Rogerborg

It's tricky to figure out if it's not slamming in hard enough, or deep enough. Our strikers might be made from monkey-metal nails, for all we know. Preach, I think my TRMR multishot base is running a random bearing from a pack that I used to rebuild a trackball.

Thanks for the follow-through. I have to have a similar go at my TRMR, which is also light-striking now. Given that we're looking at a fraction of a mm between bang and bust, it's amazing that any of our shed-built toys ever work at all.

I'd keep checking back on that one. Yup, that's the significant difference to the mainland. While both of the above remain true, this might actually be an interesting wheeze, depending on what the VAT situation is (or can be made to appear).

Seems pretty average around these parts, apart from the rash of "wut am best gnu for £30?" fresh meat every half-term. Good to have you back. A spring shotgun is a brave choice in CURRENT_YEAR, I'd be looking for CQB and semi-auto-Sunday style games to make the most of that.

Presumably there's also some sort of snorkel attachment that lets you smoke your tab through the respirator?

That's appropriate for that site, it's just a way for people with stuff to donate to find other people who can pass it on. Whether it's a particularly useful site or not will depend on the number of people using it. With genuine respect, if you know a bloke who's accepting stuff, why not tell us who it is? If people can't get their stuff to him via you, they may be able to do it themselves. Every little helps, right?

That's maybe where we differ. I'd consider that to be good going for any airsoft GBB, or GBBR for that matter. If you're doing a lot of practical pistol or running it as an HPA'd primary, it would be disappointing. But how many gas pistol magazines (full mags, not tactical reloads) do you get through in a skirmish day, even running in CQB? When I look at the value proposition of the AA R17 per day, or per shot, I'm happy enough with mine. The consistency isn't brilliant, although I might be sad if I'd tried anything better. There's some shininess around the trigger parts, but not significant wear yet. I wouldn't recommend one for target shooting or as a regular use primary. As an occasional bit of fun, eh. For context, I also run spring shotguns and even a spring pistol a couple of times just for variety, I'm not looking for winr8.

Depends on the site, but I reckon many woodland players would be as well carrying a springer pistol just for looks. On topic, I just threw a Maple Leaf 50 degree GBB bucking into my AA R17 and got on with using it. The barrel could probably be improved, but I don't think the gas consistency of a GBB pistol (day to day or shot to shot) really warrants chasing perfect performance.

Same goal, (very) different approaches to promoting it. It looks like your chap isn't registered on https://www.ukrainesupport.org.uk/collection-points - it might be worthwhile suggesting that as well as doing word-of-mouth.

Well, maybe. The only name on our very tenuous defence is "Sam Hardy" in Circular 031 / 2007. What hath been given by a rando can be taken away by a rando. Thanks, @Johndaniel4863, it's good to get a view from inside. Has there been a change in policy, or is it more a case of Border Force just enforcing the existing policy now? We can't control what foreign sellers actually do, and I doubt they're going to do more than put a UKARA on the packaging. It seems like this just isn't cutting it any more (if it ever did), and that if RIFs are spotted (and they might not be), that we're likely to have to go through the whole back-and-forth process. Is that a fair assessment? I mean, is there really any point in having a UKARA number put on the package now? I'm minded to wonder if doing so is making it more likely to be spotted and pounced on.

Indeed, I spotted a Silverback SRS retailer that had the option to put in a spring that would take it over 2.5J, i.e. an air rifle, not an airsoft gun. Perversely, that means that they should be treating it as a "firearm" sale, but not (per arguments made on here, which I don't actually agree with) as a realistic imitation firearm requiring any defence. See also (e.g.) MP5K CO2 airguns which look identical to either the real steel, or to the airsoft versions. The best we can say is that almost none of this seems to be enforced, and I've not found any relevant case law on https://www.bailii.org/ Speaking purely for myself, I'd rather trust Ali Express in the event of a snafu than some rando reseller based in the UK. If you are going to act as a re-seller, the real value you're adding is as a local point of liability when things go wrong.

So I've heard, but my B6 stores at 3.8V per cell which is (somewhat surprisingly) just 40% based on https://blog.ampow.com/lipo-voltage-chart/ 70% would be about 3.95V per cell. I have no firm opinion on what's actually best. The most I'd really venture to suggest that storing at anywhere between 3.6V and 4V is probably better than at under or over that range.

