Impulse

I did it, but I was practicing for when I got my MWS and that only has 35rd magazines. For the most part it's an impractical way of playing, but I do prefer it. Then again, I like playing the scout sniper role, so it suits me fine; I don't get into firefights even when using a normal rifle. Ambush, then fade away is my typical method of play, so running around with 30rd magazines isn't that big of a deal for me. However, as has been said by @Druid799, you will just be outgunned in any firefight you enter into if you're using low/real caps. Really it's down to personal preference. Mechanically it sucks, but if you prefer it then you prefer it.

Pretty good day at Worthing all things considered, it was a fancy dress day, but the only costume I had was way too warm for this so I left it at home. Was an incredibly humid one, so I feel like I probably sweated out my body weight in water even without the dress up and running my summer lightweight no-camo sniper setup, but had a lot of fun running the VSR (the HPA one) and negotiating the site with an MED; it's very thick and there's only certain spots you can really play effectively with a 30m MED at this time of year. Some wonderful sneaky sniping was done by myself and two others I joined up with, one in a full ghillie, one in a grim reaper cloak. Got some cheeky angles and had someone moan about me as he thought that my gun was hot and I was shooting within my MED after he poked his head around a corner and I dinked it. Gun chronoed today at 2.29J and I was about 40m away, so was well within my rights; if you present only your head, your head is getting shot. Had an almost flawless plan in the afternoon too. Was a big rolling assault game where we were only allowed to flank on the same level as the defenders, so we couldn't go behind them and shoot them in the back. The way the site is laid out and the order of objectives, me and another sniper decided to go and set up a flanking position on their second defence point (out of 4 total) instead of attacking their first one as we could do so without flanking behind them. We set up without being seen and waited a looooooooooooooong time for our team to take the first objective and push up the hill, waiting to start shooting only once our team was pushing their second defence. Gestured across the path to each other multiple times about how boring it was, but it turns out our team weren't very good at attacking and took ages to take the first base; they never got to the 2nd so when I heard the call of "60 seconds left" I just said "screw it, I'm shooting these people." Took 2 of them out before game was over, but when I linked up with the other team afterwards they said that the rest of our team were basically nowhere to be found. Still loved it because at the end of the day it was the quintessential immersive sniper game. Slowly creep into a hide, wait for a long time without shooting anything, watching the enemy team mill about as they fell back to their 2nd defence point and basically not firing off a shot. Only reason I did is because I heard 60 seconds left and was like "I wanna shoot them..." We even got so bored that the other guy sneakily snapped a pic of me in my really uncomfortable hide position. Short sleeves + dry, dead holly leaves = ouchies. We only had a handful of people walk past where we were (we were largely out of the way of the main gameplay, so only people out of the game walked past us) and only a handful actually noticed we were there when they walked past. Even though it's much harder at this time of year, I'm still loving the sniping. It has been my thing since I started 17ish years ago (yes, my first gun was a BASR!) and I still love it way more than regular style of play. Yeah, you don't hit as many people, but you also don't get hit nearly as much and the shots you do hit are spicy and feel great, and the escape and evasion parts that crop up where the enemy team comes searching for you and you have to get out is exhilarating once you get good at it!

