Rogerborg

M16A2 is pretty lush. I went for the SA-E02 and added a (short) solid stock to make a sort of "teacup M16" for CQB. I kind of wish that Military-15-Assault-Rifle-16 variants didn't have such decent ergonomics, but they really do work very well in most situations.

Jethro Tull. (Wrong answers only) OP right now.

Like this? I should disclose that handguard on my SA-E02 isn't perfect. The top and bottom halves aren't quite flat, want to splay apart slightly, and are a little loose. Nothing that a roll of electrical tape couldn't sort out in about 5 minutes, but it's an inherent risk with that that style of handguard rather than something more modern and tacticool that interfaces directly with the receiver rather than via a springy ringy thingy.

Ouch, I hope so too. I've done a bit amount of re-enactment archery and it's a case of trust on both side: that the archers will ensure that our arrows are always heading downwards when they reach the targets, and that said targets won't say "What arrows?" and look straight up just as you're dropping a cloth-yard of rubber-blunted cedar straight down onto them. But in the heat of the moment, I have seen absolute wankspankles flat shooting at full draw, in one case resulting in the miscreant being physically tackled and restrained by his own side. Like airsoft, reenactment is a great hobby, except for the very occasional freak accident, and the 5% who will never listen or learn, and who should really find a different pastime.

Are you sitting comfortably? Getting your muzzle energy up close to your site limits (typically 2.32J) is a stretch goal. I say "muzzle energy" rather than fps because you'll need to be clear on how your local site(s) do chrono. Sites that actually care will think and talk in Joules, and chrono using the BBs that you intend to use, which for a sniper should be over 0.4g. Some sites are still living in the 1990s and will chrono even snipers with 0.2g, and talk in terms of "500fps" for snipers, which is problematic for you if you're intending to play at multiple sites because 2.32J with 0.2g ("500fps") can easily creep well over that when you throw in 0.4g BBs. I use 0.43g, other snipers as high as 0.5g. And every sniper, I think without exception, will need a spring change to get the energy up there, so the quoted stock "fps" (quoted for 0.2g BBs that you won't be using) is essentially irrelevant. tl;dr version - budget another £10 or so for a spring change, but don't sweat it too much as long as you get over 2J, but under your site limit, with 0.4g or heavier BBs What's far more important for sniping is shot-to-shot consistency - maximum range won't matter if you're slinging your balls all over the place. That comes down mostly to decent air seal, hop unit and rubber, and using the heaviest BBs that your hop and wallet can handle. I like cheap AEGs and pistols, like, sub £100 plastic fantastics. Snipers though, you can have a great day smacking in hit after hit after hit, or you can have a rotten day with miss after miss after miss, and there's not much in between. I have a Well MB-03 which I bought to see if I enjoyed the experience of sniping. As stock, it was just barely usable, giving only marginally more maximum range than an AEG and in practice less effective range given the inconsistency out at 40m+ where you need a sniper to be more accurate. I threw the usual upgrades at it: spring and piston, barrel, barrel spacers, metal hop arm, DIY TDC hop. It got a little better, then it got a lot worse as the cheap internals started wearing out rapidly. The trigger got reluctant to release, and then the stopper went sloppy which ruins the bolt pull and eventually prevented the bolt even going forwards. It's currently in bits, and was ultimately a waste of money other than for learning the hard way that if you start with a cheap sniper, you really will end up replacing just about everything inside it in order to get to YouTube video standards. Contrast with my Silverback Tac-41. That costs £365, and still needs a spring change to get it up over 2J. But that's all it needs. The larger volume cylinder gives a light, short bolt pull. It has a superb indexed rotary TDC hop giving it great shot-to-shot consistency. The trigger is 90-degree (you want that), fully adjustable, and the quality of the internals is far better than on the Well. Even the bolt disassembly is a dream compared to VSR compatible guns. The difference in play against the Well even at its peak performance is startling: it's bang on target again and again and again, and much less fatiguing to use. It plays how sniping looks when you see it on YouTube. So you'll have to make a choice about how much you want to commit to sniping. If you're just dipping a toe in, I'd say: get the MB03 (or even the £50 Double Eagle M52), and run it absolutely as stock without spending another penny. You could even cut the spring down a bit to have a lighter bolt pull and less stress on the components, get it under 1.14J, and run it without a minimum engagement distance with any sight you like - we have a few folk here who do that, and say it's great fun. Then if you enjoy the experience of sniping - placing yourself correctly and picking your shots - you can think about whether to go in deep, either by retiring your taster gun, starting to update the internals on the Well (the Double Eagle is essentially disposable), or by jumping straight to a Silverback Tac-41 or SRS, a Novritsch SSG-10, or one of the other (very few) credible out-of-the-box options like the Steyr Scout. The other route is to let some other mug sink the money, and buy a used pre-upgraded gun. In that case I'd say it's vital to actually test it yourself at 60m+ ranges rather than trusting to a parts list or "Shoots like a laser" claims. Aaaaand breathe. I know this isn't the answer you want. We all wish there was a £100 sniper that shoots accurately at 80m and doesn't eat its internals, but I honestly don't think it exists. You can get started on a budget though, just don't expect great results, or longevity.

