Adolf Hamster

yeah no harm in the odd bit of tinkering see how it works out. as always keep a good backup handy (says the guy who often doesn't do that ) i wouldn't worry about it, just enjoy the salt build up when he gets annoyed that "folk aint calling hits" when he's just not ranging out. even better when you can go "who you shooting at?" then tag them with a single round

tbh all the rhop really offers is the ability to have a softer compound patch with a harder compound feedlip, but outside of high fps builds slinging heavy ammo that's not really all that applicable. the s hop from the accounts i've heard doesn't seem to wear so well, never tried it myself but iirc @Rogerborg gave it a go recently, perhaps he can shed some light on how his is holding up. the contact patch for the likes of the macaron is basically the same as an rhop anyway, and it's a hell of a lot easier to work with.

another one for the list- russian optics, pretty much universally worse than the western equivalents, most weigh about 3 tons, mounting on the siderail is a pain in the ass for battery fitment, their approach to the term "bore offset" is to laugh, they're awful for poking you in the stomach if you have the rifle slung and some of them don't work indoors. but goddamn if they ain't the steampunkest.

any reason you specifically need an rhop? they're a pain in the ass to get working right and don't offer much over the current crop of fancy hops like the ml macaron.

for range you want good quality heavy ammo (as heavy as you can afford depending on the round count, for me the ~.3g range is a nice balance of cost/performance for outdoors), a hop than can lift said ammo (i'm a fan of maple leaf macaron+omega nub combo, or pdi W-hop for guns that don't like the ml feedlips), as good an air seal as you can get and energy output at least decently close to the site limit (which might be lower than ideal for outdoors if your cqb site has a lower limit) for air seal have a look here for how to check it: that's if you're happy enough opening up the box. alternately the shot-shot fps variation on a chrono can be a good indication (you want every round at the same fps) you also want to be cleaning the barrel on the regular if you aren't already (minimum before every game day, if not also during) if you've got all that sorted and still want more then you might want to look at barrels, the ZCI stainless 6.02's are very good performance for the money, just pick whatever length is closest to the stock barrel.

sounds like you've already got a good handle on what the fundamentals need to be. as i mentioned my general approach with voluming is to not mess with it (so keep original cylinder porting and barrel length for a given gun). bearing in mind .32's is my standard weight (ie i don't use anything lighter) in the past i used to just throw full cylinders into everything and tbh it didn't really make much odds compared to getting everything else dialled in. like i say only time i've ever noticed it having a really notable effect was on hpa systems, where getting it tuned for a given ammo weight did make a difference, but that's a different animal. do we need 3 different people or if i call @Sitting Duck does it still work?

indeed, things like tooth engagement/backlash aren't really adjustable for airsoft gearboxes so sometimes they won't mesh right, plus ofc the tooth profile/face quality plays into it as well. keep meaning to give helical gears a go but they seem to mostly be catered to high torque dmr builds than high speed builds, and the notation for the ratio is confusing. plus box material, eg the harder material of an lct box makes for more vibration than the softer material of a jg box.

it's the bit where some of them explode instantly, without delay. just begging for some poor sod to poke his head round a window at the wrong time, frankly i'm surprised it hasn't happened already.

in all my time airsofting i've never fired a tri-shot and can only recall being hit by one once. also the likes of the aps shells seem pointless as if they're close enough to hit with unhopped rounds then launching a couple dozen of them + a shot cup is overkill. however that does remind me: grenade launchers- all shower shells are shit, the 40-mike is either overkill up close or underwhelming at range, and there's no middle ground between that and the scarily sketchy (in all regards) tag rounds. plus they make any gun they're bolted to unnecessarily heavy, stupidly awkward, and half the time you forget to use it because the rifle it's strapped to is better in every way. buuuut they look cool as shit.

where's @Sitting Duck when you need him? tbh, i've never really fussed too much with volume on aeg's, yes it is a thing but being out by a bit doesn't have nearly the same effect as the same applied to say an hpa setup (where over/under voluming really does screw up your groupings) as a general rule i tend to go with either not messing with it, or leaning towards over-volumed. granted i tend to go more for the tight bore rather than wide bore barrels. honestly, getting the rest of the gun right tends to be much more important, perfect volume is pointless if the hop/air seal is bad or you're slinging poor quality ammo or have a bad barrel.

yeah, i first met it in arma 3, it's a cool looking rifle although the length of pull Ian highlights is one of the issues with bullpups. i'm sure there's worse out there, been a while since i worked on an m14 but i have vague recollections of that being a pain in the ass. but given how commonly they're recommended as a starter gun i do find myself wondering for newcomers into tinkering if an ak wouldn't be a more sensible choice.

an equally valid point. generally when i've shimmed the sector and more on to the idler if it's contacting with only 0.1 under it then it gets shimmed too (as well as shimmed to prevent contact with the sector) ultimately if nothing is binding/jamming, everything spins smooth regardless of orientation and the bevel is in a good spot for motor mesh it really doesn't matter how you get there. best boxes to shim are a&k lmg boxes, the open bottom might be awful design for preventing crap getting in but it sure does make visual checking of shimming a breeze.

