Rogerborg

I'd suggest that TaiwanGun do it as well. Or at least I bought a CYMA M4 from PatrolBase which was likely wholesold from TaiwanGun with a cut spring that was bang on 1.1J. There was almost no pre-tension on it, but it worked just fine. And, sure, you can have a gun that shoots beautifully out to the maximum range for its energy, then make it less accurate with a hotter spring. But you can also add a hotter spring and retain or improve the consistency. Why settle for one? Airsoft guns do not run on magic: if you want the maximum possible range, you need to be shooting your chosen BB weight fully hopped at the site limit. It's not sufficient, but it is necessary.

I'm guessing it's that G&G 308 MBR AEG. If so, I agree, you're not going to get that sort of energy drop just from the barrel, and neither would I suggest trying to make the air seal worse. If you want to turn it into site (and actually legally) legal AEG, I'd be throwing an M100 spring in and taking it from there.

Really good today, due to some well thought out fallback variant games that kept things moving. If I never play another game with infinite respawns for both sides again (regardless of what gimmick you try and layer on top of that), I'll be happy.

Good, that's the letter of the law - selling "for the purpose of". A future booking says more about your intentions than past behaviour. Their risk, their choice, there's nothing dodgy going on. Enjoy. Today I learned that even when you're at a site that chronos in Joules (huzzah), and even when you personally set the chrono to your BB weight, and even when you point out the Joules figure on it to a marshal, he might still say "Hang on a second..." and look up the FPS number versus BB mass on his phone. I mean, I don't mind the thoroughness, but... it's right there on the chrono.

You're fine to ask, but you might have more luck on the site's Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/RIFTairsoft

There are two things that we could assume. 1) That everybody is honest and knows what they're doing, in which case a site chrono is just a tool for players to self-check. 2) That at least one person will have maliciously or accidentally cheated the chrono, and if they aren't strutting around cackling "Ha ha, the perfect crime!", the only way to catch them is to test everyone in game. In the first case, mandating pre-game chrono isn't necessary, and in the second, it's not sufficient. I do like the idea of actually measuring energy, but it's a tricky one. We don't have a lot of energy to play with, so we'd need a very light mechanism, and/or a very sensitive measurement of deflection, which would be skewed by the slightest sticking and would need to be regularly calibrated and maintained - which, let's be honest, isn't going to happen at an airsoft site. The elasticity of the collision against a hard surface (as opposed to meat-parts) would also be a consideration. Non-moving solid-state solutions don't seem great either. This vendor is honest enough to admit that their force sensitive resistors are yes/no rather than accurate.

In my fantasy world, we'd get in-game chronoed with 0.4g, then the tiny, tiny minority of people who come in over could get looked at harder, using the BBs that they've actually got loaded. If you could set something up for point-and-pew, that would give a clear, unambiguous reading, in any conditions, while being effectively maintenance free. Bearing in mind that there are still sites and staff that can't cope with the concept of Joules. But a borg can dream.

But adds in another, Joule creep. Sites should be chronoing with 0.4g+ You either care about it, in which case you chrono in-game with heavy BBs, or you don't, in which case you're just wasting everyone's time with voluntary pre-game chronoing with 0.2g, or worse, trusting players. I mean, if you trust us, why bother chronoing?

Great to hear that you enjoyed it, and also good that they were chronoing in-game. Did they chrono on site BBs (0.2g?) or on the ammo that folk claimed to be using? Every site I've played at has threatened to start games without waiting for tardy people, but none have ever - ever - done it. It winds me up a treat, but it's just a part of airsoft, where people pay to play, but then find any excuse not to.

Only if physics starts working with all the consistency and rationality of a Parliamentary select committee.

Less than he'd get with a consistent 1.1J and the same hop and barrel, I'd hazard.

Looks like he changed the spring, that stock spring is weaker than a politician's promise. If the air seal is half decent, an M100 should get it up to at least a Joule. And barrel length just isn't that important. I accidentally got a surprising 1.3J out of an M100 with a stock budget CYMA gearbox, ZCI rotary hop and a ZCI 6.02mm 229mm barrel, just by nailing the air seal, and had to drop to an M90 to get down to 1.1J. On that, I'd check that the barrel is fully seated in the hop, shove it in like... a politician with a drunken intern. I really don't like politicians, I'm not sure if that's coming across.

Begone, spamthot.