Harsh but not entirely untrue. Quite a bit of creak, and the lower and the buffer tube being a single part seems like an obvious weak point. But everything fits together, and since I need it for CQB or as a secondary, I've just cut the buffer tube right off and front wired to a fake PEQ box. They're light, which is always nice at the end of the day. None of this is a recommendation for the sub-£100 CYMAs, I reckon you're better off spending a bit more to get much nicer plastic and some more features. But as a viable starter, backup, or loaner (to someone you don't want to date) they do work.

It depends which mosfet you mean. The most basic mosfets will protect the trigger contacts from arcing, especially if you're using 11.1V. They may also allow higher current flow to the motor, giving slightly better performance if the trigger contacts were the limiting factor in the circuit. Given that trigger contacts are very cheap, I'd say that a basic mosfet is nice to have, but not vital. More expensive mosfets are more like what I'd call call fire control system. They can add a lot of other features like active brake or pre-cock (which can solve double-tapping in semi), burst modes, and even rate of fire reduction or a minimum delay for DMRs.

Hmm, you've got me second guessing myself and wondering if I should run 11.1V and the stock motor (if I can find it) rather than 7.4V and a slightly meatier motor that double taps on 11.1V.

There are no guarantees in airsoft, but I don't have any particular concerns running 11.1V in mine. The risk factors in Specnas are the Orion gearbox cracking at the front, and the bearings collapsing, and both of those are more related to backy-forwardy stresses from the spring rather than spinning the gears faster. You're vanishingly unlikely to get pre-engagement or feeding issues just from going to 11.1V with the stock motor and an M90-M100 spring. I would caution that you might see double-tapping on semi, especially with the stock M90 spring, but there's only one way to find out.

If your concern is reliability, CYMA M4s are a decent choice. The very cheapest <£100 ones have nasty toytown plastic, I'd avoid those. However, they work just fine and I always keep my CM.516 around as a backup-backup-gun. The gearboxes are built to take M140 springs, so are if anything under-stressed at UK power limits.

16.666...% [throws nerd tantrum] Hopefully that'll shame TaiwanGun and GunFire into doing the same, if they're still scalping it. Not that I've been keeping track of whether they're shipping to the UK, it's on and off again more than a sitcom romance.

I don't have any serious complaints about my SA-E02. Decent hop, reasonable metal receiver and no problems with the Orion gearbox so far, even running an M140 spring as a DMR. So-so motor, and the mosfet is just for trigger protection and current flow, it doesn't do anything in particular, and baulks at higher powered motors. The QC spring is useful and just requires taking a screw out of the stock - you'll need a long JIS/Phillips driver and a light. The grip is the daftest part, having a "quick change" base plate that creates problems rather than solving them, but you can live with it (or replace it). Worth a punt, although if you can stretch to an EDGE 2.0 you get a Gate Aster with a lot more bells and whistles.

