Rogerborg

Obligatory...

Oof, yes, I'd forgotten about that. Well, all law abiding travellers are required to follow all the laws. Lot of spare dingies on the beaches around Dover, I'm just saying.

That's what I'm seeing, it's either free shipping, or no shipping. Given the high chance of getting charged another 20-25% plus an unknown delay at customs (especially right now) even with DHL, I think I'm going to pass again until the new year, when we've had some reports one way or another. Also, it really rankles that they still seem to be charging Polish VAT at the point of sale, and we'll get rinsed for UK VAT on import. And, oh wow, to add teabagging to the insult on top of the injury, are we going to being charged UK VAT on the full price including the Polish VAT? That's a mugging too far for me.

Probably not a huge issue, but I was wondering what would happen if you leave the UK / enter the EU "fully vaccinated", then the definition of what constitutes that changes while you're there.

If you actually received something that shoots a BB when you pull the trigger 9 times out of 10, I'd call that a win. That sounds like it's "working fine" to me. Sorry to be harsh, but if you want an unconditional right of return and new gun performance, then new guns at new prices are available. On the issues, a selector (not tappet) plate costs £5 delivered, if that's the problem. It might be, I've had a similar safety issue when changing tappet plates, but the solution was to bin off the trigger-block piece so that the trigger can be pulled back freely in safe, but without moving the tappet plate off of safe and allowing a connection to be made. Cost, zero. You won't know until you have a look. If the motor adjustment screw is actually missing, I'd expect the motor to be too low and sound like a bag of angry wasps with spanners, if it was engaging at all. Are you sure that it's missing? It may be a tiny hex grub screw, deeply recessed. Easy enough to check: take the base off the pistol grip (expect the motor shim disc to drop out, stupid little things that they are) and check if there's a screw projecting inside it enough to push on the shim. Dunno about the mosfet, I consider them to be just another thing to go wrong. You could rewire back to standard wiring and flog the mosfet on as "working fine", right?

Muted cheers. Do you have a source for that, and any more details? I can't see anything on Facebook or their site, and starting an order still says that shipping will resume in a few weeks. Minimum order value, "other fees", delivery estimates? Am I safe to assume they're still not registered for paying UK VAT at source, despite saying "* All prices including VAT without transport costs"?

Well, yes. The spring (along with air seal, piston-to-barrel volume) limits your muzzle energy and muzzle energy is what ultimately limits your maximum range. PatrolBase list the CA-08 at "Approx. 310fps ± 10%, using 0.20g BB" which is OK. That comes out to about 0.89J, most site limits are around 1.13J (which they might phrase as "350fps with a 0.2g BB") and the hard legal limit for an automatic airsoft gun in the UK is 1.3J. You won't have to change the spring, the stock M90 will be fine. It's more a case of if you do want to chase site limits and every inch of range, a quick change system like that on the Specnas makes it much easier than taking the whole thing apart and opening up the gearbox every time. And what matters much more is shooting effectively and consistently within the range you have, which brings us to... As Skara says, that's the hop up. It will effect your muzzle energy, but indirectly, and that's absolutely not what it's for. What it does it to add backspin to the BB, which through the science-magic of the Magnus effect gives it a straight-ish flight path. Without applying hop, BBs will drop out of the air quickly and you'd have to shoot in an arc to lob them any distance. With the hop spot on, they fly in a spookily straight line until they eventually run out of energy and drop abruptly out of the air. This is a fairly decent video, although it makes the airsoft magic claim that "fps" (i.e. muzzle energy) isn't important. Both are. Hop gets you accuracy, and I'm agree that it's more important, but BBs do obey the laws of physics and energy is what determines how far they will ultimately go, whether straight or lobbed. So: decide what weight of BBs you want to use. Heavier tend to be more consistent and will go further. This seems counter-intuitive, as a heavier BB will start off slower than a light BB (shot from the same gun), but the heavier one holds onto its kinetic energy better, is slightly less effected by wind, and ultimately goes further. I tend to use 0.28g in AEGs, as a decent compromise between cost and effectiveness, many other opinions are available. Set your hop as per that video above (you have a decent rotary hop unit which is adjusted like the G36 hop at 2:20) so that you get a nice straight flight with your chosen weight. That'll be the best you can do with the spring and air seal that you've got. Then you might (or might not) want to be think about chasing site energy limits. Hop is much more important though. And there's really no need to worry about any of this stuff until you've played a bit and got a feel for how well your gun actually works. Cleaning the barrel and hop rubber before use then feeding it decent BBs and getting the hop dialled in will mean you're competitive with most folk out there.