Cyma are brilliant, depending on what you want. I can recommend two from personal experience: Cyma platinum SR-25 as your more expensive option. Comes in around £330, but does everything amazingly out of the box and the internals are really, really nice. I took mine apart and was thoroughly impressed with what is put into it! The MOSFET isn't amazing and is just there to protect the trigger and apparently also protect the gearbox from locking up on semi which is nice, however it's not programmable at all, so making it semi auto means you'd need to modify the selector plate or something. Cyma M14 as your cheaper option. Comes in around £150 and will shoot pretty damn well out of the box. V7s are pretty easy to work on once you get to the gearbox, but they're more time consuming as getting the m14 apart takes a bit of effort. All I've done to mine so far is swapped out the hop, nub and barrel (so about £40 extra? ZCI barrels are great) and it's firing at 1J and hitting out to decent range. Probably won't DMR mine, but I do plan on doing some more work to it once my SR-25 is sorted and I can take the lessons I've learned there to my m14. If you did want to DMR one, you'd probably need to swap out the piston for a metal-toothed one at least, but the other internals I imagine would hold up. I accidentally modified mine (I snapped it when I was working on it by accident 😂) and found out it's suuuuuuuuuper reversible, but not so reversible that you wouldn't be allowed to use it as a DMR. When you separate the receiver from the stock there's an arm that goes around the top and moves in and out depending on semi or full auto. All you do is remove a screw from this arm and detach one side from the other and you're immediately fixed to semi auto. From a purely practical perspective, I will second this (though I prefer pistols because a GBB is fun to shoot and I just like pistols a lot). I also have an mp5k and I can say they're fantastic little guns, though I run mine on a sling. Again, Cyma, £150. All I've changed is the hop rubber and nub again and it's sending .32s to 60m. As @Rogerborg said, it's full auto, full size gearbox and it's just all around great. I run 65rd stubby midcaps in mine, but the 600 round double high cap also works. If you want the best performing secondary alongside a rifle with an MED, this is your best bet, and will probably be a cheaper option because the mags are dirt cheap, unlike gas pistol mags that are fairly pricey. For a more expensive option, I love the TM mp7. Same thinking, but it's an AEP (or gas, but I don't like the gas one) so it only shoots about 0.6J, however I've got mine spraying full auto to 45m fairly accurately which is all you really need alongside a DMR and it's slightly easier to carry than the mp5k because the mag goes into the pistol grip. In terms of pistol, this is a great option and it's cheap! £90 or so and it has an absolute boatload of aftermarket parts, including drum mags and carbine kits. I've converted mine to a Ruger .22 to use at Vietnam games because it's so good and reliable I wanted it to replace my 1911 and its tiny magazines! So much more reliable, which I need as a sniper; a good sidearm is just as important as a good main rifle in my opinion! Outside of that, just get whatever TM pistol you like. They're pretty much all good (though I've heard the old m9s are a bit crap), though you need to watch the 1911s because the mags are so small they don't hold much gas. They still shoot well, but outside of summer they can struggle to cycle through a mag on one fill of gas. I've owned about half a dozen TM pistols and not one has disappointed outside of the 1911 for the reason I said above. Overall, I wouldn't get hung up on full-auto for a pistol if it's gas. Whenever you fire, there's a cooldown effect each time and gas doesn't like being cold (it just doesn't work as well when cold). When you fire a gas gun on full auto, it loses all consistency and sprays BBs and gas all over the place because that cooldown stacks after every shot. You also don't need full auto though; I've been running BASRs lately at my local site, even though there's a lot of close range areas where it's useless with its 30m MED and I haven't once gone away from a firefight thinking "if only I had full auto...". Snappy GBB pistol has been all I've really needed, and my various TM pistols + AAP-01 deliver that in spades.

RIP eyes, gone but not forgotten

I don't have an HPA stock. I use a 10ci tank (which is apparently now discontinued!) in a stock pouch. It pokes out a little bit, but doesn't really affect me as I can still shoulder it on the right (though not on the left, but I rarely set up shooting from my left shoulder. Not looking forward to if I have to replace the tank as I'd have to go 13ci which are longer and may not be practical in a stock pouch I used to run the same with my m21, but for a semi-auto build it wasn't practical as 300ish shots with a bolt action will last me all day, but around 500ish shots with a semi-auto can be a bit tight. The only pic of my setup I have is with my m21, which I no longer do, but it's the same with my VSR setup: In terms of HPA stocks I honestly don't know much about them, so you may be stuck with CO2 if you don't want a line and tank (even then I don't know much about the CO2 stocks, just the adapters). I know there's one for the MTW (Wraith Aero stock) as I know a guy who has one, but I don't know if they'd be compatible with something that isn't an MTW. I generally just run a tank in a backpack when I run my HPA m21 and it hasn't ever really been a problem for me. I can still sling it and the line never gets in my way, though I'd rather not have it, hence I'm going AEG at first with my SR-25 build.

