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That's nice and easy, get the other one thats not 'upgraded' by DCA, as you'll be being passed the insane markup he does for something that is almost certainly not as high of a value as its listed at..

Considering you've got a good budget for a gun, why not just buy a new one that hasn't been messed with?

Played the opening day at UCAP Vanquish, located at the Citadel in Dover. Like a lot (most?) of the other UCAP sites except GreenOps, it's in a disused prison. I believe this was also used for an AI event, but today's was 120 or so players rather than jamming everyone in the world in. Quality over quantity (or something). Rolled up to a busy carpark at 08:30. I would have thought some people were camping for a week given the number of rolling trunks, bags and cases, but apparently it was just for the day. There's an on-site cafe that does breakfast if you've missed yours and from what I saw it looked pretty good. Was also open for lunch (more on that later). Across the bridge and a relatively brief queue to get checked in, albeit in a cutting cold wind, before getting into the safe zone. Tables everywhere to put your kit on, more upstairs, a tea urn, proper toilets with actual working hand dryers. May have reached peak safe zone tbh. Caught up with some familiar faces, which was good, before heading out for the usual Chronoing and safety brief. Standard stuff really, and everyone there seemed to be experienced, so no issues. Rules for the day were , no 2 tones, semi auto only, no DMRs, bolt guns are allowed (outdoors only) but I wouldn't recommend it. There are no open windows, so it's not like Longmoor/Catterick/Sennybridge where you can snipe out of buildings. Additionally you can't shoot into/out of windows because mostly they all still have glass in and all that'll happen is it ends up getting damaged. Attackers could lob pyro in to buildings, but defenders couldn't lob it out. Nobody used smokes. I think they would have been useless outdoors and obviously a no-go indoors. All these worked pretty well and were well observed. Where there was occasional confusion (can you shoot whilst going up the stairs, can you shoot through mesh/cracks, etc), it got resolved amicably. There then followed a number of attack/defend games, starting with a warm up block war assault, which involved both teams being split in half and half of their team defending their block, while the other half attacked the enemy block. The opposing team were doing the same, but the attacking teams couldn't engage each other, just assault onto the buildings. There was also a british bulldog element where when a defender got hit, they'd go and join their team on the attack. Leading to basically a few people defending as the entire enemy team assaulted. A good warm up game where nobody was sitting around for long. Next up, I think various rolling defence games attacking buildings in sequence. One life and fall back to the next for defenders, unlimited for attackers. It was identified that there were some choke points on the stairs, which the marshals let run for 5 or 10 mins and then moved the defenders back. Part of the day was identifying things like this that you can't really tell just by walking through it, and all the players seemed to be on board with that approach. The marshals were open to suggestions throughout, and I think there are some easy fixes without having to radically alter anything. At some point there was lunch. Meal deal for me, but there were plenty of people having things from the cafe's excellent selection (sandwiches, burgers, full English, hot drinks, cans, cake, biscuits...). The only issue was the wait time, with 120 airsofters suddenly deciding they wanted cheesy chips, etc. It was possible to preorder for lunch in the morning and I suspect going forward this will be a necessity. Again, it was day one. After lunch, some reversals of the previous games. It was our turn to camp at the top of the murder stairs and it became apparent what a turkey shoot it was from that perspective. Fair play to the marshals, they said we could have 5 mins of that and then they'd move us back, just like the morning. This duly happened, and the attacking team then pushed forward to be met with, frankly, ALL the pyro. The bombs just kept coming and those at the top of the stairs were falling about giggling at the disbelief from the bottom as to much was being lobbed down. Eventually the place was full of smoke and none of our ears worked any more. 11/10, would recommend. The initial games were very much focussed on fighting through each building to see how they played, but the final game of the day gave us free reign of the site with 3 bomb objectives. Quite fancy LED bombs in pelican cases that you had to hold down the button to change to your team colour. A lot of back and forth in that one as people flanked round, made use of newly discovered routes through buildings and so on. I have no idea what the scores were, but it doesn't really matter. Didn't feel like one side or the other dominated. In conclusion, a solid day out. I had a good time, despite CQB not being my usual play style. The NGRS MP5 did the business as ever, although I am now considering tracer options. And possibly some earpro. Well run day, good hit taking and good attitude from all involved. Recommended. Shout outs to the rest of "Team Green".

