Impulse

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.

Preach. Sticking an m130 into a m4 with a drum mag isn't a DMR and a lot of battlesim/filmsim or milsim events will require real world DMR replicas, like an m14, SR-25, SVD or if it's 5.56x45mm something like a mk12 etc. I'm an immersion nerd though. I like things to look the part, which is why I love Vietnam filmsim so much (and will probably try another milsim at some point as long as I can play more of a civpop role) as it's my kind of gameplay combined with everything looking the part.

Usually shorter is only an option at 420mm, because most barrels aren't cut for m14 hop ups. However, the ZCI barrels have both regular and m14 hop unit cuts, so you could go with the 494mm and you won't have any issues. The outer barrel on the m14 hugs the inner barrel the whole way through, so I don't think you'd even have any issues with it being off-centre either. And it's not a stupid question. Even with me google searching these issues, I ended up buying a 509mm barrel from Umbrella Armory for a pretty penny to stick in my m14 back in the day, only to realise it didn't fit. It has been sitting in my parts drawers for years and I'm only now finally digging it out for my SR-25 build

It's 500mm. 550mm will fit, but it'll stick into the flash hider / suppressor if you use one a little. Outside of ZCI barrels, that are cut for m14 hop units as well, most 550mm barrels wouldn't work in an m14 anyway because the hop up unit is weird.

Lightweight loadouts are king. I went airsofting on Sunday and had no issues whatsoever, but I was running a very lightweight loadout. Trousers, t-shirt, belt kit, no rig as I was using my VSR but could've run a lightweight chest rig if I needed to, and a simple cobra hood instead of a full ghillie. Keeping at least your back uncovered by extra layers, backpacks or load-bearing kit really helps you to keep cool as it allows you to sweat, then that sweat to evaporate which is how your body cools itself. If you have too many layers, you sweat but then that sweat gets trapped in those layers and you don't cool off as effectively (don't cite me on this, I am no scientist but this is what I've found through experience). I wouldn't want to play CQB unless there was some sort of environmental control to keep the temperature down and to cycle the air as it's going to get really, really stuffy in there really, really quickly; woodland is far better when it's hot because the air doesn't get stale and stuffy like it would at an indoor venue, due to being outdoors. The most important thing, so important that I give it its own paragraph, is keeping hydrated. Your body uses water to keep your body temperature at healthy levels, so while dehydration is really bad, it's worse in the heat and can lead to heatstroke (which can be life-threatening faster than dehydration!). I think I went through about 6 or 7 litres of water on Sunday. Fortunately, it typically it doesn't get too bad in this country. When I did airsoft in the south of Spain, we'd have to finish by 2pm because it just starts getting dangerously hot (hottest day when I lived in Spain I think was about 45 degrees celcius)

I would say so. £25 isn't a huge investment for a stainless steel barrel

I'm actually in the process of ordering and building myself a SR-25 and @Davegolf persuaded me to try it on electric before throwing an HPA engine inside. Will second the SR-25 as a great option, since the v2.5 gearbox is literally designed for these types of long guns and the Cyma platinum SR-25 seems to come with a lot of what you'd want in it out of the box, plus a quick change spring for if you decide you want to run it at higher power (the gearbox is designed to take 460fps, it's just downgraded when imported into the UK by a simple spring swap). The thread I started is still fairly recent, and I will be documenting my journey on building it if you're interested. Doing the same thing you're looking at, so keeping it 1.1J for no MED, though I will also be experimenting with 1.64J as well, because experimentation is a great way to find hidden gems: Ignore the fact it says HPA edition, as I'm not going with this option yet. Testing the waters making it electric first and then I'll move to HPA if electric doesn't work for me.