Wonderful thing about the hobby is there's not really a "wrong" way of doing it in terms of gear and gun preferences. As has been said, you can play with a stock Cyma AEG and some surplus gear for a loadout that will cost <£200 in total and have as much fun and be just as effective as the guy in full Crye gear with a TM NGRS kitted out with real-steel shooting accessories and sights. It's very much a "you do you" hobby and anyone who says you "must" play a certain way should be ignored. I'll always give prospective snipers my opinions on stuff, but I'll never be like "you're doing it wrong", even if they rock up to a game with a bolt action rifle dressed as a hot dog as if that's how they want to play, then that's how they should play!

One potential solution that I was going to put in my SR-25 before I decided to try it in AEG mode (to take advantage of the v2.5 gearbox the Cyma has) was to go with a Wolverine Inferno engine. It's an electrical one, so it will require a battery unlike the Kythera, but they do replacement nozzles for the Inferno (which is typically a v2 engine) to use it with some of the weirder guns, including the G&G SR-25 Obviously, HPA builds are pricey, so take the time and find exactly what you want so you waste as little money as possible . If I don't like my SR-25 as an AEG (I'm making it as quiet as possible), I'll be going with a Wolverine Inferno with this replacement nozzle in 2023 once I've given the AEG setup a good, thorough trial through the rest of this year (well, the A&K one for me as the Cyma is a clone of it or the G&P)

Ok, so it's been a week and I've got some updates! Firstly, thanks to @ak2m4 and his wonderful shop, I am ready to test at all power levels that I might require. I also bought a set of ZCI 18:1 SR-25 gears as I realised that the helical gears I was going to install may not interface properly with the helical bevel/pinion (which is more important) as the teeth on the bevel gear that interacts with the other gear (not the pinion, they're all swirly) are straight, to interact with a normal gear set. Also SR-25 gears are weird because of the longer piston with more teeth, so while you can use regular 18:1 gears, they won't make use of the longer gearbox and therefore have less air to push through the barrel, which affects the cylinder to barrel ratio and defeats the point of using a v2.5 gearbox over a standard v2, and I definitely want to be using the strength of the v2.5 gearbox for this semi-auto sniper build (whether 1.14J, 1.64J or 1.88J). The stock gears are 13:1, which I gather are better for speedyboi full auto builds, so I wanted to swap them out for 18:1 gears for a bit more of a torque-y setup, so I picked them up alongside some extra springs. Secondly, I tried to install all the things myself. I've done custom builds on all of my gas, spring and HPA guns, so surely I could do an AEG build no problem, right? Right...? I was wrong. Tried doing it and I screwed a few things up, plus I couldn't remove the pinion from the motor to replace it with the Lonex helical one. Firstly, I had no idea how to modify the fire selector to disable full-auto, unlike the m14 which was super easy to do so and super reversible if needed. Also, not sure if the gearbox was put back together entirely properly, might've put the fire selector back together backwards (so safe would be auto and auto would be safe) and I couldn't and I couldn't connect up the motor and didn't want to force anything and potentially break stuff, so I put it back together mostly, left the motor outside and bundled it up to give to my local tech, as he specialises in AEGs and loves doing them where for me AEGs are techno-wizardry and I hate them; however I will probably do my AEG m14 myself as funnily enough I find V7 gearboxes easier to work on and I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be saying that. Never let it be said that I didn't give it a good go! Won't be able to get it to the tech for a bit though. Hopefully won't be too long, but will have to play the waiting game for now. The build now will stand at: Cyma Platinum SR-25 (with the suppressor filled with foam now) Pro Win rotary hop unit Prometheus 6.03 stainless steel tightbore 509mm barrel Umbrella Armory custom R-hop patch with custom hop arm OR Maple Leaf 70 degree macaron and omega nub ASG Infinity U-18000 motor Lonex helical pinion and bevel gear ZCI 18:1 SR-25 gear set 70 degree 3/16" sorbo pad To test power (aiming for 1.1J, 1.64J and 1.88J) between GPA m100, m105, m110, m120, m140 and ZCI m130 springs A bunch of shims to perfectly shim the gearbox For externals, at the moment I've got: Strike Systems 3-9x50mm scope (I really like this because it allows me to keep the back up iron sights mounted because I am an immersion nerd) Outdoor and Tactical 6-9" Harris bipod Unknown brand KAC-style vertical front grip (though I will eventually replace this with a Magpul AFG2) Even with all of this in, I think this build has cost me around £500 in total, so compared to some of my other high-performance builds it's fairly cheap, coming in about the same cost as a new TM NGRS, but I think it's going to perform faaaaaaaaar better than one (my HPA VSR, for example which probably cost me around £800) Still looking forward to getting this done and what I have learned will be really useful for when I do any other AEG builds, which I do plan on doing with my AEG m14 at least and maybe even upgrading my mp5k past the hop rubber and nub which I'll be testing on Sunday (stuck a Maple Leaf macaron and omega nub into an otherwise stock Cyma mp5k to make a devastating little secondary to run alongside this SR-25 if I do set it up as a DMR with an MED).