When it comes to modded guns second hand, it's less about what parts it has, and more the quality of the workmanship. And unless they're name-dropping a tech that can be a gamble. You might get a well dialled machine that runs well, or a cobbled together mess that's going to struggle to make it through the first game without eating something important. If you cant see the gun shoot, hear how it sounds, then you're basically going off the value of the parts (at least the big ticket items) and the externals, the latter of which are unfortunately no indication of how healthy the internals are. It's why i advocate people learning their own teching, because at least you can have some confidence in being able to sort out any installation issues yourself.

Before going into my findings and thoughts on the Ares HPA conversion, it's worth setting the scene a little. I've been messing around with airsoft (BBwars anyone?) for close to 35 years. My first BB gun was a model kit of a S&W pistol that once built fired 6mm BB's. It lasted a few mags worth before I accidently landed on it while sliding over my mates Ford Capri bonnet while trying to shoot him. I'd probably get arrested nowadays if I tried that in Taunton again. In the following years I've owned pretty much every different style of airsoft replica. Not only every weapon type but also every mechanism that makes them fire. I've still got a GBB smg that takes duster cans that you screw into a hose, PTW's, GBRS, recoils, mosfets, snipers, both spring and gas and any other fad that has popped up. I've never really wanted a HPA replica for a few reasons, 1. it seems a bit of a faff, b, a lot of HPA'rs seem to be running around in lycra with drum mags hanging off a pistol and 3, I'm not much of a scuba diver. This changed when I was at a boot sale recently and someone was flogging a tank and regulator and with the Ares V2 HPA conversion popping up for sale, I thought it might be time to give it a try. Buying these parts looked to be at least removing some of the faff that I couldn't arsed with. Turns out that wasn't the case but that was nothing to do the the Ares HPA engine. Turns out the regulator I bought was goosed and even after watching a few youtube videos on maintenance, it still was goosed. The tank was at least ok until I tried filling it for the 2nd time and the 1.8k pressure valve blew. While I'm talking about faff, the filling of the tank is a problem. If you have access to a dive shop or an airsoft shop that offers a refill service then it's not to bad but the other options are, buy the foot pump or buy a compressor. Now I live in Wiltshire and since the sea is very very far away, there are no dive shops (or airsoft shops for that matter). I went for the cheap option and bought the foot pump. I filled the 3000psi tank up to 1000psi, went and lay down for an hour and proceeded to go buy the compressor. If you are old and unfit like me, or young and unfit or young and fit, don't buy the foot pump. Go buy the compressor but make sure you change the filter every fill as they get wet quickly and water inside a compressed bottle is a very bad idea. So I now had a compressor, HPA engine, air line, knackered regulator and knackered bottle. Thankfully the very helpful DJM94 from these very forums was selling a tank, storm regulator and air hose, which he kindly dropped off at his local airsoft shop for me to collect. I now had everything I needed to set up a HPA gun. My donor AEG was a ARES AM-008BK as I had one sitting in the gun rack. I didn't try to fit it into any other M4 style receiver as I thought I'd try to keep it as Ares intended and fit the HPA engine into one of their replicas. This turned out to surprising easy which was a case of stripping the AEG gearbox out of the AEG and fitting the HPA inside. I had to remove the screw from the bottom the pistol grip for the hose and the only really other annoying thing was the stock tube screw was too short so I had to order a M5x100mm from Amazon to put the whole thing back together. It would have been nice for ARES to include a couple of different sized screws with the HPA engine but sadly they missed this trick. One other thing I did was add an O ring to the plug that you connect your air line to. You can see the connector I'm talking about in the picture above. Adding the O ring stops you accidently disconnecting this connector when you plug in the air line. The last modification I did was cut off the XT30 connector and run a longer pair of wires with a Deans connector so that I could fit the wire down the stock tube and stick a 11.1v Lipo battery inside. The Ares HPA gearbox has the cutouts in the gearbox shell for this so it's a pretty simple task. So with everything connected, a full tank and flippers and wet suit on it was time to test. trigger response - fast rate of fire - 16bb's per second FPS variation - 1 FPS over 20 shots accuracy - surprisingly good for a stock hop rubber and inner barrel. misfeeds - none problems - none. Sound - very quiet Overall, this seems like a pretty simple way to get a HPA rifle. The low rate of fire means it's unlikely you will be donning lycra and combat rolling your way through the game zone. The lack of variation in the FPS is very nice, meaning that if your aim is true then shot to shot accuracy should be pretty good. Cost of the HPA engine is cheap compared to other higher end systems however if you shop abroad you can get it even cheaper (£115 from sixmm opposed to £200 in the UK but warranty will be an issue if bought abroad). There are other initial costs to consider if you are thinking about going HPA: compressor £160 Tank £65 airline £21 regulator £70 upwards Wet suit and flippers are option. final impression. It's a very quick way to get into HPA. I'm unlikely to sell all my other guns and go buy a bunch of lycra but I do see the appeal. Once you get over the faff of filling tanks and have all the bits it becomes just as accessible as an AEG. The consistent FPS and low noise make it nice shooting experience. One 3000psi tank will do about 1000 bb's on the Ares HPA engine so a 2nd tank might be worthwhile having. Now that I've lost my HPA cherry I think my next HPA venture will be the VFC M249 converted to HPA tank and a AEG nutsack.

