mightyjebus

in the continuing quest for a fog free day, I've made this. 2 20mm fans housed in a 3D printer enclosure. Slides onto the side of the glasses and blows air across the inside face of the lense. 3 speed settings controlled by the switch and all run off a usb power bank. First real trial will be this weekend.

Picked this up on a rifle but not my cup of team. I'm thinking of flogging it but I have no idea the value. i believe it is the G&P version of the Salient Arms Jailbreak rail. It comes complete with the AEG spec threaded barrel nut and the grub screw to hold onto the rail. anyone know the rough value?

decided on a Mk16 look. Also picked up a spare bolt that needs a little work. Had it in bits so thought I'd share a photo for those that might be interested.

the 416 lower receivers are slightly wider than the M4 lower receivers. This is because the 416 has gears attached to the side of the lower receiver for the ambi selector. The 416 lower also has cutouts for the double cogged bar that joins the 2 selectors together so you get the ambi function. If you fit a M4 lower you can't use the double cogged bar and the receiver pin that holds the gearbox in place inside the lower receiver will stick out by a couple of mm.

short term you could fit a laylax M4 lower receiver but you might loose the ambi selector function. Long term talk to Frank at fire-support and he can order the part from Japan. It takes time but can be done.

the skeleton kit doesn't have the trades and the pistol grip is AEG spec so you can use any AEG pistol grip. Stock choice is the same as a NGRS so if you can fit a 11.1v in it then it will work. I was going to comment on the fact that some people are going to swear by GBB's and forgetting the reason they bought a GBB was that no AEG had a decent recoil but then I noticed you mentioned WE and I came to the conclusion you are just clickbaiting as the 4 WE GBB's I have here a testiment that they are the worst airsoft guns out there.

The only way to lock it to semi would be to mechanically lock the selector which is doeable but means drilling and tapping the lower receiver for a grub screw. It does fire like a spring gun when you cock the AEG without a battery connected. reminds me of my KSC HK33 in some respects.

