Rogerborg

Sorry, no idea, it doesn't seem to be a gun that people tinker much with. Given the cost and the unknowns, I'd be very hesitant to put extra stress on the components, and would focus on the hop and barrel - again, unknowns. Actually, I'm seeing it quoted at 117m/s with 0.2g, or 1.36J, which at most sites is going to get it treated as a sniper with a MED, for little if any extra range over a well sorted 1.14J gun. I'd be tempted to drop it down to under 1.14J, to de-stress it and lose the MED. I'd do that with a chrono to hand, using the intended weight of BBs, and (depending on how long it take to disassemble and reassemble) by cutting one coil and re-flattening, then repeat as necessary.

I lolled, but there is a real consideration that comprehending a foreign language (or even English like the Baby Jesus spoke if you're a heathen) is a front-brain activity and can fall apart when the adrenaline is flowing. The gold standard of marshalling that I've seen was at the old Depot site where the marshals didn't tend to yell, they took people away from the action and had a few moments of silence first before explaining things calmly and slowly. Not universally, there were a few angry gingers, but the ones with a soul had clearly picked up on the correct technique from the excellent head marshal, and again I'll opine that time-served bouncers are a perfect fit.

Eh. Any metal gearboxed CYMAs will last just fine, they're tough internally. It's the externals that don't feel so great. You can play with a cheap AEG, and anything that's currently in stock at Patrol Base will work. https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/airsoft-assault-rifles-all?*inst=y Just be aware that the plastic on the CYMA M4s in particular is very toyish, although the BBs won't care. The Lancer Tacticals offer a lot of features for the money, and I think they've sorted their quality control issues. Sniping is definitely a case of try-before-committing, and you can either go really cheap to try, buy a VSR compatible platform with a plan to upgrade, or budget £300+ out of the box. We covered the alternatives in a recent thread.

And semi-auto trigger response. When paired with a motor that can use the extra volts (and current from a higher capacity x C battery) the difference can be startling. It will increase trigger contact arcing, and you might experience double-shots on semi where the motor keeps running after you release the trigger. That's what an active brake / pre-cock mosfet can help with. As Adolf said, if that's what you're using it for, you'll want a programmable one. The Perun AB++ is a pretty good value (by airsoft standards) mosfet that provides a decent amount of programmable features. If you want to splash out even more, the Perun Hybrids or Gate Aster (or the older Titan) optical mosfets completely replace the trigger contacts and can allow for real hair-trigger wankergun builds. If you're only interested in trigger protection, then the very cheapest mosfets will do that, and given that trigger contacts cost £5 there's little point in spending more than you have to. Bear in mind that adding any trick electronics will introduce another point of potential failure. I'd always recommend having one dumb, unmeddled-with backup AEG before upgrading / "upgrading" your main one.

Balls. I mean "ball hex Allen key"

Mmm, Equality Act 2010 has no mention of language, and I don't think it's unreasonable to require participants to understand and be able to follow simple instructions in English. Elbonian: [Full-autos at a building.] Marshall, shouting: "No full auto at buildings." Elbonian: [Looks around. Pauses. Full-autos at the building.] Marshall, shouting: "Hey! Is that a building?" Elbonian: [Looks around. Nods. Pauses. Full-autos at the building.] Marshall, shouting: "Stop shooting full auto at buildings!" Elbonian: [Looks around. Nods. Long pause.] ... [Full-autos at the building] Armchair quarterbacking here, but good marshalling at that point would be to lead that person out of play and have an actual back-and-forth conversation with them about what the problem is. Just yelling the same thing over and over and expecting different results is futile beyond a certain point.

If that doesn't sort it then what you absolutely must never do is to shove a long T-handled Allen key or similar tool up the nozzle and shove the piston back until it releases, because it will make Reddit cry when it doesn't actually wreck your gun.