Ehhhh, will there though? I'm trying to feel it out in my head. What it seems like is that even if multiple teeth appear to be engaged at once that in imperfect reality most of the stress is going to be on one of them. I can't see that there will be a lot more stress on the 3rd-last tooth - it's not going to get pulled any further or harder than before. If the argument is "ah, but the 2nd-to-last tooth was just about to pick up some of the stress", well, yes, but then that (also plastic) tooth was already receiving and surviving more stress anyway, before the gear and rack got to the final metal tooth. I'm gambling that plastic racks aren't as fragile as we might imagine. I probably will do at some point, I just fancy sacrificing the existing piston on the alter of pseudo-science first. ... or maybe not sacrificing. Care to take a guess? I'll wager just 0.05J from 2 teeth, because I'm a wild optimist. I'll be re-greasing and fitting a BS910 24.1mm piston o-ring while I'm in there but will otherwise leave as-is (unless I don't).

Before anyone goes all Reddit Skylaar, here's what I'm starting with: an MP5K with a 110mm-ish barrel, a cheap plastic rack with (I think) one metal tooth at the end, and a 3/4 cylinder which is presumably significantly over-volumed and producing a significant amount of smack and crack noise (IIRC it was fitted as 1/4 as stock and I just flipped it end-for-end for funsies). It's shooting bang on 1J with an M100 spring, and is used as a CQB primary or woodland secondary for close encounters. I'm looking for a little better response and ROF (it's already on a Big Dragon M140, thicc wiring and trigger protection / current flow mosfet, and can't fit any 11.1V battery that I'd actually want to use). Now, here's what I'm thinking: if I leave everything as-is, and only remove 2 teeth or so from the pickup side of the sector gear, what could possibly go wrong? From the point of view of the piston, it's not going get pulled any harder than it currently is, at any point in the cycle. The gear won't reach the final metal tooth, but the plastic teeth won't experience any more stress than they currently are. It'll just release earlier. The energy loss should be minimal given the over-voluming. If anything, short stroking should get the volume down closer to where it should be, and BB energy will be a question of how fast the air is being pushed, rather than how much of it. I'm thinking that the worse case is that comes out weedy, and I throw in an M110 or M120 until it eats the plastic rack, then I replace that as well. Any glaring flaws in that plan? Anyone care to predict the results in terms of energy or longevity?

Well, magnets. Cold springs can be a bit hotter, but not by that much. I'd guess at air seal, and using my forensic imagination, some piston grease has made its way forwards and sealed the nozzle up. Take the win and swap the spring. I'm down to an M90 on my CYMA M4 due to randomly fortuitous air seal on completely stock CYMA gearbox parts meshing perfectly with a ZCI hop, Maple Leaf lips and a ZCI barrel.

I don't feel lucky, and will only be buying from Abroadland sellers who charge UK VAT and duty at source, or more specifically, label their packages as that. AliExpress can do it for tuppence-ha'penny trinkets. If we keep buying from sellers who are letting us eat the extra costs of paying that, then they've got little/no financial incentive to change. I understand that it's not free for them to get set up to pay UK tithes, and would be happy paying a reasonable surcharge for a bit of certainty, rather than being mugged for it anyway by DPD / UPS. I am at least pleased to see Evike-Europe saying that they'll remove French VAT for UK (and Swiss) orders. Last time I checked, TaiwanGunFire weren't even doing that, but they wouldn't be paying it either, so they were effectively scalping that amount as pure profit from UK orders, making them even worse deals.

