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First bits from Russia arrived, absolutely in love with the design on the sling mount.

Turned up entirely unopened and everything is present and correct. Though I imagine it's more luck than judgement I will note that I have not contacted UPS at all throughout the entire process bar when I had emails from brokerage to supply whatever it was they were after. However, I did email TG twice. No response the first time, second time I implied I would be getting PayPal involved if I wasn't to hear anything. Unsurprisingly got a fairly swift response saying they were going to contact UPS, that was on March 30th (roughly 4 weeks after my order shipped, shipping date being February 25th).

Mine arrived this morning, I’ll pop a screenshot up of the last few tracking updates. For those still waiting, I wish you luck!

Link to the stock here for your convenience. Worth noting there are replicas of the stocks available from various airsoft companies, for the generally not huge difference in price I'd likely be inclined to go for the one I've linked but just wanted to mention there are cheaper alternatives. And link to the slim grips here, again I imagine there are cheaper replicas available. I just happened to have the links buried in a folder somewhere from when I was toying with doing something similar, of which sourcing the upper receiver ended up being the deal breaker. I wish you luck if you hope to see it through .

The main thing you'll struggle with is finding a matching/close enough upper receiver complete with carry handle. If you can tick that box the rest should be relatively simple. Brownells do a Car stock which is manufacturer by B5 Systems (which means it's probably very good quality), may as well order the slim handguards from there while you're at it. Then it's just a question of how accurate you care to be with the gizmo's you attach to it.

The Phoenix is great (some argue borderline necessary) if you want to run ML buckings, I'd just never felt the need with G&G Greens performing as they were. I had 3 at one point, granted I'd anticipated number 1 being gone before 2 and 3 turned up 😅. I'd wanted two so I could one set up for a 10" rail/outer bareel and 285mm barrel with the hop set up to be running .32s-.36s outdoors, and a shorter 7" rail/outer barrel with a shorter inner barrel for CQB with a CO2 stock with the hop set up for 0.25s-0.28s. Very much a luxury given how easy it is to swap those components around, but the thought of having either of those set ups running perfectly and wanting to tear it down each time I wanted to change set up wasn't a reality I wanted to be in.

I wouldn't even dare speculate, I work in board games which is a fairly similar hobby/market in that it's niche (though not as niche as airsoft), and tends to lead to large spends (I'd say airsoft spends are higher, so in my brain the 2 points somewhat cancel each other out). And I know from the sales folks at our company that the number of variables when making those sorts of decisions far surpasses my understanding when considering various taxes and the like. We don't ship to Brazil for instance, because the cost to do so is astronomical and ultimately cost is king. Granted that's a very extreme example... but I don't think they'd actually see enough of a decline in sales to the UK to push a decision of either changing supplier or stop shipping here full stop. Length of contract plus whether there is an 'inadequate service' (or words to that effect) clause they'd want to trigger meaning they can leave the agreement early without cost would be another contributing factor, should it ever be a realistic thing to review. My best guess is it simply isn't worth it for them, folks will still order from them despite the aggro for the list of reasons which have been stated in here on multiple ocassions. And then the fact, by my understanding, they're a distributor so I've tended to assume their own store is more of a 'side gig for pocket money' than it is the bread winner... and only contributing further to potential limitations on their logistics agreements because they need agreements that enable them to send distribution sized orders without it annihilating their profits. I'm in the fortunate position of not really wanting any more airsoft bits for the foreseeable, so it's hard to put myself in a situation where I'd have to choose whether it was worth it or not.

Ohh sure, I'll assume it's absolutely down to a contract they've signed to get the cheapest price but I refuse to believe UPS are their only option... which is what TG are currently claiming. There is a difference between 'we won't change because it works out the cheapest/best for us' versus 'we can't change because there is no other option'. The latter being their claim, and one which I believe to be disengenuous. Assuming that's the case I guess they'll have to weigh up whether the savings they make on shipping are worth the cost of orders they miss out on from folks that won't use them because of the UPS fuster cluck.