hey you stole my idea!!!! 😡😡😡😡 j/k i do agree on most lmg's, of all the ones i've seen/used the pkm seems to be the most useful of the heavy bunch, or at least the only one i've used that was worth holding onto rather than setting it down and running around with a pistol. haven't used enough mp7's to comment one way or the other. for me (sorry in advance @Asomodai ) but it's bullpups. my first pew was a g&g f2000 and whilst i loved it the moment i expanded into collecting "normal" rifles i just couldn't use it the same after that and the only time she ever got fielded was when i felt guilty for not having fielded her for ages. i think the issue is that the advantages that bullpups have are very specific to a modern mechanised army and don't really add benefit either as a RS civilian shooter (where barrel length for velocity/terminal ballistics isn't a big concern) or in airsoft (where barrel length is mostly meaningless), but the downsides of awkward handling and awful triggers are more noticable. but i still think they're cool, and thanks to a certain mustachioed youtuber i currently want an airsoft vhs2 even though i know it'll probably be terrible and anyone who releases an affordable groza will be forgiven for any and all sins. the WE makarov, i still stand by my position of it being by far the best airsoft makarov on the market, and yes it can be made to have excellent range/accuracy for a pistol, but the gas efficiency is, well, isn't and you can forget using it in winter (if i'm honest late autumn/early spring too) as anything other than a holster filler. and it does wear out quickly unlike tm's ending up all rattly, out of the box it won't lift anything heavier than .2's, the hop design may be excellent but the tiny ass range of adjustment it has meaning you gotta shim it for a very narrow range of ammo weight, the range on super heavies might be hilarious but you'll be swapping bulged nozzles pretty much every other mag, the piston head is WE's godawful hard plastic, and the paint finish just isn't as nice as it could be and the sights are terrible. but all that said it's still a lovely handling pistol with both that comblock charm and that sort-of-a-ppk bond cool and it's awesome and i love it and i kinda regret selling mine even if i hardly ever used it. also, (contraversial) the m4 (well, ar15 derivative rifle)...... nothing to do with the ergonomics/handling/myriad of parts available for tinkering meaning you can lego build a platform exactly to your needs. but as a gun to work on they are bloody awful. getting the gearbox out of one is such a massive massive pain in the arse compared to many other designs on the market especially so when you have bolt releases, fake dust covers, ambi mag catches etc to mess around with in the dissassembly. the pistol grip also being the motor cage is a shit design which i'm thankful they learned their lesson on. as an example- to remove the gearbox from my last m4 (e&c body but most of the points apply to any variant) you had to pop off the upper (with the whole charging handle shimmy that entails and checking nothing fell out/went sproing), remove the buttstock (which needed pliers), punch out the pin on the bolt release to remove it and allow the unscrewing of the mag release, remove the bottom of the grip, pull the contacts off the motor and remove that, fish around the bottom of the grip to get those screws undone followed by fishing around the stock tube to unscrew that bolt (which is worse trying to line up for reassembly) then shake the gun around to fish out the section that joins the stock bolt to the stock (whilst being thankful it's not one of those ones where it isn't removable and you have a tiny tiny ass hole to feed the wires through), remove the clip from the rear body pin then remove the rear body pin then punch out the trigger pin and after all that you can now start the process of wiggling the gearbox out of the gun. whereas an e&l akm? pop top cover, remove bolt guide and fake bolt (all toolless so far) 2 nuts for the magwell spacer, 3 bolts for the hop, slide hop forward, one bolt to pull off the selector lever, one bolt for the grip then just wiggle the box out. or the aforementioned g&g f2000? pop the buttplate, 2 bolts, wiggle gearbox out the back. but goddamn an m4 when setup nice (read: not covered in 3 tonns of unnessecary crap) is a hell of a rifle to use.

i tend to like having at least one shim on both sides, normally i'll start with 0.1 under the sector and then add to the top side. same for the idler then i can set the bevel where it needs to be for pinion engagement, then if there's not enough tooth engagement between the beval and idler i'll push the idler/sector up by transferring shims as appropriate.

Must be awesome playing airsoft on a submarine

that would depend on what you're using the gun for, how it currently shoots, and what areas of performance you'd like to improve. for example i could recommend a long list of things to check/change for improving range/accuracy but that would be pointless if the sites you play at have short engagement distances.

see this is why cats are the superior pet- their shit may stink but that's a problem for 2-doors down when he's digging up the flowerbed

🤢🤮 🤢🤮 🤢🤮 🤢🤮

*wipes brow, pleased he will live to see another day*

as a fellow largeman i've never got on with PC's, adding 2+" of overhang just makes an awkward situation even more awkward. it's one of the reasons i've stuck with belt rigs (in particular the smersh), you get a decent setup adjusted right it's a lot more comfortable.

not entirely, I did for a while entertain the thought that @ImTriggerHappy was negative airsoft until @Armourpiercing showed up *awaits severe burning for that one*

don't worry, we've all been there

i'm starting to wonder if we have a double agent on this board. might be going crazy, but it seems ever since we regained @Rogerborg we seem to have lost @Sitting Duck are they in fact the same person? maybe split personalities?

sorry, must have missed this post last night. don't really have a guide, it's as simple as stuffing a tiny o-ring under the hop adjustment wheel to give it a bit of friction. certainly if you're wanting to push it to the point of short-stroking. the ak build i mentioned earlier was a 455mm barrel but it wasn't short-stroked. generally i tend to go with just don't change the barrel length so you don't have to start messing around with voluming, although it's perfectly plausible to run a shorter barrel than the outer to enable short-stroking.

whatever it is reckon only way to be sure is to pull her apart again.