Fatboy40

It is, optical sensors for the trigger + selector + sector gear. Maybe the selector plate is somehow in the wrong position, the sticker on the plate has come off / been damaged (a white sticker with black bars that the optical sensor detects), there's grease / gunge on the optical sensors or worst case the controller has become damaged

Sunday 13th...

At least the Xbox players look like they're having fun... Mickey Rourke's only smiling as his surgery mangled face can't do anything else 😛

I'd much rather have this... https://bbguns4less.co.uk/products/double-eagle-m906c-ar15-rifle-with-falcon-system-in-black.html ... and factor in spending £10 on an M100 spring from AK2M4 👍 (don't be scared of BBGUNS4LESS, it's where I bought my M908A DMR from, and yes they do sell cheap springers but they're a solid business). Over the Specna you'll be getting things like a proper controller / MOSFET, with an optical trigger and the incredibly helpful cycle detection so no jams on semi.

Last year, on a Sunday when it was around 30 degrees centigrade in the shade, this was pretty much how a couple of players looked at a game I was at (unfortunately no photos, and God knows what their skin looks like now as I've still a big mark on my calf from being shot with just shorts on).

I've still a niggling feeling that the air volume is too low so I thought I'd take steps to correct that before I next play. In the image below is the stock DE M900 cylinder at the top, it has to a 3/4, and the new ZCI stainless steel 4/5 at the bottom... (full size image https://imgur.com/dCVy0jZ.jpg) ... and I'm keeping my fingers crossed this may be one of the final pieces of the puzzle (also it baffles me that the internals of all DE M900's are the same, when the M906A and 7A have a 420mm inner barrel so their air volume ratio must be very low, and with some of the poor quality springs going in them they'll be pretty gutless). Also this is how the gun's looking at the moment... (full size image https://imgur.com/z0AVJpA.jpg) ... and I just need to decide on what grip I want on the bottom of the handguard.

Proper knee pads make playing as an "oldie" so much easier, I'm 50 this year and they've been a God send, I can hide in low down places and take sneaky shot while others run around collecting boxes and flipping barrels 😁 (proper ones though from, like from Alta)

@RostokMcSpoons The PTS EPS fits perfectly on all the three DE M900's we have at home, including the M906C. It just feels like you're pulling too hard on the "lever" and something may snap, but you just need to pull it down even harder than you think you need too, and I didn't need to remove the pin you've show 👍

I picked up a battery from my local sites shop early on Saturday morning and was allowed to nip out onto the site for a few minutes to test the changes. So with the Maple Leaf 410mm AEG inner barrel, MR HOP 70 degree bucking, AK2M4 hard Omega Nub all in a ZCI plastic rotary hop unit grouping at a distance was much better with no veering to the left or right (the ZCI hop unit is admittedly not "high end", but it's of a noticeably higher quality than the stock DE one, especially the fitment of the arm). I know for certain now that I'll be more accurate at a good pinch point where I can be useful to team mates out to around 52 meters. However, beyond 50 or so meters results get a bit disappointing in that the hop doesn't seem to be consistent enough, however I genuinely think that my setup hop wise is about the best I can do as I'm using sound components carefully assembled. I'm wondering if I should be considering the weight of the BBs I'm using? I've started with 0.30g BBs, where I normally use 0.25g for my standard AEG, as I was wary of starting off at very heavy weights and also considering my favourite site has a 420 FPS DMR limit. I'm not really sure what weight I should have a try with, in that 0.32's are only a tiny bit more expensive but will they make any noticeable difference, and once onto 0.36 or 0.40 prices leap up a hell of a lot.

In the UK it would probably be the same as most other mid-ranged DE M4's, so I'd take a bet at £170 (although I've a horrible feeling that once the DE M900 range is back in stock everywhere in the UK prices are going to go up a little).