Hmm, Luke at Negative got pretty much 0.7J out of an Arcturus after a rebuild with a new barrel and hop rubber, and I'd assume he took care over the air seal. But the stock spring looked awful, and woefully under-sprung. Depends how much time or money you want to put into it, I guess. Either start with an M100 then buy higher if you need it, or get an M110 or similar, and trim it down if necessary - the spring change doesn't seem too onerous.

Sure, I wouldn't open a gearbox on site, but barrels and buckings and hops (oh my) are absolutely basic stuff. I was just bemused at the number of folk who made a point of coming over not to offer help, but to declare proudly that they never touch their internals. Kind of a weird flex. I say "number", it was maybe six over half an hour. But, you know, fishing and airsoft tales.

Good points, I've learned that it's always a good idea to bring at least one backup AEG and the box-o-bits. I got a full day on Saturday via playing with backup #1, then cannibalising backup #2 to get DMR Prime sorted at lunch. It was surprising (and a little disappointing) the number of folk who made of point of saying "Rather you than me, mate" or "I'd never risk working on my gun, mate", as though ignorance is a virtue. Come on, M4 hop units are one bolt then a circlip, you could train a monkey to work on them. And not a monkey from the top of the tree either, one who's fallen out a few times and hit his head on every branch on the way down.

I've learned that the only way to deal with toxic, pugnacious people is segregation.

True, that, and half the time they're doing it from so far back that they're thrashing the bushes 5 or 10 metres short of where they think they're hitting. However, the other half of the time they're doing it against advancing players who run into a hail of BBs the instant we leave hard cover. It's all part of the game, and I'm certainly not advocating semi auto for woodland. However, I do very much appreciate it when folk keep it to short, controlled bursts. When I was running a stock CYMA shooting 8 rps in a sort of generally downrange direction, I'd cheerfully hold the trigger down. Now that I've got some half decent toys, I'm much lighter on the trigger. Just because you can doesn't mean that you have to.

I've just had to drag my finger off the "buy it now" button. I blame Gun Jesus promoting "additive manufacturing" to create new stripper clips for Forgotten Weapons. My head was still in the "those things cost thousands, right?" space, I was astonished to find that they can be had for under £200 now, with plenty of happy users. Luckily, I don't have anything specific that I'd actually want to - oh my Emperor, I need to print aquila and purity seals! Must... resist... urge...

Eh, it was the end of the day, we were winding down a bit anyway. It's not a job that I'd be willing to do for love, sweetie money or token freebies, so I'm not criticising. My main point is that the ROF, accuracy and magazine capacities out there makes for pretty withering fire and makes pushing objectives a Quixotic task. There's been talk about limiting the site to semi, either when shooting into / out of buildings, or even just a flat prohibition except for actual support guns (not ARPs with box mags).

The plan was reasonable in principle; the defenders could only respawn when they had a group of 5 waiting at the spawn. However, the spawn was too close to the objective (and not properly enforced), and the defenders figured out that they could just call themselves out when they had 3 or 4 waiting, run (half way) to the spawn, and get the whole group back in. Meanwhile, the attackers just bogged down and concentrated on shooting rather than pushing. I dropped the DMR and went in with the MP5K but got hosed down every time. No big deal, not everything works, but it's not the first time they've run this, and the problems with it are fairly obvious. It needs solid marshalling to stop the insta-spawns, but by that time the marshals were more interested in playing with a drone rather than sorting it out. It wouldn't be airsoft without something to complain about.

Indeed, the last game of the day was abandoned because it was run as a choke point game with no flanking, and the attacking team (us) just couldn't push, no way, no how, and simply gave up. That. I mean, that's why we're there, to shoot toy guns. It's just that becomes impossible to complete capture-the-thing when both teams are on infinite respawns.

Pretty decent day yesterday. As statused, it started poorly with an s-hop in my new DMR build that was protruding slightly into the barrel and skying BBs even with no hop applied (and even with the hop arm removed). So it was back to the G36 for the morning, all good. Fortunately I'd brought the box-o-bits and swapped in a Maple Leaf and regular arm and nub over lunch, and got it dialled in nicely. DMR suits the way I like to play, I've never been one for sending clouds of BBs downrange - but can still do so with Mr Full Auto Sidearm if necessary. On that, I'm coming round to the conclusion that airsoft guns have got so good that they're making play less fun. Pushing into solid streams of laser-like BBs gets old pretty quickly. We had fairly low numbers, which made for fewer BBs in the air and a better day for everyone.