Iceni

You've got the grange, It's a small local site. Not the best site in the world but it's not bad for a day of care free skirmishing. The advantage to the grange is it has a well stocked professional shop that stocks a good range of guns and parts. They tend to do a full day 9am - 4-5pm. You get a meal with the walk on fee and free cofee and tea all day. The games tend to be 30mins with team rotation. So yellow attack for 30 mins, then the same mission but yellow defend. The games are fast to organise and start and generally you get a pretty packed organised day. It's the site I use to keep my Ukara, as it is local, has a shop, and you can pretty much just walk on without needing to know the other players. http://shop.suspensionofdisbelief.co.uk/ Map https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/The+Grange/@52.384388,-1.6613377,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x4870b5ce4b38ada9:0xb9c8e4dc7c07d0a5 The other site I go to from Coventry is Fireball in Bassets Pole. The site is fantastic, It's dense woodland, with a few buildings and a well organised team running it. The site has a shop but it is basic, selling BB's, Pyro and a few other items but the stock changes. Fireballs games are much harder than the grange. They don't do short games. It tends to be multiple objectives and continuous play until lunch. With the terrain and the fact the better players all tend to go on the same team it can be a touch frustrating to play there, but once you get in the swing of the site you will find out it's a really fun place to play, where concealment, silence and avoiding the paths pays dividends. The fireball access is also closed during game time due to the adjoined paintball site using the road. So you have to be there early, and you can't leave until the game is over. It's generally not a problem game wise but it does mean no half days, or just going and having a chat to the players. http://www.fireballsquadron.com/joomla16/ Map https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Fireball+Squadron+Airsoft+club/@52.5905416,-1.7767918,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x4870af467f8a387b:0x5d2fbd8a7b3ee63d I would recommend both sites. If you don't have a car The Grange can also be got to via train to Berkswell then a 1/2 hour walk to the site.

MP5 with a remote double bollock mag. http://www.evike.com/products/29150/ That mag will auto wind when the gun fires.

Type 95 sas smok with the wired hood. http://www.thearmystore.co.uk/acatalog/British-Army-DPM-Windproof-Smock-Grade-1.html http://www.britishmilitarysurplus.co.uk/shop/jackets/dpm-windproof-smock-grade-1-1123346.html The hoods have an inner draw string to get it to stay on your head, and the wire outer rim lets you shape it. They zip right up to your mouth, and are wind and rainproof in all but heavy rain. They also keep you nice and dry when your on the deck prone. The one thing you might not expect is how warm they are. Been windproof and fairly long you will heat up fast in cold weather. I wear mine all the time to work because it's the perfect UK jacket, warm enough on cold days, waterproof enough, and not thick enough to cook you if it warms up. The army got that smok very very right. The other thing that might suit you is a motorcycle/motorsport balaclava intended for under helmet use. They tend to be thin soft and not very insulated because they have to be worn with a helmet. You'll struggle colour wise, as they tend to be black, white, red, or blue. A black cheap one might be worth a punt tho, and should give you about as much protection as a t-shirt. So enough to stop a cut but not a welt. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GO-KART-BLACK-BALACLAVA-BIKE-RACE-RALLY-ROTAX-TKM-/370288197659

You could always go with an FN Fal, It's pretty much an SLR with a short barrel. Plus there are JG V.3 gearbox versions. http://www.evike.com/products/37789/ Searching for the SA58, LK58, FN Fal, might give you a few more hits. And while I know it's not an SLR, It's a damn sight closer than an M4. http://www.patrolbase.co.uk/airosft-era-and-other-guns/sa58-electronic-blow-back.htm#.VmOia7-QhEA http://www.taiwangun.com/en/electric-air-soft-guns/lk58-jg You could even add some length to it with a suppressor, or barrel extension. I wouldn't alter the inner barrel length tho as you might need to change the cylinder if it's ported. It also solves the upgrade problems as the JG on a v3 gearbox shouldn't be too bad out of the box. You would need defence to buy it tho, but that taiwangun link works out about £130 atm so it's not overpriced at all.