Meh at Area-66. Nice weather and generally fair and good natured, but it only takes 5%. In this case a couple of God Mode rentals, and Elbonians unable or unwilling to comprehend or follow simple instructions even after repeated reminders. None of this was dealt with because of sadly typical marshalling: generalised shouting and threats about what will happen next game are fooling nobody when marshals are studiously ignoring players standing right next to them saying "I'm just going to shoot that marshal until he moves" or "I'm not taking that hit until he takes his." Why put on the hi-vis if you're not interested in doing the job? Then we got some poorly thought-out games, and parts of the site were out of play because of reasons, making it a pretty linear grind with long walks back to fixed respawns and the usual reluctance to get hit (or call hits...) that promotes. Still a few smiles, but it was more about making our own fun.

(Spoiler: you can't)

If that's actually a "factory standard" CYMA then it's likely to be over 1.3J and a Section 5 hazard. Cheeky sods, wanting another £35 to make it UK legal (Statute legal, let alone site legal).

Passenger seats in cars should have seatbelts and airbags. The steering wheel should have a big rusty spike sticking out of it.

QFT. A new VSR 90 degree trigger box cost £100 just by itself. I thought I could get away with the stock Well box for a while, but the stopper wallered out really quickly with a 2.3J spring, as well as the trigger mechanism itself getting very shonky. While I'm generally a fan of buying cheap and twice, it's seems like a poor route to take with snipers. I did seriously consider the AAC T11 as a base for building a decent sniper, but went another way... All perfectly sensible, as are the base gun suggestions. But that's £100-£120 or so for those parts, then another £100 for a 90 degree trigger box, and now you're looking at SSG-10 money, shading towards Tac-41, plus the time and fiddling to put it all together. Meanwhile, I changed the Tac-41 spring (in minutes), dialled the hop in, and just played without any issues, literally laughing out loud at how well it performed. I like tinkering with guns, but it's getting tougher to recommend upgrading snipers given that you'll end up replacing very nearly everything internally chasing that last few metres of range or cm of accuracy, and likely end up paying as much or more as buying one of the viable out-of-the-box options now. What I don't want to do is to put @Dec7 off trying sniping by bumping the "must haves" price up. You can start off with something cheap to see if you enjoy the play style, and consider that a DE M52 costs half the price of a VSR 90 degree trigger box alone. Given my bad experience with the MB-03 trigger box, I'd stick with recommending. A £50 M52 and consider it as completely disposable, just for the experience. JG BAR-10 or CYMA CM.701 (the CYMA is £10 more but claims close to 2.3J out of the box, making it a wash) for the cheapest fully VSR compatible upgrade bases. Action Army T11 because of that trigger box (but you really will have to upgrade the spring and ideally the guide as it's startlingly low powered as stock) (What I really want to say is "Skip all that, go straight to Tac-41" but at £380 to field it, you have to be sure that it's something that you'll enjoy using) I'd consider both suppressors and bipods as completely unnecessary for any of the above, and just adding weight. I'll occasionally throw a bipod on because, well, I have a bipod, but it generally comes off again by lunchtime.

I'd have lost my wager because I tested at 0.95J hopping 0.28g before, and I'm down to a disappointing[*] 0.8J now. The trigger response and ROF doesn't feel hugely better either from removing 2 teeth. [Sad womp-womp sounds] Although I suspect it was an error to swap the already well stretched and greased piston ring for a "better" one, and introduce another variable. I'm not completely happy with the air seal, and it was pretty variable for a while. Well, I'll chuck more silicone up the nozzle, run it as a sniper secondary for a bit then replace all the things again and see how well the plastic rack stood up to it. [*] For everyone except Tokyo Marui true believers.

M16A2 is pretty lush. I went for the SA-E02 and added a (short) solid stock to make a sort of "teacup M16" for CQB. I kind of wish that Military-15-Assault-Rifle-16 variants didn't have such decent ergonomics, but they really do work very well in most situations.

