Rogerborg

Beat me to it. Please, please, don't set out thinking in terms of fps. If your local site is still chronoing with 0.2g and talking in terms of fps, urgh, it's not 1999 any more. My DMR shoots at ~1.8J with 0.32g BBs, I honestly couldn't even tell you what fps that is, as I don't need to know. The first thing I'd buy is a chrono if you don't already have one. Depends on the site. My local just specifies one-in-the-air, and I've been asked once (and only once) to demonstrate that it's locked to semi. On that, you will want to lock yours to semi, as anything capable of auto and over 1.3J is a Section 5 prohibited firearm, not an airsoft gun. One easy way to do that is to file a little bit off of your selector plate so that it can't hold the cut off lever open. The downside to that is that you won't have auto available to try and clear a jam. Some folk put a screw in the receiver to stop the selector going to auto, although it's up to your site whether they'll accept anything that can be undone easily. Mosfet based solutions are available, and a cycle-completion mosfet would help to avoid partial cycle lockups, although I've never had a V2 gearbox lock up on me yet running 7.4v lipo and a decent motors, even at 1.8J. *cough* Mk12 *cough*. I agree though, with your budget and requirements, the Cyma CM.098 is the obvious choice. Robust CYMA internals, QC spring, rotary hop. I wouldn't even change the barrel at first, just the fire selector, rubber (60 or 70 degree) and nub, then change the spring to get up to whatever your site limit is. Run it with the stock 6.03mm barrel (clean it out first!) and see how you get on. If you're still hankering to splash the cash, I'd then go to barrel (ZCI or AOLS, I've never tried Prometheus, Mad Bull or other high end stuff), and maybe motor depending how "high torque" the stock one really is. SHS High / Ultra High Torque, or if you want to scrape every penny, the Big Dragon M160 from AliExpress is working well for me (and the M140s in non-DMR AEGs).

There are also several retailers that will sell anything to anyone, either with a £20 premium, or just in return for a box tick. It's really not a case of whether OP can get his hands on RIFs, more about whether it's a good idea.

I don't. I got too scarified by the MATHS being over 9000 in the "orbital space guns in a vacuum" thread.

I do appreciate PatrolBase's (apparent) honesty about their boneyard stock - they list more details than other retailers tend to. But I agree that they're dreaming about the prices. Unless it's something that's out of stock, that you absolutely must have, I can't see why you'd bother. It's also problematical for them to sell without return, refund or warranty. Consider if you received something described as "minor handling scuffs, otherwise OK" and it turned out to be rekt beyond redemption. What do?

Warranty being the big one, they'll have to eat any returns. If I were a retailer I wouldn't touch individual importation.

And all for the purposes of saving maybe £10 on a £200 order of toy guns.

I didn't say that it wasn't. I said that there's no age limit on the defence, which there isn't. OP has a defence for modification (not manufacture, "he modifies an imitation firearm so that it becomes a realistic imitation firearm"): he would be doing it for airsoft use. 13 or 31 doesn't matter, the defence applies, if it applies. Bun fight on that below. vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv Looks like he's already got IFs or RIFs, he just wants more. I'm sure we can understand that. This has always puzzled me, as the offence is committed at the point of sale. Possession is neither here nor there, and there's no defence for selling to anyone under 18. Pragmatically, it makes sense, and you could phrase it as a rental scheme with a full deposit up front. But strictly speaking once "sold" it's no longer the site's concern what happens to it as their defence would be based on their adducible knowledge and belief only at the point of sale. I reckon he already has one, if not a RIF. The defence is "for the purpose only of making the imitation firearm in question available for the organisation and holding of permitted activities for which public liability insurance is held in relation to liabilities to third parties arising from or in connection with the organisation and holding of those activities", where "permitted activities" means "airsoft skirmishing", and site membership is one of the suggested ways to adduce a defence. Site membership is not, however, part of either the 2006 Act or the 2007 amending Regulations. If OP has played at least 3 times over at least 8 weeks, then he's already demonstrated his behaviour and likely future intent to exactly the same degree as any other airsofter, membership or not. And even that's only suggestive. Membership is likely to be sufficient (but not necessarily so), but it may not be strictly necessary. I'd note that the "for the purposes of" speaks to future intent, not past behaviour. And I'd argue that having further days boked shows more intent than (for example) playing three times, getting membership, then not playing for 11 1/2 months, and buying an armoury without any further bookings just as your membership is about to expire. Agreed, and I'd say that it's even worse. The Home Secretary never put his name to the airsoft "permitted activity" by writing it into the Regulations proper. All we've got is a Home Office circular by one "Sam Hardy" a low level drone from Sector 7-G. And the bit that really bothers me is that while Border Farce / Customs choose to consider a defence as though it were a licence to import, it's not one. Since pretty much every airsoft toy is imported, some minor apparatchik could pull the plug on the whole thing tomorrow without even requiring Ministerial involvement, let alone primary legislation. Which is why for all that I'm arguing that OP could probably adduce a defence for modification, or maybe find a wizard wheeze to be sold a RIF, I'm not encouraging it. The reality is that we can't stop kids getting their hands on bbGunz4Less orange horrors plus a can of Poundland black paint. I'd just really rather that they not put temptation in their closets.