Start the rebuild of my Aug with the after-market parts I've ordered for christmas. Build some NB fets get them tested and fit them to the guns. Work out my actual field kit. I'm wanting to drop all webbing and use a satchel instead to speed me up, and let me drop to prone without fearing wet mags. I think the big thing for me this year is going to be getting in the field and playing more. The extras this christmas will free me up from been reliant on friends for the little bits of kit I have missing, like a lipo charger, and reliable batteries. So I can set my gear at home, Get ready and be off from home even if they have to work, Thats a big thing because up to this point I've been having to sofa surf the night before a meet to get everything ready. Gun wise the Aug is having a typical rebuild. New piston head and cylinder head, New barrel, hop rubber, Re-shim, bushings, spring guide, airseal nozzle,AOE, NB fet, Sorbo lining, and a paint job or cloth wrap. I'm just finalising grease choices atm and waiting for present day so I can get started.

What about the stanag Aug conversion. There are numerous pages on converting the magwell to take stanag mags, and a real steel version as well I believe. You'd have to keep the motor cage because it makes up part of the gearbox attachment internally. Outside of that you would be free to take the gas pipe out any way you wanted. Through the plastic or through the butt stop. Internally the aug would also be well suited. They strip fast, you can remove the barrel in seconds, you can remove the whole metal receiver in seconds. This means you can have a Para short barrel and a regular 509mm on the same setup. You could even take both to a game and swap out as desired in the safe zone or on the field in seconds.

Santa always gives me a budget. Chrono, Madbull 6.03 509mm, madbull 60 hop rubbers, 6mm bushes, shims, Silent head and piston head, Solid spring guide, Miltec tactical messenger bag, 7.4 lipo, lipo charger, and enough parts from farnells to make 3 protection mosfets. It's all already here! In a suspicious box in the corner.

Hello! I've recently made the purchase of one of the older JG/ASG Aug A3. The gun is 100% stock and I'm looking at a few upgrade parts specifically for this gun. I want an RPS increase, and a single shot accuracy increase. The stock parts that are on the gun are a little lacking but with a few additions I think it should be a good main gun. Am I right in thinking that my best gearbox upgrade path will be: Steel bushings Spring guide Shim set Piston and head. With a motor been an option later down the line. And for the rest of the gun I'm thinking of adding: Better buckings 6.03 stainless barel With those upgrades in mind are kits like the AUG hurricane kit worth the money? This is the kit I'm thinking of. http://www.zerooneairsoft.com/product_info.php?products_id=3268 That covers most of the basic things I was going to change for the time been but are the parts of a reasonable quality? And would it be a better investment to source parts individually?

Weekend update. While the aluminium repair worked, The heat from it has shown that the casting is suffering more cracks that couldn't be seen. When I came to fillet the lugs I used a water bath to stop the casting getting too hot on the already soldered side. Steam and bubbles appeared in a lot of locations, So either the metal is porous, or the casting has catastrophically failed. So I took a different approach to the problem. I removed both locking lugs and a good section of cast material. I then dry fitted the gun parts and took a few measurements. With that information I went and looked at my pitiful home steel stock, I only had 40mm x 3mm angle section that was suitable, everything else was a little big. So I split a 12" length of angle down the seam, Cut off some parts from the newly made 35 x3mm flat bar and got to work making a steel shoe. The shoe isn't finished yet, I have to grind back the faces, Add in some filler sections, Grind out the rear side for the receiver covers, and drill 2 holes for the screw mounting. As a dry fit without any screws at all it's so solid you can pick the gun up, wave it about, hold it at either end in any orientation and it doesn't move. It takes 2 hands to split the gun and some considerable force as well! Pictures will follow in an edit.

Biggest gripe for me in the few games I have had is "dead people don't talk". We had some guy get hit aways in front of us, come running back for a re-spawn screaming at people to move up.... Not only upsetting everyone but giving the whole teams position away as well. We were at the time creeping through undergrowth silently to sit an pick off the people looking at the main assault points.