I'm not a fan of the G&G SR-25s because they're V2 gearboxes with weird nozzles; A&K, G&P, Classic Army and Cyma are all preferable from what I've looked into. From what I remember, the SR-25 Kythera is built with the A&K/G&P/Cyma gearbox and nozzle in mind. In terms of what you'd need for a G&G, I'm not really sure but it may be worth giving High Pressure Airsoft a call; they stock the Kythera and from my experience they can usually answer compatibility questions like this. I'm not as much of a fan of the mechanical systems myself, as they tend to be a bit louder and less customisable than their electronic counterparts, both of which I value far more than I value no battery and the gun being totally waterproof as I'm not about to jump into a swimming pool and play underwater airsoft with it; HPA electric systems are waterproof enough to where I took my m21 to last year's AI500 where we got battered by a heavy storm during the game and it was totally unaffected as the FCU was in the stock which was pretty watertight (though some of the people I went with had guns die on them in that torrential downpour because MOSFET + water = no bueno). Not saying mechanical HPA systems are bad and I definitely think they have their merits, but they're just not for me. For the stock, I'd go with the HPA stock, not the CO2 stock. HPA is consistent pretty much up until you run out of air, but CO2 is reliably inconsistent. What I mean by that is the power tends to drop steadily over the course of the bulb depleting, rather than being consistent up until it really starts running on empty. I used to use a CO2 adapter for my VSR, using the Wolverine Bolt, as I wanted a HPA setup without a line or tank, but quickly swapped to sticking a very small HPA bottle in a stock pouch because I hated the inconsistency of CO2 and being a DMR/sniper, which I'm guessing is your goal with a HPA SR-25 even if you keep it to 1.1J, consistency is the absolute golden thing you want, and mouse fart quietness is a massive draw for HPA in these sorts of builds. For other internals, I'm running a Pro Win rotary hop unit, but I imagine the Maxx units are pretty good too. I can't comment on it yet as I need to get my SR-25 off to my local tech (because AEGs are techno-wizardry and I couldn't do my gearbox modifications myself ), but I believe it's as good as anything. I probably could've stuck with the stock hop unit, but I had the funds, so I figured "why not?". For rubber and nub, I am a massive fan of basic Maple Leaf macaron rubbers (NOT the super macaron) and would generally advise 60 or 70 degree hardness with a layer or two of PTFE tape wrapped around where the rubber meets the barrel to make sure the air seal is nice and tight. For nub, Maple Leaf omega nub goes wonderfully with the macaron. I'd say I was getting about 65m effective range with a 60 degree macaron and omega nub in my HPA m21 build, launching .4s at 1.1J for no MED and hitting a man-sized target 9/10 times at that 65m range. Some would argue that's going overkill for effective range mandating 9/10 hits, but when you're being a sneaky sniper/DMR, you want all the shots to hit as if you miss your first shot, the enemy goes to ground and becomes a lot harder to shoot as they start to suss out your position, at which point they sling a wall of full-auto in your direction. Not ideal! Sorry for my wall of text, but I do love my sniper/DMR rifles and I love talking about builds because I'm a perfectionist nerd.