The legality: Selling to a parent on the understanding that it'll be (perfectly legally) gifted to you for airsoft use arguably satisfies the letter of the legislation, so, sure, ask your site. Also, there's no age limit on the defence for modification. A 13 year old can be gifted an IF and modify it into a RIF for airsoft use. The intent: What Parliament probably intended was to keep RIFs out of the hands of under-18s, as it's an offence to sell any imitation firearm, realistic or otherwise, to someone under 18, or for someone under 18 to purchase one. However, the law is what they wrote, not what they might have written, so gifting and modification remain legal. However to the however, I'm not entirely comfortable with 13 year olds possessing RIFs, even legally, and even regular players who already own IFs and who make responsible sounds. I'm thinking of the thread on Facebook with a brass-necked lad who just openly begged strange men to buy him a RIF for airsoft use. Most folk quite rightly told him to do one, but a few "u can't tel me wut 2 do" contrarians actually clubbed together and bought him one, for no reason that I could see other than to wind up the folk who predicted it wouldn't end well. And of course, his next posts were pictures of himself posing with his new assault-style toy on his roof, and a video of him capping off mags with his mates in what was clearly a public field backing onto housing. He did eventually take them down after even his sugar daddies facepalmed.

Yup, or a credit / debit card chargeback. No excuses, no costing you one penny to resolve. What you have now is a free gift, you've yet to receive what you've ordered. You don't have to be aggressive, or belligerent, just give them at most one chance to resolve it, then get your money back. Whatever you do, once you've opened a dispute, don't close it before you have either the money or what you ordered, you won't get to re-open it again.

Back in the day (early 90s for me too) you could get away with substitutes (£10 for 50 "Space Rangers"), or kitbashing (an Airfix or Revell M113 serving as the base for a Rhino). From what I've seen, you'll be as welcome as a vampire in a church bringing anything not in the Codex-of-the-month into even a casual game in-store. Cosplay, sure, plenty of Tau weeb-girls and Sororitas thots, milfs and even gilfs. But the actual gaming, I've never seen or heard of one, anywhere, ever. Given the absolute state of the Facebook 40K groups, which are mostly big-tiddy bondage perv memes, it's really not fem-friendly at all. The Imperium of Man, indeed.

Huh, where was that? I haven't seen anything similar inside mine.

Yes, the case that springers to mind is of the drunken beggar (but I repeat myself) that was convicted for public possession of an orange "soft air" gun. It's unclear from the reporting whether the prosecution was under 16a as above, or Firearms Act Section 19, simple public possession. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/man-toy-gun-outside-bank-2723276 Still convicted though, Firearms Act doesn't distinguish. I'm guessing one of these beauties. Broken drum time, but public possession (IF or RIF) is the real risk for us as owners, purchasers, and even "modifiers", not any VCRA considerations, since the VCRA won't be an issue unless you've already been caught orange handed. Note that Section 19 is a strict liability offence that requires an affirmative defence, and the prosecution doesn't have to show any intent or guilty mind. I try to keep site details readily to hand on my phone when on the way to or from a game day.

Exactly that. It's nonsensical to use a high voltage battery that will make the motor want to spin fast, but a low C rating so that it can't meet the load that the motor will then try and draw. Anyone telling you to do that doesn't understand remedial electrics, which sadly covers most of Reddit and half of the "techs" and retailers out there. I really see why RC people laugh at us in pity.

I reckon the real pro move is to recommend them without having ever fitted one.

