Impulse

Saw the topic, ready to preach the good word of the m14... Then I read the post. I'm leaving now and I'm taking my collection of various beautiful m14s with me 😤

I never use red gas in my pistols, but mine are basically all TMs. They still function on green in winter and if I put red gas in them I'd be scared that they would explode (TMs are designed to use 144a, but green gas in winter works because it's so cold). When it's really cold I just switch to the mp7 AEP or the mk23, as AEPs and non-blowback works all year round. With most pistols, especially the heavier metal-slide pistols, you need red gas during winter because it just doesn't work otherwise. However, as has been said, make sure you switch back to lower power gas when the weather heats up or you'll damage the pistol. I run my AAP on green gas even when it's around 10 degrees celcius and it works no problem, but any colder and it struggles.

I don't think I've had such a good game day in years. Literally just over a decade ago. Last time I had a game day like this I was a teenager living and playing in Spain. Spent the morning before the safety brief doing my walk around the site, looking for new positions to use as hides with good sight lines on objective areas and bases, as well as improving some of my usual spots (moving foliage and stuff). When we played I used one of my new spots for the first game and literally got about 20 kills with a bolt action, though I didn't get fully into the position as my team was swarming around me, pulling lots of attention on the area meaning I couldn't move without being detected. Then we swapped sides, I went to one of my old spots I had improved and racked up another 20 or so (literally lost count both games). One of the marshalls came up after the game and said "you had a pretty nice little angle there. I was just watching them push up and then get shot in the side" after the game as he saw what was going on and had to step out of my line of fire a few times. Missed most of the 3rd game because I had to refill my mags, which I never usually have to do, and got chatting with people in the safe zone. When I got out, we were super losing, but I managed to get into another of my positions and was picking people off at the base we had to attack for a few minutes before the game ended. Ever since last game day where I discovered my VSR is effectively and accurately reaching out to 85m I've just been taking the piss and making the most of the absurd range. It hops a little at 65 - 70m, so I have to aim a little lower for those very specific shots, but the trade off of hitting 75 - 85m directly on is fantastic. Wasn't going to go out after lunch as I was tired (new year resolution to lose weight, so there's calorie restriction going on) and was like "can I top that morning? Probably not." Then I did. Held a base by myself for a long time, occasionally directing a few rental kids who came to reinforce me (which was massively appreciated!). Constantly picking people off, including a pair who took cover about 2m from me and didn't see me leaning against the branch barricade due to my ghillie. Hit one with the mk23, then the other when he came to medic his buddy, and then another guy about 30m off on the flank who also hadn't seen me. Eventually got taken out, ran back to respawn (up a hill. I don't usually run much, much less up a steep hill, but I was feeling it today and wanted to get back in the fight), then came back, lay on my belly about 60m out from the base that they had now taken and started terrorising the defenders just as I had when I was defending the base myself. They had no idea where the shots were coming from and I was just constantly picking them off. I think I probably ended up with 65, maybe 70 kills through the day. No exaggeration, I burned through a lot of my .48s and now I need to restock, I think I went through somewhere between 150 and 200 .48s. They expensive With a bolt action these game days rarely come up, but I'm really getting used to how my VSR shoots and the vegetation is very sparse, allowing me to take those super long distance shots. I'm usually content with like... 15 - 20 through the whole day, but when these days come around it makes you feel like a million dollars. As I said, last time it happened was in the south of Spain when I was 17 years old.

Geoffs, BLS or ASG blaster are my go-to BBs.

Yeah, there were more than a few issues that came from that rain. My radio is giving up, one guy's mosfet in his AK was totally busted and another guy's gun was completely dead after day 1. All of us lot from the Worthing site are always green team, been like that for over a decade now. I don't have any CQB guns though, so I spent the entire event holding angles outside and wishing they allowed bolt actions with how long some of the shots I was taking were with my m21 (which is set to 1.1J, because 1.48J for DMRs wasn't worth it in my opinion).

Cyma mp5s are always great and it's good to see this one is so good especially considering its price tag, but I can't deal with how this one looks. I'm too classical, I like my mp5s to look classical and this looks like a space gun

Just picked these up for a bargain. Two KJW m700s for some project work. Yummy

Me and all my friends use Baofang UV-5Rs. They're about £30, but they're so good for the price. Mine is acting up a little after 6 months, but I've dropped mine a few times in the woods (mostly just damaged the ports where the headset connects to) and used it through AI500 in 2021, which meant absolutely torrential downpours that soaked it through.