Today, I went to the rather chilly and extremely muddy Airsoft Plantation. Airsoft Plantation's winter mud is fascinating and intriguing; its surface area, depth, varying consistency and slippery essence would delight the most jaded connoisseur of pedological science, a subject about which the Lad knows rather a lot. Having set up the latest addition to the HK family, which JG call a G3 SAS, I readied the HK33 and HK53 for the day's action. Around 120-130 players were present, a decent number which resulted in the safe zone being a little less busy than it sometimes is. The first game was a shortish warm up, which involved us, the red team, attacking from the village into the mortar pits with the aim of getting 20 players on the top deck of the bus that is parked in the middle of it. On reflection I do wonder why someone would park a bus in the middle of some mortar pits; it seems an odd thing to do. We had infinite regens on one of two marshals, while the defenders had two lives in the mortar pits. The defenders could have players on the bottom deck of the bus, but not the top. A group of us cut across the site, forming the right flank of the overall assault and swinging down towards the comms truck, from where we dislodged the enemy rather handily, although I did have to take several trips to the nearest regen marshal. Eventually, of course, the enemy were overwhelmed, although it was interesting to witness how long it takes for 20 airsofters to get onto the top floor of a bus and back down again. After a very short break to mag up, we set out for a game which involved getting a crate into the enemy's HQ. We started at the DEA base, with the plane as our HQ, while the blues started in the village with the town hall as theirs. Each side had unlimited regens on six medics; if a medic was hit, they had to find another medic to regen on. A couple of us medics stayed with the group defending the plane, where we soon became very busy shooting the attacking enemy and reviving our colleagues. A strong enemy attack from the direction of the mortar pits was repulsed after an epic fight, as were several probing attacks. Eventually, the enemy increased the pressure on us and managed to get their crate into the plane, winning the game. I am unable to report on our colleagues who were trying to get our crate into the town hall as I have no idea what happened to them. After another very short break, our team went to the village where ten high value targets, of which I was one, had to be defended by the rest of the team. As HVTs, pairs of us had to occupy a building, so five buildings were occupied by HVTs; once hit, we had to drop our yellow armbands where we were and the go to the border to get new instructions from a marshal. Other defenders had two lives, while the attackers, whose aim was to collect all ten armbands and get them to the marshal, had infinite regens on a teammate. After several good exchanges, a wafty BB at the very end of its flight drifted through the window and gently tapped me on the shoulder. When I reached the marshal at the border, he offered me three choices: 1. Remain there with him looking bored and glum. 2. Go back to the safe zone for an early lunch. 3. Betray my teammates by swapping sides and joining the attackers. Being a true gentleman and a man of honour, I immediately chose the latter, rejoicing in shooting my former colleagues. After lunch, we set out for the mortar pits for a reversal of the first game of the day. I started off at the comms truck, holding back an enemy attack for a while until discretion became the better part of valour and I decided to fall back towards my colleagues; unfortunately, while carrying out a tactical withdrawal (honestly not running away!) I was shot in the back and had to regen at the berm, where I fought until I was hit again, ending my involvement in the game. Following this, we reversed the game with the high value targets; attacking into the village was hard, but we gradually wore down the defenders and captured all of the armbands. As the game with the crates had gone so well, it was reprised with different start points and targets; we started at the tower in the village and had to get our crate onto the bus in the mortar pits, while the enemy started at the bus and had to get their crate into the tower. This was not our finest moment; after holding off the enemy's attack for a while, a group of them swung right around the site, entering the village from the far end and eventually getting their crate to its destination. The day finished with a rather fun game of infection; I lasted quite a while, combining shooting the ever growing number of attackers with successfully avoiding being shot until quite near the end. Of course, I was eventually hit and, by the time I had regened at the hill fort and returned as an attacker, the game was essentially over. When all clear was called, one surviving defender popped up. It was a typical AP day; well organised and well run with well designed games and a good mix of players from the very experienced to first time rentals. No airsoft for me next weekend as our guitarist and I are going to see the utterly bonkers Laibach on the Saturday evening and then have a rehearsal on the Sunday. Weapons used: Classic Army HK33 Classic Army HK53 JG G3 "SAS" (not for very long as I only had one mag with me) ASG XP18 Commander (CO2)