Are you bagging on Army Armament mock-Glocks from personal experience? My AA R17 has been fine for maybe 1,000 rounds, using its own mag or WE mags. If that doesn't sound like much, I'd suggest counting how many pistol shots you actually go through in a day. Paying TM or even WE prices for a woodland hip-hanger has never made sense to me, and my R17 has been fine as a CQB primary. If and when it fails, I'm minded to just buy another (and end up with loads of spares) than sink money into it or pay more for another brand which might fail out of the box.

From your other recent post, can we infer that this isn't a hypothetical desk? I knew it.

It depends on the charger. If you tell us, I'm sure someone here will have some experience with it. If it's using the SkyRC firmware it'll have a specific lithium balance mode, good for lipo or li-ion, and a "2S" i.e. 2... er... cell, or 7.4V settings. This actually means charging the cells up to about 4.2V each, or 8.4V for a "7.4V" battery. You should be able to set the maximum charging current. If I'm not in a hurry, I use 1C, i.e. the current that will charge the battery in an hour. For a 1600 mAh / 1.6Ah battery, I'd charge at 1.6A - you'll see the current drop as the battery gets full. Opinions vary, but you never want to over-discharge lithiums. I used to to leave mine alone unless they were very discharged, in which case I'd charge them fully. However, I've recently been convinced that keeping them at a storage charge level is kindest to them. A decent charger will have a storage setting, which will charge (or discharge) lithium battery cells to whatever it thinks (or you tell it) is an appropriate level. My iMax B6, for example, takes them to 3.8V per cell, which represents about a 40% charge. Some owners prefer higher, say 60-80%. Depending on your charger, this might represent about 4.0V per cell. What I wouldn't do any more is leave them at the full 4.2V per cell for any length of time, although I expect most of us charge to that level the night before a game. They're cheap enough now, especially in the overall context of airsoft costs, that it's not something that bothers me that much.

Ah, I see where we're going. Yes, if you ever do get into the RIF selling business, you'll doubtless want to get access to the UKARA database by jumping through the eleventy-nine hoops at http://www.ukara.org.uk/#retailer It seems somewhat circular as you have to show that you're in the business before you can get in the business, as a UKARA member. It's not a "licence" though, it's really just getting access to their database - which itself just records site membership - in order to adduce a defence. Other defences are available, although UKARA is the most popular and well known way of checking site membership. I can't see where they mention being a registered firearms dealer, and something that leaps out from the guidance is that your local force should reject the RFD application if "the chief officer of police is not satisfied that the applicant will engage in business as dealers in firearms to a substantial extent or as an essential part of other trades, businesses or profession." All just speculation on my part, mind. Like most of our firearms / replica legislation it's as clear as mud what the intention is regarding airsoft sales, and I imagine it'll come down to the local force whether they want you registered or not. I actually only raised the issue to speculate on whether the BBgunz4U style blue-and-orange tat-dealers are actually RFDs. If so, the bar must be set quite low.

How smart are we talking? SkyRC or similar, with a display? NiMH is a bit of an issue for chargers. With lithium (or lead) batteries, you can tell a charger what voltage the battery is, and it will know what voltage to limit itself to, as well as limiting the charging current. With NiMH, the charger doesn't actually know the voltage, or at least I've not seen one that does. It just charges until it sees the battery resistance spike / charging current drop, which indicates that it's (probably) full. You generally want to charge batteries at a low current, as heat damages them, but that makes it harder for a charger to spot the current drop when a NiMH is full. They can do it, but it's a slight risk factor, and some "smart" chargers - I'm looking at you Nuprol - are fit only for throwing in the bin, before they burn your house down. A 1600 mAh, i.e. 1.6 ampere-hour battery charged at 1 amp will take at most 1.6 hours to charge from completely empty to full, plus a bit more for heat losses. At 1.6A it should take an hour, At 2A, it will take 0.8 hours or 48 minutes, and so on. But batteries rarely get that empty, so those are upper limits. Keep an eye, or rather a hand, on the battery while it's charging, and if it gets uncomfortably warm, stop charging rather than pushing it too hard. Or skip all that and get yourself some lithium-polymer or lithium-ion batteries.

It's an interesting model, but I can't see it working in the UK. We're a cramped, crowded island with few areas of secure, isolated land that aren't in regular use, or subject to having public randos rambling onto them. Sites here sadly tend to get kicked off the land as soon as the landowner finds any other way of making money from it. Even if you could find a bit of land that's unused on a given weekend, landowners might not want to have it covered in plastic, or take on any vicarious liability. Indemnity for players might be do-able, Shooters Rights or similar could cover it. I say "could" because their underwriter will be set up to cover people shooting at things or beasties, rather than at other people who are shooting back. Still, it'll be fine on paper until it's not.

