Rogerborg

I do wish there was more mil/filmsims in the Democratic People's Republic of Caledonia, as I agree that themed is far more rewarding than random skirmish days. Doing half a day's travel (there and back) to get to events Doon Sooth is a bit too much of a gamble for me though.

Ouch. I went up to early 14th century, padding + mail + curies / coats-of-plates, and my anecdotal experience was that the more armour folk were wearing (or facing), the worse the injuries tended to get. Dark age stuff with mostly spears and squishies seemed much more restrained and safe.

And I do genuinely mean well done on getting this far - so many of these projects get over-hyped then produce nothing.

I expect historic reenactment or HEMA (Historic European Martial Arts), i.e. fighting with swords and axes and glaives and such. Generally pretty safe as most training starts with not hurting people, but accidents happen even with blunted weapons. I'm down a front tooth due to a langsaex, I'd love to say doing something heroic, but it was dropped on my face while I was lying on the ground. There seems to be a fair bit of overlap between airsoft, punchy and hitty-weapon sports, and motorcycling, which I would generalise as "adrenaline, warrior spirit, dumbness and optimism". My most pathetic current injury is a strained thumb from hauling on the anchors too hard on my Royal Enfield which is making it ouchy to grip a toy gun so I'm involuntarily practicing off-hand shooting. Life, and idiots, find a way. 🙄

I'd go the other way. Given the low number that you'll get through while plinking, and the cost of the gun itself, the extra cost per bottle is negligible. And I agree on bios, PLA breaks down in an industrial composter at 60C, not lying on the grass in Scottish weather. The "BIO" label is really just for fooling landowners and wives.

Well, fair enough and congratulations on producing it. I would caution that the worldwide market for it is a few hundred sites, of which maybe a few dozen would actually replace their current boom-box with it - conditional on aggressive marketing. It's something to do for fun and experience rather than as a profitable product.

Generally, go with the heaviest that the gun can lift. That's determined by a complicated relationship between nozzle energy, bucking shape and material, nub hardness, and hop arm pressure, which boils down to: it depends. Pretty much any stock gun should hop 0.25g. Most can hop 0.28g, although it's not guaranteed. What I would always suggest is cleaning the hop rubber and the barrel before use - hopefully the CYMA will come with a cleaning rod, although you can push a patch down the barrel with any 6mm-ish plastic rod. Ideally you'll clean from rear to front so as not to push any barrel shipping oil back into the bucking, although it's not super critical as long as you get it all clear all the way. If you do fancy diving inside, this is a fairly decent disassembly video. Or you can remove the inner barrel by taking off the handguard, removing the three screws shown in red here, and the whole inner barrel assemble will slide out forwards, giving access to the hop unit and rubber.

Yup, Deans is just fine, although you can occasionally find a couple of connectors that don't want to match up perfectly. Still much better than Tamiya.

I like shotguns, but I couldn't recommend either my ASG Franchi, or the CYMA CM.051. Both springers, both tri-barrel. The ASG works as advertised but has no hop and so is only effective at very close ranges. So I got the CYMA to get something with a hop, but that didn't work out. It's very cheaply made, has feeding issues and the fixed hops are essentially useless as they provide wildly different and inconsistent amounts of lift, making aiming a complete lottery. There will be folk who have had different experiences (and will be happy to post YouTube reviews to that effect), but the problem is, if you get a bad one there's not a lot you can do about it given the nature of these beasts. They're sods to take apart, are filled with a hand-grenade's worth of small, fragile plastic components, and it's a coin flip whether anything you do to them will make them better or worse. On gas, I've heard anecdotally that the Golden Eagle gas shotguns are leakier than a disgruntled civil servant, which just leaves the Tokyo Maruis and gambling that the fixed hops actually function. If I were buying another (and it being airsoft, I might) I'd either go Tokyo Marui from a UK retailer and be prepared to return it if the performance doesn't match the price, or just pick up one of the cheapest Double Eagle single shot springers with an adjustable / "adjustable" hop, as if it works at all it would be a win.

"tooo much to mention". Yeah, tooooo much to pay. Especially for a TM that might be shredding its internals. I generally feel a bit sad for folk trying to flog all their gear, but this bloke isn't even trying, and I rather suspect that actual "sensible offers" will be met with an "I know what this is worth all day long, mate."