UPS is the short answer. UPS and a combination of general logistics things being all over the place courtesy of Brexit and COVID being the longer answer. Other couriers have demostrated far less issues, hence UPS footing the bulk of the blame. Honestly, there isn't enough information to support how long this'll be the case. Being able to use a courier that isn't UPS would likely help, but TG have said multiple times that they aren't looking to change... or rather that they don't have the option to. Though I don't at all believe that UPS is the only courier they could get a contract with. I'm sure there are folks that have had much less of an issue, but purely down to luck.

At £40 (give or take) a mag these are actually sitting right around, if not slightly below, the going rate. They’re highly desirable, for a popular platform and discontinued so though that price looks insane, for 8 of them it’s that not bad at all. Very much a case of ‘find me another’.

Cannot unsee 😂 (the below image is literally the first image on Google images if you search 'speedsoft team')

To answer that part, it's largely the fact that Marui's are set up purely for the Japanese market and they couldn't give a rats about anywhere else. The fact they come in 'low' FPS wise by the laws over here means many want to get that additional 70 FPS (give or take) out of them. But doing so puts additional strain on other gearbox components and such the 'upgrade' train starts-a-rollin'. Do you need to? As covered earlier it's, for some reason or another, hotly debated... but that's the reasoning. Ultimately 'adequate' is very much a subjective term, having been around the hobby for a long time it's easy for me to forget that stock parts from other manufacturers have come a long way... but I'll never trust brass barrels 😅.

Why would spend that much money on a RIF? Because you want to and/or you can. Why wouldn't you spend that much money on a RIF? Because you don't want to and/or you can't. It's the one repeatedly occuring topic I'll never understand alongside gucci gear, not that it comes up... I absolutely understand that part. But how it can turn so personal/vitriolic. Said it before and I'll say it again, stop caring about what other people do/don't do with their hobby money (for me that extends to just 'in general') unless it actually affects you in a negative way. Given what's in/on it I don't actually think the price is a million miles away from reasonable. That's a long ol' list of not particularly cheap things. I imagine that pair of p-mags alone isn't far off £100 by todays rates. Will it take someone in the market for those exact things (or close to) to pay that? Sure, but that's the case with RIF that's had internal/external work. Edit: Just priced up what I'd consider the 'extras' (basically anything that isn't the RIF with the hi-cap) and that comes to about £750. A stock NGRS is £500ish? Plus the seemingly £1000 worth of stuff put in it by KoA. Not just saying it seems like a reasonable price to be a contrarian, by the usual given pricing advice on here it falls well within reasonable. Just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's over priced purely in financial terms. Would opinion lead some to believe it's over priced? Sure. But I think every P90 I see is overpriced because free is too expensive for what I'd pay. One thing I would say though, for the asking price the ad is nowhere near fleshed out enough. There should be a detailed listing of what is actually in it rather than a 'go look it up yourself'.

The Silent Industries arms are definitely worth a look. While aware the 1.0 is out of stock atm, my best results were with the 1.0 arm and a G&G Green in both the Pheonix and standard chamber (I personally really like the stock 'Billet' chamber and am yet to be convinced that the Phoenix is worth it in terms of both cost and faff), but I didn't do extensive testing of other known to be good combos for that to be definitive. If you're at all interested I have a 1.0 and 2.0 which I may consider parting with, I'd been holding onto them in case the eventual buyer of my Forged wanted them but I'm happy to offer them up if your interest is piqued. Feel free to message me if they take your fancy. Edit: To save folks messaging me in the future, both arms have since been sold.

I personally love the freedom and lack of scheduling/logisitcs when it comes to going by myself. Previously I used to turn up a group of existing friends but due to relocating and getting older, meaning generally less awareness of when I'm going to have time to attend it just makes going less of a headache. And as others have said, you know you'll end up in pleasant conversation with total strangers in no time. For context, I suffer from pretty severe social anxiety and airsoft has been great for coping better with that. It'll always come down to personal preference, but rest assured you're not that only one in the boat you're currently in!