Yup. "United Kingdom*** - Your order should be above 135£ (160€) for customs clearance" "Customs clearance" is a very deceptive way of saying "...for us". Over £135 means they're intending to not charge UK VAT and duty on it at source, which means you'll get rinsed for it during import. Maybe. Or you might get lucky. Or it might get seized, and end up in the DPD or Border Farce basement shooting galleries. What should happen is that the listed price will be reduced by ~17%[*] at checkout (to remove the French VAT), but when it arrives in Blighty, you'll get mugged for ~22.5% (UK VAT + duty) on that price + ~£20 (DPD double-mugging you for paying that on your behalf), and a possible firearms declaration and a delay of anywhere between 0 and infinite days. Whether any of that will happen, or to what extent, is down to the whims of people outside your control. Do you feel lucky, punk? [*] Not 20%, mathletes. A €120 list price is composed of €100 untaxed cost + €20 French VAT. 1/6th rather than 1/5th needs removed to get back to the untaxed price.

Not a great sign, is it? If you are 18 or over, you are legally fine to purchase, or attempt to purchase, a realistic imitation firearm from anyone in the UK. You are not committing any offence by doing so, and you don't need any sort of defence or licence to buy or own it. It's the seller that's committing an offence by selling it. They need a defence to do it, one of which is selling for the purposes of historical re-enactment. They clearly don't believe that's your real intention, they're just asking for a MVT number that they can record against the sale in the very, very unlikely event that it ever becomes an issue for them. Some sellers even accept "defences" that are (legally speaking) nothing of the sort, e.g. cosplay. That's a concern for them, not for you. They want to sell, you want to buy. My concern would be what you intend to do with it, and whether you're likely to attract the wrong sort of attention. Please be aware that public possession of any imitation firearm, realistic or otherwise, is an offence, and that you need to be able to produce a reasonable excuse on demand. That would mean being on the way to or from an airsoft event at an insured site, not showing it off to your mates down the local woods. tl;dr version - if you're at least 18, you're fine to buy and own get an assault-style toy inside the UK. Just be very careful what you do with it.

If you are 18 or over, you are legally fine to purchase, or attempt to purchase, a realistic imitation firearm from anyone in the UK. You are not committing any offence by doing so, and you don't need any sort of defence or licence to buy or own it. It's the seller that's committing an offence by selling it. They need a defence to do it, one of which is selling for the purposes of historical re-enactment. They clearly don't believe that's your real intention, they're just asking for a MVT number that they can record against the sale in the very, very unlikely event that it ever becomes an issue for them. Some sellers even accept "defences" that are (legally speaking) nothing of the sort, e.g. cosplay. That's a concern for them, not for you. They want to sell, you want to buy. My concern would be what you intend to do with it, and whether you're likely to attract the wrong sort of attention. The double-post isn't a good start. Please be aware that public possession of any imitation firearm, realistic or otherwise, is an offence, and that you need to be able to produce a reasonable excuse on demand. That would mean being on the way to or from an airsoft event at an insured site, not showing it off to your mates down the local woods. tl;dr version - if you're at least 18, you're fine to buy and own get an assault-style toy inside the UK. Just be very careful what you do with it.

That's a rather peculiar concern given how much you've spent on getting the ultimate speedQB winr8. Worst case, your spring will tire out a bit and you'll drop maybe a fraction of a Joule, not really an issue in CQB. The cost and time of replacing a spring whenever the clocks go forward or back is negligible compared to what you've already sunk into it. Does the titan always complete a cycle even on auto? Or could you just tap a few auto bursts at the end of day until you get a lucky happy ending on your piston position?

It depends. In my ~1J SA-E02 Edge, I get consistent overspin and double-tapping on semi with a very moderately spinnier Tornado aftermarket motor, 11.1V and (IIRC) an M100 spring. I haven't tried with the stock motor. You might get lucky, and worst case it's an excuse to add a trick mosfet with active brake / pre-cock. Or it might not even be much of an issue in practice in woodland if you can use 7.4V for single-shots at chrono then shout "Sorry mate!" a lot in game if you end up double-tapping under your semi-auto distance (or worse case it's an excuse to buy a pistol... ).

