Fatboy40

I run a "Viper VX Buckle Up Carrier GEN 2" and I'm very happy with it. I bought it as price wise it's in the middle ground, not dirt cheap like something from 8 Fields but also not crazy genuine military provider prices. I use it with the 3x AR / 3x pistol buckle up front and the scrote pouch (and there's loads of molle on the sides for other pouches to be added, you can add velcro wing panels behind the front). A feature I like is the zip up pocket on front at the top, I put my large smartphone in it and then my wallet in the front of it to protect it. Also I run it without the plates in it, for me they add nothing other than bulk, also with them in it's a lot harder to feel a BB hit you on the carrier.

I'm just a wimp, haven't slept in a tent since I was a kid / teenager, at my age I like a nice comfy bed.

A certain shouty Negative man is down the road from you in Reading

100% this if using Li-Po batteries Those cheap £15 Nuprol chargers look like they'll be "good enough", but play a little too hard and run the battery down to very low voltage levels and you'll suddenly find that they can no longer charge the Li-Po battery. However, using the correct charging program on a SkyRC can bring the battery back to life and save you a lot of money (Happened to me back in the past, sorted by using a good SkyRC charger, and also a nephew who bought a SKyRC charger on my recommendation and was able to save two Li-Po's with very low cell voltages)

I'm speaking from (very recent) experience unfortunately. My youngest teenage son started to go down a very dark path due to a particular skate park, but we were all able to sort him out thankfully and he's flipped over to MTB with some of his other long term friends and so happy now. But a friend he's known since primary is now £100's in debt to some "bigger boys" and drinking quite hard when he's only 14

It absolutely is way cheaper than airsoft, but the "iffy" part here is with teenagers / kids and what can potentially go on at skate parks. I know most of the time everything's fine, I'm being a bit negative, but some parks are a good place for recruiting kids to be part of a dealers network and get a bit of a reputation for what you can buy there as much as doing ollies.

My son and I quite fancy doing an airsoft weekender some when, but not NAF as it really looks like not my cup of tea (just a piss up with airsoft as a side event), but videos of this years Shift Your Rift 2023 looks a lot better (and Abingdon is less than an hours drive for me). Did anyone here go to it in 2023? If you did what did you think of it, good and bad (both the airsoft and camping, and to be honest it's the camping that worries me the most).

Other than the funky end of the handguard I'm seeing a Double Eagle M916 🤔 (but with substantially worse build quality, sorry)

Heavy BB's cost, a lot, but when you're running DMR and upwards levels of power they make a big difference. That heavier 0.40g BB (the weight I use) carries the energy and its harder to be deflected by wind, has a more predictable flight path and it's more likely to get through small amounts of foliage. I use 0.32g in my AEG, and tried it first in my DMR, then 0.36 and finally 0.40g, and it wasn't until 0.40g that I got the results I really wanted (I've a feeling as well that if I go even heavier the results will be better but I'm scared for my bank balance that I'll like it too much).

Is this for use in the UK? I ask as in the UK that sort of power is DMR limits and a 0.32g BB is maybe a bit light to get the best results for range an accuracy.

All Double Eagle M900's are the same internally, there are a million and one posts here and on Reddit that will give you all the info you'd ever need

Or save a lot of hassle and try a Maple Leaf MR bucking, worth it for only a tenner.

Headshots only against you then when I next play at Red Alert 😛

With my DE M908A it was VERY unhappy with any pinion gear other than that which was on the stock motor, only the stock pinion gear would mesh well with the bevel gear.

Well, the magnets in the Chaoli motor etc. are so crap that the XT motor we're talking about is marginally faster than the stock motor (worth one or two extra RPS) and has substantially more torque. Also I'm finding it quite a lot cooler as well

I'm very happy to be corrected by others but to have 31,000 turns of copper wire on an armature would mean that the wire would be microscopically thin (bending the laws of physics kind of thin). I've not disassembled and serviced an electric motors since I used to race RC cars, but it really can't be TPA. It has to be RPM, but who knows at what voltage so lets assume 11.1v so they can put a nice high number on their packaging So, I'm still leaning towards it just being too fast a motor, and we've no idea how efficient the Falcon controller is regarding braking the motor so we only get a single gearbox cycle (but as it's made to a very cheap price point I'm going to assume it's nowhere close to as good as say a GATE Titan). A manufacturer like GATE may even publish figures for how high an RPM is supported, so that active braking can occur effectively, and we could use this as our yardstick for the Falcon as well.

If the "31000" value refers to RPM then I think that's a bit too fast a motor. DE say that the stock motor is 19k RPM (but not at what voltage), I'm running AK2M4 XT 22 TPA ones that are 22k RPM on 11.1v and get a very snappy trigger (due to the better magnets etc.), so 31k RPM is going waaaaay beyond what the stock RPM is.

Totally agree. You've still got all the foliage until later in October but not suffering with heat stroke.