That's disappointing, I've always got better performance out of even modest 7.4V lipos than 8.4V NiMh, but reality is reality. That Lipo you're running is 600mAh (i.e. 0.6Ah) and 20/40C which means that it can notionally deliver 12W sustained and 24W peak. I'd want more for an AEG, and I'd also expect to go through at least two of those during a full auto day, maybe three and into the fourth if you get a lot of play in. This is why dummy PEQ boxes and rewiring to the front are fairly popular. Of course, there's always the possibility that it's just a duff battery. One of the few actually worthwhile posts I've seen on Facebook was a chap demonstrating that the internal cell resistance on airsoft batteries was far higher than it should be, and higher than cells sold for RC use. I strongly suspect that we get the bad cells, since our power requirements aren't as high as RC. HobbyKing let you search by dimensions, if that's any help to you: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/batteries-chargers/batteries/lipo.html You'll want to filter by "Number of cells" first, i.e. 2, then you can start looking for skinny sticks. I agree with going to Deans: if you only solder one thing on your gun, it should be that. Mini-Tamiya does work, but it's not great, and airsoft mini-Tamiya polarity is reversed compared to typical RC which limits choice.

Worse than UPS? Then I can only assume that this means GLS sort their incoming packages like this. Greater heroism hath no man than that he put in "race ya" orders to two Polish companies during the Christmas rush. I'm fascinated to hear how it works out, both with the orders, and explaining them to the wife.

Congratulations, you are now a fully Reddit-qualified airsoft tech. 👍 Surprising to see that bearing piston head, these DE90X's really are making a strong argument for themselves. On the wiring, you'll have found that there's a fair amount of stuffing required to get everything to fit, so it's not something that would particulary bother me (with a plastic base). That said, you could remove some material from the base plate as long as there's enough left to keep the motor aligned - it's only the adjustment screw and shim that should really be pressing down (well, up) on it. That would make you a God Tier Redditor.

Thanks for letting us know, it's fascinating how airsoft produces these weird effects. If you'd described the defect that you've sorted and asked me to guess what problem it was causing, I'd 100% have gone with misfeeding rather than airseal problems. But... airsoft.

Any (literal) movement on this, @RebelScum? Their site's still saying "Shipping to the UK should resume within several weeks. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please email us at [email protected] and we will let you know once it is back ON.". Aside, a VAT+duty paid AliExpress Assault-Rifle-15-toy-style stock apparently made it to UK customs on the 26th of November and I haven't heard anything since. I wonder if the bomb disposal squad has carried out a controlled explosion. Looks like there's no quick, guaranteed route to get anything vaguely assault-toy related at the moment.

Although I'd again urge you to just get out and play with it and find out its baseline performance before dropping anything in it. That said: oh, frabjous day! ZCI plastic rotary hop units are back in stock! https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/internal-parts/hop-up-chambers/zci-rotary-hopup-chamber-plastic-m4 If you do stick with the Bulldog and want to upgrade it, I'd go with the full set of ZCI hop unit, ZCI or AOLS barrel, and Maple Leaf rubber and nub. That means you can put them together as a whole new unit, and if it turns out that you've got anything wrong and it's shooting weirdly on site, it's the work of a few minutes to swap the original hop+barrel back in. If you do change the barrel, I'd measure it first, the 300mm above is suggestive. I'd guess that yours looks more like 247mm or 229mm.

Yup, that's the fellow. I'd suggest 50 degree + nub, although 60 will work as well. Hey, that's @ak2m4 - great seller, his shop is at https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/internal-parts/hop-up-buckings-nubs. Personally I'm not a huge fan of the omega nubs, but many people are. Just a shame that he's out of stock of the cheaper soft Gear Parts knock off, although the hard would probably work as well as anything in airsoft does. And you don't have to change anything, just clean out the barrel, and ideally the stock hop rubber too - hopefully the Bulldog will come with a cleaning rod. Feed it 0.28g BBs if it will hop them (I'd hope so, and it almost certainly will if you put a Maple Leaf rubber in), or 0.25g at a pinch, and enjoy it for what it is. As @Asomodai notes, it's a fairly generic M4 and anything in it that does break can be sorted or replaced.

Ad...verts? Like, from the olden days? It's unintirely not free from any non-trace of anti-contradictions, but it seems clear enough by the end that it's airsoft. Airsoft guns don't kill people, plastic pellets kill people?

Sad fact. The BBs don't care what the externals of the toy they came out of looks like, only we do. My local runs occasional Semi-Auto Sundays at which only LMGs are allowed to shoot auto, which works pretty well, and doesn't strictly exclude anyone with a functional fire selector. However, it leaves box-mag-Firehawk owners a bit out of sorts, so they only run it occasionally. Worth seeking out similar games locally, if not film/milsims, if you want to get some benefits out of hauling around an LMG.

All credit to the dirty, dirty smear merchants for such a surprisingly accurate description. They even clarify later that it's a plastic BB shooting airsoft gun rather than an air gun firearm. Going by the comments from locals, it sounds like another soft touch judge got mugged off.