A quick turn around from AK2M4 allowed me to replace a few other items today in search of better control of hop and grouping, so in goes the Maple Leaf 410mm AEG inner barrel and MR HOP 70 degree bucking, along with an AK2M4 hard Omega Nub all in a ZCI plastic rotary hop unit. As it should do the MR HOP sat perfectly in the cut-out of the inner barrel, and when all assembled the patch sat so much better than the Macaron in the stock DE inner barrel and hop unit. Staring down the hop unit the patch, very concave before fitment, looked a little flatter with some hop applied so a little bit flat hop / a little bit R hop looking. I'm itching to get somewhere with enough range at the weekend, not an actual game though, to see the results. The FPS with no hop applied has gone from around 438 down to 418, with the new inner barrel being 25mm longer, which is more of a drop than I expected going to a slightly tighter bore. I need to play a proper game to see if this has any negative effect at all, however I've a 4/5 cylinder to replace the stock 3/4 if need be (as far as I'm aware all DE M900's have 3/4 cylinders, all internals are identical across models, so for a model like the M906A that has a 420mm inner barrel this can't be good for air volume?). @Cr0-Magnon if you don't mind me asking what did Negative Airsoft do to your M4 / AR15 for you / what parts did he replace?

As other have said get a Delta Mike, once you've tried one you'll never go back (unless you play very close indoors CQB as of course there's zero nose protection).

I got to play with my new DE M908A this weekend, another good Sunday out where we all enjoyed ourselves (myself, my son, and a friend of his). My experience with the tweaked M908A though was a bit 50/50, and I'm not sure how long this post will be so I'll probably follow it up with another in a day or two with a few photos. Out of the box the rifle was pretty gutless, only 315 FPS on 0.20g BBs with no hop on and 11.1v Titan LiIo battery, so even to use it as an AEG it would have needed a spring change. First of it was swapping in a Maple Leaf Macaron 70 Degree and Omega Nub. Like my son's M906C the arm of the hop unit had an extra recess to hold the red rubber nub in it, with the nub having a bump on its top that fits in this. Now, this is nothing scientific, but this arm is not the same as that on my earlier M904E which is a traditional arm as it appears that the arm with the recess even with no hop actually applied is pushing down already and introducing hop. Even a slight turn of the hop units wheel pushed the nub down heavily, and even with no hop set at all the FPS was down to 288. Also, and this may be more down to the inner barrel and its manufacturing / quality or the same of the hop unit, but the substantial "patch" of the ML bucking just would not maintain a inform shape with or without hop applied. Next the spring, and in went a Gearparts M130 spring which gave me 433 FPS on 0.20g with no hop, and 412 FPS on 0.20g with a small amount of hop. All good for the site I primarily play at which has a 420 FPS DMR limit. So far, with my chrono and some back garden action all was looking good, and a cheap Eotech XPS2 red dot and G33 clone magnifier finished things off so I was ready to have a real game with it using 0.30g BBs. Onto the skirmish with it and arriving nice and early it was a jaunt out of the safe zone to set things up, and the results were somewhat disappointing. The range was there, I could shoot out to 60 meters or more fine without having to lob the BBs at all, but the hop was all over the shop and miniscule adjustments produced wild result sending BBs into orbit after 40 or so meters or occasionally almost no hop at all. The actual games showed that the range was there, however now it was obvious that grouping at distance was crap, at times it felt like the BB's were maybe up to 1 1/2 feet either side of center out at 40 to 50 meters so I had to fire five or so shots to get a hit and my DMR became a long range support gun to be effective. As I said above it was a good day out, and we all had fun, but the M908A obviously needed a lot more work to it with my wallet being hit again. So, we're now onto me buying the following... a ZCI rotary hop unit (I don't trust the stock one, and don't need the smoke and mirrors of an overpriced bright yellow metal unit if you know what I mean) + a Maple Leaf 410mm 6.02 inner barrel (longer than the stock 385mm one) + a Maple Leaf MR 70 Degree bucking (I want accuracy at range) + a Gearparts M110 spring (I've still got a spare M120 but I want options just in-case the ML inner barrel makes things hotter than expected). At the moment I don't think I need to play around with cylinders. On a positive though I think the M908A as a platform is spot on, it has the great optical controller, the knock off Geissele handguard is nice, the outer barrel is long enough to support the size of inner barrels I'll need, and the metal receiver was easy to drill and tap an M4 hole so I could mechanically lock the rifle to semi-only. I think my next game may be on the 16th February, so more than enough time to do some more work on the rifle.

