Rogerborg

I understand (informally, since I don't really care enough to look it up) that paintball "markers" only escape categorisation as firearms or even air guns because they use frangible ammunition. Ammo doesn't effect the categorisation of airsoft toys one way or another, since for once we actually got a very sensibly written definition in PCA 2017 S125. 57A Exception for airsoft guns (1) An “airsoft gun” is not to be regarded as a firearm for the purposes of this Act. (2) An “airsoft gun” is a barrelled weapon of any description which— (a) is designed to discharge only a small plastic missile (whether or not it is also capable of discharging any other kind of missile), and (b) is not capable of discharging a missile (of any kind) with kinetic energy at the muzzle of the weapon that exceeds the permitted level. (2)(a) is what protects us. (2)(b) is what we like to ignore, particularly HPA or anything over-volumed which could Joule creep to infinity and beyond with heavier ammo. Hopefully that will never be an issue, but if it gets out that some throbber really is slinging steel, potentially from a hot gun (I use "gun" deliberately here), and most particularly in Scotchland of all places, then I can see it ending badly for us. As to whether the act of shooting someone becomes illegal if you use steel cored or steel BBs, I guess it comes down to consent. We consent to be shot with plastic / "plastic" up to the site limit, although that's rather implicit. For all that sites waste their time and ours with meaningless waivers and disclaimers, I've yet to see one that actually serves as an explicit consent form listing exactly what to expect, i.e. being hit with said BBs at said energy. If someone's shooting at higher energies, I don't consent to that, but then again, I don't want it to become a legal issue either, given the potential consequences from the attention. I'd rather that the culprit was just permabanned out of the game, everywhere. As to being shot with steel-core or steel, I'm fairly relaxed about that as long as the energies are within the site limits. Although there's the issue of 2.3J snipers carrying more energy out to the point of impact, but we've already covered that the way to deal with that is lower muzzle energy to compensate for higher mass. And maybe that's something that sites should already be considering. Is it reasonable to have the same muzzle energy and MED for two players, both of whom are shooting 2.3J at the muzzle, but one is slinging 0.5J and the other 0.2J (and sadly I have seen a new sniper player doing that)? I imagine it's not something that sites want to think about, but if not then maybe they should be coming up with some harder rules about maximum and minimum masses, or just binning off higher energy toys altogether. POW airsoft, for example, has got rid of DMRs entirely because of the potential for shenanigans, require 2 games on site before you get to snipe, and have a 2.17J maximum energy for bolties. Sure, it's not a great idea, but maybe some players just don't care. I've got plenty of cheap mags and swapped-out brass barrels that I'd be happy to sacrifice in an experiment, and the contact patch of an s-hop is tuppence worth of RTV silicone. Agreed. Also agreed, and another thing that produces a cognitive dissonance blind spot in sites and players. 6 months at 60C in an industrial composter is not 6 months lying on the ground in woodland. Field chrono using the site's 0.4g+ BBs. If it's OK, move on. If it comes out high, then look harder, i.e. what it chronos at using the player's ammo, and what that ammo actually is (as opposed to what they say that it is). I honestly believe that if you're not doing that, then you might as well not bother chronoing at all. Because (effectively) voluntary pre-game chronoing and taking players' word for it on ammo weights only tests honest players for honesty, and does nothing to address the problem players.

You can learn as you go, kydex is super easy to use. It's tough but easy enough to cut, then just heat it and shape, and reheat and reshape as often as necessary until you're happy. You can use a heat gun, or just pop it in an oven. 2mm should be good enough, 3mm would be really solid.

I'm struggling to find an arugment against that, but the physics agrees. EN166 actually uses a 6mm steel BB for impact testing. Granted, only at 0.9J for EN166F, but that's at least what the lowest rated safety glasses can take, and we know (from the lack of blind players) that in practice they can take bigger hits than that. The real issue might be Joule creep, or just a super hot gun cheating chrono by saying "Yeah, mate, twos, mate" while slinging 0.9g of steel. But it's not like it's hard to cheat or just avoid chrono anyway, especially at a big, busy site. It all comes down to trust, and if there are folk out there willing to completely take the piss to the point where it's not just unfair but actually hazarous, then I guess we'll have to get used to having our balls fondled.

