Rogerborg

They do make a fair bit of sense if you're already slow-and-steady on the trigger. I've actually de-DMRd mine because it was, if anything, too good, and it's quite hard to not trigger spam just a bit when you're presented with a tasty target. That's the joy of airsoft toys, nothing is permanent.

Hopefully they never see any of those HPA metal-shredding BB-hose videos. Sure, it's not really a concern, especially for a bolt action in in EnglandWaleshire when at most it'll just get bumped up a category to a very low powered air rifle. Scotland, on the other hand... <looks around nervously>

Decent day indoors at Biohazard. They made good use of both floors, and play was generally good natured and fair. There were a couple of players taking the piss with rate of fire and getting away with it because - wait for it - they were using silent HPA proton-blasters. If the marshals can't hear it, they can't act on it, sadly. Oh, dry firing in the safe zone. Jesus wept, and there's no way to excuse that since the site owner was chatting with folk while they were doing it. I now habitually wear polycarb sunglasses in "safe" zones since they axiomatically aren't. Still, the actual play was great, although if my faith in the Emperor wasn't so strong I might question His decision about the coverage (or lack thereof) of standard pattern Guard flak armour. All the squishy bits got peppered.

<ackchyually> The legal limit is with "any missile" that it's capable of shooting. It could very well be over 2.5J without hop applied, or with a heavier BB. There's no reason that the State can't drop a 6mm steel BB in there for testing, since the legislation is targeted at potential harm. It's quite possible that a lot of our "non-firearms" might actually fall foul of a destructive test.</ackchyually>

Yeah... and no, since apparently[*] Colonial criminals have taken to putting orange tips on their real steel yeet cannons. Anything gun shaped could be a gun. I mean, two tones shoot as well as RIFs, right? I don't like that we live in a world where assault style toys result in hysterics, but I don't think we can put that genie back in its bottle. [*] For interwebs levels of veracity.

Which is rather the point that I'm beleaguering. What gets sent downrange is the choice of the finger behind the trigger rather than the face at the other end. Eh, never mind me, mild tinnitus makes me kind of grumpy about pretty much anything that goes bang. I wish His standard armour covered a little more of my vulnerables, I took a lot of deaths in His name from rib-shots.

Cover it up, and don't wear a balaclava to hide your age? Given that Karen is going to scream "Assault style toy!" if she sees you walking down the street with it. And public possession of an IF is an offence, although we have a Sheriff judgement that "playing cowboys and Indians" would be a reasonable excuse. Sounds to me like Dibble handled it OK-ish. It's not like Karen would have told them that it was bright red.

I should be clear that I'm not having a "Ban ALL the things rant" since I know it's futile, but I consider Mk5s and even 9mm blanks too loud for indoors given the likelihood of them going off close to ears in an enclosed space. There are a lot of fun things that are bad for you, but when bad means irreversible hearing loss, and when you can have fun with merely naughty things instead, I'm struggling to find a justification for them. My core problem with the fun-but-hazardous things in airsoft is that they're a risk not to the owner but to other people, including, well...

Strands, no. I'm not aware of Ares using solid core wires, although it would be nice if they are. Sorry, that's one for Mr Multimeter.

Look at it this way: would you be OK with someone running around with a steel bayonet fitted? It's OK, they promise not to stab anyone with it on purpose. I'd assume not, since the risk is easily foreseeable. And once a spiky muzzle device has caused an injury, we can't pretend to not know that it's capable of it. I did some H&S training which hammered on the point that the absolute worst thing you can do from a liability perspective is to not mitigate a known risk. So is it reasonable to shrug and say "Well, I'm glad that will never happen again" ? I don't know, but I'd rather not be the next person to get impaled by one.

I dunno, that sounds like a half baked idea.

That suggests that the magazine isn't pushing the BBs up quickly enough. Have you tried another mag? Something which might have helped when I had a feeding issue was running a 6mm-ish drill bit up the feed tube and by hand and with a few twists and light pressure, creating a tiny indent in the hop, directly above the feed tube, for the BB to key into. This may just be airsoft woo, but it didn't harm my toy and seemed to help.