@Wolfie My son's first rifle was a Firehawk, and it's now his backup, so hopefully my comments will be useful. It's a great rifle / platform, which as stock has a huge volume of air that with a barrel change can easily be a DMR / hit over 400 FPS on 0.20g BBs, however the trigger massively lets it down (it's not the motor). It's a terrible mechanical trigger that just seems to take an eternity for the contacts to touch each other and finally pass current to the motor, and comparing it directly to the three Double Eagle rifles we now have at home with the Falcon Fire Control system in them (a knock-off of the optical GATE Titan) we could probably shoot two to three rounds on semi before the Firehawk got off one. Also I don't know if you also get this but an incomplete pull of the trigger on semi can at times cause only a partial cycle of the gearbox, so you have to flip to auto and fire to get a cycle, then flip back to semi. Of course you can buy a new rifle, with either a micro-switch trigger or an optical trigger (and hopefully "cycle detection" as well), or either work on the Firehawk yourself or get a good tech to do it. For example you could just swap in this... https://www.defconairsoft.co.uk/product/gg-airsoft-etu-electronic-trigger-unit-mosfet-v-2-series-lipo-power-control/ ... and see a good change, however a cheap optical controller and trigger would totally transform it and I expect a tech could do this for around £150? (after playing this Sunday my son and I aren't playing again until the end of Feb, so I'm going to bite the bullet and buy a GATE Titan v2 and fit it myself).

Any use to you? (no, not polymer, but maybe a viable alternative)... https://deadlycustoms.co.uk/product/deadly-customs-hi-capa-magazine-holster/

@LazzurusMan What weight BB's will you be using / what is your FPS as this can influence which ML bucking is appropriate (it usually follows that the heavier the BB / the higher the FPS the higher the "degree" value (the rubber / silicone is harder the higher the "degree").

@sp00n Your FLAK 10, what did your site owner / marshals / other players think of it? I ask as in the video that came out last year it looked amazing, like an instantly reloadable 40 Mike you can run around with, and probably something other players will whine over and try to get banned (especially if indoors).

UK Double Eagle Stock Springs I bought my son a DE M906C for Christmas, so far he's only fired it in the garden briefly, so before we play a game on 9/1/2022 I thought I'd swap in both a Maple Leaf 60 degree Macaron and Omega nub today (once my M908A arrives that'll be three DE M900's we have in the house). The hop up units "arm" is the variant that has a hole for a "captive" nub... https://imgur.com/m9rWHXB ... which my M904E's arm does not, with this nub removed and the Omega nub installed this appeared (a visual check) to be adding quite a bit of hop to the Macaron without any hop actually being applied on the hop unit. A chrono gave me around 280 FPS on 0.20g, horribly under powered, so I thought it best to put all the original parts back in a chrono again (I forgot to do one beforehand). This still gave around 280 FPS, and started to get me worried. I'm building up a nice supply of spare parts now, and have a few different springs to hand, so I thought I'd swap in a Gearparts M105 to see what the result would be. This lead to two negative discoveries, one the QC spring guide had its flat head screwdriver cut out mangled at some point... https://imgur.com/breI5D0 ... and secondly the spring was a hideously cheap and nasty one. So in goes the Gearparts M105, with DE M900's by default having both a piston head and spring guide bearing, and with no hop it shot hot at around 360 FPS and with a little hop it was consistently around 348 FPS so I was happy then and popped back in the ML Macaron (but the Omega nub will have to wait until I can buy a better hop unit). That's two incidents I've had now with iffy springs in UK spec DE M900's, both of which were purchased from Patrol Base, who get them from Taiwan Gun as the European distributor. I personally don't think it's a coincidence, but who's installing these crap springs, is it DE themselves, the distributor or the reseller? (I'm going with either the distributor or reseller so they're country specific legal). This is a shot of three springs... https://imgur.com/PvoZtwF ... a Gearparts M120 at the top (170mm in length, with tighter coils at one end), my original DE M904E in the middle (160mm, no tighter coils) and at the bottom the M906C (200mm, no tighter coils). Both DE springs feel so cheap and flimsy compared to Gearparts and Guarder springs, especially the 200mm one. I'm very much looking forward to getting the spring out of my M90A when it arrives, as it's not from Patrol Base but I'm assuming the Taiwan Gun is the distributor (let's see if it has the usual green "Krakman" Polish label). Luckily I've my own chrono, spare parts and tools, however the M906C could have gone to someone who'd not have known until a site chrono / a back garden plinker who'd never have known!

