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Surgical spirit is still basically alcohol, so I wouldn't recommend that. Plain water shouldn't hurt, but it won't do a lot to help either besides help it pick up dirt on the way down the barrel... it's best to just use some light silicone oil IMO.

Perhaps, but why do things to make them wear out faster? If properly taken care of & matched with the right ammo they can last a very long time (I can't remember the last time I replaced a hop rubber because it was worn, it's been so long... my P90RD is one of my oldest guns and I've only replaced its hop rubber 3 times; only once was due to wear and that was the stock rubber. Can't remember exactly when I got it but at the time TM had stopped making P90s due to an accident at the factory destroying one of the moulds & I had to buy it second hand from Airsoft Dynamics, so it already had some wear on it). Plus it's not just about the cost, but the time spent installing the new rubber, setting it up, re-zeroing sights etc.

It might not be an "instantly fucked" thing but it will lead to them needing to be replaced sooner rather than later. But you do what you want with your guns; it doesn't affect me in any way. Personally I just give my gun barrels a clean with some cleaning cloth or whatever & some light silicone oil after a game day, a thin coating of silicone oil is good for the hop rubber although it will temporarily ruin accuracy if left there when you next try to use the gun - remove it either by using a dry cleaning cloth or so or just firing some shots through before use (it will clear up pretty quickly as long as it's not excessive amounts of oil); I favour the latter approach.

I've used cigarette filters before, first tried it many years ago when my I noticed my dad's cigarette filters were 6mm & gave me the idea to try it... with the right filters it works very well although some filters have a tendency to leave fibres behind so be careful about that. Also it works best if you can readily access the chamber to feed it in then fire it through. Don't use alcohol to clean your barrels, it'll deteriorate the hop rubber if it comes into contact with it. There should be nothing in the barrel that would require such cleaning anyway - just general dust/grime and maybe some grease from the factory if it's a new gun. I've always just used filters, strips of kitchen roll or barrel cleaning wipes or whatever with a little silicone oil spray.

Most airsoft guns don't have actual serial numbers, and even if they did removal of them would be easy. It wouldn't make any difference if they did though. It's a trivial task for anyone to create something that looks realistic enough to pass as a real firearm for criminal purposes. Especially given how dodgy the appearance is of many real improvised firearms that have been confiscated by police. It could be as simple as a carved block of wood coated in black paint, or a table leg in a black bag, or a gun-shaped piece of 3D-printed plastic (or multiple pieces fit together for an even more realistic design). Could even be papercraft... or a combination of things. In the heat of the moment it's doubtful anyone would take a moment to so closely scrutinise a criminal's weapon while they're being threatened with it. So it stands to reason that the majority of guns our police are likely to encounter are fake even if they look real... but nevertheless, if someone is being threatened with one they must still treat them as real until they're 100% certain that it's fake, even if it's in an "unrealistic" colour or shape. It wouldn't make the situation any better though, for the reasons I've already stated.

That's the thing, such restrictions wouldn't do anything to make anyone safer. There's absolutely nothing stopping criminals from disguising their real firearms with bright colours in order to make police hesitate (and to make others dismiss such weapons as toys if spotted). Even "unrealistic" shapes don't help, as that Nerf Glock shows. A lot of time, effort, and money for absolutely no benefit to anyone. A fake gun doesn't need to be especially "realistic" to be useful enough for criminal purposes, certainly nowhere as realistic as the typical Airsoft gun. It's trivial to make a fake gun that would look "realistic" enough, especially given the appearance of many improvised real firearms that have been confiscated from criminals. Here are some imgur galleries I've come across showing such weapons (there's also a mix of jokes and fakes in there but you get the point): https://imgur.com/gallery/EbcCJPd https://imgur.com/gallery/uTMwfEa https://imgur.com/gallery/E1FgS2N https://imgur.com/gallery/JTNIU7o In the US they introduced laws requiring replicas to have orange tips for "safety", criminals then started painting their real guns with orange tips, some police then got shot due to hesitating after seeing the orange tips and now they're right back to square one. Except that law-abiding people now have a bit less freedom and have to have replicas with orange tips which do nothing to make them any safer because the police still have to treat them exactly like they would a real firearm.

Being forced to use two-tone or "unrealistic" guns would completely kill Airsoft for me (and I expect this would be true for the majority of Airsoft players). Also: https://imgur.com/gallery/PBqcmiq

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/gorilla-glue-girl

I remember hearing somewhere that VFC guns can be a bit fussy about hop units... you could try to find a nozzle that works better with the ZCI chamber, but my recommendation would be to just keep using the stock hop unit. AFAIK the stock rotary hop units that VFC use are decent enough anyway, just be sure to use a good hop rubber & nub.

