Iceni

I can't help with Vodaphone, but what I will say is don't rule out smaller companies, rather than just looking at the common options. I moved from Vodaphone to 1p mobile a few years ago. It uses the EE network so no good for you, but with that sim I get 1p calls and 1p texts all the time, I am what you would call a phone dinosaur and don't use data at all. I have to topup £10 every 4 months, as a min. So it works out at £2.50 a month. And even that low an amount I think I'm over £100 in credit... lol. Just make sure you check the Truspilot reviews, but from my own perspective I can't tell the difference in coverage between 1p mobile and EE (the missuses phone). So it's been a good overall move for me.

I'd say that email was akin to marketing suicide. Refusing to accept orders under £135? In an email sent to every UK customer on the database..... Slow clap. I could understand an email saying there is going to be a change to the free postage system with a higher cap, and higher postage on all orders to the UK. That is an acceptable thing to do. To just flat out add a min spend requirement.... Well that's something else. Why would I even bother to look at that site to compare prices anymore. I'm going to go directly to another supplier. If the rest of the world can deal with international trade and the hurdles it creates, Then a single store loosing my business because they can't adapt and would rather loose a full market isn't something I'll be loosing sleep over. Best bit is, there's a trade agreement... All they have to do is fill in a few forms and keep records of sales to the UK.... It should be part of any international companies basic infrastructure. I get most of my bits from inside the UK anyway. AK2M4 has been a godsend, not that I actually buy a lot of parts. And Fire-support are generally the first website I visit when I want to gather my senses and not buy another gun. There's also the elephant in the room so to speak. GF have been a pretty solid 20% cheaper on most gear through the years.... Could it be, and this is speculation at it's very best/worst, that GF fiddle the VAT books to keep prices down. Having to ship to the UK where the VAT would be scrutinised may upset the fiddle and cost them money, hence they can't actually offer those prices at all. And they need the £135 to be back into profit.... Food for thought there.

I'd say the air nozzle is too short or incorrectly seated on the tappet plate. I believe the VFC scar uses a different length nozzle to the standard M4 one, but you would have to compare old to new to be sure. If you watch the hop unit it looks like a second BB is getting in, and or the air nozzle isn't moving on semi. Could also be the tappet plate is binding on the gearbox or bushings if there's a slight incompatibility or a bushing that isn't seated fully. But the same effect could be seen with an air nozzle that is too short... so that would be my fist point of inspection.

Problem is the RIS, And your specification. You want the gun you have to have the barrel terminate at exactly the correct point for the suppressor to mount perfectly. It's an almost impossible question to answer. You could remove the RIS and see what sort of outer barrel you have. If it's a single piece barrel then you have the problems with trying to locate a multi section barrel that not only fits, but then terminates where you want it. If the barrel is already a multi section barrel then you can buy different length sections that screw onto that, Allowing you to have any barrel length you want within that barrels specification. Be that inch or 30mm sections or something totally different. Only you can delve into the gun and try and work out exactly what you are working with. It's not as clear cut as reduce the barrel length by X with this new barrel. Typical for most airsoft outer barrels can have a huge variation and whilst you would hope that there is a standard that all manufacturers follow, This is more often found not to be true. This product might work... It also might not. https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/external-parts/outer-barrels/xt-outer-barrel-aeg-set

Assuming you are building to 350fps. The JG blue isn't know for it's speed or power. It's a cheap balanced motor, That is probably having a mid life crisis over the 13:1 gear set Any decent high torque motor should be an upgrade from what you are currently getting in terms of RPS. Even a cheap HT motor should net some good returns on that front. You will have to be careful tho, and willing to potentially open the gearbox again to make some DIY modifications to the sector gear depending on how high you want to go with the RPS. My favourite 13:1 build runs an ASG CNC ultimate 30,000 motor. To get it to run you will need to remove a couple of teeth from the sector, Effectively short stroking the gearbox slightly, then run a slightly more powerful spring that then gets cut to make the correct FPS. My gun with that build runs 7.4v 2200mAh 25/50c batteries and gets 25rps. If you want something cheaper than the ASG have a look at cheaper 16TPA motors. ZCI, SHS, Rocket airsoft all make suitable motors. The SHS/RA or ZCI M110 with a coil or two cut off should be about there in terms of FPS, but it would depend on your base gun and just how good your airseals are.