The tears of those no longer able to use CO2 😉

This might make someone chuckle, it's from my local sites Christmas game back on the 19th December which was a bloody cold day and is out in the country, where I played with my 12 year old son and his two cousins (12 and 14). The sun had just set at 4 pm and we all played one final game, marshals vs all other players, and the last player standing wins a free game day. Lasted about 20 minutes and the marshals shout "Game Over", so back to the safe zone, and then off to the raffle that had loads of good prizes with each of the four of us having tickets. Half way through the raffle, so about 20 minutes after game over, I notice that my son and his younger cousin still aren't at the raffle so call their phones, no answer, where the hell are they? The youngest cousin's ticket then wins an £80 Nuprol shotgun, but there's no sign of them, the marshals wait as long as they can but have to re-draw the ticket and give it to someone else. All very odd so a marshal goes off looking for them. About 40 minutes later they were both found hiding under a bush, freezing cold in the pitch black, thinking the game was still on! 😆

I bit the bullet yesterday, an e-mail from BBGUNS4LESS offering me 5% off of my unplaced order / basket triggered it, and a Double Eagle M908A is now on the way to be setup as a DMR. In the UK right now there are only two retailers left with it in stock, BBGUNS4LESS and High Pressure Airsoft, which is a little frustrating considering that TaiwanGun has the entire M90X range in stock. I'm not a speedyboi, and enjoy hanging back a bit and playing support, so I've wanted something to use as a DMR for quite a few months and the M908A fits the bill for me. A few things that swung it for me are the longer battery cable (I use a GATE deans extension cable in my M904E), a metal receiver with only one selector so I can drill and tap a hole in it to screw in a bolt for mechanically locking it to semi-only (not everywhere will allow a DMR's MOSFET just to be set to single shot on all modes), quick change spring, the rip off GATE Titan so that in the future I know for certain I could swap in a genuine Titan easily if I wanted to, and I've taken apart my M904E's gearbox multiple times now so I'm happy to do this and the M908A's will be identical. I won't initially be doing anything major to it, but may have to if the stock piston gets chewed up (the stock rack is part metal teeth with the rest plastic, we'll see what happens), and will stick with the stock 385mm inner barrel but will swap in a Maple Leaf Macaron 70 degree + omega nub + Gearparts M120 spring (with an M130 bought as well just in-case). The stock DE piston head and spring guide both have bearings, so I'm thinking this will compress the M120 spring more than usual and get me close to my primary sites 420 FPS DMR limit. I'm going to start with 0.30g BBs, so that's why I'm using the 70 degree bucking and omega nub, and this should hop them happily. My only concerns are that my eyesight isn't what it used to be, so I'll play one game with it and may invest in a flip-to-side magnifier (nothing too cheap, but still a clone) if I do get good range, and also that the stock motor may not have enough torque to do the job (and if not it's then do I go with a brushed high-torque or a Warhead Base motor).

This is the one you'd need... https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/we-europe-eu-series-eu17-18-extended-50rnd-gas-magazine

My son is well chuffed with his DE M906C... but more importantly I can now muck around with his G&G Firehawk and fit a GATE Titan. His best friend got a Lancer Tactical LT-04 GEN2 with battery / charger / red dot, and he's over the moon with it, primarily as they can now skirmish together (I so need a "Dad Taxi" sticker for my car).

Your hop unit arm is different from that in my DE M904E, mine 100% did not have the cut-out that held a bump on top of the cylindrical nub. I've just dug the Maple Leaf packet out, from under my computer desk, that the old nub is in and it's just a cylinder of black rubber with a hole through the middle (no retaining "bump" on the top). And what Adolf said is 100% spot on with the nub 👍 Also my youngest son's getting an M906C for Christmas, so it will be interesting to see what's inside of his when he lets me crack it open (ML bucking and nub are the first thing I'll tweak for him before he plays with it in anger). Also at some point you might have to crack the gearbox open and re-grease the piston head O-ring, I had to do this on mine recently to get it back to the FPS it had out of the box. Lastly I'm finding that the QD spring guide is getting harder to remove and re-insert each time, the metal ring that's holding the ball bearings in place appears to be slightly warping, I think a sign of the cheaper build quality and materials used by DE. I'm going to take a punt on one of these in the New Year... https://www.maxxmodel.com/cnc-stainless-steelaluminum-spring-guide.html ... also, just in-case you're wondering, I'm not trying to hijack your thread, just wanting to help out another M90X buddy

I'm playing a night game tomorrow, 6 pm to 10 pm and it will be around 5 or so degrees centigrade, so I'll take my own chrono with me and do a before and after, so let's see what it says.