Cyma m14 is great out of the box, so I'll agree on that. Change out the hop rubber and nub to a better one and you'll be hitting great ranges at 1J. I have one that I have left totally stock outside of a ZCI barrel, Maple Leaf macaron and omega nub and it shoots really nicely and outranges a lot of AEGs on the field. Anyone who says "you can't have a sniper rifle at 1.1J" has never played the role, and I'm going to nail my colours to the mast on that. Yes, I have my 2.3J BASRs, but I also have a VSR and two m14s (one electric, one HPA) set to 1.1J and all of them are "sniper rifles". I just played a whole game day yesterday with a VSR set to 1.1J and very much played like a sniper and it was very effective. Most of my shots were probably around 50m, but I did make one at 80m that made me smile, but that was all about judging trajectory and drop and dropping the shot onto the target. Playing the sniper role is more about stealth and concealment than anything and you want to be taking all of your shots where the other team have no idea where you are. Again while I was playing yesterday, I low-crawled all the way up on a rolling assault to get into each firing position to take my shots from concealment, only being spotted once but the guy couldn't hit me so it was okay. Just waited for him to be forced off by my team before moving again The classification of sniper rifle and DMR is merely used as a means to set the rules on power, giving higher power in exchange for lower fire rates (semi auto or bolt action vs full auto of regular AEGs) and an MED as a trade off, but that doesn't mean you can't play the "sniper" role without a higher power gun. Yes, you will get more range with a 2.3J bolt action rifle, however for the sniper role that isn't everything. If you want to fill the marksman role, which can be done with a DMR or a BASR, then yes, you need the higher power because the whole point of a marksman in airsoft is to help the regular AEGs by offering precision, long range fire and is typically a squad-based role in more serious events like milsims. As I've already said, the sniper role is more about stealth and fieldcraft than it is about long range shots, and the satisfaction of getting hits with a 1.1J BASR is just as good as with a 2.3J BASR, which is what sniping is all about from a shooting perspective in my opinion; it's not how many you hit, but how you hit them. Anyway, I'm going to stop now before I start ranting more. Love my 1.1J sniping I do

Take your time and leave everything in deliberate locations. When I did my first work on my m14, it took me three hours to take it apart, sort all the gearbox items and then put it all back together. It's not difficult, it's just long and needs a bit of getting used to. The good news is you don't need to take everything apart to get to the barrel and hop rubber; yes, it's still more involved than an m4, but getting to the barrel and hop up isn't difficult as all you do is remove the trigger guard, separate stock from receiver, remove bolt return spring, undo 6 screws around where the outer barrel meets the receiver and separate the two. You don't need to get tied up with all the springy bits on the side of the gearbox In terms of hop up rubber, I use a Maple Leaf 60 degree macaron in mine with an omega nub and it's really, really good. You'll need to trim down the hop up rubber a little because m14s are weird and use shorter rubbers that nobody makes by default, but that's easy to do and it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. In terms of the stock, it's not amazing quality and mine is creaky too, however it hasn't given me any issues so it appears to be fine. My TM m14's stock was way nicer, but I guess that's what you get for paying over double the price For a full disassembly and reassembly, I use this video and just follow along if I ever have to get into the gearbox. It's detailed in all the right places.

I've only been once and it was their first game ever, so there were teething issues; haven't been recently so I can't say if they've sorted those problems, but the site itself is lovely and they had a really great foundation for sure.

First game in 5 weeks and I've missed this. Took the m21 and my 1.1J spring VSR to the site, but they didn't have .32s in stock (or at least they didn't have any of the brands I like and I'm picky with my ammo) so I ended up running my spring VSR. Was a really great day, as there were lower numbers due to people getting scared of a bit of sunshine and warmth and there were very few ghillies for once, which felt great being one of them even though I was only using my Russian cobra hood because I didn't want to cook. Skill level was... pretty poor. I spent a lot of time being the front line with my bolt action rifle as I slowly crawled up along the flanks, because nobody was pushing all day so my stealthy slow-crawl was faster than the rest of my team. During one of the afternoon games, I did a slight naughty because our team was getting stomped horribly on a rolling assault where we were the attackers. We just weren't making any ground and I was the front line with my sniper rifle, so I continued slow crawling until I was fairly near their spawn. They could've easily avoided me by going through the foliage, they could've easily overwhelmed me by charging past (they had no idea where I was, but with a bolt action I can't hit that many of them if they just charge past), but they kept walking slowly down the path towards my kill-zone and I ended up spawn trapping a good portion of the enemy team for about 10 mins. Desperate times called for desperate measures and my team still didn't push, even with a bunch of the enemy team not able to reinforce the base we needed to take. When it was clear my team still wasn't pushing the objectives, a marshall asked me politely to move on and so I did and that's where I called it for the day. Was almost out of ammo in my VSR after keeping them pinned anyway, but if that wouldn't get my team to push, nothing would. That said, I got a lot of great shots, but more importantly I played with an MED in mind, despite not having one as I wanted to see if I could bring my 2.3J VSR along and still be effective. Next game day I will take the plunge and bring the 2.3J HPA VSR instead because there were many shots I could've done if I had it today, but there were no shots taken under 30m. I think I have the site knowledge and the skill to make it work, even though Worthing Airsoft is so overgrown right now, plus I found a bunch of new spots to play around. Used my p226 as my sidearm and every time I do I come away saying to myself I need to use this pistol more. It's by far my best performing GBB pistol, reaching out accurately to 50m and can still fairly reliably hit the 60m target, plus it cycles like a dream. Also, the magazines don't have those damned pins in the bottom, having a screw in the baseplate instead so they're so much easier to maintain and work on. Highlight of the day is definitely dropping a shot onto a player at about 80m with my 1.1J VSR. Fired one and there's no way it went anywhere near the guy, so I angled it slightly, took another shot and then a second or two later the guy put his hand up and looked over in my direction with a confused expression on his face. He didn't see me, but the shot felt amazing. 80m with a 1.1J bolt action is a nice shot whichever way you look at it, especially using grey BBs like I do so I had to adjust based on my estimate of the range and my knowledge of how my rifle works because I couldn't see the BBs themselves Already looking forward to next game day. Will bring my big boy VSR next time and try running it alongside an mp5k on a sling and my p226 to try and get used to it. If not, worst case if I want to run an SMG alongside a BASR/DMR I can always use the mp7 in a leg holster, but I'd like to run a pistol because I love my pistols