I'm going to do this review slightly differnetly from normal. Usually I'd take the AEG to bits and talk about the good and bad parts but there are plenty of youtube videos out there comparing the GBLS to other platforms and very little on what it is like to use one. I'll cover the elephant in the room, the price, later on in the review and give my thoughts. So this is my GBLS and I bought the budget/skeleton kit for a couple of reasons. As much as the full rifle is nice I was never going to keep the supplied rail and was probably always going to make my own verison (Mk18 ish in my case however this might change to a MK16 or L119A2 depending on what I finally settle on). If you have been living under a rock a little bit about what the GBLS is might help..or not. It's not a GBB rifle but it uses a similar design, it's not really a typical AEG but it uses a similar design. Confused? Well the closest thing to it would probably be the TOP M4 shell ejecting M4 but the GBLS doesn't eject shells. Inside the lower receiver you will find the gearbox and in the pistol grip is the motor. In the upper receiver you will find full sized bolt. Inside the bolt is the piston head and spring. The way it works is you pull the charging handle to the rear and when you release it it pushes the bolt forward and chambers a BB in the hop unit. You pull the trigger and this releases the compressed spring which pushes air out the front of the bolt propelling the BB out the barrel. At the same time the gearbox kicks in and cycles the bolt again and loads another BB. If set to semi it does this once. If set to auto it does that until every BB is fired out the magazine and the bolt locks in the rear position and you then take out the mag, replace with a fresh mag and hit the bolt release which loads a BB in the hop. I'm going to be aiming these next comments to people who have been skirmishing a while and use PTW's, GBB's and NGRS's. You know that way on a PTW you can get a quick double tap off quickly and both BB's will mostly likely hit the target. On the GBLS that's not going to happen. Well it will but you are going to have to train with it to get a grip with the recoil as after the first cycle of the bolt your aim will be off by quite a bit. You know the way when you full auto a GBB rifle and the FPS drops about 30 or 40 from the first shot to the 35th shot. Yeah that doesn't happen. The FPS is consistant from BB 1 to BB 60. You know that sound and slight recoil you get when you fire a NGRS well that doesn't happen. You get a very nice kick and quite a loud sound as the bolt slams forward. I'm not having a go at these other platforms as I have them all and enjoy them but the GBLS is just a bit different and in a good way. I'll do a few more comparisons to the other platforms so that the more experienced players get where I'm coming from. On the GBB it's great to have the bolt lock back making you do a mag swap, slap the bolt release and get back in the game. When I run a GBB (MWS, GHK, VFC, or any of the others I run) I'm always concerned that the gas I'm using which was under the site limits at the start of the day is now pushing the BB's above the site limit because it's now the afternoon and it's 10 degrees hotter. I'm also concerned that in the colder months in the UK I'm not getting the best from the platform because it's cold so tend not to use them. The GBLS gives me the mag swaps and the recoil I get from my GBB's but at a consistant FPS the whole year. The recoil is probably just as good as my MWS running sub 350 FPS and if there is a difference it's hardly noticable. On the PTW or a NGRS with a Titan fitted I get some nice snappy shots off. I don't get this on the GBLS. My first shot is snappy and on target but the 2nd shot will need adjusting (GBB people will know what I'm talking about). On the GBLS the trigger pull feels very real. I've heard that the trigger pull was about 10 lb but mine seems to be about 8. It feels very realistic with a nice break and reset. It feels more realistic than my GBB's never mind the PTW and NGRS. My opinion at the moment is the GBLS DAS is more realistic than a PTW or NGRS and more reliable than a GBB. Before I move on to price I'll mention the following. I ordered 2 Nupol 11.1V 30C Lipoi batteries as I thought the GBLS might eat through a battery since it's shifting the heavy bolt back and forward. I used 16 full mags today on 1 battery and there is still plenty of juice left in it so it doesn't seem to be current hungry. I had zero jams, stoppages or feeding problems with the 8 mags I used (although I did loose one somewhere along with a Glock 19 but thats another story!). I took it out the box, set the hop with 0.3g blaster BB's and was easily hitting 55 meters with accuracy and the FPS is running at around 320 (on a 0.2g BB). To be clear I have done nothing to it, straight out the box if fires flawlessly and that leads into the price. So £1350 for a toy gun is quite excessive or is it? Let's have a look at the other toys out there. Let's start with the GBB as this is probably the cheapest platform when comparing it to the rest unless you look at the running costs over a long period of time. So a MWS is around £500 then you add 7 more mags at £45 a pop. Let's also remember that carrying 8 BGG mags is a chore as they weigh a ton. Let's say you want to get the best range out to 55/60 meters so you might chuck in a tightbore and maple leaf rubber and possibly a NPAS to control the FPS. So you are probably looking at about a grand now. TM NGRS can be a bit of a money pit when it comes to getting the best out of them. £550 for the AEG, £150 for the titan, 8 mags at £25 each, tightbore, S hop, new spring and spring guide and possibly reinforced gears to replace the soft TM gears. We are probably at around £1200 now. PTW's are anywhere from £1200 to £2000 depending on the model you buy but then you have spare mags, possibly get the hop sorted, have the electrics waterproofed and then maybe have the motor rewired. God knows the final price of a full tuned PTW. I hate to think how much I've spent over the years on them. At this point you might be seeing the point I'm trying to make. £1350 plus £35 a mag doesn't seem that expensive when you don't have to upgrade/replace/rewire anything and it justs works as advertised out the box and is more realisitc and reliably than the other platforms. Are there any negatives? I know of 1 and heard of another but never experienced it. The electronic board in the gearbox doesn't like to get wet or so I have heard. Tell me a titan or Systema board that does. My only slight gripe is the metal mags rattle a bit inside the magwell. This is genuinely the only negative I could find with the GBLS. Is it the best airsoft gun in the world? well no but it is the most reliably realistic one out there and it's very much a nice experience using it. I'll finish this review of with a couple of notes. I handed it to about 10 team mates today and everyone had a stupid smile on their face after that first shot. I think a few AEG's will be getting sold off shortly to fund a GBLS. I'm probably going to be one of the ones selling other AEG's as I see that there is now a HK 416 GBLS. I'm not in anyway associated with GBLS but if you want to send me the steel bolt and Type B buffer I'm not going to get upset. Just saying.

only real difference is the rail is metal instead of polymer and the pistol grip is a new shape. I actually like the stock on the G as it's really easy to take on and off to swap out the battery (anyone who struggles with the Magpul CTR stocks would like this stock).

GBLS DAS Skeleton kit

most likely better accuracy and longer range. I'll S hop it to get the range (using .32 or .36g BB's) and see what the stock inner barrel is like for accuracy. If I can get better grouping at range by fitting another type tightbore barrel then I probably will. Stock motor might be replaced with something high speed to make the 3 round burst a bit snappier as well. I'll be happy with the FPS around 340 as I find that at 340 with S hop you get 65 meters using .36 on a good day. only thing that let's this setup down is barrel length at range as the accuracy can be all over the place at that range with shorter barrels.

its the M908B and the idea is to get run the longer one in woodland. I'll find out this weekend what needs tweaking.

