Rogerborg

Oh, hello. This is very relevant to my interests. I'd agree that an M4 makes sense as the base. All you really need to retain is the lower receiver and gearbox, plus the hop unit and inner barrel, ideally as a complete unit. Those are the shooty bits. It shouldn't matter which M4, but with it being airsoft, it might, due to slight differences in dimensions. CYMA would be the default choice to use for development as they're an actual OEM and should (there's that word again) be consistent across the range, from their cheapest plastic CM.5xx guns, up to the metal receivers with trick gearboxes and electronics. However, there are many (many, many) other affordable options: Specna Arms, Lancer Tactical, Double Eagle, all of which have quick change springs (which the cheapest CYMAs don't) and any of which ought to be workable with perhaps some slight modification to the dimensions, either before printing or with some filing or filling afterwards. What you'd want to print is the upper receiver. What matters is that it mates up with the lower - specifically keying into it at the rear, and at the front pin - and that the interior matches the original just above and in front of the magwell, where the hop unit seats. That part is crucial to get right, as any misalignment of the hop unit, or inability to slide forwards and and backwards slightly, will result in misfeeds and/or magazines not seating. You'll also need some sort of flip-or-slide-to-open window to access the hop unit dial, although it needn't be as big as the ejection port on the original receiver. I'd suggest binning off the outer barrel and just run the inner barrel directly inside the printed receiver. The outer dimensions of airsoft inner barrels are fairly consistent, but I'd make the void a fraction bigger than your development gun's inner barrel, as the barrel can be (and commonly is) shimmed up with tape to fit snugly, on a case by case basis. It's fine to have an inner barrel that's shorter than the outer, as long as it's not excessively so, and the BBs's don't impact the outer on the way out (which is another reason to make the void slightly oversized). After that, you can go hog wild with the externals. For example, the CSI XM-5 is an M4 / V2 gearbox and hop unit inside a particularly funky plastic shell that... some people... already use as a space plasmalaser gun. For the avoidance of doubt, I mention this as an example of what can be done with a full external factory do-over. I would not use this as the base gun for a kit! It's not readily available now, and while the internals are V2 they're very sub-par. In theory it takes STANAG / M4 mags as well as its stock magazine, but the receiver halves and buffer tube are nothing like M4 compatible. For all that it's just a hollow shell, it's a weighty boy too, and nobody wishes their gun was heavier come the end of the day, and it an absolute nightmare to take apart and work on. It's a swing and a miss, you can do better by sticking with a stock lower and a simple one-pin takedown. Oh, buffer tube. Some M4 have bolt-on buffer tubes, but the cheapest CYMAs don't, they're moulded to the back of the lower receiver. However, the dimensions of the buffer tube itself should be... similar... and so you should be able to come up with a printed stock that secures onto most tubes. Airsoft gearboxes can be front or rear wired. With front wired, the wiring goes out past the hop unit (this can sometimes be a bit of a squeeze) to a battery somewhere in the upper receiver. Rear wired, the wiring runs inside the buffer tube to a battery in the stock. Rear wired is most common in generic M4s, and I'd suggest sticking with rear wiring, and keeping the battery inside the stock, with as much empty space as possible. On magazines, I wouldn't sweat that just yet. There are a plethora of various short / low profile mags available, but magazine fitting and feeding is one of the common issues that airsofters encounter. If you do get feeding issues, the most common cause is front to rear misalignment of the hop unit, or the nozzle protruding too far into the hop rubber, all of which is dependent on the magwell, magazine, hop unit, nozzle and hop rubber - it's a problem to solve on a case-by-case basis. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with. For development purposes, you don't even need a working gun, any boneyard basket-case should do, as long as it has all the external parts so that you can get the dimensions right.

Yarp, you'll want to create an ad here, there's no obvious best subsection as you're flogging a job lot. If you don't name a price, expect to get offers / "offers" from chancers or fantasists wanting to get most of it as "free gifts". You'll also want to consider and specify postage or collection, and how you'll want to be paid (and who's paying the fees for that). Best of luck.

It's an observation, not an argument. The practice is that if a monopoly provider can bill you the "cost" for a service, they can - and will - name any "cost" that they want. For example, the £70 fee to switch a vehicle registration mark, which is a take-it-or-leave-it fee for a few keystrokes.

Yes. At the risk of banging a broken drum, UKARA is just a central register of site memberships. You can be a member of many sites at once, with multiple such memberships registered with UKARA. Don't sweat it, just start playing and see if you enjoy it.