Agreed, especially if it's going to be used as a rental gun when robustness will be more important than peak performance. The only consideration might be changing springs, but it seems that in Latvia, anything under 4J (!) is fair game.

Oh, hello, I see you're setting up an airsoft site in Latvia. Are you asking about these for personal use, or as potential rental guns? They will all work. The CYMA is likely to be the most reliable. The Specna has a better hop unit and a decent spring change system, if you need to change the power to suit your site limit (and insurance). I believe the CORE has a stronger gearbox than the EDGE series, although I may be wrong about that. Sorry, I don't know about the King Arms.

The problem is that if they were that degradable, then they'd start to break up on the slow boat from China. The last thing you want is BB's shattering while being shot. I've had some biodegradables start to surface-craze about 2 years after being opened and first used, but actually breaking down meaningfully takes much, much longer. Here's what landowners and wives shouldn't read about PLA: https://www.biosphereplastic.com/biodegradableplastic/uncategorized/is-pla-compostable/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304615824_Mineralization_of_Poly_lactic_acidPLA_Poly_3-hydroxybutyrate-co-valeratePHBV_and_PLAPHBV_Blend_in_Compost_and_Soil_Environments And that's pure PLA. As you go heavier - which means anything above 0.2g - then you have to start adulterating the plastic with heavier Mystery Mass, like ceramic or metal. Some heavier grey BBs actually have iron in them, which I'd reckon is more degradable than PLA. So if possible, I'd suggest a net and some sort of tray or tarp to collect the buggers. 12" sticky targets are available which actually work quite well: the BBs stick, then (slowly) roll down them and into a tray. BBs get everywhere even when you're trying to be careful: I need to give my garage a good sweeping up before Mrs Borg gets that look again. And yes, any safety glasses will be fine for self protection, i.e. DIY or even sports glasses as long as they're polycarbonate and not perspex. A mid capacity magazine or two is a decent shout, but I'd see how you get on with the supplied high capacity magazine. It will hold hundreds of BBS, but needs winding up with a wheel underneath it. Not actually that onerous, plenty of folk use them in skirmishes. But mid caps still hold over a hundred BBs, and are load-and-shoot without the winding. You'll need a "speedloader" to fill them. E.g. https://bbguns4less.co.uk/products/cyma-g36-mid-cap-mag-also-fits-src-g36-130-rounds.html and https://bbguns4less.co.uk/products/vigor-bb-speed-loader-150rd-in-clear.html (larger loaders are available, I'm just guessing about where you're likely to be buying, and looking at what they have in stock). I'd sound a note of caution though that airsoft magazine compatibility isn't brilliant, even within brands. My JG G36 fed fine from its supplied hi-cap but didn't like the mid caps that I bought for it. Much of airsoft is a gamble. True, but you're looking at £45-50 including delivery for a SkyRC S65 and a decent capacity 7.4V lipo. I'd say that's required for skirmishing, but for plinking the provided nimh will actually work just fine. It's not like trigger response and ROF are critical. As with the magazines, I'd say: run it as it is out of the box, and see if you enjoy it. Then consider a 2nd round of purchasing. Or consider dropping by a skirmish with it - folk of all ages and abilities enjoy airsoft, and plenty of us here play at a very placid pace.

Partly that, you do feel a lot more confident when armoured up, even when it's out of proportion to the protection offered - I've formed a theory that this is a key factor in morale. There's also the consideration that the more armour you see, the harder you'll start to hit. This also has airsoft implications. The more you experience Crye-babies claiming "Didn't feel nothing, mate" as you whang BBs off of their plate carriers and stacks-o-gear, the heavier you're going to get on the trigger compared to being up against Team Mankini.