Fair enough, I'm just curious - it's very definitely not the site's fault. I'd also like to see a lot more in-game checking. I've only been chronoed in-game a couple of times, only at the defunct Depot, and even then they just trusted folk on BB weights. I've never seen it done at any other site.

I've looked into it and did the sums on the resistance wire. I reckon a couple of Watts should be sufficient and you'd get several hours out of a decent 18650 cell. The wires shouldn't be that visible up close, less than mesh. Fortunately (or unforunately, for science) my dual pane, fan, and Revision wipes have rendered it unncessary, but it's on my list to try anyway at some point, just for kicks.

Only that with 0.5g BBs on offer now, at some point we'll have to draw a line on mass and density, and decide what constitutes "plastic". If the argument is just about energy, then what's the objection to shooting 0.88g steel BBs as long as they're below 1.2J / 2.3J? It steel isn't OK, then what is? Personally, and on a knee jerk, I'd say 0.4g is as heavy as anyone needs to use. I say this while owning some 0.43g, but I'm not entirely comfortable about it. Facebook is being cagey about where they were found, but it looks like a CQB site. Biohazard, by any chance? To be clear, I don't blame whichever site it was, because nobody checks the ammo people are playing with... yet. It seems like they were only noticed because they're blue. Maybe that will change, and maybe it should change, although it'd be sad if it had to.

Well, it's hard to feel any sympathy for him, especially given that he tried to throw airsoft under the cattle train. I will note that these sort of sad LARPers aren't generally a direct threat though. They're having too much fun bragging about what they're going to do to actually do any of it. It's the loner loonies like Thomas Mair that put their agenda into practice. You could even make an argument that Nazi clubs are a way to keep Nazis safely neutralised, with their ranks and rules and pledges of allegiance and what-not. I mean, when's the last time you heard a neighbour on the news say "He was ever such a fascist chap, always telling us his plans, we all expected this."

Yup, I was very surprised to discover that they're usable as a woodland primary, even as stock. Not something that I'd expected, and it demonstrates how much barrel length doesn't really matter in airsoft. I was minded to short-stroke mine, but I was too cheap to spring for a full metal racked piston. Although thinking about it, if you only remove the teeth that aren't going to get engaged, then it's not like you're putting any more strain on the plastic ones. If you're binning off the vertical grip, have you considered making a whole new front grip piece out of kydex?

I haven't found anything better than Revision wipes. I've tested them side-by-side against Cat Crap, Rain-X anti-fog, shaving foam, washing up liquid, spit, and potato. Yes, potato. The Revision wipes are literally the clear winner. However, as you've found, they don't actually remove moisture. For that you need ventilation and I'm a big fan of fans. Even the tiny fans in FMA goggles (or more expensive versions) do shift a bit of air, especially if you over-volt them. Best results I've got are from 12V blowers, often sold as 3D printer fans, run off a spare 7.4V lipo, and a piece of tubing to get the air inside the goggles. Or ExFog, if you want the commercial alternative.

I've just magnet tested all of mine and they're not ferrous. However, that doesn't mean they're all ABS or PLA. I'm very glad that video has emerged, as it demonstrates pretty unambiguously that some BBs can be and are adulterated to get the mass up. Hopefully we can now move past the "lol u wot m8 there plastic [tears of laughter face emoji]" Facebook assertions, and start asking questions about what's actually in our BBs.

It's an inherent problem with the V3 two-part trigger, especially in this long configuration. There's loads of take-up before the slack comes out, and I haven't found a way of sorting it, because you need the slack to allow the trigger trolley to disengage. I might take a punt on one of the cheaper optical mosfets from AliExpress. I might just have got a bad one, mine looks different from the stock motor that Luke pulled out of his (although it was also missing the grub screw and left the pinion inside the gearbox). A decent motor really transformed it though, especially the semi-auto response. Yup, although the real fix is to tighten the screws on the hop (carefully). Splitting it is easy enough, just take the back pins out, then then unscrew and push through the pin just behind the magwell, and it slides apart. There's some wiggling and squeezing together of the upper to get it all fully apart, but it just takes a bit of self belief. When re-assembling, it helps to not push the hop unit fully home first: keep it loose and pull it back onto the gearbox, as it has to go in at an angle, and it's tricky getting the nozzle to seat into the hop if the hop is already fully home. All that said, it's decent enough out of the box, especially for the price, and it doesn't need anything doing to it, especially not inside the perfectly solid gearbox. I've just had fun finding out how much you can do with one, it's been one of my best purchases.