Jethro Tull. (Wrong answers only) OP right now.

Like this? I should disclose that handguard on my SA-E02 isn't perfect. The top and bottom halves aren't quite flat, want to splay apart slightly, and are a little loose. Nothing that a roll of electrical tape couldn't sort out in about 5 minutes, but it's an inherent risk with that that style of handguard rather than something more modern and tacticool that interfaces directly with the receiver rather than via a springy ringy thingy.

Ouch, I hope so too. I've done a bit amount of re-enactment archery and it's a case of trust on both side: that the archers will ensure that our arrows are always heading downwards when they reach the targets, and that said targets won't say "What arrows?" and look straight up just as you're dropping a cloth-yard of rubber-blunted cedar straight down onto them. But in the heat of the moment, I have seen absolute wankspankles flat shooting at full draw, in one case resulting in the miscreant being physically tackled and restrained by his own side. Like airsoft, reenactment is a great hobby, except for the very occasional freak accident, and the 5% who will never listen or learn, and who should really find a different pastime.

Are you sitting comfortably? Getting your muzzle energy up close to your site limits (typically 2.32J) is a stretch goal. I say "muzzle energy" rather than fps because you'll need to be clear on how your local site(s) do chrono. Sites that actually care will think and talk in Joules, and chrono using the BBs that you intend to use, which for a sniper should be over 0.4g. Some sites are still living in the 1990s and will chrono even snipers with 0.2g, and talk in terms of "500fps" for snipers, which is problematic for you if you're intending to play at multiple sites because 2.32J with 0.2g ("500fps") can easily creep well over that when you throw in 0.4g BBs. I use 0.43g, other snipers as high as 0.5g. And every sniper, I think without exception, will need a spring change to get the energy up there, so the quoted stock "fps" (quoted for 0.2g BBs that you won't be using) is essentially irrelevant. tl;dr version - budget another £10 or so for a spring change, but don't sweat it too much as long as you get over 2J, but under your site limit, with 0.4g or heavier BBs What's far more important for sniping is shot-to-shot consistency - maximum range won't matter if you're slinging your balls all over the place. That comes down mostly to decent air seal, hop unit and rubber, and using the heaviest BBs that your hop and wallet can handle. I like cheap AEGs and pistols, like, sub £100 plastic fantastics. Snipers though, you can have a great day smacking in hit after hit after hit, or you can have a rotten day with miss after miss after miss, and there's not much in between. I have a Well MB-03 which I bought to see if I enjoyed the experience of sniping. As stock, it was just barely usable, giving only marginally more maximum range than an AEG and in practice less effective range given the inconsistency out at 40m+ where you need a sniper to be more accurate. I threw the usual upgrades at it: spring and piston, barrel, barrel spacers, metal hop arm, DIY TDC hop. It got a little better, then it got a lot worse as the cheap internals started wearing out rapidly. The trigger got reluctant to release, and then the stopper went sloppy which ruins the bolt pull and eventually prevented the bolt even going forwards. It's currently in bits, and was ultimately a waste of money other than for learning the hard way that if you start with a cheap sniper, you really will end up replacing just about everything inside it in order to get to YouTube video standards. Contrast with my Silverback Tac-41. That costs £365, and still needs a spring change to get it up over 2J. But that's all it needs. The larger volume cylinder gives a light, short bolt pull. It has a superb indexed rotary TDC hop giving it great shot-to-shot consistency. The trigger is 90-degree (you want that), fully adjustable, and the quality of the internals is far better than on the Well. Even the bolt disassembly is a dream compared to VSR compatible guns. The difference in play against the Well even at its peak performance is startling: it's bang on target again and again and again, and much less fatiguing to use. It plays how sniping looks when you see it on YouTube. So you'll have to make a choice about how much you want to commit to sniping. If you're just dipping a toe in, I'd say: get the MB03 (or even the £50 Double Eagle M52), and run it absolutely as stock without spending another penny. You could even cut the spring down a bit to have a lighter bolt pull and less stress on the components, get it under 1.14J, and run it without a minimum engagement distance with any sight you like - we have a few folk here who do that, and say it's great fun. Then if you enjoy the experience of sniping - placing yourself correctly and picking your shots - you can think about whether to go in deep, either by retiring your taster gun, starting to update the internals on the Well (the Double Eagle is essentially disposable), or by jumping straight to a Silverback Tac-41 or SRS, a Novritsch SSG-10, or one of the other (very few) credible out-of-the-box options like the Steyr Scout. The other route is to let some other mug sink the money, and buy a used pre-upgraded gun. In that case I'd say it's vital to actually test it yourself at 60m+ ranges rather than trusting to a parts list or "Shoots like a laser" claims. Aaaaand breathe. I know this isn't the answer you want. We all wish there was a £100 sniper that shoots accurately at 80m and doesn't eat its internals, but I honestly don't think it exists. You can get started on a budget though, just don't expect great results, or longevity.

