What’s your oldest and still used RIF?
- Thread starter fingerpuk
- Start date
Lyndication
Members
- Nov 26, 2024
- 902
- 1,347
Newer guns are broadly so much better than older ones. Even older guns that get a lot of hype tend to be very behind newer stuff. AEGs have benefitted from huge improvements in consumer electronics technology. GBBs from much cheaper materials and manufacturing processes. Broadly people are iterating on previous designs and refining them every year.
My oldest gun ATM is probably my Tanaka M700. Despite a lot of work it still underperforms as a bolt action compared to semi-joke add-on by Maple Leaf that makes my AR a bolt action.
My oldest gun ATM is probably my Tanaka M700. Despite a lot of work it still underperforms as a bolt action compared to semi-joke add-on by Maple Leaf that makes my AR a bolt action.
Impulse
Members
- Apr 18, 2019
- 1,564
- 2,099
*looks at two pre-ban Tanakas and one post-ban Tanaka that are my main bolt action rifles, and Bell 1911 that still gets regular use*
So uhhhhhh... I think the pre-ban Tanakas are probably about 25 years old or so. The Bell 1911 is the one that has been in specifically my collection the longest, as I bought it new 19 years ago from a shop in Almeria in Spain, where the Tanakas I acquired from other people more recently.
You can definitely tell that the Tanakas are an old design, especially with the weird stock hop rubbers, and they do require a bit of fiddling to get them running well, but honestly the difference a fully upgraded Tanaka m700 vs a fully upgraded TAC41 is absolutely minimal. Is there a difference? Yeah, my SRS for example is more consistent than my Tanakas, but it's really not noticeable in game. Accuracy between the platforms is pretty much the same, it's just the slight power inconsistencies due to the way green gas works, but even then my Tanakas tend to get about a 0.1J variance at worst so all shots would be between 2.2 - 2.3J for example, where a spring rifle you could probably narrow that down to 2.25 - 2.3J as a range. If you HPA'd it, the difference would disappear.
However, the difference in getting an old platform up to that level of performance versus new platforms is an insane gap. With a TAC41, you can get that out of the box, slap a Rapax 2J spring in it and you're good to go. With a Tanaka m700, you have to replace so many of the internals, often with parts that are either sold out everywhere or have to be sourced from some obscure shop in Asia with a terrible website, and then need to have the technical knowledge to install them yourself, because if you find a tech who is willing to do it for you, you won't have the knowledge to then maintain that rifle and use it all through the year. TAC41 you can just shove that 2J spring in and then use it until it breaks. Tanaka m700 requires constant maintenance and care; I used mine on Sunday and today I'm taking it apart for a clean and relube because I think there was some sand still in one of my pouches that got into two of the mags and then got into the workings of the rifle...
And the Bell 1911 still performs fantastically well, but only because it's a TM spec 1911. All those lovely fancy hi-capa internals slot right in, so it's got a lightweight blowback unit, fancy hop unit and rubber, a nice barrel, stronger recoil spring, nicer nozzle and return spring, nineball gas routers in the mags... It's an absolute beast of a pistol because the design for 1911s / hi-capas haven't changed from the old TMs, and therefore all the modern parts fit into it. If I kept it with the stock parts, it flat out didn't function in the UK climate unless I stuck red gas in it pretty much all year round (during the heatwave I might've gotten away with green)
I think if you got a really old gun and kept it with the weird old parts then yeah, performance would be absolutely wank. Back when I first started airsoft, if your AEG hit 40m you were the absolute king of the1.1J 350fps crowd (back then, if chrono happened, it was on fps because everyone was slinging .2s anyway, or .25s with an undefined lower fps limit at most if you were super fancy), and if your 500fps sniper rifle (again, .2s or at most .25s) could hit 60m that was considered some sort of freak of nature. But if you have the patience and willingness to learn about it, old guns can often be made to perform on par with newer guns, but will require a lot of newer parts to do so anyway.
So uhhhhhh... I think the pre-ban Tanakas are probably about 25 years old or so. The Bell 1911 is the one that has been in specifically my collection the longest, as I bought it new 19 years ago from a shop in Almeria in Spain, where the Tanakas I acquired from other people more recently.