Wolverine has always been good to me, so I've had no reason to try anything else. However, it must also be said that all my HPA guns are snipers or DMRs (usually set the "DMR" to 1.1J though as my views on DMR power limits are not exactly singing its praises, and no MED is fun).

Ah, but what about weirdos like me who use "snipers" and "DMRs" that are 1.1J for no MED shenanigans?

It's dumb and I wouldn't book in there either, but with my collection and play style I'm very biased in that. First site I've seen that has banned it and I have no idea really why they would. Are they also banning HPA snipers / DMRs? If so, why just snipers and DMRs? Why not all HPA? Why are gas snipers and DMRs banned, but GBBRs and GBB/NBB pistols are fine? Also, what makes CO2 so bad? So many questions around this weird decision. For gas snipers and DMRs, I think it's probably because they can be easy to cheat with as well. I have, technically, 3 gas snipers or DMRs, being a HPA VSR, HPA m21 and a Tanaka m700 and I know for a fact I could set my regulator on my HPA setups to pass chrono, then go away and jack that gun all the way up. Similarly, I could chrono my m700 on 144a, then go away and chuck higher power gas in it later. However, if they were banning it for that reason they'd surely just ban all HPA, but they clearly haven't. Also, why wouldn't they ban GBBRs or GBB/NBB gas pistols for the same reason? I wouldn't because that's unsafe and incredibly dickish, but that's the theory of what a person could do. Maybe the marshalls there are just salty that us gas snipers are so stealthy and have been mentally scarred from being hit from seemingly nowhere with no sound 🤣

And a tiny bit of compatibility. It's not the end of the world, since most differences are easily fixable, but having worked on both a TM VSR-10 and a JG BAR-10 I can say they're not quite the same. We're talking fractions of millimetres though, for things like the Action Army VSR magazines fitting the TM VSR perfectly, but can sometimes have issues with the JG if the stock is screwed on too tightly, or things like the cylinder heads having different threads, which I only found out when I was reading up on HPAing the JG. Cheap snipers are fine. For me, hindsight is 20:20 and I'd always go for the TM VSR going forward due to the issue I explained above, and they're only £80 or so more expensive than the clones. When I'm thinking about spending around £800 on a rifle, an extra £80 on the base rifle isn't exactly going to be a make or break for me. As has already been pointed out, you're probably stripping everything out of it anyway, so the fact the parts inside are crap doesn't really matter. My first upgrades on anything is the hop up and barrel. They're usually the easiest parts to upgrade in terms of actually installing them and they don't cost very much. A 430mm Laylax 6.03 or a Maple Leaf Crazy Jet will come in at about £50 and a Maple Leaf autobot rubber and omega nub will cost about £15 all in. If we're upgrading a sniper, we're probably going to need either a new hop arm or, preferably, an Action Army hop up chamber for a VSR or a TDC mod. The VSR hop chamber is actually quite bad, and the TM one will struggle to hop anything heavier than .28s stock, and you don't want to be using .28s in a sniper rifle. I think PDI do parts for the TM L96 if you're looking to go pricey. They're great parts, but you do pay a premium for them. I plan on doing a TM L96 build at some point and listed the parts I'd throw into it, but I don't quite know if it would work perfectly, as is the way with project guns. When it came to the power upgrades... I'd go HPA. Mancraft do a kit for the TM L96 and I'm loving my HPA VSR, and as I already have tanks, lines and regulators it would be a no-brainer for me.

I have a TM416D and I've left the power totally stock. The difference in effective range between 0.7J (which is stock TM guns) and 1.1J is miniscule and TMs are generally built super nicely. You generally don't have to touch TMs, they fire brilliantly out of the box. I run mine at the stock 0.7J power and put .28s in it. Shoots wonderfully.