^^^ That gopping solution is surprisingly cheap from PatrolBase. I've gone with a clamp on rail (MP5 / G3) and an offset mount FTW. Good job on scoring a Galaxy, they're cheap, fun little guns, and surprisingly shooty: mine was 0.9J (310-315 fps) out of the box and is up to 1.04J now (335fps) with a 6.01mm AOLS barrel, Maple Leaf rubber and an M100 spring (plus o-ring stetching and greasing) on the stock air components. I think the stock spring is maybe an M90. Should you ever need to know, the hop unit is Jing Gong equivalent. The weak points are the sloppy hop, stock battery, the motor and the lonnnnng trigger pull. 7.4V lipos can fit down the tube and you can even just about squeeze in a small mosfet - I recommend switching the wiring to the rear. Retain the plastic gubbins in the front though, as it gives some rigidity to the muzzle. Pushing or pulling on the grip can deflect the muzzle, which is an issue if you've got a tracer or suppressor on it, it can actually cause the BBs to impact on it. The slide hop isn't great, it's not precise and mine was loose from the factory and loved to wind itself off. I'd recommend tightening up the screws on both sides, cable-tying the hop arm to the barrel, and/or packing rubber o-rings under it to give it more stickiness. A better motor really helps with trigger response. With a Big Dragon M140, 7.4V lipo and mosfet mine is pretty snappy now. The trigger itself is problematic, you can't shim out all the slack or else it doesn't reset, although I've got small pieces of rubber glued front and back to take out as much as possible. An optical trigger mosfet might solve it. Luke at Negative Airsoft demonstrates on this pre-gopped example (and yes, mine was missing the motor pinion grub screw too)...

That's not what I'm reading, I'm inferring that OP wants to make (and sell) collectible replicas of the film prop. I'd expect that the ostensible shootability is a gimmick and that they're never intended to be used I wouldn't consider them realistic according to the "real firearm" clause of VCRA S38, and if he's starting from a sub 1.3J airsoft toy then they're not firearms for the purposes of the Firearms Act. I could be wrong on all of that, but taking that interpretation, I can't see that there are any legal issues beyond those of dealing in any other non-realistic non-firearm airsoft toy, plus any intellectual property considerations from ripping off the movie.

Apologies for the potato-cam quality, this is swiped from Facebook. 0.43 ASG "plastic" BBs. 197859271_214805300465939_6084101283818131299_n.mp4

Is it too late to get in on this? I haven't been threatened with civil proceedings for a good few years now: I miss having very amusing conversations with solicitors regarding causes of action, quantifiable loss, and truth being an absolute defence to libel. These people really do walk among us.

But a 4.5mm is only 0.38g, plus a 0.75mm shell of plastic, rubber, or just thick paint. It's actually a construction I'd considered before (to make the point that it's equivalent to a ~0.45g "plastic" BB). I just didn't expect anyone to be lunatic enough to use it. That's the baffliing bit, why would you use them? Surely they must have cost more than plastic / "plastic" BBs. I wish I knew more about the cirumstances, it's very curious.

That would be fascinating to see. So much of airsoft is based on assumption and magical thinking, I'd love to see some actual evidence.

Quite possibly, although I'd hope that nobody deliberately bought them for airsoft use. But that said, I honestly do wonder if rubber coated steel is any more hazardous than adulterated "plastic". Heck, it might even be safer for all we know.

