Rogerborg

Well, this suddenly became very relevant to my interests. I've just been putting a set of (can you guess?) SHS 13:1 gears in, and ran into the same problem. Or rather, it was the spur and sector not meshing correctly in my case. It's not the shell, nor the shims, and the gears weren't fouling on anything but each other. I shimmed the spur, put in the sector deliberately undershimmed, it had loads of side-to-side free play, then it hit a consistent sticky spot and rode up, losing all free play. I ruled out everything except the gears themselves. There were no visible flaws with the teeth. I've fixed it now by scraping between the teeth on both spur and sector with a small awl, then forcing the gears back and forth past the sticky point, rinse (well, brush) and repeat. I didn't see any significant chunks of material come out, but after a few iterations, the gears unstuck, feel fine now, and could all be properly shimmed. Airsoft QC, is all I can assume. "Upgrades", eh? 🙄

I've made a few basic trigger-protectors myself just for the "pleasure" of it, but even following the best Redditard instructions and carefully testing everything, every one of them has let the magic smoke out. Given the price and tiny size of modern mosfets - and the features - here's really no need to go that route any more. I haven't pushed the boat out as far as optical / in-gearbox mosfets, but the Perun AB++ unit works well for me, and as a bonus gives you the Deans connector "free", so to speak.

Best: Galaxy MP5K (G.5K). Huge amounts of performance, portability and fun for so little money, wildly exceeded my modest expectations. Worst: CYMA CM351 tri-shot. Fragile, misfeeds, trigger barely functions, hops are all over the place. Cheap, but every penny was wasted. Reckon I'll just bin it, I'm never going to use it, and I wouldn't inflict it on anyone else.

I guess one benefit of something cheap like an MI-7 is that you can just go ahead and do what I've done to mine: lop off the whole bottom-right quarter of it.

Fair enough. I won't touch ASG Blasters (not the Devil ones) now for that reason, and... well, Nuprol is Nuprol. Maybe it's something that we should be testing more. Although you'd be binning what you'd already bought, so I'd be looking at sites to do it. One of my locals has banned ASG blasters, one hands them out to rentals though... 🙄

Depends who's got the most daddy issues. On topic, having become a convert to paintball masks in CQB via the cheap MI-7, I guess I should look at the higher end ones. Dual/thermal pane is an absolute must-have. I've fogged up absolutely everything else short of the MI-7 - it's starting how much better even that entry level setup is to goggles or glasses.

How would you know? Genuine question: do you test each batch of your BBs for shattering? And if so, how? If so, that's admirable, but I'd be astonished. I've never, ever seen anyone do it, individuals or sites.

Isn't the correct term "turd herder"?

This right here is why I have some sympathy with Anzio's 1J limit on HPA. Just not their method of conveying that and implementing it.

But then you get 59:20 of cuddling and crying.

Are £170 hookers a joke to you?

Valken MI-7, with a decent dual pane thermal lens, and spend the rest on hookers and blackjack.

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times... or at least I will do given sufficient time. I'm immensely relaxed about chrono spats. Heck, I might even do some flowcharts.

Pre-game? Then yes, there's no point. Specifically, there's no point in pretending that 95% compliance solves the 5% of problems. The goal is to stop hot guns being used in-game, yes? Pre-game chrono doesn't ensure that. It helps the honest and compliant players to be honest, and to comply. I'm happy to use pre-game chrono as a facility. But I remain baffled as to how it's meant to stop the dis-honest and non-compliant from taking and using hot guns on the field, via any of the methods mentioned above. And aren't those people the problem that we're trying to solve? Related, does this sign actually prevent shootings? How, exactly?

Thank you, that's admirably honest of them. It's great to know that their Mystery Mass is is barium sulphate, although disappointing that they're still using so much styrene as well. On one hand, I hope that landowners don't read that. On the other, BBs are only going to get more biodegradable if landowners, sites and players demand it, and don't just accept that "bio" on the bottle actually means that.

Interesting. My understanding was that traditionally BBs were made of ABS, and only bios use PLA. However, that's apocryphal and historical. It might make sense for manufacturers to use a single base material, i.e. PLA. Of course, adulterated with increasing amounts of Mystery Mass: 6mm of ABS would only be about 0.12g, and 6mm of PLA about 0.2g. Any BB can shatter, and "bio" BBs aren't likely to be worse than ABS for biodegradability (even if the truth is that they take decades or hundreds of years to fully break down in woodland). Since bios work well enough now, and don't cost a huge amount more, I'm OK with following sites' preferences. If they're mandating bios and getting issues with shattering, that's up to them to track and make the call. Aside, I would flag up that the sites that should be mandating bios are indoors CQB sites. Why? Because they can sweep them up and have them industrially composted, which will actually break them down. Better that than dumping tonnes of ABS (or even PLA) into general landfill.

Notionally. In practice, you could skip it, or put on your own tag, or change power or BB weight after chrono, or any one of the kajillion other wheezes that make pre-game chrono nothing more than theatre from a prevention point of view. I see its purpose as to help me not get kicked off site if I'm caught with a hot gun in game. But if Anzio are using different standards for in-game and pre-game, it doesn't even achieve that purpose. So, really, what's the point of it? Most of the time, at most sites, it just feels like a ritual performed by rote, without any critical thinking put in to what it's intended to do, or how it actually achieves that.

So sad, but so true. I'd imagine because they're run and staffed by people who like playing airsoft, and being around airsoft, but aren't actually interested in the process of running a site, or marshalling it. It is baffling though why site owners are prepared to put in hours and hours doing build and maintenance work on their site, but not in putting together a decent chrono station, prepping it at the start of the day, or training their marshal team to run it. Not that I'd be interested in doing it better, I hasten to add. But that said, I've lost count of the times that I've hung around and helped out the Loneliest Marshal even if it's just putting on tags.

I do feel compelled to point this out. HPA users aren't actually an elite breed of operators who acquire a +5 bonus to Knowledge with every purchase.

Opinions vary, as you can see, but they're worth a try. I enjoy everything from comically vague "iron" sights through decent peep-and-post sights, reflex, dots, and a cheap "3x42" optic on AEGs. Although Chinese 3s and 42s must not be as big as Western numbers, it seems more like 1.5 - 2x, which is actually about right. The variety is fun, and you can train yourself up to elite operator ninja level to look past the optic with one eye while nailing headshot after headshot at 70m with the other. I'm a proponent of buying cheap first to see if you enjoy the experience, and then considering investing in something decent. You could even try one of the sub-£10 flip-to-side 3x magnifiers, although they're really for novelty purposes, and won't line up well with your current reflex sight.

And if it even looks like something which might be covered, shippers can err on the side of caution. We had a chap here who got "caught" importing a costume HALO oxygen mask. Heck, UPS in the Colonies have just stopped, seized and destroyed gun related goods being sent from "Ghost Firearms", because of course if you're going to sell illegal unserialised receivers you'll advertise that in your name. 🙄

All the sites I play at have "no firing through a gap you can't get your head through" rules, so it should always be possible to get barrel and optic through the same hole. In practice though, I do keep popping up just enough to just get the optic or sights on target, then shred wood.

Whenever I do that, it's usually followed by a demented howl of "Marshal! Check your fire! Are you blind?" Hi-vis vest + camo cap = <eye-roll.gif> Wandering vaguely back on topic, I like high-rise optics in principle. In practice, especially in CQB sites, I find it tends to result in sticking the barrel into a barricade. I'm rather on the fence about them (and I keep shooting fences too). And aesthetically... 🤢

Ah, Marshals' Mates' Rules?

Team kills have "kill" right in the name.