You can definitely tell that the Tanakas are an old design, especially with the weird stock hop rubbers, and they do require a bit of fiddling to get them running well, but honestly the difference a fully upgraded Tanaka m700 vs a fully upgraded TAC41 is absolutely minimal. Is there a difference? Yeah, my SRS for example is more consistent than my Tanakas, but it's really not noticeable in game. Accuracy between the platforms is pretty much the same, it's just the slight power inconsistencies due to the way green gas works, but even then my Tanakas tend to get about a 0.1J variance at worst so all shots would be between 2.2 - 2.3J for example, where a spring rifle you could probably narrow that down to 2.25 - 2.3J as a range. If you HPA'd it, the difference would disappear.
However, the difference in getting an old platform up to that level of performance versus new platforms is an insane gap. With a TAC41, you can get that out of the box, slap a Rapax 2J spring in it and you're good to go. With a Tanaka m700, you have to replace so many of the internals, often with parts that are either sold out everywhere or have to be sourced from some obscure shop in Asia with a terrible website, and then need to have the technical knowledge to install them yourself, because if you find a tech who is willing to do it for you, you won't have the knowledge to then maintain that rifle and use it all through the year. TAC41 you can just shove that 2J spring in and then use it until it breaks. Tanaka m700 requires constant maintenance and care; I used mine on Sunday and today I'm taking it apart for a clean and relube because I think there was some sand still in one of my pouches that got into two of the mags and then got into the workings of the rifle...
And the Bell 1911 still performs fantastically well, but only because it's a TM spec 1911. All those lovely fancy hi-capa internals slot right in, so it's got a lightweight blowback unit, fancy hop unit and rubber, a nice barrel, stronger recoil spring, nicer nozzle and return spring, nineball gas routers in the mags... It's an absolute beast of a pistol because the design for 1911s / hi-capas haven't changed from the old TMs, and therefore all the modern parts fit into it. If I kept it with the stock parts, it flat out didn't function in the UK climate unless I stuck red gas in it pretty much all year round (during the heatwave I might've gotten away with green)
I think if you got a really old gun and kept it with the weird old parts then yeah, performance would be absolutely wank. Back when I first started airsoft, if your AEG hit 40m you were the absolute king of the
ButcherBill
Members
- Aug 10, 2024
- 1,787
- 3,032
My collection started in Sept 2022 with a cheap as chips springer SA80 from BBguns4less, so technically that's the rif I've had the longest, bought on a whim after I'd bought some 58 pattern webbing & PLCE to relive a bit of my youth in the TA.
I started a collection when I was in my early 20's which was a springer kit of an SA80, I added to this over the years and bought my first aeg from Wonderland Models in Edinburgh, a lovely TM Famas, I had a decent collection of springers, aeg's and deac's when the Dunblane massacre happened & my conscious got the better of me and I surrendered my collection to the police (all were legal, I just felt it was the right thing to do).
Long story short my current collection is fairly new but as much were bought used my 'oldest' rif is probably am M12S Penetrator from the 80's, but the rif I still use would be my L85A1 with DD rail, I can't remember the make tho.
I started a collection when I was in my early 20's which was a springer kit of an SA80, I added to this over the years and bought my first aeg from Wonderland Models in Edinburgh, a lovely TM Famas, I had a decent collection of springers, aeg's and deac's when the Dunblane massacre happened & my conscious got the better of me and I surrendered my collection to the police (all were legal, I just felt it was the right thing to do).
Long story short my current collection is fairly new but as much were bought used my 'oldest' rif is probably am M12S Penetrator from the 80's, but the rif I still use would be my L85A1 with DD rail, I can't remember the make tho.
MistakenMexican
Members
- Sep 27, 2020
- 500
- 589
This is my oldest and still used. But admittedly I don’t play much right now due to work and family. And I’m now more precious about this pistol as it’s a relic.
It’s a TM G17 from around 2009 with an airsoft surgeon G34 kit that I bought around 2013.
It’s been so well used that the brass barrel shows a fair bit of wear. More than my other pistols.
It was from back in the days when even a spenny kit didn’t “just work” and negative Airsoft ended up getting it working for me in the end.
It’s a TM G17 from around 2009 with an airsoft surgeon G34 kit that I bought around 2013.
It’s been so well used that the brass barrel shows a fair bit of wear. More than my other pistols.