It's a hard choice. GBB with tapped mags work but it's still a faf on the mag change, more so than with any other system. It can be done fairly cheaply if you can get the right adapters that replace the gas valves. The gun remains the same, And the pressure is done via a tamper lockable regulator on a HPA bottle. My shooting partner has a VFC 416 with steel internals and a M14 EBR with steel internals. In all honestly he spends more time tweaking them that actually shooting. The regs in particular seem really fussy when you try to dial in for 350fps with the heavier internals. It's taken him a fair few hours to get them where he wants them, and most of that was spent on an air rifle shooting range just playing to try find the sweet spot for skirmishing. AEG with an engine I would say is the least immersive. The engines are nothing more than a solenoid and retractable nozzle. The gun is tapped rather than the mags so you can mag change plugged in without any additional faf. You do loose any sensation of recoil, the solenoid had virtually no mass, and so it's more like shooting a PCP air rifle. It's probably the easiest to set up as you only need the compatible engine, a single adapter set and bottle with the tamper lockable regulator. The best I would say is the Daytona Airsoft system. It's a mechanical gas system with blowback. They have a good amount of mass to them, and add real recoil to the system. The gun is tapped, and the mags are regular AEG mags. The biggest problem is the base gun has to be compatible to the exact system you pick. It is far more restrictive with gun models, and because it's fully mechanical it requires a lot more servicing. It's also very expensive. The E&L AK conversion kit is $650 + the base gun.

We had one a few years ago where the Army Cadets had turned out en-masse. They all wanted to play as a single team, and it was proven over the course of the day that they were absolutely useless. In order to keep them happy the marshals selected 5 guys who were known for having decent guns and using range. That consisted of me and my shooting bud and 3 playing marshals. We instantly demanded that the guy dressed in full WW2 German gear who was using an MP40 and Luger was added to the team. So the 6 of us were given the brief: Cadet team is escorting the VIP, They can only stick to paths and can only go 2 meters either side of those paths. They have the numbers and the firepower. Spawning will be buddy spawn if not under fire, or the starting point. Guerilla team is to slow them down, We could spawn from any boundary, and had free reign over the full site. Well the 6 of us absolutely pounded them. They moved in a big block, None pushed hard, None assaulted. They were hoping that they could take us out one at a time at range. The first contact point we selected was actually well into the middle of the play area, and we ambushed them for 3 flanks using deep cover, They all fell to the ground and we were just lobbing BB's over them so none could re-spawn.... Eventually a couple of us died and went to re-spawn. In that time my shooting partner and the German had held them and actually started to push them back..... The marshals then asked us to let them push a little and pulled us all back so they could see the final objective...... We killed them to the man and won what was supposed to be an easy win for them... We had a great game, The Cadets less so.

Bushings can't collapse but run with slightly higher friction. They wear out rather than collapse. Bearings run with less friction, They can and do collapse, They can also allow for an ingress of dirt that can shorten the lifespan and increase your service period. Both have advantages. Both have disadvantages. You can make a bushing build run at 25rps without any issues so for me I'm a bushing guy. As the increased service period is more important to me than reducing friction.

I'd say it all starts with the gearbox. Component selection and setup can take an awful lot of the noise away. Piston head - POM plastic heads are far quieter than the metal equivalents. Add a sorbo pad to the cylinder head or go with a POM silent head system and it will take the pop of the gearbox and reduce it to a much lower sounding thud. Gearing - Low ratio gears don't spin as fast (13:1), The correct motors for those gears (HT) also don't spin as fast. So there is less chatter on the geartrain. Motor engagement - A correctly setup bevel to pinion will be much quieter than a badly meshing set. A well set bevel will have very little scratchy sound. Shimming - The better the gears are shimmed the quieter the gearbox will be. Once the gearbox is perfect then the rest of the gun is pretty easy. If you have space you can add sound damping on the gearbox walls, And a decent foam suppressor will take the gun down a bit at the muzzle as well. It's a lot of work but you can end up with a very quiet gun. And it's far less invasive than attempting to soundproof a room.

L85's are much heavier I struggle with them as well for the same reason.

They are, but it's not what you might imagine. Because the weight is between the pistol grip and the shoulder the A1 variants don't feel back heavy, They feel locked. It also means they cause very little fatigue. It's hard to describe, but you can have a play with the A4 if you remove the RIS and see for yourself. Remove the top rail screws 2 or 3 on top, 2 under the rail, and the grub screw under the ris where it meets the upper that locks to the barrel. The ris should then slide off the upper.

