PureSilver

In fairness I think the FNX45 is one of the plasticy-est feeling modern TMs. It'd been a while since I handled a stock TM, and after handling it back-to-back with the VFC the Marui just felt like something out of a Christmas cracker. The performance is probably better but if I was prioritising function over form I'd be using an AEG... I have no experience with that product but I've bought a bunch of parts from Volante and have been pretty impressed overall.

I've got a complete New Generation frame (for the G17) and they're the best on the market, barring possibly the GHK G17 which is receiving a lot of stick online for its apocalyptically bad trigger. It is indeed glass-filled nylon. The only stainless part I can think of in the complete frame is the front chassis block. Guarder stainless steel is actually stainless steel, which is why those slides are expensive. Everyone has experience with Guarder, they make just about everything. Their build quality is dependent on the product but the high-end stuff is comparable to VT.

I find it insane that any insurer is crazy enough to offer cover to airsoft events that don't use a mandatory chronograph. Broken eyepro levels of hot gun is just crazy. Tell me more about these fights and fires, sounds thrilling.

Without a doubt it has to be Erebor. It was a purpose-built (with what had to have been hundreds of thousands of pounds behind it) FIBUA site. It was in a huge warehouse with adjustable day-night cycles, the (multi-storey!) buildings were all individually lit with light switches and stuff, there was a modicum of furniture, the safe zone was brand-spanking new and the marshalling was top-notch. Not to mention it was reachable by Underground... Closure was an incalculable loss for London airsofters in particular and airsoft in general. ? Man, I loathed this site. I only played it once and that was more than enough to make it repetitive. I found it so confined that we were barely able to get out of our spawns before getting absolutely annihilated, and the 0.5:1 scale meant I smashed my head on just about every lintel in the site.

And all you had to do to save the cash was undercut the actual inventor and stifle innovation. Bargain! Those clones are the reason that we never got factory-supported magazine adaptors and it took 5 years and counting for new models to come to market. If they'll continue to prioritise the cheapest possible product at the expense of innovation and quality, airsofters really have no-one but themselves to blame when they get sold shitty, obsolete products that don't work properly out of the box or break shortly thereafter. It's not a coincidence that in 1995 a mobile phone looked like this and in 2020 looks like this, but a 2020 M4 AEG gearbox looks exactly the same as a 1995 one. It's not a coincidence that local airsoft retailers are going out of business (especially in the States) because people would rather save a paltry amount of money than support any actual customer service. It's not a coincidence that Magpul withdrew from their partnership with PTS in disgust and as a result we can't get PDR-Cs or FPGs any more. There is a direct link between people forcing manufacturers into a race to the bargain basement and manufacturers not having any incentive to make innovative products. The "I would never pay £x for x, so they haven’t lost a sale by me purchasing a rip-off" argument sucked when it applied to pirating music, films and videogames and it sucks here. People buying it is the reason it’s produced. The entitlement of "I want it, but I don’t want to pay for it" is frustrating. It apparently cost TM $1m in 2008 dollars to develop the NGRS system; how are they supposed to recoup the first significant investment in AEG design since they invented the AEG if consumers set an arbitrary limit of "no more than twice the cost of a bargain basement clone of your old gun"? It’s especially irritating with straight clones like the M12 because the clone literally doesn’t do even one single thing better than the original, except be cheap and poorly made. Even CYMA have improved over TM in important ways like having metal receivers. I fully support and will buy things that obviously borrow heavily from an existing design if it’s improved - I’ll happily buy an VFC, because even though it’s mostly a TM clone they’ve massively improved it by making it steel and wood rather than plastic and plastic. This is all far from unique to the Sidewinder, it’s just especially annoying because it’s not the property of some huge faceless corporation. It’s literally one guy who designed an amazing product, put in a truly astonishing amount of his own money and time developing it, getting it manufactured, dealing it to distributors etc., and all so it could get ripped off and sold for profit by massive companies inside six months. At this stage it’s hard to tell if we deserve innovation. Anyway, apologies for dragging the thread off topic.

Shame. Odin is a one-man band developing awesome, innovative products. He quit airsoft product development for about five years after people took his brilliant design and immediately cloned it so cheapskates could save themselves £20. I have absolutely no doubt that this sort of thing contributes to the generally stagnant nature of airsoft technology. Really? I wouldn't have thought iWholesales would sell fakes, but I've been wrong before. They're certainly priced like the real thing.

