The Commander

Had a good experience with Wolf in the Bunker 51 games they ran, but the actual store customer service is awful. Originally had a bad experience with them when I went to buy a TM TWS M4, so I went with Fire Support which had a better price AND actually answered my questions. When I made the mistake of making a purchase at Wolf, their aftersales support was even more atrocious, as they kept one of my pistols for a few months during the pandemic in their Hire Purchase scheme, and they actually lost the pistol's magazine and refused to replace it, so I now got a TM pistol in the box with manual and all accessories but no magazine. Shame that's one of the only stores in London, but thankfully due to the internet you can use other retailers and I'll never have to rely on their crappy-ass customer service ever again.

Staying true to this forum's "Tell us about your experiences buying from different shops" purpose, just a general PSA about Wolf Armouries' bad customer service. I bought a TM FiveseveN pistol from them under the Hire Purchase scheme, and they held onto it for a few months due to the pandemic. When I retrieved it this week, they had lost the GBB magazine that came with the pistol in the original box and refused to do anything about it. They gave some asinine excuse that there was no magazine in the box while it was stored, but since virtually every TM pistol comes with a magazine and I would have no earthly reason to bring home an empty magazine without the gun, I'm pretty sure they either lost it while in storage or took it from my box and gave it to another customer. Worse still is their complete refusal to even consider the fact they lost or make up for it on any way -- a huge "screw you" to the customer. Not gonna be spending a penny on them again, especially when people like Firesupport and Patrolbase actually give you good customer support and don't inflate their prices. Think twice if you're going to use Wolf's Hire Purchase scheme. Shame on you, Wolf Armouries.

Alternatively, I got this one from Amazon and it's *really* good: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07K1HWZ2R/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Did a fair amount of research because I heard of tools breaking, but that one has survived for a year of intense usage every time I work on my M4A1.

Yes! 😃 That's exactly what I have in mind, as I can replace the muzzle brake with a silencer/tracer unit if needed 😁 Problem is I don't know a lot about changing barrels in airsoft, so I'm not sure what length I should go for and if I need to replace the inner barrel as well or something 😋

Not 100%, but yep -- just a more CQB look, with a shorter barrel to compensate for the size of the silencer/tracer unit. 🙂 I'm aiming for the barrel to be something like this:

I'm thinking of replacing my vanilla MWS outer barrel with a short barrel to use with a silencer/tracer unit, but I know exactly nothing about it. What are people's experiences on the subject? I got my eye on this nice kit with multiple barrels, but don't know if it's a good option/good price/good brand/good product. If that's not good, can anyone recommend a good barrel for the MWS?

Two real examples of things being imported and the associated costs: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/jan/27/anna-customs-duty It seems things under £135 cost the same as if they were bought in an UK store + the delivery fee?

Related to the topic: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-55734277 Apparently speculations abound that the import rules will change at some point.

So if you're spending say £260, would it make more financial sense/be cheaper to make two purchases of £130 and pay for delivery twice than buying a single £260 order that will be charged customs on top?

I'm planning on making a purchase at Powair6 once they start shipping to the UK again, later this month by their own estimates. The UK already charges 20% for internal products anyway, so if it's just 2% + £8, it sounds reasonable.

So basically when buying from European Union shops, it seems as if: If you buy something under £135, you get charged a 20% surplus when purchasing (so a £100 item would cost £120) If you buy something over £135, you don't get charged a 20% surplus when purchasing BUT your shipment MIGHT be stopped at UK customs and charged a 40% import fee (so a £200 item would cost £280) Is that correct? I know it's all theoretical now until we have more actual cases of people buying stuff from EU-based shops, so hopefully people will be able to update us with first-hand experiences soon. 🙂

Now that we have actually left the European Union, a lot of airsoft shops that we used to browse have stopped shipping to UK -- either permanently or temporarily, until they get their new VAT registration going. Since the import tariffs are a bit confusing even for the people doing them, I wonder if anyone already had first hand experience importing things from Europe after January 01, 2021. I ran some tests on some shops that show the estimated values, and for a £16 pound item, they are predicting £12 in import taxes -- essentially doubling the item's cost. Anyone actually bought anything? Were you taxed? If so, how much?

Yep, and we can't order anything from Powair6 because they won't even deliver to the UK. Seems to be a widespread thing, beyond airsoft retailers: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-news-latest-updates-boris-johnson-sunak-b1782440.html

Powair6 can't ship anything over, either, claiming they can't ship airsoft related stuff to the UK. It's a byproduct of Brexit, and it remains to be seen if it is permanent or if it will resume once the ne rules become clearer.