I don't ever purposefully weather my guns, but the way I play weathering is sure to happen at some point as I crawl through bushes and thorns and all manner of nasty flora that seems to want my blood. I maintain all my guns pretty well, but I'm not going to stress out over the occasional scratch or mark.

I've seen cell phones used in America, but we need more app development for stuff like this. Maps, team mate positions etc are things I imagine could be done in a phone app. I've actually been at a game where a drone was being used. Proper urban surveillance guys were on the enemy team and had a very fancy drone with stuff like thermal cameras. Also a lot of the guys had night vision; I'd hazard to say at most milsims you will come across nod-gang, as night vision is probably the most common addition at milsims in terms of high-tech stuff, and nod-gang like to nod-gang when the sun goes down.

I've been very unimpressed in general with Earmors. Now I just keep my headset plugged into the PTT and never remove it, because that broke my last PTT when I simply removed the plug because it's very tight and loosened some of the circuitry when I pulled it out. Once this set goes down, I'm upgrading to Peltors and a proper PTT. Earmors have been nothing but pain. Great when they work, but very prone to failure!

While it's not explicitly the m4, I recently purchased the m4's big, 7.62x51mm calibre sister in the SR-25 and I've been incredibly impressed with it (though it's a platinum edition, so it's also the expensive big sister...). Outside of that, I've owned both a Cyma m14 and a Cyma mp5k and both have been absolutely phenomenal out of the box. I'm 3 for 3 when it comes to Cyma RIFs being really great out of the box for good prices; I really don't think you can go too far wrong with Cyma these days.

Tacticool M4A1 to "good enough" xm177 build for Vietnam games as a backup rifle (I'm far from stitch-count filmsim!). Good thing is it literally takes me about 90 seconds to swap out the handguard for the rail system, the stock for the regular M4A1 stock and the carry handle for a red dot and back up iron sights. Sticking the magpuls back onto the mags might take a little longer than 90 seconds, but it's still fast! Thanks to @Wavey_Gravey and @Prolish for the parts I needed. Was a pleasure dealing with you chaps!

Appreciate it, but I've got one coming in from HK. They were out of stock basically everywhere!

With disaster averted I finally got around to ordering the rest of the items for the build. The first (and hopefully final) iteration I'm going to test is as follows: Cyma platinum SR-25 To test power between Guarder sp100, sp120 and sp130. I wanted an sp110 and sp140 as well, but they're out of stock most places. ASG Infinity U-18000 motor ZCI or Element helical gear set Lonex helical bevel and pinion gears Hard (I believe it's 70D) sorbo pad. I also have a soft one (40D), but from what I've read around, hard will be more useful for the powers I'm going for and the difference in sound is negligible. Enough shims to make sure I can shim the gearbox perfectly Pro Win rotary hop unit Prometheus 509mm 6.03 tightbore with Umbrella Armory r-hop patch and custom hop arm. If I don't like how this performs, I have a Maple Leaf 70 degree macaron and omega nub For BB weight I will be going anywhere between .32s and .4s, depending on the power and what is most consistent and efficient (cylinder to barrel and all that magic), and I will be testing it on both 7.4v and 11.1v batteries as I now have both. I'm hoping I won't have to tinker around with this build too much beyond the springs and the hop up setup because I don't like working on gearboxes; the spring is quick change and I honestly forgot how easy it was to access the barrel and hop assembly in V2 style AEGs. It's even easier than on my GBB pistols! For power, the goals are going to be consistency and as near to the limits as possible. I will mainly be testing between 1.14J and 1.64J, as one is for no MED and the other is my local site's DMR power limit, though in time I will want to test for 1.48J and 1.88J as well for if I go travelling to other sites with other rules. Pretty sure 1.48J isn't worth considering, but I'll give it a fair shot. 1.48J and 1.64J didn't impress me when I tested on my HPA setup, so I'm waiting for the SR-25 to show me something that will make me consider 1.64J at least and £10 for an extra spring isn't too much of an investment to try it out (1.88J is worth it for DMRs in my opinion but my local site refuses to budge from 1.64J)