Snitches get stitches...

Yes, then the Mods can take action

And i thought 6 + 1 in the gun was a lot..

In 95% of cases the word upgraded should be regarded as if your wife said it, i.e. it doesn't actually mean what it's supposed to mean or what you think it means. It's not generally any individuals' fault, I personally blame retailers for mis-labelling their spare parts section as their 'upgrade' section.

That's pretty much the point i was trying to get at. A secondhand modded pew could have been worked on by someone with no experience, or someone with a lot of experience, if you do it yourself you at least get the benefit of knowing which of those 2 things happened. the walk of shame with a broken pew is still on the cards but at least it'll be your own shame.

He sure does put a high value on his time, but I'd consider it an anti-recommendation that a gun has been through his hands. The thread basically ended with @Adolf Hamster's post. If you have to ask, then don't buy 2nd hand. It's a big risk, and you're not exactly getting bargains there, given that fire control systems are now becoming the default on new guns at less than those prices.

Just don't smoke while you do it or you'll remove a few more layers than expected.

Starting to repair a boneyard AK-47, wires soldered to motor tabs, WTF! 😡

Common sense should apply here, I've bought 77 rif's second hand from here with relitively few issues (as above), admittedly most are wall hangers but they all work apart from a few boneyards that I knew had issues, I have 5 rifs in my collection that I've listed as faulty but I'm pretty sure they were all sold as boneyard, the ones I fixed were sold as working( I think). I have a couple that I remember thinking they were metal bodied & they turned out to be 'sportline' but the only rif I regret buying was brand new & not to scale so it's never seen the light of day (we don't talk about the blue one's). If in doubt... don't buy, if disapointed or feel scammed there's always the paypal claim process (honest sellers have nothing to fear). On a possitive note, I'll have more weekends off soon and have already started preparing myself & collection for potential game days, even second hand purchases from the classifieds.