Then what incentive is there for them to limit costs? "My department is over-staffed and much of what we do is pointless busywork," said no bureaucrat, ever.

Ahoy and welcome to the Dad Corner of airsoft. God know where the kids are, probably doing too-loud TokTiks on the InstaBooks. And all airsoft toys are a waste of money, but that doesn't mean they can't be fun.

Yes, mine (classic) is just as consistent as out of the box. I may have dialled the hop up a click, but it's still lifting 0.43g just fine.

The part of his soul that he's poured into it, apparently. Noob error, he bet on green.

Fine as long as it's on properly private land, with the owner's express permission, and nothing goes wrong. Even if it does, if Alice shoots out Bob's eye though negligence, then there's a direct claim between those parties, and it's Alice's problem if she has no liability cover in place. However, random members of the public can wander on, and someone who's lost the ability to earn money is going to go after the deepest pockets they can find, whether it's Alice's, whoever formed the contract with the landowner, or the landowner themselves. Note that whether you're getting paid or not isn't relevant. Vowles vs Evans and the Welsh Rugby Union established that even an unpaid volunteer referee can be liable if they fail in their duty of care.

Airsoft is patient zero for "You get what you pay for". I mean, you can't buy one of those cheap Ravens if you want a good brand, you have to splash out on a Vorsk for the extra manufacturing quality.

Yo bro private message him, this is supes awks for the rest of us.

I mean, unless you've got a Deans-to-Mini-Tamiya connector in the mix. I'd pull the motor out of the grip, plug it in and see if it spins freely out in the open. You've still got the G&G motor, right? So you could try that as well. A cheap multimeter will take much of the guesswork out of the process, they're pretty much indispensable for any electrical work.

Ahoy and welcome back. Area-66 is my regular site, and POW is decent as well. The old Depo was ace, I still haven't tried the new site yet as even recent reports suggest it's still too dark and full of bottlenecks. Have you played there? Biohazard in Stevenston / Ardeer is a good shout too if you're out west, they make really good use of the available space with some clever build-work and well run games.

Surprisingly, I didn't get any jams, and it's a proper titeboi that BBs will only just barely roll down without assistance. Seems that even "Vorsk" Nuprol can source round BBs.

That is one thing I've noticed about my classic TAC-41, it's at about 9.6 hopping 0.43g at 2.2J. It's common to drop another £5 or so on a "chub nub", but you'd get the same effect by removing those shims, or shimming on top of the nub. Not a huge deal to address either way as the hop is sitting right on top of the gun.

Somewhat redundantly. If there's no negligence, there's little prospect of a claim succeeding. The waiver doesn't do that, the informed acceptance of specific unavoidable risks does. These are two different things. The usual waffle about unconditionally absolving the site of any liability is just wasted words. I'd rather they used that space be more specific about risks, and who is responsible for mitigating them, phrased as "We will" and "You will". Passive voice introduces ambiguity. For example: Before entering the safe zone, you will remove the magazine from all your guns including pistols, fire shots into the ground until they are clear, and present them for inspection if asked. If this sounds unnecessarily pedantic, it's because it doesn't matter, until it really matters, and suddenly what's plain as a pikestaff to the plaintiff's lawyer is utter balderdash to the defendant's. For an example of getting it wrong, one of my locals says "If you show up in trainers or unacceptable footwear, you will not be permitted to play." Daft thing to say, as it creates a duty of care on the site that didn't previously exist. 🤦‍♂️

Section 65 of the Consumer Right Act 2015,.

It is annoyingly easy to blow your load out of them prematurely, I've shamed myself by emptying my balls on the ground in public a few times. On the other hand, you're getting 48 round (with an option for 110 round) sniper mags, and you'll quickly figure out how to handle them. Not a deal breaker for me.

I'll be that guy again, and ask: if you feel strongly that UKAPU isn't doing what you want, what's stopping you from volunteering to join it, and changing that?

I mean...

<not-sure-if-serious-or-dry-firing-in-the-safe-zone.png> Apologies if I did have a pop at you, and I understand that we can all experience a trigger oopsie. I had a bit of a sense of humour failure after catching a spent stray while walking right in the middle of the safe zone. It's why I wear shooting glasses all day on site now, because...

When they say "silver", do they mean the colour, or the element? 🤔

Pretty good day at Area-66, with some well thought out games. Helpful, friendly marshalling, but too friendly, with far too much tolerance for non-hit-takers, over-shooters, and my new bête noire, dry firing in the (not so) safe zone. Bloody airsofters, we need to ban them all to make airsoft great for airsofters. 😠

I'm also hovering over the X button on that one.