Augs are all basically the same gun. There are only gearbox differences across the bulk of the market. There are 2 common main body styles. APS use a style with a raised area on the pistol grip and stock, Snow wolf JG, Classic army, and TM use a smoother design. I have both styles there is no performance difference between them. ASG don't make guns, If you see an ASG it's a rebranded JG or APS. The uppers come in 4 styles and a few sub styles. A1 - Fixed inbuilt scope. Folding foregrip, Standard length - Short (para) A2 - Single upper rail. Folding foregrip, Standard length - Short (para) A3/A4 - Full upper rail and forward RIS. Fixed foregrip, Standard length - Long (phantom or H-bar with bipod) Commando - Single upper rail with short barrel and fixed forgrip. (TM high cycle). For internals things are more variable. TM standard and high cycle stand apart. Those guns are flat out better than the rest but any AUG can be upgraded to the same level. Classic army has a well specced gearbox and is the only AUG with a mosfet as standard. The rest are all the standard variable China gearboxes. JG is generally regarded as been robust with few issues other than shimming and a slow ROF. New models have QC springs but older models don't have that feature. APS use a cheap piston head that will want changing on the first service, all come with QC main springs, and pretty much all will benefit from shimming, Slightly slower ROF than the JG. Snow wolf I have never had in bits but they have the JG style body so I'd be tempted to say that is where they are been made. What to avoid - A3/A4 models. The front Ris is really heavy and makes the gun feel very different to the stock setup. Augs are good because they work as a nimble platform, Adding the RIS doesn't add anything to the design. Would I pay the extra for a JG over a Snow wolf - Nope. I would just get whatever Aug variant is also the cheapest. The Commando/A2 para snow wolf is £105 on gunfire. It's got an A2 upper with the commando grip so it's a 50/50 hybrid. https://gunfire.com/en/products/sw-020tb-carbine-replica-black-1152219201.html Gunfire will also downgrade it for 1p. Find out what your sites allow for FPS and have gunfire do the downgrade when you buy. https://gunfire.com/en/products/aeg-replica-downgrade-1152197807.html I don't think you can get more Aug for the money. Even if you were to do a full gearbox rebuild and spend £100 on top end parts to make it a monster it's still cheaper than the TM HC. If you want it to look longer add a long suppressor and a short outer barrel extension for under £20, It'll look fantastic. A little red dot sight is all it really wants. Added to that because it's only £105 you have budget left over: Pick up: Decent batteries (<£10 each from hobbyking ask if you need more information) A decent charger (Hobbyking) A nice red dot (gunfire/Solware/Uttings are good places to look) Gunbag (gunfire) Magazines. The JG A2 is now showing as available on Gunfire as well for under £100. https://gunfire.com/en/products/jg0448a-carbine-replica-1152189528.html Augs are also like lego, Any upper will fit any lower. So if you wanted to get the A1 and none are showing in stock, Get an A2 and look for the upper by itself. They normally cost about £40. If you have the A2 with the folding grip it'll also just come out and drop onto the upper with no tools. The fixed grip variant you will have to remove a pin and put the grip block onto the new upper, but you can get 3d printed blocks that would act as a spare. https://airsoftpro.cz/en/gun-parts-upgrade/aeg-outer-spare-parts/aug-parts/kovovy-zaver-s-optikou-pro-aug-military-detail

I'd say that was a manufacturing defect. Looks like the mill they used has either selected the wrong program and picked up the wrong tool, Or more likely the tool/part has slipped in the mill. The fact it has a rotational grind pattern would also back that up. You have 2 choices. Send it back as defective, It should be accepted, And/Or ask the seller if they can send you an upgrade barrel instead. Or just buy an upgrade barrel. AK2M4 have the steel ZCI 6.03 barrels and they don't cost the earth.

If you want a unique M4 then why not the LR300? It's M4/AR based but that's about it. The receiver is different, It's got a wire stock, Really oddball grip system for an M4 variant, And they look good. A&K currently make a few variants of the LR300 and you almost never see one fielded. https://www.fatbobs.co.uk/a-k-lr300-short.html

I can't comment on the M4 units, but I've tried CNC AUG units (airsoft pro), the standard one is plastic. Between the 2 the plastic ones are better, Plastic on plastic is grippier on the dial so they take a lot more force to adjust, and keep the settings locked on. The CNC one was much looser on the dial and has a habit of wandering over the course of a days shoot. In terms of hop performance both are pretty much identical. It's the reason I didn't go CNC for the M4's. Figured the dials would be stiffer (and they are). The only CNC I think I'd be tempted by is the MAXX unit with all the bells and whistles as it's more than just a CNC unit, It's a configurable nub replacement system as well with options for CNC flathop and various metal arms that are included. https://www.bullseyecountrysport.co.uk/maxx-model-airsoft-cnc-hop-unit-me-pro-for-m-series-aeg-hop005pro-29755-p.asp

Very nice, I like the transitions through the olives/browns. I do a fair few kits each year, Mostly tanks and planes, but I have a citroen 2cv and a landrover series III LWB on the table atm. They tend to sit through summer and get picked up more in winter! If you want a challenge have a look at Takom models. They do some really well detailed kits that are a good step up from the standard airfix kits. This is a Takom T55 I did a few years ago.

I actually quite like the cheap plastic rotary units. https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/internal-parts/hop-up-chambers/zci-rotary-hopup-chamber-plastic-m4 I find rotary units in general don't need a metal arm. They apply force to the nub in a more direct fashion and have better arm holding. The arms in both the ZCI plastic and CNC are the same. You do sometimes have to modify the ZCI ones to fit, The ring itself can sometimes rub on the gearbox / gearbox area. Filing a chamfer onto the back side of the ring has corrected this on a couple of M4's for me.