Emailed them to see if I can get my order cancelled, so fingers crossed. If not, as I said I'll put it aside for my mp5k build as I do not want to be taking a £115ish motor apart and soldering bits and pieces. Plus I'll need a good secondary if I run the SR-25 at DMR powers. and as I was writing this post I got confirmation that it has been cancelled and refunded. I'll think about going with one if I do want to throw money at my mp5k, but honestly I'd rather not as it's not a "main" gun. Hop rubber and nub is enough for me to throw at that, the stock Cyma gearbox internals are perfectly fine for what I use it for. Pretty sure the ASG Infinity u-18000 (which I believe is 28tpa, which I believe is nice and torque-y) along with a full set of helical gears will do what I need it to better than a regular gear set and a brushless motor, especially if I run it on an 11.1v battery, as it's that gearbox whine I want to get rid of which seems to be the territory of the helical gears; the motor just reduces the time the sound is being made. Economic damage avoided. Phew.

Ack! First potential hiccup! I both love and hate obsessing over these projects of mine... So, the Warhead motors come with D-shaped pinions, but all the helical pinions are O-shaped. Curses! If I cannot put an O-shaped pinion on it, I will at least try it without the helical gears and see how it shoots, but if it's still too loud, I'll probably end up putting an ASG Infinity 18k into it with a full helical gear set (either ZCI or Element, as my friend has some). On the plus side, if this is the case, the Warhead won't be wasted as I'll put it in my mp5k along with a 13:1 gear set to terrorise anyone who gets too close or just be a CQB god, though I'd likely need to put in a MOSFET to make sure it's 25rps or less. I feel sorry for anyone who confronts me when running both the SR-25 and mp5k in tandem... Messaged Warhead about it and they said: "You can push fit an o-type pinion on the motor but the ESC and sensor does have to be desoldered and removed before push fitting." "If you push fit an o-type pinion without desoldering the ESC and sensor you will damage the components." "Once you have desoldered and removed the ESC and push fit on the pinion you will have to solder it back on again. You will not have to replace the shaft." Now, I am not the most mechanically adept individual so this terrifies me... 😱

You and me both. Went for the standard black motor. Will also test on 7.4v first and then decide if I need 11.1v once I've tested that. It's all coming together...

I don't have a long enough screwdriver, though that's easily remedied. I had a feeling it would be something like this, so I'll give it a go at installing the sp100 I have. I think I also have an sp120 lying about somewhere so may try that too. Many thanks for letting me know, I'll have a look around and see if I have any screws that I could replace it with too, as I have a good collection. If not, I'll take the screw down to the local DIY shops and see if they can sort me out. In terms of the sound, I get that they won't hear me on most of my shots, as even if I'm on 1.1J I'll be taking most of my shots at 30m+ anyway, but it's more for if there are others nearby. Even though it may be a "DMR", the way I will be playing will be wrapping it in its own bush suit while I wear my own bush suit and being a sneaky sniper. Quiet guns are my bread and butter for that, as I like it being difficult for people to triangulate where I am. I'm honestly excited to see how quiet I can make this build, as I've always been a bit of a naysayer for AEGs as stealthy guns and always gone gas or HPA. I did consider the base, but the differences posed between the base and standard were worth the extra investment for me, where I don't really see much difference between the standard and the Ronin when I put them side by side. The only differences were: - Lightened Rotor Assembly. - Titanium Shaft. - Individually hand wound. - Wired connectors for easy fitting. Probably not worth the extra £50 for that, honestly. Especially not in a semi-auto locked build. One question I did have about motors though, am I right in thinking that high RPM is not that important for a semi-locked build? Back when I last looked at motors none of this existed, but I seem to remember the high torque motors tended to have much lower RPM. With these brushless ones am I right in thinking that the super-speed 45k RPM motors would mainly be for full-auto hosepipe builds?