Looking forward to Heroshark fitting hex mesh to some goggles for me that I've supplied, plus the Kicking Mustang / Silly Ghillie AGM that's on some new camo bits and bobs I've bought, then playing in August at my favourite forest site (Camouflage Airsoft in Alton) and seeing if any of this actually works at all whilst I'm sat in a bush getting eaten by ticks 😕

I'd heard that the GATE Aster problems were more to do with them just being slapped into the gearbox, tested working to a very basic level and that was it, no effort to tune them in any way (plus they didn't ship with a USB Link so a customer couldn't really do any good tweaks without buying one). I suppose the difference between the DE M906C and your £300 is around £120, so what do you potentially gain from this? Things I can think of... # Double Eagle customer service is really zero, you're relying on the the reseller you buy it from. You can get a response out of them to questions if you really pester them, but they're not interested as their margins are so low. Specna will be better than this. # The Falcon controller is good for what it is, a very cheap clone of a GATE Titan, but this can show in certain ways. For example there are no firmware updates so in theory it will never work with a brushless motor if you one day wish to have one, it does drain batteries, the low voltage cut off is so low to be non-existent, it can be fried by heavy full auto use on an 11.1v battery. The GATE Aster absolutely is better, can be updated with GATE Control Station, supports brushless motors, has pre-cocking, has low voltage cut off that you can adjust, and can better handle large current draws. # The quality of the rifle in general will be better than a Double Eagle, materials used etc., but not massively better. ... so personally I'd say that the £120 is buying you some more reliability, customisation through the GATE Aster, and hopefully a rifle platform that will last longer overall. If "money's too tight to mention" then maybe this is not the best of posts from me but The Maxx Model M4A-PRO fits perfectly in the M906C and I'll put my neck on the line by saying that it's substantially better than the ZCI plastic (it should be for what it costs!). Couple with the Maxx 21.25mm nozzle you will get small increase in FPS, potentially enough to drop down a spring strength which is a good thing for stressing everything less. Also the solid metal concave nub with an ML bucking is just so good, lots of hop applied with little pressure, so less power lost from the BB.

Headshots only from here on out... https://i.imgur.com/Bf3jK7Z.jpg

It's 21.40mm

Yesterday my son's substantially upgraded Firehawk failed from the very start at chrono, so what did he get moved over to... his backup DE M906C and it worked perfectly (and before we play again everything good is coming out of the Firehawk and going into the M906C, why do these cheap AEG's just always work so reliably for us?)

@Coupsty Happy to help in any way I can as a fellow DE M908A owner, however I run mine as a DMR... ... and have made quite a few changes to it. Out of your list of things you'll be buying you missed one crucial thing off, and that's a sling for your rifle! Being fully metal the M908A weighs quite a bit, so if you have to carry it around all day your arms will be sooooo tired I like this sling a lot... https://www.vipertacticalshop.co.uk/viper-vx-sling.html?variation_id=4840 ... it's very comfortable and the quick adjustment helps when you need the rifle tight to your body if you need to run around. Also with batteries if you do decide on 11.1v Li-Io split ones Valken also do them and they're a little cheaper than Titan's. Edit: Me pretending to look all cool and tactical at Ironsight with my M908A...

Adding to the above it's the M906C all the way from the seven you've listed. Out of the box it's very good for the money, however do be careful with the following (for all Double Eagles with the Falcon controller)... - Using a heavy amount of full auto is not great, the motor will get very hot / you'll use a lot of battery capacity / the Falcon controller can fail due to it. Set the full auto to a three round burst and increase the life of your rifle, plus most places that allow full auto usually want players to stick to short bursts and not overshoot other players. - The Falcon controller doesn't have great battery management, so you 100% must remember to disconnected any batteries after playing. Some good points about the M906C... - It has a 230mm inner barrel, so perfect to swap out with a Maple Leaf AEG 230mm inner barrel. - Add an MR bucking and Omega nub to the above inner barrel and you have an "out of the box" R-Hop (what this means is that you'll be able to shoot heavier BB's like 0.32g or 0.30g and get amazing range. - A Maxx Model M4A-PRO hop unit fits perfectly (FYI the Retro Arms CNC hop unit does not fit, it's too long). Also if using a Maxx hop unit you'll need to swap to a 21.25mm Maxx nozzle as well. - The quick change spring is easy to swap out, and you'll get better power from the right spring (the springs as standard in the DE M900's aren't that good). Go to https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/ and get an XT M100 spring which will take you close to around 345 FPS on 0.20g, and if you go with heavy BB's the M105 is spot on. - Swap to a PTS EPS stock on the rifle and you can fit in absolutely any battery you'd ever want to. Bottom line is that out of the box they're very good, but with a few careful upgrades you can have a rifle shooting 0.32g BB's out for a massive distance and get other players who can't get you but at the same time be within the limit to shoot someone a meter or two away / CQB.