I wouldn't have thought so, It would depend on if the chrono has the range to measure accurately the FPS. The readout would always be incorrect for the energy since airsoft chrono's are ranged for lower weight ammo. Trying it wouldn't hurt, but I wouldn't be expecting anything. You could use an airgun chrono to get airsoft energy. Most Air rifle chrono's are just FPS meters and the energy has to be worked out on paper afterwards using the ammo weight. Personally I'd get a rifle chrono. You can actually get cheap ones for about £20 that should have the M/s range needed. Those super cheap ones can be fussy, but playing with it in light/dark conditions should eventually get a reading. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Chargeable-Ballistic-Chronograph-Premium-Precision-Bullet-Shooting-Velocity-2020/313157620881?hash=item48e9a61491:g:bqYAAOSwqfVfGQNB

I think you are misunderstanding what you can do with gear cutting. The ratio isn't the issue. You could make a 13:1 DHG set just as easy as a 22:1 - The final ratio would look crazy on paper but as it's the circumference of the gear that counts not the number of teeth it would not matter. More teeth is just better for power transmission and keeping noise down. Those big ratio SHG sets are taking advantage of the shallow hobbing that is possible with SHG allowing the circumference of the gears to be pushed outside of the possibilities of standard hobbing. This isn't what I want, I want standard ratio's with standard circumferences done with a better hobbing method.

There's a problem with those single helicial sets @Sitting Duck, They cause one side of the gearbox case to act as a thrust bearing as single cut gears will have a natural draw direction due to axial loading. Effectively they act as a screw as well as a gear. Double helical doesn't do this, in fact it self centres. It's why people who try those single cut gears run into all sorts of shimming issues. The motor is trying to constantly adjust it's position, and the gears are pushing the gearbox cases. To run DHG's you would need to set a motor height and then set the bevel to that with an adjustment screw on the bevel shaft, The bevel could be flatter. D type pinions reduce the need for anything special from motor manufacturers. All 3 gears would need to be dropped in together, but outside of that it should be a perfectly possible gear set to run. Advantages - Smoother power transmission, Quieter, Less prone to tooth breakage. Disadvantages - Harder to setup, Requires better gearbox castings and tighter tolerances on the gear placement and holding.

Self centring double helical gears. Would never need shimming and would run with much lower friction that standard or single cut helical gears. Perfectly possible with current powdered metal injection moulding. Think this.

What batteries are you using? How are you using them? If for instance you are trying to get a full day out of a low capacity battery and you are then spiking them with a Nimh charger to get them back to a state where the charger will accept them - you are doing it wrong, Dangerously wrong. Lipo's regularly set on fire when charged from a voltage bellow the battery safe voltage. If a lipo charger tells you to fuck right off, it's not something you want to circumvent with the NiMh charger. One it kills the battery as you are seeing, secondly your chance of a fire on the charger skyrockets. My advice is buy 2 or more of whatever battery you are using, or better still ask what batteries work well in your gun, buy 2 of those and swap at lunch regardless of charge level.

If you got 6 years out of a plastic Cyma you did good. If I had £300 to spend on a gun at this moment in time I'd drop £250 on an E&L AK. All steel construction so they take an absolute pounding and decent internals. Then spend the rest on a couple of mags and a battery. https://gunfire.com/en/products/elak701-tactical-mod-a-gen-2-assault-rifle-replica-1152209806.html https://www.awesomeairsoft.com/product-page/e-l-ak-120rnd-steel-magazine-pack-5 With a battery as well it'll put you just over budget. For the gear that goes with it, all you need to run an AK is a Chicom vest. You can get them cheap as chips on Ebay. There's a few styles with 3 or 4 pouches. Type 81 is 4 pouch, Type 56 is 3 pouch. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Surplus-Militray-Chinese-Type-81-Chest-Rig-Ammo-Pouch-Original/174400695441?hash=item289b176c91:g:bYEAAOSw7z1e-a-E If you do get a gun from gunfire you can have them downgrade it for 1p. Just go to the technical support area before you buy and add the downgrade and FPS you want. https://gunfire.com/en/products/aeg-replica-downgrade-1152197807.html Edit: Just noticed that there is an option to get the same gun with a cheap charger and a battery for £1 more! You will need a different cable for the charger but as a spare for the kit bag or even if you never use it and just have the battery it's a reasonable deal. https://gunfire.com/en/products/elak701-tactial-mod-a-gen-2-energy-set-1152227020.html

What are you using to charge the battery? Because that battery doesn't look to have been balanced charged. With 4.1v in one cell and 3.3v in the other. Both cells should be showing a similar voltage. Either it's a battery with a dead cell or the charger isn't right.

Yup you should be golden to rebuild