RostokMcSpoons

One thing I found when doing this today... Most of my spraypaint cans failed on me. The Halfords ones still work well. I'm sticking with them for my future paint jobs, where possible! It's a shame they only do the green, khaki, brown and black though.

Right, I got bored - too bored to wait for some low-tack vinyl to appear, so I went and bought some modeller's masking tape (Revell brand) in the hope that it'd do a better job than the green painter's tape I was using previously (spoiler: not really) So my M90 Homage happened... I did the colours in the wrong order, so there's more khaki than green, was intending the other way around, but actually this looks nicely 'disruptive' so it's fine. It's not perfect when inspected closely (damn it, vinyl might be the only way to do it really nicely), but I'm happy with it. It'll look even better when worn / weathered, as the khaki is brighter in sunlight than this pic shows ... which brings me to a question: @JimFromHorsham you mentioned a light dusting of black to blend it... would you recommend me trying that across the whole gun? I've previously spoiled my M16 with side-spray that drifted across from a bit I was touching-up, leaving a lot of big blobs, is there a knack to getting a really fine dusting?

"Sold!" "Sold!"

Yes there's a thread about Vortex, there's no one reporting a bad thing about them, they really do replace shot-out optics for free. Obviously it's a bit of a pain to be without your favoured sight while the replacement occurs though, I'd still put a protector on one.

Ahhhh that's a cool design but my pallet doesn't give me the depth to angle the mats very much!

Have you tried Red Dot Engineering's polycarbonate protectors? I'm confident they're good at 350 but I don't know if they're ok at higher velocities. Still they are cheap (a tenner or so for a custom size), so worth a test? https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/reddotengineering?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=29Dc19V6RWe&sssrc=3418065&ssuid=T3xj7EiGQjq&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

The words "I fricking love it" spring unbidden to my lips 😋 Now I've never had a chance to have a pop with an MWS, so I'm going by the fact that a couple of respectable reviews I've read have put the MWS ahead in the pecking order. I'm inclined to believe them, especially if you want to mag dump (but I doubt in real game play you'll even do more than briefly burst fire the gun, so that's no real difference) If it's more accurate then that's the thing to have... My VFC is no laser gun. I've still pulled off some cool shots at range though. I suspect most GBBR's aren't all that consistent or accurate, but damn they're fun. Could I have got more hits with an MWS? Quite possibly? I'd love to find out, maybe one day I'll buy one. But an MWS will cost a chunk more money to buy used. I got my VFC at a very decent price and I'm delighted with it 🤗 Amusing story from my last gameday. I was walking back to the safe zone at the end. Two guys in front of me were talking about the different gats they'd seen through the day... "Gas blowback is just a flex", at which point I adopted my best He-Man voice and called out "I AM THE FLEXOR" I wasn't embarrassed or annoyed, I was PROUD 😅

Thanks for adding the Wishlist link in the "My ..." section at the bottom of the user menu

I made a trip out to the wilds this morning and popped in at Halfords, found these... £6 each, they're not too thick so retain some flexibility. Each one can be cut in half to make 'larger than A4' stoppers, so I'll arrange them such that they're dangling by paracord and will stop ~95% of my shots. I'll re-arrange the yoga mat strips as the first line of defence (to quieten the impact, hopefully) The odd flyer can be caught by everything else. I wanted something vaguely weatherproof in case the rain blows in on it... but carpet would've been good enough to last for a good long while though, given it's mostly nylon these days. So that was a good shout. I could've saved £12!

I'm trying to imagine the physics of it all ... it's hard to think that even a wide strip wouldn't get kicked out of the way by 5-10 BB's hitting it in a decent burst. Do I hold it place with elastic bands at the bottom? Or weight them at the bottom of each strip? If they resist too much the BB's will punch through them. Arrgghh! Gavin, I can see the sense in an NBC suit, presumably that's a rip-stop material? I don't have any to hand that I could cannibalize though... Maybe I'll just buy a couple of cheap car mats as the fail-safe backstop. (You know what's really annoying is that I just replaced my shed roof. It's covered in rubber membrane. With quite a bit spare all around... all securely fixed in place now!) Edit: Astroturf? It's weatherproof, pretty indestructible, green... and there's a shop near me that might have off-cuts...