Awesome thanks for the info on those products. It's not just that single crack, Both lugs that go into the barrel section are off as well. One side has had a new section JB welded and screwed in place. I've removed it ground it back and soldered it, then reground the solder. The other side the lug is on a thinned section of zinc casting. I've sorted the inside of this, Filled out a corner that was missing, And reground the solder. I need to pack it out with a heat-sink and run a fillet weld on the outside to make this part stronger. I did test all the fitting last night once the welds were ground. Everything fits back as it should, No wobble without screws, and with screws it's 100% solid already. Once the metal work is sorted I think I'm going to move over to the loom. It looks to have been made from 10a wire and has suffered from serious heat damage. I have some 16a copper core kicking about that will make a short term replacement. And I'll get some 30a on order if we can get the gearbox to work correctly.

So the work has started. I might win this one

It'll be fully stripped I'll need the work space to get clamps on the parts and the torch in. While I'm in there I need to strip and rebuild the gearbox anyway as this was a first gun to another player and I think it has seen a fair bit of abuse, So I'll have to check all the connectors and potentially replace parts of the loom as well. I have access to a spares box that will make the gun work if the braze works. Should be a good intro project.

Right, I've been gifted an AK 74. (my friend was very grateful for me rebuilding his motorbike engine with new pistons and rings). This model. http://www.airarmsports.com/CYMA-AKM-AK-74-V3-Airsoft-AEG-Rifle-CM036/ It's one of the metal and wood CYMA ones, not plastic like I thought it was going to be. The body has a crack in the pot metal where the barrel screws to the receiver due to a badly implemented fix. Looking at the damage I think it's fixable. I'm going to order up some materials in a few days to work the fix. It'll be a low temp (300 degree) aluminium braze, with a propane torch for heat. Once I get things in order and get the parts together, I'll put up some before and after pictures.

That's great to know, I know I added a 330 rnd mag but that is a stop gap. The set-up I want will be 5x 110/170 and 5x 45. I can add those in later. I figured for this season 2x 330 would be enough to game with and would give me some backup mags in the future. It's the same reason I took off the extra upgrades I was planning on the initial purchase. I figured I have time to add them at a later date. The gun model and basic mechanics are not going to significantly alter in that time. Out of all the problems I'm seeing with the AUG, by far the most common are poor mags, switch gear, and poor plastics. Short of a little tweaking to stop airleaks most people who have one seem to like it. Edit: Back on the polishing thing. My friend has a broken AK with a couple of barrels, I think the main body has a crack in the plastics. We're going to see if we can get it to function. If it works then we will get one of the spare barrels and I'll polish it. Should give us a good idea about how a mirror polish will affect performance. He has bets on a performance reduction, Claiming that some barrel friction acting on the air cushion is needed to get the absolute best BB exit. If that is the case I have the stones to work back from mirror to a grit facing, and check the accuracy as we work. I won't be getting the gun and barrels till after the weekend but it should be interesting.

My job requires me to have a fix it and make sure it lasts mindset. Most of the time that means I have to work stuff out very quickly. I can be on any random day doing anything from plumbing, plastering, electrics, electronics, machine repair, housing repairs on equipment. If it can be damaged it can be fixed. I save our company a lot of money and am pretty much free to choose my working hours and equipment list. They still don't want to get me a tig welder tho.... I'm working on that as there are a lot of places in the company I could find a use for it. I don't throw things away unless I have to. Testament to this are my PC speakers. I have a creative DTT2200 5.1system from 1999. I've rebuilt the unit several times, Replaced the pots, Remade the controller using maplin boxes. It works as well as the day I got it 16 years ago. This is the reason I've written off models like the Fn2000, and the Tar-21. Whilst they may work well for a product lifetime I want a product that I can keep working until I say it's dead.

I should be sorted for power options. I have several masterplug laptop chargers, 9-18v with the different connectors and they all have decent ampage outputs. (some are pretty old and have silly output ampages). And I can always butcher a spare ATX power supply if need be, I have several of the EVGA style PSU bridges. So I should be able to set up a charging station. I already have something very similar working in the house for my main PC's watercooling. It's a seperate case with all the pumps, resovoirs, rads and it's own PSU, Then quick release piping to the back of my main PC. It was done to aid moving the PC while I was moving about a bit. It's works well and if you forget to turn on the pumps it just thermal throttles till you flip the switch. It also means there is about 75ml of water in the main computer when static rather than a few hundred ml. If I was doing it for a long term solution I may go as far as to desolder all the non essential cables and just have a direct connection to the charger and velcro it to the PSU. At worst it's an afternoon with a soldering Iron and some desoldering ribon. It's not a hard job just a little tedious.