It was from back in the days when even a spenny kit didn’t “just work” and negative Airsoft ended up getting it working for me in the end.
TheFull9
Supporters
- Dec 17, 2011
- 3,713
- 2,555
Well, I just posted it in the gun pic thread not long ago so I won't repeat it, but luckily past me had the sense to keep the first AEG I purchased back around the middle of 2006. It would perform absolutely terribly these days if the entire insides hadn't been rebuilt from the ground up.
It's also heavy as fuuuu. It started life as a very generic AR and for the most part it's largely still similar to a civvie M4A1 style gat, with a 14.5" barrel and a replica of the KAC RAS handguard. However I have another, far newer military M4A1 build, with the same length and profile barrel, same handguard, basically the same receiver set, etc etc. That gun feels like it's about half the weight. Haven't put them both on the scales to compare but there is a huge difference to say the least. I can only guess that the pot metal slop they were pouring in to the moulds in Taiwan 20 years ago had a higher percentage of lead in it than the current 'alloy' that's being used by most brands.
As has been mentioned, motors have come on a ton and MOSFETs are super common in even some lower-mid priced guns. The first 'new wave' of Gas-in-mag GBBRs that emerged about.. 15-16 (?) years ago were also functionally just terrible when you compare them to the MWS and VFCs best offerings in 2026. I basically never saw them on the game field back then, and they're still not as popular in real life as they seem to be online (just from what I see) but they do seem to be regularly used by a good number of their owners, and the guns are good enough to keep up at your average sunday game.
It's also heavy as fuuuu. It started life as a very generic AR and for the most part it's largely still similar to a civvie M4A1 style gat, with a 14.5" barrel and a replica of the KAC RAS handguard. However I have another, far newer military M4A1 build, with the same length and profile barrel, same handguard, basically the same receiver set, etc etc. That gun feels like it's about half the weight. Haven't put them both on the scales to compare but there is a huge difference to say the least. I can only guess that the pot metal slop they were pouring in to the moulds in Taiwan 20 years ago had a higher percentage of lead in it than the current 'alloy' that's being used by most brands.
As has been mentioned, motors have come on a ton and MOSFETs are super common in even some lower-mid priced guns. The first 'new wave' of Gas-in-mag GBBRs that emerged about.. 15-16 (?) years ago were also functionally just terrible when you compare them to the MWS and VFCs best offerings in 2026. I basically never saw them on the game field back then, and they're still not as popular in real life as they seem to be online (just from what I see) but they do seem to be regularly used by a good number of their owners, and the guns are good enough to keep up at your average sunday game.
GiantKiwi
Members
- Dec 7, 2012
- 1,167
- 710
The base of this is a RATech lvl 3 AAC from July 2014 (the first batch of RATech allergic to QC "upgrade" part only rifles) - although at this point quite a lot of is very much not original. Although i've not personally owned it for that long, I have been using WE GBBRs for longer.
ButcherBill
Members
- Aug 10, 2024
- 1,787
- 3,032
where did you get the hand guard from please?
GiantKiwi
Members
- Dec 7, 2012
- 1,167
- 710
I can't even remember at this point, I know it took me the best part of 12 months to find one that was stocked by a company that would ship it to the UK.
TheFull9
Supporters
- Dec 17, 2011
- 3,713
- 2,555
At least one of these should post/be reliable you would hope.
www.airsoftdb.com
Airsoftdb - Search and find airsoft products from your local shop and stores worldwide
Airsoftdb - Search and find airsoft products from your local shop and stores worldwide
www.airsoftdb.com
GiantKiwi
Members
- Dec 7, 2012
- 1,167
- 710
I found my invoice for it, I got mine from mlemart, its the madbull 9" variant.
airsoftzone only have it on their swiss site, so wouldn't ship it to the UK, KYAirsoft are lying and don't actually have it in stock and tried to hold me to ransom for 8 months with the money as well, softair-italia were also lying about stock, but their postal system is a lottery over whether it just gets stolen or not.
airsoftzone only have it on their swiss site, so wouldn't ship it to the UK, KYAirsoft are lying and don't actually have it in stock and tried to hold me to ransom for 8 months with the money as well, softair-italia were also lying about stock, but their postal system is a lottery over whether it just gets stolen or not.
Similar threads