Oh, nice, it never even occurred to me to belt over the structure. I would caution that hot melt does tend to come adrift after some use, so you might want to consider another form of fixing. I use double-cap rivets to secure straps to EVA (plus, then you have rivets), or in extremis, just poke a small cable-tie through the area needing secured.

I find it remarkable how communicative companies can become when they have a dispute raised against them. Just whatever you do, don't resolve it until you either have the product or your money back.

Yes! I win! Well... lose. Never too old to start, there are plenty of us... around that age... still kidding ourselves that we can keep up with the speedsofters and rentals. Speaking of which, have you rented and played yet?

I get that after eating too many sunflower seeds.

Tamiy and Mini-Tamiya can be fitted just with just cut-strip-and-crimping, no soldering required. I suspect that's one reason why they're still commonly used over Deans or XT-60. What's it for? Target plinking, or airsoft skirmishing? The Thomson would be skirmishable, although I'd want to get the energy a bit higher, and finding more magazines might be an issue at the moment. The Kar98 shell ejector is a target plinker only, it'd likely be great fun for that, but with 5 shots, easily lost, I wouldn't take it out on an airsoft field except for pose value. Any bolt action sniper is a poor choice as a first-or-only gun, as snipers are generally built, not bought, and you'll need a secondary as well for close range. See if you can find a fuse and check, replace, or bin it off. If the batteries have charge, you should be able to hear some sort of response from the motor, even if it's just complaining. Airsoft guns are also prone to locking up, where the spring is pulled almost all the way back but not released, then the motor lacks the startup torque to pull it the rest of the way. When motors stall out like that they pull a lot of power, so you may be able to feel the wires, grip, and/or battery heating up if you pull the trigger - this is also a good way to pop the fuse or burn things out, so I wouldn't recommend doing much of it. If it has locked up, you can (in an ideal wold) sort it with a freshly charged or higher voltage or C rated battery, or if not, have to disassemble it and manipulate the anti-reversal latch - I keep a bent kirby grip in my toolbox for this. Sorry, I have no idea about the disassembly procedure for that model, although YouTube might provide some hints. The unlocking should be something like this. The other way to unlock a gearbox, which will have Reddit gasping in horror, is to get it apart far enough to access the gearbox nozzle, then shove a long Allan key or screwdriver up it and push the piston back yourself far enough so that it completes the cycle, being aware that it will then eject the tool forcibly, and you should of course never, ever try this (I've done it a few times). The other possibility is simply a bad wiring connection somewhere, which you'll have to track-and-trace with your multimeter, starting at battery and motor ends and working towards the trigger. If you do have a (plastic) V3 style gearbox then all to the best as trigger contacts tend to be external rather than internal. Again, YouTube will provide, you're looking for "V3 gearbox trigger contacts" or similar. Sorry to be so long winded and vague, most airsoft gun issues are easy to fix, but take some time to diagnose, and are tricky to guess remotely without actually going hands on. If you're intending to stick with airsoft, you might want to view the CM.022 as a cheap way to learn some teching. Many of us have a project gun that we keep around just for tinkering and larks. Holy heck, I missed that. I thought the last exemptions for those were long since phased out.

Yup, Specnas ship with an M120 and an M90 spring for different markets. The M120 isn't much use for the UK, being too hot for an auto-gun, but not quite enough to run it as a semi-auto DMR. The M90 should notionally give you about 295fps on a 0.2g BB, although you may see a bit more. Like a lot of airsoft, "M" numbers aren't well defined but are generally interpreted as meaning metres-per-second with a 0.2g BB, all highly dependent on air seal, barrel and so on. The M90 should be spot on for indoor CQB, but you might want a bit more for woodland. If you do, all Specnas come with a quick change spring system which lets you change the spring... well, quickly. You'll need a long screwdriver, a chonky hex key, and a bit of patience the first time, but it's easy enough to do, and an M95 or M100 spring will run you £6.50 delivered.