I was told the piston head would reduce gearbox shock on the castings. Nothing to do with the sound and loudness of the gun just a simple upgrade to help keep it working for longer. I'll look into chargers some more as well I picked that one beacuse of the fast charge option with the 5A current. Most of the cheaper ones were 850-1000mA. I'll do some more digging as your B3 in ebay option pulled up a B6 that looks promising for £12.

O.k I've had time to browse the gun selections. I've looked into most of the models and it's come to a choice between the ICS L85. I would have to go second hand. Or I can get a new JG AUG. I just can't seem to find as many parts for the guns that don't use standard gearboxes. And that for me is a big problem as I play with things, And like tweaking. The AUG I'm looking at would be this setup. http://en.safarasoftair.com/golden-bow-aug-military-tan http://en.safarasoftair.com/element-silent-head-set-ver-3 http://en.safarasoftair.com/golden-bow-magazine-for-aug-330 http://en.safarasoftair.com/weapons/battery-charger/lipo-battery/ep-2800-7-4-30c-lipo-battery http://en.safarasoftair.com/weapons/battery-charger/battery-charger/we-nuprol-lipo-battery-charger-with-balancer http://en.safarasoftair.com/weapons/sling-and-adapter/sling/multipurpose/pantac-tactical-sling-ver-ii-tan With postage that comes in at about £180

Don't worry about me making it wavy, I've seen the regular cleaning guide with T-cut. It's one of those fluids that I see as been agressive and not much use other than for paint. The grits I have acess to are graded and much finer, And the method would be much the same as the T-cut method. The only difference is you don't pour onto your wadding. You wet the stones, then build a paste on them with a diamond lapping plate, then take that paste to the wadding. The actual material this method will remove is less than the T-cut method, and will take longer. I have the stones and I have the correct rotation of stones to get to a mirror finish, I'd be an idiot not to use them. Provided I start at about 5-8K rather than 1K then it's a pure polish rather than a cut and polish. Same as refreshing a straight razor edge, Your not cutting a bevel just polishing what is already there. I'm also the sort of person who will happily sit for a day doing this. I never rush. this is the sort of polish 12K would get you.

You guys are all stars! Granted you have changed what I'm looking at a fair bit, but that is good. I'm still working through gear, I found a page on one website with exploded diagrams of the guns. And that has been helping a lot. And I have acess to a setup L85a2 so I think my next port of call is a cup of cofee and a good chat with the owner. Then perhaps a few hours shooting with it to evaluate it. Barrel wise I did a fairly extensive module in material science at university. I've looked into the barels available and provided the tollerances listed are correct I think I can work with a stainless steel uncoated model I have a vernier guage and some micrometers and know what to do with them. I have a range of sharpening hones for my other big hobby (cut throat razors). And stones that rate from 1K grit to 20K grit (naniwa chosera/suherio), + graded Chromeoxide powder (60K) and diamond lapping fluids (decimal micron grades). With those I can polish stainless up to mirror finished internally using slurries and wadding. And with that I should be able to make a cheaper barrel perform a bit better by removing all machining marks. Stainless is horrible to work with tool steel would be better but it's still workable provided I go at it correctly (stainless will pull and slough rather than grind in a lot of cases the solution is less speed and more time). I'm looking into second hand as well. I'm have no problem with a faulty gun. I'm capable of rewinding motors, soldering cleanly, and re-wirewing. As well as rebuilding a gearbox with a diagram. Provided I can see it I can do it, It can't be any harder than an engine or vehicle gearbox and I've done plenty of those.