I always try to optimise air seal and compression for best efficiency and minimised wear, and in my experience Guarder SP90 springs are good for ~330-340fps with the right selection of parts (as has been the case with my P90s, MP5, M933, HK416, AKS74U). To achieve this I typically use the Guarder chromed cylinders, the pistons are either stock or polycarbonate pistons with Lees Precision aluminium piston heads (but with slightly smaller O-rings), air seal nozzles (the nozzle should be just long enough to press the feed lips on the hop rubber against the hop chamber & form a seal), Prometheus purple or Maple Leaf hop rubbers and 6.03mm tight bore barrels. And always using a bearing spring guide, never with a bearing piston head. Piston O-rings can make a big difference; you want a good air seal but you don't want a tight fit as the increased friction from a tight fit will reduce performance. I always try to find O-rings that fit the cylinder as loosely as possible while still providing an air seal; the best piston O-rings I have actually barely seal at all if you cover the nozzle with a finger & manually push the piston, but when the piston is moving at speed the pressure ahead of the piston / airflow through the ports in the piston head expand them out to seal perfectly. I measured the better O-rings & found them to have an outer diameter of about 23.7mm while the LPE piston head O-rings are 24mm. Another thing I've done with a couple of them is to slightly increase the piston weight (only by ~2-5g though), which I did after installing a polycarbonate piston that was much lighter than the stock piston and noticing a reduction in power afterwards. Be *extremely* careful if doing this though, as it'll slow the piston down and slowing the piston too much will result in catastrophic failure. Also this probably won't help on unported cylinders (the intention with this is to increase the energy in the piston and immediate compression once the piston accelerates past the port in the cylinder & compression begins). Your choice of cylinder lubricant can also make a big difference; I currently favour TechT Gun Sav but Super Lube silicone grease (which you can get from AK2M4) is very good too. Be careful not to apply too much though, it only needs a fine coating... There are a lot of factors though and tolerances in Airsoft can vary wildly so none of this can be guaranteed for any particular gun.

In my experience the cheap pot metal has a tendency to become brittle over time (and in some cases expand & cause lockups). I bought some Chinese guns pre-VCRA and while they were all fine to begin with they all suffered from this issue over time and needed replacement parts after a few years or so regardless of use. OTOH all of the Tokyo Marui guns I have from that time are still fine, with the oldest being close to 20 years old now.

That's why I decided to get some BBs of various brands to examine and come to my own conclusions. AFAIK there are only a handful of OEM BB manufacturers (all seemingly based in Taiwan - I can't think of any BBs I've used that weren't made in Taiwan) that the various Airsoft brands buy from, with the only real difference being the material spec/tolerances/cost.

Ares BBs seem to be the floor sweepings: I tested some bio BBs a while back and the 0.25g Nuprols actually seemed pretty reasonable, however the 0.20g Nuprols I tested were a quite soft & easy to deform. I guess how good/bad they are probably varies by weight/composition/whether they're bio or not as well as from batch to batch etc... The G&G 0.25s seemed ok but I found air bubbles in some of them. Geoffs seem to be the best overall out of all of the BBs I tested (I did notice they were a little on the softer side, but didn't think they were soft enough to be concerned about... that may be an issue for GBBRs though).

It's not a Brexit thing or just our government; the EU has been planning to do this for some time and would have introduced it at the same time as us, but they delayed implementing them until July due to the coronavirus: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/modernising-vat-cross-border-ecommerce_en

I use a Magpul MS3 Gen2 & can thoroughly recommend them; in my experience they're very robust and they've been comfortable to wear even over long periods. I haven't tried the MS3 in two point configuration though (combination of lack of front sling loop & single-point working for me). The clip doesn't quite fit the HK eyelets as well as I'd like though - they do fit securely & work just fine, but with reduced movement. I worked around that by using one of these as an adapter for it: https://www.tactical-kit.co.uk/blue-force-gear-uloop-uwl-ul1-21600-p.asp

And then there's also how just plain weird some of the improvised firearms used by criminals may look: https://imgur.com/gallery/EbcCJPd https://imgur.com/gallery/uTMwfEa https://imgur.com/gallery/E1FgS2N https://imgur.com/gallery/JTNIU7o (mix of real guns & some obviously jokes or airsoft/other fake)

It's because the people behind such stupid laws don't like firearms, don't know much (if anything) about them, don't care to listen to anyone who does and are legislating almost entirely based on their feelings and things they've seen in action movies. https://imgur.com/gallery/YmV5V70

It goes beyond Airsoft; the Canadian government seems to be on a general anti-gun crusade right now: And have been for some time now:

I quite like Nomex flight gloves, e.g.: https://www.military1st.co.uk/p20011-06-pentagon-long-cuff-pilot-gloves-olive.html https://www.military1st.co.uk/p20001-06-pentagon-short-cuff-pilot-gloves-olive.html They're not touchscreen compatible but they have great dexterity & seem ok in cold weather, although I've not used them in *really* cold weather. Writing while wearing them is no problem at all, can tie my bootlaces while wearing them and they don't interfere with gripping things & shooting etc. as other gloves I've tried do.

