Rogerborg

Probably easier to get some real ones from Sweden.

Mm. It is a bit of a quandary when you've only got one chance to make a hit, and you know there's a fair chance that a plate-carrier hit "won't be felt". The morality of shot placement aside, it's a good argument for setting the tone for a site by being scrupulous about calling your own hits, loudly and cheerfully. "Nice shot!" is my go-to, and anything else is said under my breath.

This one. (Although I scooped it listed on eBay for half that)

Solid choices. It's really up to how much you want to spend. 5x Specna brand mags will set you back £36 in either mid-cap or high cap. If you're out together, you might find that 5x mids + the 2 highs that came with the guns are all that you'll need for typical games, as you can share if one of you goes ham. You might need some extras, or to bring a speedloader out with you. On that, if you do go with mid-caps, an Odin crank speedloader clone like this (not a recommendation, just an example) makes loading them a lot quicker and more pleasant.

Yup, MP5K and boltie or DMR is my combo of choice when I'm not LARPING. I bin the long gun off half the time and go ham with the SMG. There's no right or wrong way to play pretend soldiers.

Ahoy, and welcome. What they all said: by default, mid caps, with a backup hi-cap (which you probably got with the gun) is generally a good shout for most AEGs. It does depends on the gun, and play style / site though. Are you running anything peculiar? Low caps are pretty much pointless, because you can just partially load a mid-cap if you want to run real capacity for a milsim or to play in hard mode.

Just springer it, bro.

Sure. A balance charger is going to charge each cell through the balance connector anyway: it's only using the main power connector to measure the total voltage. One thing to be aware of is that radio-control (RC) Tamiya and airsoft Tamiya have opposite polarity on the connectors, for ritual reasons It's easy enough to remove the connectors and swap them over if you end up with one that's barse ackwards.

Hah, saves me looking it up, I knew I'd seen that before. Yes, the front ends have always been fragile, and the slap is a no-no. Eh, it does look to be fairly described, and you can't get them new now. You're looking at £135 for the much heavier Jing Gong, or £170 for the CYMA. Still pretty optimistic for a CQB gun that can't be used at most CQB sites though.

That's a phenomenal amount of features for the money. It would come down to how good the plastic is, I haven't handled one. But a fully featured fire control system, quick change spring, and rotary hop are strong arguments. Doesn't look like it comes with a mini-Tamiya connector, but Deans-to-mini-Tamiya converters are readily available. Although if you're any way technically inclined, I'd always recommend binning off Tamiya in favour of soldering on Deans, if you buy a gun that's still pre-wired for VHS. I know, I know, XT-60 is even betterer, but I run an eBike on Deans, 36V and a sustained 250W / peak 400W hauling 100kg of metal and meat around, without any heat or hassles. It's fine for airsoft.

I'd say "nope" to that because of the Nuprol burn-your-house-down charger, and starting off with Tamiya, when there are guns now that come with Deans as standard. Not a big deal to swap if you're OK with soldering, but why make work for yourself out of the box?

Yup, exactly what @The_Lord_Poncho said, and good call on the Double Eagle, M90X, we like those. Although... what happened to the love for MP5s?

Good call. Make the most of the day. If in any doubt, ask. In particular get a marshal, or another player who knows what they're doing to check that your rental gun is properly hopped (a flat trajectory on the BBs), and if you run into any issues with it, let a marshal know straight away - they should sort it or replace it. It's a solid choice. Loads of features, including a decent mosfet / fire control system. I'd argue that it's actually a bit more than you need for a first gun, but if you stick with airsoft then you're unlikely to regret it. There were some concerns with the Orion gearboxes in some of their range a couple of years back, but I have one of the "bad" ones, and run it as a 1.8J DMR without it cracking (yet). The one thing I'd note is that they tend to come with an M120 spring (too hot for a UK AEG) and an M90 spring, which will likely be a little lower on power than is ideal, but perfectly playable (hop is more important), and easily changed if you want to pep it up a bit. I've had no issued with CYMA, Specna, or Jing Gong AEGs. G&G are also robust, although their base guns have fallen behind on features. Everyone has their own opinion and experiences, but the only brand I absolutely wouldn't touch is VFC. And yes, I suspect a lot of issues come from people fUlLy UpGrAdInG their toys, then wondering why they break. Tokyo Maruis, for example, are well made in Japan, and the template which most other guns are copying. However, they're designed to run at around 0.8J, and cranking them up to 1.1J for UK use just by slinging a hotter spring in can result in tears before end-ex. CYMAs, on the other hand, are more Chinesium and agricultural, but are built for around 1.4J, and run under-stressed on UK fields. Oh, don't worry about it then. There's nothing complicated inside an AEG, and each individual part is cheap to replace, if you need to. You probably won't have to though. Thinking about it, I've never had a failure that wasn't my own fault, and easily sorted. The only part that I've ever changed out pre-emptively was the plastic (!) bushings on my XR-5, but that's a meme gun. There's very little on the market now that's actually bad. And if you get bitten by the bug, you'll likely find reasons to get a backup, and a backup-to the backup, and a backup-to-the...

"Hey! No fair catching us breaking your rules!"

... until it broke. And the usual counter-productive laziness of requiring each interested party to ask for details, rather than just providing them once in the advert. Must be that rare "Nuprol hardcase" pushing up the cost.

A offer to fit you with some cement shoes?

I mean, sure, I'd recommend it, but I didn't wait. I also never played with a two tone. What I'd definitely suggest is not dumping high-end money in. Tokyo Marui have that magic dust, but £110 for a JG SD6 is likely to be regret-free. And maybe not as much as it looks, as you'll be getting BBs for the rental money. Granted, probably not the BBs that you'd want... If the rental gun wasn't great, it may just have needed the hop adjusted - this takes a few seconds, and is something you'll need to learn to do on your own guns anyway. Marshals or other players will be happy to advise, and spot the BB trajectory for you. If it was giving you serious trouble, don't hesitate to let the marshals or site runner know - renting should get you a trouble-free experience.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it. There's always a big buzz after day 1, so try not to go too mad. Perfectly solid choice. Jing Gong, CYMA, both work. Put aside any real world assumptions, anything with 200mm+ of barrel length (or even a bit less) will be fine. M4s tend to be a bit more easily fUlLy UpGrAdAbLe, you might want to find a way to secure the hop arm a bit better, but there's nothing hooky about MP5s. Mags are cheap, battery space can be a little limited, but lipos are compact enough that you'll be able to feed it electrons. Have some welcome-to-the-hobby memes!

Actual 5 minutes, or airsoft 5 minutes?

Solutions are available.

To be fair, if the only retailer selling them is charging £650, then that's the retail price. I mean, if you don't want to buy one, then you can not buy it from JDAirsoft instead for the bargain non-price of £450.

Classic for-sale-but-not-really post. Bloke is valuing his memories, not the metal.

It's not fat, it's momentum.

I had to know. £190 gun + 5 x mid caps @ £13 = £255 + 2 x Nurple fire sticks @ £19 = £293 + Nurple burn-your-house-down charger @ £25 = £318 + AOMEKIE dot sight @ £30 = £348 So you're getting the strap, bag, vest, backpack, BBs ,and that rare, never-seen-before Zombie Outbreak Response Team patch literally for free. Bargain!

Indeed. Surely even the humblest of shop workers would take down a sign saying "Order your fish here" if it were left up in a stationery shop.