I think I saw a yoga mat in Asda or Tesco for a tenner a while ago, so I think that's got to be worth a shot - I should be able to ensure a good coverage, and I'll probably cut much wider strips (3-4" ?) to make sure they stay in place better

So this sort of twattery occurs when you have too much time on your hands... turning a pallet into a backstop for my garden test shoots The cunning plan was to cut strips of an old yoga mat and suspend them from a bar to absorb the hits and ensure there aren't BB's bouncing noisily off the fence (which might annoy the neighbours). Also would stop the BB's bouncing back on to the lawn (which might annoy m'wife). You can see previous evidence of my misdemeanors in the photos Unfortunately it wasn't all that cunning... the yoga mat wasn't really big enough to provide enough strips to overlap well, so I added the camo netting doubled over, front and back (which was originally intended just for the front, just for effect). That really didn't do much except tangle up the strips and probably get in the way of them hanging straight. So BB's are going all the way through to the last layer of defence, some old under-flooring insulation (a very frangible fibreboard). Eventually they'll get through that too, given how the concentrated bursts are grouping so nicely. Any good ideas on what else I can do (cheaply!) to improve this? I could get another cheapo mat and just add extra strips, if you guys think the original plan was good enough?

I have the visionking and it's held up well to the recoil of my GBBR, so it's a good scope. I would have preferred a true 1x minimum magnification (though it has to be said mine usually sits at 2-3x through a game), so I like the look of your choice. That one piece mount looks good too.

Double Eagle are no longer considered to be shit! That's changed 😄

Given that a hop rubber with a bit of silicon lube on it loses its ability to impart backspin, I'd say the effect of a BB touching the sides of a clean polished barrel will be fairly negligible. But as you say it's really all guesswork with no evidence. The makers of wide bore barrels claim great things, but I've watched a video where testing showed they tended to be less accurate. Too many variables in play, and not enough science, so far. (I daydreamed of a glass barrel so someone could actually film the BB traveling along, but I suspect in reality even that would effectively be impossible due to the realities of manufacturing difficulties and costs, refraction affecting observation etc)

Sorry to hear your knee is still knackered, after many games of footy I can empathise... But I don't think I've ever had it as bad as you looked yesterday 🥺 Yes the afternoon games were good too. The blues continued to win everything until the last game (narrowly, not a complete mullering), when I was asked by one of the kids to swap teams. Bingo, first win for the non-armbands! (Not that I'm claiming any credit, I was just a Steady Eddie all day long, no hero moments for me) Hope you're in better fettle for the next game there 🤞

I remember an explanation of barrel bores from YouTube that said the BB rattles down a standard bore, floats down a wide bore, and runs along the top of a tight bore barrel. I have no idea if that's actually true but as in two cases the BB is supposedly contacting the walls of the barrel, I think it means energy loss would be negligible. My thought is that the hop holds the BB in place long enough for back-pressure to build up before the BB starts traveling. But that's just an intuitive guess, with no evidence either way. It would be great to know for sure 😊