So what does improve accuracy then? Tighter bore, Better inner barrel spacing, better air regulation without internal system leakage. Higher quality BB and more weight if windy. I'm working through a load of websites now, Looking at several options. I'm concirened about a few things and am getting sidetracked pretty quickly having to look into gearboxes and switchgear. I've done some reading on how the mosfets work and why arc suppression is needed with a higher C rating. There is a lot to take in. There are several guns appearing that are certainly within budget. The JG's Civilian Aug A1. It would need some tweaking, A seperate selector switch for single auto. Tigher barrel. The magazine quality appears to be an issue. The Famas seems like it might be a contender as well. I'm still working reviews atm so everything is still in speculation. I will look through everything and every design internally and externally before I start to look for shops with stock to visit. My location is Coventry. We have The Grange locally (350fps auto 0% tollerance on fps) and I belive fireball is pretty close as well.

Extras may well have been the problem with the M416. It's a full metal body, with the 4 sided rail system, Front grip, Flash light, long barrel (16" I think). And on the stock side it only had the plastic 5 position stock, with a 1600mAh NiMh. So I think it was suffering from what I can only describe as exessive pendulum momentum on the front end, With no weight in the back to counter it. Had the gun been balanced a bit better so I could have shouldered some weight when sighting it I think I would have been happier. The guy who owns the gun is 8" taller than me and also has arms like other peoples legs. So for him the balance was probably pretty good. He also spent the first day skirmish we went on with his full metal L85, He didn't put it down once, the man's a beast. The actual physical weight on the strap wasn't bad but the single point harness dropped a lot of weight onto a single neck point, rather than spreading it over my shoulders. The gun shoots great, better than any of the others I've tested it's just not the right gun for me. Again a simple 2 point strap system and some careful kit conciderations to spread load would have improved the gun for myself. I've got more systems to look into now. L85, F2000, P90, UAR. I'll do some digging on all of them.

Hey! I'm very new to airsoft. I've had 2 registered skirmishes and plan on having a 3rd very soon so I can get my UKARA. Like all things that are fun I've started to look at equipment. And It's led me on a strange path down what can only be described as a spiral of confusion! I'll start with what I am. I'm a middle aged 30+ working person with some available funds but still opperating in a budget. I got introduced to airsoft by a friend who I'd done a few computer favors for, He took me to a skirmish, Dressed me (in oversized camo), And slapped an M416 in my hands. His expirience is quite vast. He's worked as an airsoft tech, Has good knowelege of gearboxes and rebuilds, And when he was working as a tech he was well known for knowing his stuff. I don't however want to leech from him, or get him to do the work in getting anything I get working well. I'm a hands on person with a technical mind, I'll learn as I go and watch countless video's and read strip down guides on the system I pick until I can do the work myself. From my fist games with the M416 I noticed off the bat it wasn't the firearm for me. It is nose heavy, Hard to keep on point for extended periods without support, And most anoying to me it was difficult to get a confortable sling position with a single point. It was however very accurate and great at range with the sights been almost perfect (akog 1.5x red dot).So I started to look into other designs and built myself a set of criteria based on a fair bit of forum reading. The criteria I came up with is as follows. Longer than average barrel length. Mid cap magazines. 2-3 point sling options. Under £200 with modifications. Scope and as many options included. This led me to look at bullpups. And I've looked into L85's and AUG's so far. Both systems have merits and flaws. So I've decided to make a post regarding bullpups in general. I don't know enough about the systems to go any further, and what I have looked at is all begining to blur into company hype rather than in the field expirience. What is the difference in a Kryptek typhoon and the lesser model other than the paint and £50! I have no set system, And what I want is something I can pick off targets with at decent range and good accuracy. I'm not a spray and pray kind of person, I'd rather dig in and wait. I don't want a sniper rifle, AEG snipers are limited at my local site (370fps) to the gas and spring's (500 fps). So I'd rather stick to 350fps and have the middle ground. Better than average range, no 20M restiction, fire rate isn't as important on full auto. Whist still having mobility, ease of use, and a weight that can be held on point in a kneel without needing support. (I'm asking for the world I think). Anyway I've waffled on a lot. What I want to know is what bullpups would be a good place to start searching. I'm not going to mention what I have picked out at this point because It's not going to be the gun I end up with. All I ask is when you post you make an effort to explain the merits of the system and it's flaws. It's important to me to be able to evaluate things from an actual users perspective. Reviews other than 1min you tube video's would also be very welcome!