First game day of 2022 and it was pretty damn good. VSR is now shooting well enough where I can upgrade my claims on it from "it has an effective range of 75m" to "it has an effective range of 85m". Took it to the range when no one was there, deployed the bipod and started plinking to zero the scope for the day. Was hitting the 75m target every time (they're metal and make a very audible dink when hit), so I decided to try for the 85m target. Aimed and fired and there was that satisfying dink. Shot again, another dink. Again? Another dink. Literally hitting the target, which is about half man-size, every single shot without me having to tilt the rifle; just put the crosshair on it, pull the trigger and watch the BB sail towards it. Was so happy and then took it out into the game and got so many kills with it. The ghillie continues to work flawlessly and I'm really loving it. Felt bad because someone crept around the outskirts of the site on a massive flank that took a looooong time, then walked right past me and got mk23'd in the back. He then came back along a path I was watching and was victim to about an 80m shot. Good day for sure! However, it started absolutely tipping it down after lunch so now I have to dry my ghillie, rifle wrap, take apart my mk23 so it can dry out. I think the VSR is fine as I stopped playing pretty soon after it started raining, but I'll probably stand it up with the bolt open so it can get some air through it anyway. And no, I didn't stop because "oh no, it's raining!" I stopped because my thumb cuticle got caught in the bipod when I was deploying it and it tore away about a 2cm square of skin from my thumb and started bleeding profusely. I stayed where I was for the time being and got a few kills, taking off my fingerless glove and clenching my thumb into it, but as soon as I had to move from my hide I called it a day because I couldn't properly use my rifle one-handed. It's fine when the bipod is deployed and I'm watching an area, but having to move, maybe take a shot or two, re-deploy... Not doing that one-handed. Oh, I also needed to get a plaster on it Roll on the next game day!

Personally, I wouldn't get another AR-15 style rifle as I like variety (yes, yes, I know I'm a rampant hypocrite with 2x VSRs and an m700, 2x M14s and 2x mk23s). I'd get a Cyma AKM instead, as it'll allow you to expand into a wider variety of loadouts, whether it's RUSFOR or a typical "bad guy" loadout; plus, if you decide to go to milsim or filmsim events they may have weapon requirements, so having a variety of rifles gives you options for what type of games you want to try out and go for. You can get a metal/real wood Cyma AK for £200 and it'll shoot pretty nicely out of the box. https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/cyma-cm-048m-ak47-airsoft-real-wood-aeg Once I have that as a backup, I'd upgrade whichever I liked more and keep the other one as a backup (well, I'd upgrade both of them because I like to live dangerously and have been teching my own guns for about a decade). As has been said earlier in the thread, you can get a ZCI barrel for about £20 and then a maple leaf macaron and omega nub for another £15. £35 will have your gun firing really nicely and barrel/hop up modifications are super easy to do; it's only when you open up the gearbox do things get more complex, but most guns these days come at about 1J out of the box in the UK, which is all you need. Yes, there are more modifications you can do to an AEG, but a simple barrel/hop up change will see the most gains for the cheapest investment and easiest installation. Take my words with a pinch of salt though, as I like my GBBRs and HPA/spring snipers. Not a massive fan of AEGs.

I'd keep the LMG because it's your only one, whereas you have other battle rifle type guns.

Don't go cheap for holsters, you can lose entire pistols, though this is fairly rare, however losing magazines due to cheap holsters is not uncommon at all. The WAS universal holster is great for the mk23 (it does fit. I leant mine out to a friend last game day and it worked fine for him), though I cannot recommend the WAS universal holster for anything with a normal button mag release. I've lost a 1911 mag and a p226 mag to the releasing system brushing up against the mag release and ejecting while I'm running. As I said, for the mk23, or any HK style pistol, it's fantastic. I typically use my WAS universal holster for my HK45 Tactical, suppressor and all, though my favourite holster for the mk23 itself is the DTD retention holster. Cracking bit of kit that.

I had someone twerking at me last game day from a long range (about 75m ish), right in the middle of the path. Clearly he didn't think my VSR could reach out that far... He was wrong

I'd love ammo limits, but you won't get them for the mostpart in casual skirmish weekends. I typically only run about 150 BBs in my VSR or 350 BBs in my m21, plus 125 BBs in a pistol or 250 BBs in the mp7, depending on what I'm carrying, so my maximum loadout of BBs at any one time is going to be 600 BBs (m21 + mp7 combination). Once I get my standard rifleman setup done, that will only be carrying about 175 BBs because GBBR magazines are small, so ammo limits never affect me since it's my normal way of playing. However, as I said, you won't get them in skirmish games, as skirmish is supposed to be accessible to everyone. This includes both the speedy 14 year old with his m4 pistol and drum mag and the super-serious-milsim-tacticool-oper8r with his gucci gear and NGRS and real cap magazines.

As a HPA sniper (best of both worlds!), I'll add spring snipers to that list. Plenty of spring snipers who go for headshots, try to inflict pain because it's "funny" and ignore their MED. Not all HPA users are dicks, just like not all dicks are HPA users.

If that's the case, will running my Hydra at "60psi" on the Storm regulator damage it if it's technically only like... 50 or so as I have no idea if it's truly accurate or if the Balystik is the accurate one, or if neither are, or are these engines built with these tolerances in mind that regulators can be inaccurate?