Also related:

Summary of 0.25g results, sorted by average variation/roundness: Brand Avg. weight | # 5.94mm+ | # 5.93mm+ | avg. variation | # varying > 0.02mm | Notes BioSphere 0.2455g | 16 | 20 | 0.0015mm | 0 | Air bubbles found in all Nuprol 0.2505g | 3 | 13 | 0.011mm | 2 | Geoffs 0.25g | 1 | 16 | 0.0135mm | 1 | G&G 0.25g | 12 | 19 | 0.015mm | 0 | Air bubbles found in some ASG Open Blaster 0.253g | 1 | 10 | 0.016mm | 3 | Xtreme Precision 0.2515g | 3 | 19 | 0.0165mm | 1 | Air bubbles found in some, soft/easy to deform Ares Amoeba 0.2525g | 11 | 18 | 0.0165mm | 3 | Found a bunch of fucked up BBs in the pack that could potentially cause damage None of the BBs tested are perfect, but Geoffs and (surprisingly) Nuprol seem to be the better choices in 0.25g, followed by ASG Open Blasters. The Ares Amoeba BBs are easily the worst purely due to the shockingly bad & potentially damaging defects I found, although their consistency otherwise isn't too impressive either.

Done some more tests, same caveats as before, didn't bother soaking any in water this time: 'Xtreme Precision' 0.25g Bio BBs: Interestingly, these are supposed to be slightly larger and with tighter tolerances than standard - 5.96 +/- 0.005mm as opposed to the usual 5.95 +/- 0.01mm. These come in a bag with some air holes punched in to it near the top so clearly they're not worried about humidity causing problems. This could result in dust or so finding its way into the bag though and then into your gun's hop unit/barrel. I didn't see any BBs with any obvious defects. Weight: 17 measured 0.25g, 3 measured 0.26g Size range: 5.92 - 5.95mm; none were within 5.96 +/- 0.005mm tolerance, 3 were within the standard 5.95 +/- 0.01mm tolerance Roundness: 1 measured 0mm variation all around, 6 measured with max variation of up to 0.01mm, 12 with 0.02mm, 1 with 0.03mm The advertised 5.96 +/- 0.005mm tolerance is beyond the ability of my calipers to measure, but I'd at least expect to see much tighter results than I did for other BBs; however none of them even met 5.96 +/- 0.01mm and only 3 of them measured within the standard 5.95 +/- 0.01mm tolerance. These were also quite soft and easily deformed/easy to crush compared to the other 0.25g BBs I've tested which raises concerns about their performance if used in midcap magazines - especially higher capacity mags with stronger springs. Most of the BBs tested appeared to be free of air bubbles, but I did find a small air bubble in one of them. Geoffs 'Super Natural Precision' 0.25g Bio BBs: I've seen Geoffs BBs being recommended by a lot of people and had been meaning to buy some for a while, but since I wasn't going to place an order just for a single bag of BBs it had to wait until there were some other things I wanted to order. These also come in a bag with some air holes punched in it near the top to potentially allow crap to get inside. The BBs themselves all looked fine, with no visible defects. Like most other brands of BB these are supposed to be 5.95 +/- 0.01mm. Weight: All measured 0.25g (leaning towards the heavier side as my scales wavered a bit between 0.25 and 0.26 for most of them before settling on 0.25) Size range: 5.91 - 5.95mm; 1 measured within the 5.95 +/- 0.01mm tolerance (most were 5.93mm+ at least) Roundness: 2 measured 0mm variation, 10 measured with max variation up to 0.01mm, 7 with 0.02mm, 1 with 0.03mm These generally didn't measure within the specified 5.95 +/- 0.01mm range on my calipers - trending towards the smaller side - but their weight and roundness seems quite consistent with only one varying by more than 0.02mm, and I didn't find any air bubbles in the ones I broke open.

I used to have a G&G SUSAT and it had exactly same problem - no amount of adjustment could compensate for how far off that was pointing either. I opened it up and tried to fix it but only had limited success - I did manage to get it pointing straight enough to be able to align it with where the rifle was shooting, but only with a compromised sight picture. Internally its build quality was *bad*. Prior to that I had tried a STAR SUSAT and that was pretty useless as an aiming device too as the reticle would rotate around inside the sight if it was subjected to any significant vibrations (such as when firing). In the end I just gave up & put a 20mm rail adapter + ACOG on my L85.