Do you have any more details on that? You'd of course need / "need" a VCRA Section 37 defence for each sale on a case-by-case basis, as do private sellers. Keeping a record of the sale would help you adduce that defence. But the definition of "firearms dealer" in Firearms Act 1968 S57 (4) only applies to firearms, shot guns and air weapons. Airsoft guns are not firearms, nor air weapons, for the purpose of that Act (or else we'd be screwed in Scotland). Chapter 15 in the guidance doesn't go any further than S57 (4), and FA Section 40 only requires keeping records for firearms. Neither S40 not S57 (4) mention imitations. It might be a sound idea to get yourself registered anyway in case you ever get asked why you have a bedroom or lockup full of replicas. However, I'm not sure why you'd need to be registered, and I can't see any obligation to keep any records or do paperwork beyond the S37 defence.

Heh, I was just watching Negative's EBR build and thinking "I bet that gets propped on a tree branch and not moved during each game".

Wow, that really is good value. Does the £28 include BBs? If so, the gun rental is close to being free.

Hi. I've put a fair amount of time into tinkering with my CYMA CM.123 AEP - they all use essentially the same internals. What you can do with them is limited by the tiny cylinder volume, and the battery space. With the stock nimh battery that comes in the older style AEPs, the semi auto trigger response was dreadful. Just switching to a tiny 7.4V 300mAh 35C/70C (notionally 10.5A / 20.1A) battery with a mini-JST connector helped significantly. It looks like you have a bigger 500mAh with a Deans connector, I don't know what C / amperage it can notionally supply, but you should already be seeing good response - for an AEP. When I gutted mine and shoehorned in a much bigger 1200mAh 25/50C (30/60A) in, using a full sized Deans connector, trigger response got a lot better. If you can find an 11.1V that fits, great. You've already got a mosfet which should take the trigger contacts out of the equation. Neither the Sigma nor the Jefftron say they support pre-cock, and I'd be surprised if they could given how the cut-off system works in an AEP. So I wouldn't bother changing the stock mosfet. Mine doesn't have one, and from what I've seen, current flow is limited by the battery, not the trigger contacts. Sorry, no idea about the motor, I have no experience with RC or 370s. I would note that even fractions of a mm of a difference in size can mess up your build, whether it's length, girth or shaft (snigger). On power, all AEPs come in around 200fps on 0.2g / 0.37J, i.e. weaker than a politician's promise. With the tiny cylinder volume available, and the curious nozzle design with a somewhat suspect sealing mechanism, it's hard to get much more out of them. The best I managed with an Eagle M90 spring and everything lubed to extremes was 240fps / 0.54J, at the cost of a noticeably slower trigger response. I mention this to agree that it's not worth trying to squeeze more out of them. Also, the gearbox is a bit of a chore to get back together, especially with a stronger spring. You're not going to want to hear this, but honestly, I'd fit the biggest battery that you can, and leave it alone. The best that I can say about AEPs is that they perform consistently.

Genuine "wut?". Do you mean some sort of loicence to import them? Given the shitshow of trying to do individual imports at the moment, is there some commercial track for getting RIFs past the fun sponges at Border Farce?

I'm surprised that airsoft remains so cheap. My two regular sites are £26.50 outdoors and just £25 for a full day of indoors. Neither do "free" food, but I'm fine with not having the price of a tepid hot dog costed in. The Depot 2.0 is now up to £36 a day, which is when I start to question the value for a site still under development. Although I'd be amazed if their income comes close to paying the rates on the building - I'd assume they're doing some sort of "sports charity" wheeze again. As just noted elsewhere, I reckon the real rate of inflation is running at well above the headline 4.9% CPI, given the hundreds of billions of new fiat that we've shaken from the magic money tree. That necessarily reduces the value of what's in our pockets. It's amazing that prices haven't risen further and faster. On that, if you're waiting for RIF and consumable prices to come down before buying, I wouldn't. Money printing and now sharp rises in fuel and energy are only going to drive prices higher. True, not when comparing site vs site. However, when comparing playing versus watching Netlix, it's a real consideration. At 50 to 70 mile round trips to the nearest sites now, I can't ignore the costs of fuel any more. Of course, this is all in the context of a hobby where we think £100 for a toy is bargain-basement. I'm sure many of us could find a season's play just by thinning our collections a bit. I've got RIFs in baskets at two retailers, but in both cases I've hovered over the buy button and thought "Wouldn't you rather spend that money on playing instead?"