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With the clone wars stronger than ever I thought it might be an idea to have a thread based on how to spot what’s real and what’s not , to be clear this is not a clone bashing thread , but simply a way to hopefully help you get what is advertised , be it parts , optics , lasers/torches or maybe even RIF’s themselves . just because it says Aimpoint/Eotech/Magpul/Surefire doesn’t mean it is , even the packaging is being cloned to a high standard so don’t get get duped . I’ll start with a simple Magpul CTR stock in FDE , there will be better clones than others and I’ve picked a “Tak Tak” variant which retails at around £15-£20 in the UK VS a Gebuine CTR which retails around £75-£80 , the clone Says Magpul on it so in passing looks legit , the biggest tell is usually going to be the colour but as we know everyone’s photos and lighting looks a bit different and if you have nothing genuine to compare to when it arrives you are just taking the sellers word . heres a few comparisons , and highlighted differences between the two which should be easy to spot , Genuine is CTR is either Top or to the Left . main points to note - Genuine will have black tabs where the stock pad locates NOT TAN Genuine will have a molding mark on the underside , oval shaped . Genuine stock pad will have an “F” in the lower right hand side “pocket” Text spacing , the Genuine will be bolder and spaced correctly Length , generally the Clones will be a touch longer . Extra Text , the genuine will have extra text in the lower frame , plus batch / manufacturing numbers just above the locking lever . Hope this helps , as time permits I will add more comparisons .

This is why I write "EN166B" on my home-made eye-pro, to ensure that it meets all safety standards.

So managed to obtain an old CAW HK69. Was all painted and original sights were floppy. So added real front and rear sight. Removed to paint and weathered the metal.

Took the 15yr old to a new local site for his birthday, fast forward a year. the magic ukara licence appears. and we now have four guns. the lad has a cyma ak47 and a m14 . I'm rocking a specna m249 and a jg sa56 fal I'm in the process of absolute going over the top with the m249. got one of those bonkers smoke tracers. a gun cam. just waiting on an under barrel grenade launcher abd and a laser unit to fulfil my 3rd midlife crisis. most fun a 52yr old has has since discovering rave in the late 90s. The eldest 27 has decided he wants to get on board so best start the wish list. I honestly thought you were all joking about the money pit this hobby is. but my god there's just so much cool shit either for a tenner or £200. Game day Sunday. can't wait to sling plastic from the beast while chucking pyro everywhere

A happy update I just spotted this on one of the discord groups Ollie was apparently out to a game last weekend 👍

Three MWSs. The mk12 is semi-locked and run as a DMR, but the others are 1.14J with the fun switch and no MED. Got a carry handle + 4x repro colt scope and the relevant handguards for if I want to turn the m16a4 into an a1 (Vietnam filmsim) or a2 (90s filmsim). I don't care if the Hogue grip isn't period accurate, A2 pistol grips suck and I hate them Outside my m700s, these are the other guns I tend to use a lot. I like my gas guns!

Get the hops dialled in right and...

I am we are unpaid, have full time jobs and do this for the love of it some ads will get by us but we will ask the seller to obey the rules we set out , just scanning the ads i don't see that many, maybe 2, don't over exaggerate we do this to try and help the buyer, it cant be a bad thing to try and help, so in future just whack your name & date on a bit of paper please if i see an advert with no paper, i delete it

since I was doing stuff, thought I best get around to sorting out a pistol case.

"Due to lack of interest locally.." It ain't just local, mate.

While i have a K as well, i took this one. Worked as a good combo all in all, MP5's very capable to about 40m, and sufficiently accurate. I much prefer the folding stock over a collapsible one. 😬

Yup, MP5K and boltie or DMR is my combo of choice when I'm not LARPING. I bin the long gun off half the time and go ham with the SMG. There's no right or wrong way to play pretend soldiers.

Another set of non compliant goggles / eye protection identified by site staff I know that I’m preaching to the converted, but keep your eyes out for new players with their ‘nice cheap’ Temu/AliExpress/eBay goggles Observant site staff noted these ones https://www.facebook.com/share/12CBYwpEZa8/?mibextid=WC7FNe

I think anyone who played before and through 2007 would agree with you there. If you want to play like this, why not just play paintball? They've been doing this for ages

Its the entire point of this thread and your ad was initially breaking the rules stated in MASSIVE RED BANNERS all over the place. Wind yer neck in

I feel like I'm running after a toddler, as it's flinging it's own shit around the house

Fuck me.... Can I not have a day off?

picked up a Keltec off here, sorted out the air seal, made a hop adjustment tool to match the original, printed off a MLOK handguard and grip, designed a pistol grip cap to stop the hop tool from getting lost and then stuck a Leupold scope on it. calling it done.