Welcome! Depending where you are in Sussex, there's Worthing Airsoft and the Boneyard too. Worthing Airsoft is, as you might've guessed, just outside Worthing, and the Boneyard is over Hailsham direction.

@Davegolf, you are really tempting me as I've seen a brushless motor in action and was impressed (my friend wanted to put one in his support gun but it took it up to silly ROF that would've been banned at our local site) and if the volume ratio is already there then I do like that idea, or at least trying an electric build and seeing how it is and if I like it, because I do dislike my line and tank. For the VSR it isn't as bad because I can get away with a tiny tank in a stock pouch that does me for 300 shots and is quick to pump up so it's not attached to me, but if I can do without the inconvenience I would. I don't see an electric build being too much money on top of the gun itself if I go Cyma as the platinum edition seems to come with a lot of stuff I want anyway, and the hop / barrel upgrades I'd be doing regardless. I can largely do all the tech work myself, even though I dislike working on gearboxes I can do it, but the questions I would have would be around mosfets and pre-cocking. I know the Cyma has a mosfet in it by default for that microswitch trigger and for detecting when the gearbox locks up, but I'm going to assume it wouldn't do pre-cocking and hope that it can lock the gun to semi electronically. I'm just thinking about it and surely pre-cocking puts more strain on the internals and I'm thinking with a warhead motor installed the cycle time for the gearbox would be minimal? I do value longevity, so if the difference that pre-cocking would make would be negligible for the sound profile then I'd rather take the longer life for my internals (because I hate working on gearboxes ). I'll probably send Patrol Base an email or give them a call on Monday and get them to tell me what the mosfet that comes in the SR-25 can do, but I'll take their words with a pinch of salt after they marketed the Evolution M40 as "VSR compatible" I don't plan on setting it to DMR power, because my local site is 1.64J with a 30m MED which is a bit pointless in my opinion (inb4 @Rogerborg comes in to tell me I'm wrong ?). The power out of the box is exactly where I'd want it, but with the other upgrades I'd be doing I may need to trim a coil or something, but that's not the end of the world and something I can test and remedy with my chrono and ammo of choice. I do like the idea of running it with a small SMG though and I own both a Cyma mp5k that I can sling (which is lovely considering it was £150) or an electric TM mp7 that fits nicely in a holster and still shoots to 45m, so if I can get along with running both the SR-25 and the mp5k at the same time, I may consider DMR power but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I also own a bunch of pistols that shoot better than most AEGs, so my secondary game is pretty strong ? So, at the moment what I'm looking at is: Cyma SR-25 platinum edition plus a few spare midcaps. Warhead brushless motor (would I go 31k or 45k? I'm thinking 45k would be more snappy, but is it too much / will my gearbox explode / will it really make any difference outside of milliseconds?) Lonex helical bevel and pinion Sorbo for the cylinder head (would I want hard or soft for maximum shush?) 70 degree macaron and omega nub (that's just my preference) Stainless steel 6.03mm prommy (I know it comes with a 6.03 but I have a 509mm prommy sitting unused in my airsoft bits box) Deans connectors and some solder Really, the only pricey thing on there is the brushless motor at £170. Can try that for a spell and then decide later on if I want to HPA it, as I now know that on the HPA side it would just be a V2 engine with a different nozzle after chatting with the guys at High Pressure Airsoft about it. Who knows, might just keep it electric. Who knows, might even DMR it! Stranger things have happened (rarely though, these claims are pretty outlandish for me )