So we're clear, having a UKARA number is neither necessary nor sufficient for possession in pubilc. You need an reasonable excuse each time you do it, i.e. taking it to or from an airsoft site. It also doesn't matter if it's a RIF or an IF. A homeless in Scotland got convicted for possession of a bright orange plastic springer which even the arresting constable conceded was clearly a toy. Didn't matter to the letter of the law.

Hi and welcome back. Yes, a G3 would be a bit unwieldy in CQB. Paint does come off, and legally speaking, UKARA is unreleated to modifying an IF into a RIF, it's a defence for retailers, not for you. If you've got future games booked then you can adduce a defence, since it's based on future intentions. The reality is that nobody is ever going to ask how or when or why the paint came off. Going pistol only is an interesting suggestion, and perfectly doable in indoor CQB. You'll generally just get a painted slide, which is easy enough to deal with, plus it's easier to transport. The other option is buying used. It's entirely up to the seller who they want to sell to. They're the one technically committing an offence (but again, nobody will care). You're fine to buy or attempt to buy a RIF regardless of your own situation.

Quite likely, yes. Although I've got some PLA bio BBs that - after a couple of years in the garage - have started to crack and crumble and there seem to be a distinct outer shell on them that's breaking up. I've love to see some detailed analysis of exactly what's in the BBs that we're buying, and not from the folk flogging them to us.

Wow, always something new. Seen on a Facebook forum, an unnamed site (might be in Scotland) has found some BBs on site that are metal covered in a blue coating. They didn't catch the culprit, and that's all I know for now. [UPDATE] Further information has emerged, and on dissection these aren't steel cored, they are homogeneous blue BBs, probably Valken, and doubtless bought in good faith. A lad yesterday also got "caught" using "metal" BBs which again turned out to be grey 0.36g (I believe) Bulldog, again with nothing to indicate the content. They were yeeted off site (the player wasn't, but left in a sulk anyway) because they're not bio. Or at least not labelled as bio, my scepticism about the whole "biodegradable" BBs thing is on record. It seems like sites are going to have to acknowledge and deal with the reality that "plastic" BBs are only plastic if you don't look too closely. A chap on site made the reasonable observation that iron or steel is likely more biodegradable than PLA under woodland conditions. I agree, and now actually think these metal-dust BBs are fine, if we accept that it's OK to play with BBs of that mass at all. They have to have some bulking agent in them, and iron is at least honest and can be identified. If your heavyweight BBs aren't magnetic, it doesn't mean that they're all plastic, just that they have Mystery Mass. [ORIGINAL] Obligatary "Ban em, ban their mum, ban their kids, ban them unto the 7th generation". And watch out for anyone flogging shady blue BBs, because it's just possible that they've bought them not realising what they're made of. But here's something to ponder. A 4.5mm / .177" steel BB would only mass about 0.38g. Put a 0.75mm thick coating on it and you've got a 6mm BB that would mass in the 0.4Xg range. So... is that actually worse than a "plastic" BB of the same mass? Because given that 6mm of ABS only masses about 0.12g and 6mm of PLA about 0.2g, all heavier BBs have to be adulterated with something denser, right? I've often wondered what that is, and I can only assume that it's metal or ceramic/mineral dust. At some point I'd have to question what constitutes a "plastic" BB. If you're horrified by the idea of 0.45g steel cored plastic covered BBs, are you OK with 0.45g "plastic" ones? I'm really not sure what to make of this.

I couldn't be doing with it, especially after crashing and bumping up the bombed out "improved" access road. Fortunately I died with both boots on. I prefer POW, and there's more variety there as well (and better access), but I think Area 66 edges it. It's a narrower site so not as much opportunity for sneaky sniper lurking, but that keeps it intense and they do a good job of keeping folk in play. I went through more BBs there than anywhere else I've played, and ran a battery flat. Fun stuff.

Nice one! Also, you jammy git. Also to the also, I'm surprised that they didn't put a bit of time into sorting it, given the desirability.

Is the correct answer. I hope that you just went with "Goods not received" and didn't go into the (irrelevant) backstory. It's hard on EU sellers, and I don't blame them for the problems being inflicted by bureaucratic parasites having a dick swinging contest. However, they're businesses, they know the score with contractual obligations.