Well, I think I'm safe in saying this, but I'd say the issue was 100% their fault as Bespoke Airsoft and iWholesales are both in the same building and run by the same people. Here's some evidence for you... https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07676829 https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11367833 ... and you can use Google Street View to see the building they're both in with all of their signage. There will be very specific reasons why James / Jaeger Precision split with them, I think there was bad blood / something in the relationship went wrong. Personally I'd go nowhere near Bespoke Airsoft since he left them.

What do you mean you don’t want to pay £50 for a singular EMR mag pouch because it’s dusty and ships from Ukraine?

im getting 'bush dwelling friend of the owner kept getting shot' vibes from this rule

Literally just a stock TM (thing's great).

The draw from Paintball back in the day was the realism of the toys used combined with almost losing them back in 2007 makes this stuff almost sacrileges for me.

I’d still rather work on a GBB mechanism than a NGRS. I hear that when you open an NGRS, the soul of a Japanese Airsoft tech leaves the receiver. You have to sacrifice another one to be able to seal his soul back into the receiver when closing it, otherwise it will never work again.

I completely agree with your comments about AP; it is a very well run site. The only parts of the site that we did not use were the woods, which was probably because they still need some work to make them safe, and the far end of the field at Swaziland, which is a bit of a dead area. Regarding the incident you describe, as John always says in the briefing, it is up to dead players to get out of the way. Accidents happen and vision is limited when you are looking through a scope. Calling out someone in that way is never appropriate.

I asked how much for some of what he's smoking and now the advert's gone. 🤔

He needs the 4x magnifier just to see the red dot

Just before it gets locked…

custom gbb workshop Taiwan military T57 rifle early WE gbb airsoft deep marking RA-TECH wood stock RA-TECH trigger box RA-TECH REAL GUN FUNCTION BOLT CATCH RA-TECH no.53 RA-TECH no.9 steel selector lock detail fix

As you may guess, I like my AKs.... Top to bottom... Arcturus AK12 Arcturus AK74 Custom TM Recoil AK74 WellPro PPK20 E&L AK AKMS Specna Arms AK with.... A few external mods..

I dunno... bit of a vanilla, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian looking setup there tbh, you'll find most other people at your next game running the exact same kinda gun I'm afraid.

Hello. I'm 52, dress up as a space soldier, and play hide-and-seek with toy guns. What @Tackle said, just initiate a Section 75 or a debit card chargeback. Don't get into deep details. I wouldn't even mention the return, just "I bought goods, I have neither the goods nor the money, seller is not contactable." Let them tell their side. You might be surprised how quickly you get contacted by Bespoke to resolve it, but I'd stress, do not drop the case until you have working goods, or a full refund, no matter what you're promised.

Always ugly, the brute AK

The UK airsoft subreddit is basically - "Do I need UKARA?" - "What's better, a Specna or Cyma?" - "Do i need UKARA to buy a Specna or Cyma?" The big airsoft reddit isn't much better. Its a bit circlejerky and people say that their friend's sister's dogsitter did this thing once and it worked, so therefore must be gospel. I had someone argue with me that an TM NGRS 74 mag would fit an AK storm because they did it with their arcturus AK, when I literally had both guns and mags in front of me showing the opposite.

Continuing the £20 masada story, stripped the God awful black paint from it (and some of the original) 🙄 Sorted the non existent safety, changed the 10yr old hop rubber, adjusted the motor and general tidying After stripping the paint there were a few stains left over but I feel it gives it a used look which is fine. Acquired some mags from @Colin Allen and it feeds and fires at 310fps on a .25

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.

I'll just leave this here...

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..

Had a day off, was bored and those bits of wood that you keep just in case turned into this . .

The folding stock fetish continues..

September 30th 2022 I had 1 RIF, now I have no savings.

MWS setup.

Aegs are boring. Skip the middle man. Get yourself an mws and be done with it😄.

Noooo, a stubby m4 with a box mag, & you want to upgrade before you've used your gun...........😱

You're absolutely right about the evolution of how people consume their info but with more and more social media platforms cracking down on firearms and replicas it'll be interesting to see how things develop. Personally, I really like the forum format and I would hope we'd see a swing back to that but I'm not sure that generations raised on social media will want that.

When you talk to the bank the chargeback is also known as a ‘section 75’ which may help you clarify what you want to them. Appreciate you posting this, definitely a shop I won’t be buying from ever.

Guess who's back like a dose of herpes?

You could argue the toss back and forth, however as Patrol Base finally have these back in stock... https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/emg-230rnd-daniel-defense-mid-cap-magazine-for-m4-ar-15-6-pack ... I'd just buy a pack and that's you and your wife sorted for a very good price👍

19 in stock... thanks for the link.

I used the Sealey version of shadow foam, get about 3times the size for the same price, £30 for a piece that would do this case three times over with a bit to spare