At first I will be trying an rhop, purely because I have an Umbrella Armory rhop setup that I originally bought for my m14 years ago before I knew m14s were weird. If I don't like it, I'll swap to Maple Leaf 70 degree macaron and omega nub, but we'll see. Umbrella Armory stuff is pricey and I generally don't get stuff from them any more, but it's also generally very high performance. Just need to give the barrel a good clean as it's been sitting in a drawer for years. My main issue is I don't know how to get to the quick change spring on the full stock version. All the instructions I have show me how to do it for the retractable stock version, but not the full stock I will want to make use of the quick change spring as I will want to test a variety of different springs and different BB weights to find the optimal setup. Might DMR it purely to get more consistency with heavier weight BBs, as I found that with the 0.84J stock spring it was very consistent with .3s, but not so much with .4s. I'll be going with a Warhead brushless motor, though I'm undecided whether I want to top-shelf Ronin or the standard one. Difference of about £50 and I think the standard might just do everything I need anyway. They're very expensive motors, but I think they're probably worth the cost. Also got a helical pinion/bevel set coming in the post from HK, so that'll be good. Outside of that, I'll be liaising with my friend who is a tech (his favourites are AEGs and he's pretty good at them...) to learn about shimming and get some pointers on the rest of the gearbox stuff to make it silent and efficient. I may be able to get my hands on a set of ZCI helical gears (so all of them are angled like the pinion/bevel I have on the way), so we'll see what works best. I've already told two of my friends that I will want one of them to help me once the build is completed. Basically I'll go certain distances away (point blank, 5m, 10m, 20m, 30m etc.) and get them to fire it so I can see how close I have to be to hear it so I know what I can get away with in game.

Ok, so I got the Cyma SR-25 and it arrived today. Biggest annoyance was that the suppressor didn't come with any foam in it and it was loud. The gearbox noise is fine as that'll go away once I shove in some helical gears and trade out for a brushless motor, but the muzzle sound was a very noticeable pop without foam in the suppressor. Fortunately I had a crappy 5KU KAC style QD suppressor lying about that was on my MWS, but wasn't tight enough so the recoil caused shots to clip the end when it rattled around. Stripped out all the foam baffles from that and stuffed them into the SR-25's suppressor and it has already made such a difference. Out of the box it's only chronoing at 0.84J on a .3, though the consistency would make you think it's a HPA gun as every shot was 0.84J, there was almost 0 variance in each shot! Going to tinker around, as I have a Guarder sp100 lying about, but I will probably also buy an sp110, 120, 130 and 140 to toy around between getting 1.1J and 1.6J and see which I prefer. Waiting on a few parts to arrive still, but considering it's already fairly quiet by AEG standards, I'm optimistic about this build.

Depends. The way I play, I just stay totally still and let them run past me while I pretend to be part of the woodland, because if they've spotted me they've probably already hit me, since I tend to use spots that are great for concealment, but piss-poor for cover, or I've bugged out long ago 🌳 I think you're right. Most of the time they just shoot. Sometimes they even apologise, but not always. I also had one run up to me and say knife kill though (a guy with a bolt action and an MED of 30m) after I hit him with my pistol once and he didn't take the hit (unfortunately it misfired on the follow up shots because it was very cold). That's also against the rules at my local site, because it could really quickly devolve into a bit of a slap fight when the other person parries and counter attacks like I had to stop myself from doing 😂

I think most sensible people are fine with that. Hell, the SR-25 itself has multiple stock options and one is an extendable stock like on an M4. Where most people get annoyed is when you get someone turning up with an ARP9 or an mp5 as a DMR. I will say I generally dislike the rules for DMRs at most sites, and the 1.48J/400fps DMR rules just make me go 1.1J instead. I typically subscribe to the idea that the role =/= RIF classification. After all, I play like a "sniper" with 1.1J guns all the time, some people play the squad "designated marksman" role with a 2.3J bolt action etc. But as I said above, it's more when people turn up with an SMG or an m4 with a drum mag as a "DMR" at 1.88J or whatever the local limit is that I start to ask questions.