It's sad that some woodland sites are still even talking in terms of 0.2g when nobody, literally nobody, is going to be shooting those from a bolt action sniper. Any site that's actually chronoing snipers using 0.2g is gagging for them to creep over 2.5J with realistic ammo. Rant aside, yes, OP is a bit over, but kudos for chronoing on 0.32g and talking in Joules. Is that with the hop set for 0.32g, or with it off? Opinions vary, especially when we're talking about legal limits (what the gun is capable of), but I also chrono with the hop set for the ammo, and I've never played at a site that requires chronoing with hop off. It's easy enough to cut a spring. You're not far over, so I'd go one coil at a time, as heating and flattening the end also knocks a bit off.

They should have. Rate of fire limits and running round corners spiky-thing first are pretty obvious risks that can be mitigated by saying "Not at this site, chaps." And there we go. Well, they're at least rare enough that not many folk are going to get hurt, although that'll be cold comfort to those who do.

The practical issue is that accidentally smacking Pop-Up Paddy in the face with a BB, even a 2.3J 0.5g BB, is significantly less harmful than yeeting 12J of explosive into his earball. There was an image going around of a chap who'd taken a TAG to the face at some Murcan milsim: it had wrecked his goggles and he was streaming with blood. It won't happen until it happens, at which point everybody will instantly develop 20:20 hindsight about how inevitable it was.

I was editing for brevity.

Well, that's the comment I anticipated above. People can and do pop out from cover, or run right into incoming projectiles. Unless he has x-ray vision and precognition, he can only be as accurate as reality allows.

Nice 2 minute intro, are you planning to do any gameplay videos?

Every penny that we spend on airsoft toys is ultimately wasted. However, if you can squeeze some fun out of them, you can recoup that. My personal experience from r, s and flat hops is that they're things that you do to enjoy the process of getting back to the stock performance, not because they turn your toy into a laser. A Maple Leaf macaron does the same job (putting more material inside the barrel window) without butchering your hop unit, arm, and nub. If you do want to double down on your purchase, then you've got a baseline energy level with your (sensible) BB mass. If that's consistent, then you could throw in a heavier spring and start chasing 1J again.

There's a bright orange post-it note stuck on the inside of my front door saying: "EYE-PRO, BATTERIES, WATER". Saved the day several times.

Agreed, there are loads of YouTube videos on how to do it for various guns. Your hop unit will be under the dust cover. What they don't generally show is the trajectory. Credit to Novritsch, he actually explains and shows that here. What I do is to over hop, to ensure that I have at least enough hop applied, then dial it back slowly until the BB just lifts towards the end of its flight. It helps to have someone standing off to the side to observe your trajectory.

Sad times. I have a stack of tired midcaps looking to meet new springs, but can't find any. It's not the cost, it's that I have a principled objection to disposing of anything that could be repaired. If anyone does find a source, please sing out.

That's my issue with them as well. TAG rounds are so far beyond anything else that we use that I'm baffled as to how a properly informed insurer would indemnify a site. Given the masses, muzzle velocities and ranges claimed, they're barely within UK air-gun power levels, which is a particular issue in Scotland. Something something pyrotechnic something, but there are also solid rounds, right? The bangs are earball-hurty even outdoors, and given the ranges and time to target, any claims of precision have to be qualified with "at the time when you launch, not when it lands". They were fun when I saw and heard them used (at a distance) at a filmsim. But they were used only by the organisers, and essentially non-competitively for theatrical effect. Being aimed at people by J. Random Airsofter, that's another thing altogether. We've seen the injuries these thing can cause, right? Smashed eyepro, and significant tissue damage. They seem like something which will only be allowed until its banned, and it'll be a safety rule written in some poor sod's blood.

Of course, that's exactly what someone who was in the SAS would say. 🤔 Who?

QFT. Of course, on the internet, anyone can LARP as a psychopath. I'm guessing that our local gangsta kid had no dad, or too many temporary ones. Which I suspect is also the extent of the gangsta kid's rufty-tufty experience. Me, I keep it old school, street style. Does he actually add any value here? I've had him blocked for as long as I can recall. Which is of course only about 10 minutes given my advanced years.