I couldn't resist.....

so.. a little update. the email I sent was sent to the wrong address..completely my fault as I can't obviously read a name on a piece of paper and type the same thing into a computer. After sending another follow up email to the wrong address I thought it was strange that I didn't get some sort of acknowledgement so I made a few phonecalls (HMRC and then BF) and eventually found the guy who sent me the letter and he told me about my stupidity of sending an email to the wrong address. he turned out to be a top bloke and we had a bit of a chat and it seems like everyman and his dog is trying to order RIF's without some sort of defense (he quoted over 150 seized currently). After I gave him my site membership number and then got the site to email him confirmation he has released my parcel back to UPS so I should get some sort of update on the UPS website in the next 24/48 hours. Fingers crossed UPS don't balls it up from here on in.

yeah I had the same idea..either print something or wrap them in Sugru as I have a load of black packets here not getting used.

surprisingly took 3 attempts to get such a simple model to work right. Now I can print off PTW magazine followers whenever I want as they have a tendency to disappear. and in the quest for fog free glasses my next mad invention is 2 magnets with glass cleaning cloth stuck to one side. magnet-lenses-magnet and wipe the condensation away (a bit like cleaning algae from a fish tank).

airsoft lesson for me today was..never ever take a Systema TW5 magazine apart again.

shapeways

I used the finest chinese knockoff sidewinder which feels like it's about to break on every turn but hasn't yet. They are tight to load but like most things loosen up a bit after use. (has the sweary guy on youtube ever said anything nice about airsoft stuff?) I use 11.1v simply because the 3 round burst shoots ever so slightly faster. The M904 isn't sluggish by any means on a 7.4v but you can tell the difference in 3 round burst speed when comparing the 2.

there isn't much difference in quality between cheap and expensive printers after you have dialed them in. Out the box the more expensive printers generally work better but a £200 printer can be tweaked to print just as well or better. There are 2 main types of 3D printers for the average joe. FDM and Resin being those 2 main types. FDM is a bit like squeezing toothpaste out a tube in 1 continuous line to make a 3D object where resin is very fine slices of resin stuck to the bottom of the last very fine line of resin. The main differences between the 2 is that resin has a much higher resolution so you don't generally see any print lines and it looks like it was moulded straight out the printer. FDM usually has print lines and you can print in finer detail so that these lines are less visible but that takes time so you have a choice to make between print quality and time to print. FDM printers can have bigger build plates up to 500mmx500mmx500mm generally but resin printers only manage about 192(L)mmx120(W)mmx240(H)mm for affordable models. both types can print in multiple materials so you have flexibility in making stuff. for instance you can print a rubber like butt pad in FDM or resin which will look and feel like rubber or you could print a silencer in ABS on a FDM printer if you are looking for strength. there is 2 other sides to 3D printing worth mentioning. If you don't learn a 3D design program you are stuck with printing other peoples models. Most programs are scary to look at when you first use them but a couple of youtube videos later it all makes sense. The other side is moulding from 3D printing. it's possible to design, print then cast in metal/2 part epoxy/gold/space dust a part. this is taking the 3D printing hobby a bit further but having a printer opens up that door. want a particular flash hider that doesn't exist or stupidly expensive? design it, print the prototype for testing then jam it in some plaster of paris and melt some old coke cans and pour.

oh and as a follow up to my initial review I thought I'd mention that I've used it quite a bit since the review and it's still working flawlessly. I'm running it on a 11.1V most of the time and sticking to binary/3 round burst and had zero issues. I used it this weekend and the phrase someone shouted at me kinda sums this little AEG up. "I don't know what you are firing at me but it just scared the shit out of me!"

I used 2 EPM1's this weekend and they worked really well in the M904. I also use m4 flash mags when I want to go hicaps and these work well without any feeding issues

got a email from Border Force on Monday and fired off my defense to the VCRA right away. Still nothing as of today on the UPS website so the wheels of BF are moving slowly it seems.

I'm looking for recommendations for a flat hop rubber for a Ares Striker. The Striker used the same hop rubber type as the VSR10 or most GBB pistols. Ideally I'm looking for one that doesn't have any bumps or shapes inside the hop rubber as I'll be S hopping the inner barrel and designing a new hop arm. I could just grind down the existing hop rubber but I'd rather by an off the shelf version. Any recommendations?

fun filled day fitting a Jefftron Leviathan to my TM AK102.