Adolf Hamster

What weight ammo are you using? Because the "350 fps" limit sites advertised is actually "350fps using 0.2g" so if your using anything heavier the raw fps number will be lower even if the kinetic energy in joules (the number that matters) is the same. The fps being lower due to heavier ammo isn't a disadvantage, in fact contrary to what you might think the slower heavier round actually goes further thanks to the magic of the magnus effect (aka hop). As others have said, being a bit under the limit (that is joules, not raw fps) isnt so bad, although assuming you're using 0.2g ammo then it sounds like you're a bit under. One thing to look for next time you chrono is the consistency in the fps, eg if its shooting 310 is every shot 310 or is there variation (eg 310 +/- 20fps), as a big variation is gonna be a sign of poor air seal (which results in shit accuracy)

You can have performance, reliability and economy but you can only pick 2.....

we all gotta goof sometimes

it's generally best to leave a gun alone especially if it's your first/only pew. whilst a lot of ootb pews have less than perfect shimming, they're generally good enough for purpose. the risk is opening up the gun first time is fraught with the potential for making mistakes on reassembly and messing something up. whilst that's just part of the learning process i can say from experience (having not listened when being told this back in the day) that the walk of shame gets real old the tenth time you've done it when your latest build/experiment hasn't gone to plan and left you with a pew that's either performing terribly or straight up not working at all.

damn, i swear part of me thought it was a trap.....

gears and piston are pretty standard, hop unit for sure is a proprietary item although afaik there are aftermarket options. mostly it's one of those guns best left unmolested as the ootb performance is pretty damn good.

yeah the internals themselves are standard enough

the tanks have an expiry period, given the pressure they're under you can't use them infinitely before fatigue makes them a safety hazard. for larger tanks (eg dive tanks) or the more expensive composite tanks you can get them re-tested, but for the cheap tanks most players use it's as cheap to bin it and get a new tank when the test period is up.

interesting to see what courier he's gonna post with, i'd imagine not many will want to take hpa tanks.......

hmm, iirc those do have a coil tube for feeding the ammo up, which can be abrasive to ammo. although decent ammo shouldn't be that badly affected, plenty of them mags in service. brasso? yeah that might do it, leaving that residue stuff. ipa might not be the right stuff to clean it either. might be worth giving it a real good buffing with a dry patch.

no idea who it is, but i'd guess luke doesn't want to go throwing rocks in case boulders land? kinda hard in his position, he doesn't want to be seen to be the one inciting an internet mob given how these things can snowball into death threats etc.

those contacts look pretty damn clean, although the build up that counts is between them (ie not visible in the shot). also worth checking that the contacts are actually touching properly when the trolley is forwards, could be they've been bent wider by whoever previously gave them a scraping and now they ain't touching.

yeah it's a long shot wrt the burrs, as you say should affect accuracy all the time. nothing like dirt from magazines? what hop rubber ye running?

you mean the metallic portion? could just be the plating has worn off. what you're looking for is black carbon/sooty buildup, or damage to the contacts, usually it's one of the outer contacts that goes (depending which is wired to +ve/-ve) a gentle rubbing with a fine sandpaper will clean off any residue.

wonder if there's something in the hop/nozzle/barrel window that's scratching the ammo. other option is maybe it's a bad batch of ammo, with excessive dust. whilst the tighter bore stuff is more sensitive to needing cleaned more regularly it's not that sensitive and one of those zci's should be able to handle a day's worth of pewing (~2k rounds) before really having issues.

as @EDcase says worth seeing if you can rig up direct to the motor just to check the motor itself isn't dead, might as well eliminate all options before popping the box open. make sure and keep a good hold of it (eg bench vice or some way to hold it solid) else it'll try and jump away on ye. if you have to open the box then a couple of tips: -use a screwdriver/similar pokey tool through the bolt hole above where the wires come out, that's the spring guide and holding it down (alongside fingers on the cylinder- the blue bit) will stop the worst of the sproinging when you split the gearbox halves. -try and keep a good track on where the shims on the gears are, if you can make sure they don't go walkies (which they will absolutely try to do) it'll make re-assembly so much easier not having to re-shim it. -when re-assembling, take care and don't force anything, use a pokey tool to make sure things like the axles on the gears line up with the bearings and if everything's properly in place it'll go together easy. if you have some decent magnets then they're great for holding the anti reversal latch in position for you.