I mean £565 plus £100-160 equals £665-725, and £500 is 75% of £665 and 69% of £725. 70-75% of RRP for a gun with less than one bottle of BBs through it isn't even all that high, although I would probably expect to receive more like 65-70% simply based on how much returns diminish after £400. I think you might also be forgetting to factor in the high cost of quality accessories which are usually included with NGRS packages. Taking this Delta as an example: Gun ~£550 Grip ~£20 Magazines ~£25ea. ODIN M12 Sidewinder ~£50 (assuming it's genuine, and I'm not sure there are tan fakes) IMAX B6 ~£35 Four batteries ~£50 That's £880, of which the £500 asking price is 57%. If he split the magazines, speedloader and charger off as separate items he'd be asking the equivalent of £341 for the gun and the batteries, which I would describe as "acutely reasonable".

Waiting on a regulator and other CO2 components, but hopefully I’ll start to have answers early next year. I’ll update the thread when I do. They’re not really intended to be a sniper’s scope, but I’ve found G&P’s ACOGs to have very superior glass compared to other airsoft-grade sights. I’ve had a couple of clone Leupold 3.5-10x40 Mk.IVs and compared to those my old G&P 4x32 really was extremely nice. 4x is really all you’ll need in airsoft (you'll miss faffing with adjustable magnification and focus a lot less than you think you will), you don't get the fish-eye that seems endemic to airsoft-grade adjustable-magnification scopes, and the sight is extremely compact and basically indestructible. They're heavy and the eye relief is unforgiving, but they’re really good optically. I replaced my G&P with a real TA01NSN, and while the Trijicon is a lot nicer and has things the G&P didn't (like tritium illumination) the G&P was excellent and entirely adequate for airsoft. G&P make a few different models; I had GP-035 - pretty much the most basic one. £85 for the sight, plus £7.50 for a polycarbonate lens and £7.50 for a killflash to put the lens in gives you an extremely rugged and high-quality BB-proofed optic for £100 - not bad. If I recall correctly a VisionKing shortdot is about £60 plus the mount and a lens protector, so there's probably only £20ish in it. If you want to see how the ACOG looks on the shortest possible SRS, let me know - I can get a picture of mine.

I have a PDI in my Fast Hop G-Spec with the FOW nub and drop-in R-hop patch. I’ve barely had a chance to try it but it does all fit together.

IIRC for some reason the Hephaestus (really expensive) was based on the S&T (cheap and really nasty) Tavor bodyshell rather than the Ares (really nice), even though the two were functionally identical since S&T are basically the bargain-basement offshoot of Ares. I always thought it was weird that it was that way around - maybe Ares refused to sell them just the furniture and they didn't feel like paying for a $400 gun just to throw three quarters of it away.

Sniper rifles are a bad, bad choice for beginners. Sniping can be rewarding to certain types of player, but for most (especially beginners) it's uncomfortable, boring, bloody expensive, and a lot of effort. Sniper rifles are built, not bought, and a good one is a minimum of £350 plus tens of hours of tuning. Crap clone sniper rifles (e.g. WELLs, JGs, Warriors, UTGs) in particular can be virtually unusable out of the box; even good ones (Tokyo Marui) will be about as effective as a mid-range AEG but with a ROF measured in rounds per minute, not rounds per second. Forget the sniper rifle. Pistols aren't bad but they aren't necessary. A good pistol is £125-150 plus another £40-50 for two spare magazines, another £25-50 for a holster, and another £10-25 for a double magazine pouch. If you add that (£190-250) to your primary weapon you could buy a gun that's really good, as opposed to 'just good enough for a beginner'. Unless you'll be playing a lot of CQB (and even then, it's not ideal) I wouldn't get a pistol yet; you have more important things to buy. What you want is versatility; a weapon that will work reliably and effectively in CQB, field play, milsims, speedball, hot, cold, rain, snow - everything. For that you want something light, compact, and with a reasonable rate of fire - an SMG or compact assault rifle are your best bets by far. Common suggestions for new players are G&G Combat Machine ARs (£125-175) and CYMA cm.04x-series AKs (similar). If you want an MP5 ICS, G&G, SRC and VFC make good ones, although personally if you want something a bit different I'd be looking for a MagPul PDR, RealSword Type 97B or an AUG or P90 of some description. This is extremely dubious at best. Buying Secondhand: Just as with buying from a retailer, the seller, not the buyer, is the one who's liable to be prosecuted. Any seller with any brains will ask to see proof of your defence. Modifying an IF to a RIF: This is a criminal offence - s.36(1)(b ), Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 - just like importing, manufacturing or selling a RIF. The only advantage here is that it will be you committing the offence, not the seller, so at least you're not endangering anybody else. TBH if you have records of going to a local club repeatedly you probably do meet the standards for a defence; can you not ask them to provide you with a site membership eligible for UKARA registration? It would save you a lot of trouble and possibly a considerable amount of money.