Aye, that's entirely fair... and that's not to say they're the worst I've ever dealt with (JK Army comfortably hold that crown). As I was when I placed the order I'm still not overly arsed with how long it's going to take (even once we get the 'good to go' form councils I'll probably be holding off attending until I've had my vaccine), but the fact no one in the chain seems to have a clue what's going on is just irritating. That being largely where I land, the reason both UPS and TG are so hard to communicate with is because neither of them have any clue what's going on. I imagine someone in the chain of operations does, but they aren't the folks you'll be talking to. So I'm willing to acknowledge that not getting a response ultimately has the same result as getting a response, but not getting a response feels like significantly worse customer service than getting a response which doesn't say much of anything... if that makes any sense at all?

That'll be my next course of action, largely because I don't think 'reasonably decent' is a fair summation of TG. Cheaper? Sure. But their customer service has been pretty attrocious, no response until the threat of PayPal disputes was presented and even then the response was about as useful as email that said 'Hi. Sincerely Taiwan Gun'. Is the issue with the slow down with UPS? Yup. Have TG handled resolution well? Nope. I was less bothered when they'd stopped taking orders from the UK again because it, to me, demonstrated they were holding off until the shit show with 'wave 1' was largely sorted. Once they started taking orders again without having done so, that puts them on my naughty list. YMMV, but that's my take.

I’d be more inclined to understand that point if airsoft drum mags that end up on pistols were somewhere close to the sizing of 9x19 drum mags. However, for the most part, they seem much closer to the 5.56 counter part by my eyes thus rendering that reasoning somewhat moot. Which is likely where my confusion stems from on the assumption that was the weird airsoft logic reason. Granted that’s largely from photos so I could be off when it comes to sizing, at which point I’ll accept I’m wrong and though it’s a flimsy reason... it’s more of a reason than nothing.

I went through what feels like 400 different things trying to find the right one. My favourite was a Flyye MAP pack mounted to a PC (though I don’t overly like running PCs), after that the Tasmanian Tiger TT Essential MkII felt like a decent solution (I have a totally unused still with tags in black that is on my ‘sell this at some point list’ if your interest is piqued feel free to message me). I’ve gone through countless different backpacks trying to find one that’s just right and that’s about as close as I came, everything else felt either just too small to the point I was paranoid about zips popping from strain... or far too big to the point the additional bulk was just irritating.

I found getting anything out of TG difficult until I dropped the phrase ‘I’d really rather avoid having to get PayPal involved if at all possible’ at the end of an email having not had a reply in 5 days from my first email to them. Mines still marked as held in warehouse so I can’t say anything TG have done, assuming they’ve done anything, has had any effect... but that’s what I ended up needing to do to get something close to a useful response.

Then: 'So, how come you only use a pistol in CQB?' 'Means I can be nimble navigating through, often means I can nail folks before they even have their RIF ready to fire back.' Now: 'So, how come you only use a pistol in CQB?' '... 🤷‍♂️' Caveat, I have zero issues with anything going on here. Though it does baffle me slightly that the general concensus seems to be drum mags are 'less of a sin' than AR mags in pistols 😂. I hope you enjoy it, but I certainly don't envy lugging a tank, line and drum mag around. I'm sure it'll be great fun, and a conversation starter at the least. But I dare say the conventional reasoning behind running a pistol only in CQB might be a tad removed at this point 😅. Edit: Forgot the wrap the post up, that reasoning is why I think running a HPA adapter (be it MP5, which is probably my preference, or AR mag) is the way I tend to lean. You retain a bit more of the reason running pistol only can be such a boon. Also, please get 'Novritsch Fun Cannon Fuel' engraved on that drum mag to truly complete the cycle.