it's pretty typical to find airsoft and RC versions of tamiya connectors to have reversed polarity. haven't a bloody clue why airsoft manufacturers refused to follow the established precedent but that's what they've done. if you have the polarity reversed then the motor will try to start backwards, which on the majority of aeg gearboxes is going to mean driving straight into the anti reversal latch. you'll typically hear a "click" from the motor when this happens. that in itself won't damage anything (that's what the arl is for) as long as you don't go holding the trigger down and dumping current through the motor. that won't stop the motor running when outside the gun though, it'll just run backwards. assuming everything is going ok on the external connections, the next potential culprit especially for a gun with some rounds through it is the trigger contacts themselves being carboned up/burnt out. the fix for this is going to involve splitting the box to clean/replace them (depending on what the issue actually is).

see that symptom is just screaming the bb clipping something, usually with a hop misalignment it'll go straight before curving off (like you were tilting the rifle constantly to one side) it could also be a bit of dirt/damage at the end of the inner barrel, although the fact you've wholesale changed the barrel kinda discounts that notion (although worth checking regardless) yeah, it's unlikely and doesn't sound like it fits the symptoms as per above, but i've had enough of them sneaky buggers misalign for no intelligible reason to not discount it as a possibility.

in an autoplay format too... so are we breaking out the stake or the ducking stool for this one?

hmm, maybe the flash hider itself? the way you're describing it sounds like you already know and have checked for the usual suspects but just for the sake of completeness the only thing you haven't mentioned specifically is checking the hop mound is centered in the barrel, and it's worth doing that over a range of hop settings as it can look fine on minimal hop only to deform when turned up further.

first suspect i'd be looking towards is the bb's clipping something on the way out, typically a suppressor but can be a bit of damage in the inner barrel (although in this case unlikely given you've swapped that out already) it's not sounding like the typical jack issue which is inconsistent velocity/vertical spread.

good analogy, boxers expecting to get hit but anything below the belt gets cried fowl, likewise you're not allowed to keep beating the crap out of someone when they go down. always a contentious issue, i don't particularly mind if a player chooses to opt for a single round somewhere it won't sting too much over a bang kill given how often it descends to drama.

tricky one. there's an argument to be made that by participating in airsoft you're willingly consenting to being "assaulted" by other people using their pews as would be normally accepted for the requirements of gameplay. for example we accept that merely being on the field be that as a marshal, a dead player or just standing around means possibly getting tagged by either mistaken identity or some random flier. if that's not enough we take it for granted that if we retreat to the safe zone during gameplay that nobody will then shoot us the understanding being that we're only happy to be shot at when on the playing field. exactly when that line would be crossed into non-consent would be personal for every individual, although in terms of a legal precedent there'd need to be a court case to decide how many rounds under what circumstance would break that line. of course what nobody wants is for something to have to go as far as a court case seeing as that'd be awful PR for the hobby. this is why i take exception to those characters who say things like "shoulda worn facepro" or "man up it's just a bb gun" to justify various dickish actions (like shooting in the head unnessecarily), as if disliking being put in unnecessary pain is somehow a character flaw. i'm perfectly happy to accept that sometimes you're gonna get hit somewhere it stings, but i'd like it to happen only as frequently as random chance or my own actions (eg presenting only my face as a target) provides for.

it can be too easy to fall down the youtube/reddit clickbait hole, just remember that the internet is a wonderfully effective filter for bringing up only what generates clicks, and for airsoft what generates clicks is the shit the majority of players hate. it's no different to regular tv shows being filled with crime shows or films with violence and death, for some reason humans want their entertainment to feature the extremes that they don't want to see actually happen to them. and you don't need an airline for any of that to have unfolded, hell lacking an auto switch probably helped in this situation by reducing the *ahem* "justice" that the first player was able to dish out.

for those sites yes. i picked those numbers mostly to highlight the potential for the case rather than being strictly representative.