Harsh but not entirely untrue. Quite a bit of creak, and the lower and the buffer tube being a single part seems like an obvious weak point. But everything fits together, and since I need it for CQB or as a secondary, I've just cut the buffer tube right off and front wired to a fake PEQ box. They're light, which is always nice at the end of the day. None of this is a recommendation for the sub-£100 CYMAs, I reckon you're better off spending a bit more to get much nicer plastic and some more features. But as a viable starter, backup, or loaner (to someone you don't want to date) they do work.

It depends which mosfet you mean. The most basic mosfets will protect the trigger contacts from arcing, especially if you're using 11.1V. They may also allow higher current flow to the motor, giving slightly better performance if the trigger contacts were the limiting factor in the circuit. Given that trigger contacts are very cheap, I'd say that a basic mosfet is nice to have, but not vital. More expensive mosfets are more like what I'd call call fire control system. They can add a lot of other features like active brake or pre-cock (which can solve double-tapping in semi), burst modes, and even rate of fire reduction or a minimum delay for DMRs.

Hmm, you've got me second guessing myself and wondering if I should run 11.1V and the stock motor (if I can find it) rather than 7.4V and a slightly meatier motor that double taps on 11.1V.

There are no guarantees in airsoft, but I don't have any particular concerns running 11.1V in mine. The risk factors in Specnas are the Orion gearbox cracking at the front, and the bearings collapsing, and both of those are more related to backy-forwardy stresses from the spring rather than spinning the gears faster. You're vanishingly unlikely to get pre-engagement or feeding issues just from going to 11.1V with the stock motor and an M90-M100 spring. I would caution that you might see double-tapping on semi, especially with the stock M90 spring, but there's only one way to find out.

If your concern is reliability, CYMA M4s are a decent choice. The very cheapest <£100 ones have nasty toytown plastic, I'd avoid those. However, they work just fine and I always keep my CM.516 around as a backup-backup-gun. The gearboxes are built to take M140 springs, so are if anything under-stressed at UK power limits.

16.666...% [throws nerd tantrum] Hopefully that'll shame TaiwanGun and GunFire into doing the same, if they're still scalping it. Not that I've been keeping track of whether they're shipping to the UK, it's on and off again more than a sitcom romance.

I don't have any serious complaints about my SA-E02. Decent hop, reasonable metal receiver and no problems with the Orion gearbox so far, even running an M140 spring as a DMR. So-so motor, and the mosfet is just for trigger protection and current flow, it doesn't do anything in particular, and baulks at higher powered motors. The QC spring is useful and just requires taking a screw out of the stock - you'll need a long JIS/Phillips driver and a light. The grip is the daftest part, having a "quick change" base plate that creates problems rather than solving them, but you can live with it (or replace it). Worth a punt, although if you can stretch to an EDGE 2.0 you get a Gate Aster with a lot more bells and whistles.