Go for it. I have a Jing Gong G36C which is essentially a clone of the CYMA (or vice versa). It was bought as a reliable backup gun (they're site rental favourites), but shoots so well that it's actually the one that I use most often now. CYMA gear tends to be basic but robust. They're better known for AKs and M4s, but the G36 has a V3 gearbox, similar to their AKs, so should be a solid choice. G36s have a decent rotary hop unit that tends to be more consistent than basic dial or slider units. It even comes with a basic nimh battery and dumb charger which will be fine for plinking. Just don't leave it plugged in for more than a couple of hours, and keep an eye - well a hand - on the battery temperature while charging. The only thing I'd flag up is the two part V3 trigger and mediocre motors and batteries on stock guns can leave them slightly vulnerable to locking up if you trigger-spam on semi and don't fully complete a cycle. This is more of an issue while skirmishing, it shouldn't be a problem while target shooting.

Or, run it until it breaks, then replace it? I'm running a notoriously weak Orion gearbox and Collapse-O-Bearings as an M140 / 1.8J DMR. It's unlikely to last, but... it is lasting.

If I were rewiring again, I'd probably go to XT-30 or XT-60 instead of Deans, but Deans is pretty good too, and some airsoft guns are switching to it as standard now.

Sure, a DMR just means a heavier spring and locked to semi. Anything beyond that is gravy and LARPing. I'd radius the gearbox, maybe think about a longer barrel and barrel extension, but even that's more about looks. On that, your local site(s) may be sniffy about a "5.56mm" DMR because, well, LARP.

What sort of ranges are we talking? If it's a few tens of metres or less, then pretty much anything with a hop unit is viable. Any electric rifle with a metal gearbox, a gas pistol (non-blowback should be more efficient and consistent, blowback is much more fun), a bolt action sniper, or even a cheap pump action single barrel shotgun with a variable hop unit. You don't have to throw upgrade money at them, just clean the barrel and hop rubber and feed them the heaviest BBs that they'll hop. Just be aware that airsoft guns are never that consistent or accurate, and you'll always get the occasional flyer.

Ah, right. Sorry to hear this, it's always a risk with Tamiya. And yes, Perun mosfets are pretty decent, I'd consider that an opportunity to do an upgrade.

Guns so bad that even Nuprol won't sully their, er, brand reputation with them. Agreed, I'd avoid. They do work, but are sub 0.4J, and there's no much that you can do in practice to increase that. Mosfet / lipo versions or conversions have much better trigger response, but they're unsatisfying to shoot, with big bulky handgrips. Auto mode can be fun, but you'll likely be limited to semi-auto at the ranges these things can reach. That said, the CM.123 1911 takes the CM.127 Glock mags, including the extended ones, if you don't mind that sort of heresy, and the CM.121 Dessert Eegul is probably closest to the real steel dimensions. Hopefully someone can give some positive recommendations rather than negging.

What gun is it? We'd just be guessing, and a very basic multimeter will take the guesswork out of it. Worse case, you can bin off all the electronics and just install a basic trigger switch. AK2M4 is fairly low on stock, but still has options for both V2 and V3: https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/internal-parts/trigger-switches

Agreed, actually. We're not on a rehearsal, and it's not like it's going to lose much value even if it ends up as a garage queen.

I'm surprised retailers would even stock no-frills guns at that price, unless... well, unless they can't get anything else, or everybody else is scaling their prices as well. 😟

Or you can set up a stock alert at PatrolBase and wait and wait and... I'll mention that these will not fit MP5Ks - a few of us have had that bright idea, but couldn't figure out a way to make them work.

Thanks, guys, I could have got them both for £100.

For that money, I'd want Maxx Hoproom to show up personally and demonstrate the extra consistency, at an outdoor range, under whatever wind and weather conditions were prevalent at the time.

Based on the information that you've provided, I might offer £50 each. This isn't meant to sound harsh, just realistic. I'd have to assume that they're largely intact but non-functional examples of cheap plastic trash from some BBGunz vendor. Better images of the logos might help, and any information that you can turn up about what they are.

Sorry, nothing specific about that model, I won't touch Eyetalian because of the love-it-on-the-road, hate-it-in-the-workshop relationship that owners seem to have. (If you liked that video, check out the chap's channel which, unlike Eyetalian bikes or airsoft guns, is an exemplar of quality control.)