Rogerborg

Those feels. Yeaaaah, they're not great. I've got two that have failed inside the torch end, but they're potted in. So I bought a couple of replacements from AliExpress, only to find that the diameters are slightly different to both of my white LED pressure-switch torches. Now I have a pressure switch on my red LED one that I rarely use. Airsoft, innit.

Probably for the best. Out of interest, did you pay for enhanced cover?

Self-QFT. It's fun to fantasise, especially in a group while imbued with righteous zeal, but consider the end point, and whether you're really prepared to go there. I'm not, and while I wouldn't say one word of criticism against anyone who did, neither would I incite it, because "Let's you and him fight" is... antiheroic.

All right, all right, I'm down, stop kicking. I really can't find any strong argument against sites providing water, except Darwinism.

Sure. If you ask X people "wut am best loob 4 slyd tho?" you'll get X+1 opinions (someone will change their mind half way through). No need to over-think it, just use whatever slippery stuff you have, but keep it clean.

It can be done, but 2 litres of water per person adds up quickly, and that's all weight that the site owner (or a minion) is going to have to haul around, along with the usual consumables and rental gear. It's not a burden that I'd want to put on sites. They wouldn't need to bring enough for everyone - at first. Just the lazy forgetful clumsy unfortunates. But there's an endless appetite for free stuff, and if you knew your site was giving it away, would you keep bringing your own? It's far easier to inculcate dependency than wean people off of it. Bit of politics on the stage there.

Once they've been up the bombed out goat track to a typical airsoft site, I suspect that "Further postcode delivery restrictions might apply to this item" in future.

"Arms and Ammunition - low powered air weapons Low-powered air weapons (air rifles, air guns and air pistols), together with lead pellets and other airgun and airsoft projectiles, can be sent but are subject to the following conditions: These items must be sent on an express48 service only These items must be sent via the Post Office only, and presented at the counter Enhanced compensation cover is not available" But people here have paid for more than that when handing the parcel in at a Post Office counter. It seems that they shouldn't be able to, but money changed hands. Note that I'm being careful with the use of language here. I'm not claiming that anyone has successfully received more than £100 in compensation for a "low powered air weapon", or even that you'd have a contract with Parcel Force, given that a notionally different company took your money. It'd be an interesting legal wrangle - interesting to legal wranglers - if it came down to it. So it's a gamble either way. You send with PF48, listed as a "low powered air weapon" and hope that you'll be able to pay for and claim on enhanced cover, or you post by any other company, lie about the contents, hope that they don't care enough to check, and that they either deliver it or lose it completely rather than damaging it. Sorry, I don't know of any courier that will accept and fully cover airsoft guns when declared honestly.

Yup, they're the only courier I know of that doesn't expressly prohibit them (depending on which version of their T&Cs you read). They also (sometimes) say that compensation is limited to £100, but people have successfully paid for more at a Post Office counter. Or you could send by the cheapest option, list as "sporting goods", package it well, and cross your fingers.

Hang on, he could very well be using 0.12g.

It's a tricky one. I mean, it can be viewed as a medical necessity and they'll want some on hand to administer. But water is heavy and nobody wants to be hauling hundreds of litres of it around just to give it away to people too lazy and unprepared to bring their own. Everybody playing is an adult, or supervised by one, and should be able to understand the need for hydration. But, you know, airsofters. Overheard conversation: Dumb: "Damn, I forgot to bring any water, I usually bring a whole litre." Dumber: "Oh, I brought a litre, you can have half."

Genuinely unable to tell which of the snippers and gas-electric-spring guns actually work and/or exist or not.

Mmm. I called it at 2pm after going through 3 litres, with a 5l backup in the car. It is astonishing that folk try to do a whole day on a few cans of Monster or Irn Bru, and surprising that sites don't emphasise the importance of water along with batteries, BBs and eye-pro.

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme?

Most likely outcome is that you pay postage, and he pays nothing. We like to dream about it, but the only thing that is going to stop him is prison time, or hospital time. It's vanishingly unlikely that either is going to happen.

When I get wandering FPS, it's been down to the barrel not being seated tightly in the hop, or the hop not being tight against the gearbox.

Pouring one out for our banned homies.

Huh, 'tis the season, we only had 14 at Area-66, I guess everybody's on holiday. Really surprising, usually it's packed. Cracking also though. The marshals all got to play, the games were kept small and tight, and were all really fair, good natured and light-hearted, but still closely fought. Less can be more.

Well, when I say "small awl", I mean the pointy thing from a Poundland precision screwdriver set. Yes, I was questioning my sanity too, as I couldn't see any problems. I was convinced it must be the gears fouling on the shell, but ruled that out with a sharpie (no witness marks left), wiggling and loupe-work. It's actually a wonder that sintered monkey metal in worn out moulds comes out as well as it does.

Seems like an opportunity to note that most questions of "how do I improve?" or "how do I convert?" can be answered with "Just buy a TAC-41".

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.