It's OK, I hear they're biting the bullet and finally upgrading the Commodore 64 to an Amiga.

At least half: transparent bright red bright orange bright blue bright yellow bright green bright pink bright purple AirsoftWorld likely don't care, they're the chancers who will sell you a bogus "cosplay" defence just so that they can pretend to accept it.

Hah-hah-oh-wow, from AirsoftWorld.net: "Also, the charging times in the manual are wrong. DO NOT follow them as it will kill the battery! Charge the battery for a MAXIMUM of 2.5hrs on the first charge and each subsequent charge from flat should not exceed 2 hours."

Mmm, they do a range of different stuff, and lighting can be peculiar. It's a genuine suggestion to consider, by the way. I have a poncho with a pattern not unlike that, it actually does a very decent job, and I've seen (or rather, not seen) a couple of chaps using those patterns locally. Very dependent on the site and season, but as @RostokMcSpoons truth-bombs having a couple of different sets of camo is small potatoes compared to hundreds or thousands of pounds of wall hangers "backup guns"

If you want concealment rather than a "military loadout" then I would suggest giving civvy camo a fair shake. E.g. see Decathlon's variations on "woodland camo".

It's unlikely that anybody here has one since they are - with apologies and no judgement on you - vendor trash and not suitable for anything except target plinking. So we don't know what connector or battery or charger it comes with - I wouldn't even like to guess what voltage it's running at. I'd be astonished if it's got a Deans connector, but as a wild guess, if it looks like this, that's the connector found on "gel blasters". If you happen to have any other suitable batteries lying around, you could rewire the plug on the gun to match. But I'm going to be honest, in the hope of being helpful: I'd consider everything in that package to be disposable, and wouldn't sink a single penny more into it, unless you actively enjoy the process of tinkering. The metal gearboxed CYMAS starting around £80 (if you can find any in stock) are fine, and as tough as cockroaches. Plastic gearboxes though, I'd consider myself lucky to get through a magazine.

Hmm, I can only find how to do that as a UK VAT registered business, and only for business supplies: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/refunds-of-uk-vat-for-non-uk-businesses-or-eu-vat-for-uk-businesses It doesn't seem like GunFire / TaiwanGun or any other Eurosellers should be charging EuroVAT on exports, as it means it gets paid twice to two different protection rackets. I'd have wonder if they're simply pocketing it as profit. I have similar suspicious about AliExpress sellers who claim to be paying UK VAT and duty at source, so that goods can come through UK customs. Good for us, but I do wonder - are they really paying it, or just slapping a label on the package.

Unless you're really just using an airsoft site as a filming location, like Licking Mustard does. I wish folk like that would find a different venue or hobby, but they do exist. And I do have to point out that the most practical costume for a typical short skirmish game of pretend soldiers is joggers and a couple of hi-caps in your pockets. Rentals are the only ones doing it right.

It is, the Specna is very similar to the ZCI hop and works well. I'm amazed that anyone is still making geared hops at this point. That said, every time I have a go with Ex-Workmate Eddy's basic G&G CM16, I'm reminded just how good it is, even totally stock and completely neglected. I guess G&G keep making them that way because they work just fine.

If we all did our research before writing anything, this would be a pretty empty place. I've learned something from this thread.

Agreed, I don't see much reason to pay C25 prices. They're both polymer, I'm unclear if the C25 is significantly better. The only actual feature difference is the X-ASR mosfet, but that does nothing except trigger contact protection, and mine balks at aftermarket motors. Both are fine for length, anything more than that is just willy-waggling for airsoft use. And don't worry about the quoted FPS figures, those will be using Specna's stock M90 spring. Fine for CQB, just about enough for woodland. Drop in an M100 through the quick-change system and you're good to go. The G&G, hmm. It's a lot more than I'd want to pay for one, given how feature-poor it is. The sight may be functional, or a gimmick. That said, G&Gs do tend to shoot very nicely, and that's what actually matters, not the feature list. You probably won't regret it.

Hmm. A CM028S (for example) is listed at £87.55, or at €101.01, which are about equivalent. So, yes, they shouldn't be billing us to pay protection money to both mobs. However, I don't see a way to not get mugged. One to take up with them, if you can.