed there are not many pics, Some tech issues prevented them appearing here. I'll add them as soon as I can.

Get the krylon, that stuff is great. Even with zero prep it still stick. The wife used my krylon OD to spray the toilet brush handle, fuck knows why but its still green after abuse.

Oh, sure, I had a Well MB-03 which I upgraded to be half decent, including some DIY shimming and a TDC hop. But the bolt pull went janky, and the uPgRaDeD steel sear chewed up the aluminium piston, and the stopper wallered out the trigger box, and... You can go down the uPgRaDe path, it's still viable. It's just that I feel that you're always chasing the next bit of performance that you imagine might be there, when there are now some viable options that only need a spring swap to get them tuned for your field (and it's a very easy swap indeed on a TAC-41).

The spring in the cyma has .7mm wire, another from either the src or we has .6mm. That's quite a significant difference and my mp5 doesn't have a rate of fire more than those other 2.

Colder magazines will fill better, new gas going into the mag will equalise the temps until the mag cools the gas down so adding gas then waiting and then adding more gas is the way to do it. It's hard to overfill a mag but I'm sure it's possible with some effort, unless the mag is designed to keep a bubble of gas in the mag when filling. You can hear the liquid gas going in with your ear to the can.

I was part of the commissioning batch but mine is counter sunk to make my 14.5" barrel appear to be 13.7"

I fill in pulses , 3-5 seconds at a time , 2-3 times , seems to work ok for me .

Taken from a Canberra I presume?

Kind of my experience too - I bought a Well L96 @£100, then an upgraded hop unit at £20 (didn't fit), another upgraded hop unit at circa £40, new bucking £8, new inner barrel £30, metal trigger box £30 (didn't fit), new spring, piston, guide £30, and finally a new Cylinder when the original one failed after a game or two -£80. In due course, the original plastic trigger will fail, and then i'm into an £80 replacement. Total spend - £340 so far, and will soon be £420 when the inevitable happens to the trigger. As an example, Patrolbase currently have the Nov SSG96mk2 for (an entirely coincidental) £340, which already has all of those 'upgrades', a trigger box that is unlikely to break, and the added benefit of a TDC hop. Plus you retain your consumer rights with it. I'm not sure if i purchased a lemon in the original Well L96 (albeit internet based chatter seems to indicate not), but it wasn't really useable in its stock form - generally outranged and outshot by most of the cheapest AEGs. It's shooting nicely now with all the upgrades, and there is a sense of satisfaction from doing it yourself.

Earing damage is no joke, when it comes to fitting thw squish-ums plugs I find squishing them and giving them a lick or lick your finger to moisten them slightly gets them in easier. It works with all sorts of plugs too. As I wear a range of plugs for different activities,from foams to comtacs.

I've only progressed the paypal claim earlier this morning so not heard back yet. Worst case, i only lose out on £20 - and frankly, less if i can work out how to extract the broken valve and replace it - so not the end of the world, but I was still rather surprised by the response!

Surefire earplugs are actually really good: https://www.edgarbrothers.com/shop-online/brands/surefire/surefire-ep7-sonic-defenders-ultra/

Personally, I'd say go for something better than Howard leights. They are great for the range, bit of clay pigeon shooting etc but the ambient noise (the ability to hear people near by) isn't good enough. Surefire do a range of ear plugs that are meant to be very good, so you can hear, chat etc but they protect against loud noises. Or look for some sordins or contacs. Yes they're more expensive but 1) any hearing damage is permanent 2) they will retain their value, if you decide to stop wearing them, you'll probably get your money back. 3) you'll hear more "tactically" and have a better experience. I tried Howard leights (had some already) and they just didn't cut it for me. I struggle with the sordins I have and they have some super powerful ambient noise amplification so you can hear more than without them.

Ask Google to translate "sharp knife" from English to Latvian

Did the shimming and finished off the perun tasks today. On this gearbox I removed the trigger screw protrusion with a drill bit instead of grinding stuff. The cutoff lever is removed with this perun hybrid. All the scratches are from the manufacturer. The perun sticker I applied after removing the copper and cleaning the plastic with isopropanol. The bearings are 3x8x3 and I had to widen the channel in the selector plate at the top in this pic to take some pressure off the plate so it moves without much effort. Even with 2.5mm ones in the plate rubbed Bearings are from ak2m4, run nicely with thier 7 balls. Obviously better than 6... When I'm finished opening the box I'll lube everything, seems I have a leaky nozzle, the blue, apparently 3d printed, one that came with gun has a texture on it, no o ring and a very strong tappet plate spring which I'll have to compare with some others before I'm happy.

Went to a New Years party dressed up as a load of breadcrumbs. The birds were all over me!

Pic dump of my latest child. TM MWS in a Fortis receiver with B.A.D & Strike Industries furniture, other than the F1 grip. Last pic was with a Vortex Venom in a Strike Industries REX, but would benefit from a riser. The trigger box pin & anti rotation links weren't installed in that photo. Went a little over budget with this one, a couple of times, but it worked out!

Return it. Do NOT disassemble, molest or mess with. If its like this straight out the box I strongly reccomend you get the shop to replace it.

I added up my 2023 spend and it's kinda embarassing but I only regret a few two tones I bought before I got my UKARA, I certainly prefer to see my spend as percentages rather than £££'s

custom gbb workshop Kimber Ultra TLE II .45acp VFC gbb airsoft cerakote

I'm gonna go to hell for this. 🥺

To counter the rather positive reviews above - I ordered 3 hicapa mags from them in late December. The pretty fast postage is unfortunately where the good service ends - one of the mags turned up with its fill valve missing its entire outer part - so is loose in the mag, with obviously no gas seal to speak of, and no way to tighten it. Their stock response after several emails is the same - 'we check every mag before its sent out, so you are lying'. Not great!