Guess, we report these For Sale posts if we see them?

But i am a rookie. ☹️

This is mostly aimed at airsofters who can't be trusted with their own shoelaces, which granted is 90% Bit not everyone is a numpty and not everyone sells broken, lied about second hand guns

That doesn't surprise me. 😉

Mine are all either 20/30-round GBB mags or 70/80-round Marui AEG mid-caps. Not run out of ammo yet.

Use Biostrip, its literally a fit for purpose product, that doesn't damage any plastics or original coatings that are on it- petrol will damage the shitty anodising that PTS used to do.

I wouldn't touch either RIF with a barge pole. Or any 'upgraded' 2nd hand gun. Or pretty much any 2nd hand gun come to think of it. Watch enough of Negative Airsoft's videos - you'll see why. This. [/End Thread]

Happily, I'll dig it out 😂 16 mags on my person, one drum mag in the RPK 😂 Can throw the rest in the buttpack if needed too!

Running out of ammo? What's that mean?

https://www.usedairsoft.co.uk/rif-s/electric-powered/double-bell-kac-pdw-m4-aeg_i75514 Seller wants £120 for a gun that can be bought for less than a ton https://www.defconairsoft.co.uk/product/double-bell-pdw-polymer-black/ https://extremeairsoft.co.uk/product/double-bell-pdw-polymer-body-black-808/ Sorry, mate. The RDS, additional mag and front grip don't push the price back up to retail, especially for the fact that the gun has missing screws.

Never a truer word typed I did it outside 😉 (and don’t smoke)

You’ve asked the second most common question in Airsoft after… ”what am best gnu?”😄 Give it a wipe with a cloth covered in petrol, it’ll remove it in seconds without damage. you can use acetone or nail polish remover to, but it’ll take longerer 😉

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, the only issues I've had with any second hand rif is when someone's tried their own teching. Mostly little things that just weren't done right... Scar-H GBBR nozzle pin incorrectly inserted causing damage SVU safety inserted wrong way round & screws missing from bi-pod Honey Badger main spring changed at some point & the plate holding it in was a goosed bit of metal & selector plate missing HK416 with a wobbly rail due to barrel nut cross threaded so wouldn't tighten AK47 under folder motor incorrectly fitted causing a goosed gearbox numerous loose screws that simply needed a wee tighten. Thankfully not many issues that even an airsoft imbecile like me could identify & fix or replace the parts but obvious enough to tell what they did wrong.

It's really not that strict to the point where it was a problem last time. There was a guy on tan team in a *very* green ghillie top and ghillie trousers (the rules for ghillies are you're allowed a ghillie top, but must wear trousers in your team's colours), and there were multiple guys running around in black hoodies despite black being a green team camo, leading to them peeking around corners, us not shooting them because they're wearing black and all we can see is their upper body, and then them lighting us up. Bonus points for when they had their team behind them around the corner who also came out and lit us all up. If your trousers and shirt are both tan-majority camos, then you're fine. Doesn't even have to match, as long as both are tan, so mc pants + tan top with mc arms is absolutely fine. Load bearing gear can be whatever colour you want, but if you're wearing a lot of green load bearing gear, you might get friendly fired because airsofters are already awful at target identification

I would argue "better value for money" comes from what you as an individual get out of it rather than there being objective factors. I find value in my loadout but I know some people would hate it for themselves. As much as I prefer the Mk 18, I'd spend my money on something brand new and work on it later. Custom guns are notorious for being a gamble and thus they tend to depreciate significantly unless the seller/tech has a good reputation.

The folding stock fetish continues..

Actual 5 minutes, or at least by my watch anyway

I'm a bit more minimalist/cheap so I tend to just wear foam earplugs in cqb. No interference with facemasks at all. Once cash is a bit more plentiful I might invest in some active protection ear plugs if there are any decent ones.

Someone was happy enough to buy it, adverts complete ahaha