The usual fortnightly trip to Special Ops ... A day where everything went pretty well, without being exceptional in any particular way... Which after a couple of weather and bad luck affected game days was just fine by me! I spent the previous day putting a new roof on my shed (hard work when you're on your own), so basically I didn't have much energy, so I took a fairly slow and steady approach to the games, and didn't weigh myself down with as many guns as usual ... VFC HK416A5 (GBB) Double Eagle M906 G&G G36C TM 5.1 DOR pistol I used the 416 gas rifle for most of the day except the end of the morning... I thought the accuracy had gone to pot (partly down to a suppressor that seems to be interfering with the flight of the BB) and so I switched to the DE. Some test firing on the range showed the gun was actually fine (hitting the centre of a tree trunk at a measured 40m multiple times in a row), especially when I switched to 0.40g BBs. It was a windy day, but with this I got the confidence to roll with it for the rest of the day. It was, as usual, great fun - every kill feeling very rewarding. I intended to switch to the G36. It ran very well in my range testing today, but again it came down to enjoying the nice RoF - but only having two high cap mags I thought I might get a bit frustrated. A conundrum that can most easily be resolved by buying a couple more mags... Or perhaps selling the gun. I've got too many that don't get enough use, I think I need to sell to buy another gas gun (perhaps the G&G Lee Enfield No4 or an SMG of some sort) Nice to see some familiar faces, and made some new friends too. @Dan Robinson, I hope you're knee gets better, that looked really painful. Carlos and the team team ran the day well as usual, the usual random newbie kids not taking their hits didn't ruin it, and the afternoon TDM game with super short respawn distance was really rather fun. (My tired body appreciated that most of the spawns were close to the action today) None of the usual HPAers turned up so my body came through mostly unblemished too. Which was nice.

See you tomorrow, Dan 🍻

Is Ultrair too powerful to share with my TM DOR 5.1 ??? I'm down to my last squirt of Nuprol 1.0 and I'm wondering what's best to replace it, if I can't source more of that... or if the Ultrair will do?

If you go for the RIS rail version of the MP9, there's really not that much between them, except for the angled front face (and the Vorsk's slightly too look-at-me detailing with the stock, and detail on the receiver) So yeah, a forward slanting foregrip is going to make a decent difference... there's not much doubt this is the most handsome... If I'm in the market for a compact GBB SMG (and I am), then £200 for a new one has its appeal. The only warning sign is the number that have already popped up for sale in the classifieds. Is that because GBB SMGs are inherently a niche choice, or people are disappointed they can't compete with an AEG assault rifle, or because the Vorsk itself is shit? I'd like to know.

So Patrolbase put up used the wrong spec sheet and/or cut-and-pasted the info from another page. I've already used Ultrair quite a bit in my VFC GBBR and it seems to work well for me.

Do you remember that film where the ad agency came up with honest adverts? "Volvo. They're boxy, but good" That always stuck with me for some reason (therefore: a good ad!). The problem with the Vorsk is it's boxy, and not necessarily good. However I think it could be improved quite a bit with a decent foregrip, and a PEQ box on the side, and a decent sight on top, to break up the "box with rif rails" look. Oh, and the suppressor.

That seemed to me like a very sensible test (I was the one flagging up that Ultrair, according to specs on one site I'd seen it has silicone lube in it. I'll try to find it. I don't think I count as the 'hive mind' ) So I tried with the three gases at hand to me right now, squirting them each at a sheet of A4 printer paper: 1) Nuprol 1.0 - made the paper wet with the first shot, but that evaporated leaving no residue. Subsequent squirts didn't do anything to the paper 2) Abbey Predator Ultra - no wetness, no residue 3) Abbey 144a Maintenance Gas - yay! some white film left on paper, evaporated to leave no lasting effect though So... huh. Maybe standard gas does have a very low amount of lube in it, such that we can't see it. Maybe it needs a lot of the gas under continued pressure to make its presence felt? Edit: I tried squirting the gases at hard plastic... again only the Maintenance gas seemed to act differently, leaving a change in appearance, but no change to the fingertip feel. On the one hand I guess it won't take much change of slipperiness on a hop rubber to affect it. On the other, it seems unlikely that the short puff of gas for each shot is really going to deposit much of anything on there. Edit2: It seems the American version of Ultrair may contain lube, but not the Euro version. That's not super-certain either way, but I think I'd take the previous perceived wisdom that Ultrair does not contain lube and go with that. Apologies. Edit3: Maybe I apologised too fast Here's where I got Ultrair has lube in it from... https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/asg-ultrair-power-gas-520ml

This dropped into my inbox today, an ad for the EC-202 https://www.taiwangun.com/sniper-rifle-aeg/ec-202-7-62mm-marksman-rifle-ec It's a bit pricey at £418, but I do like the looks and spec of it... the usual 416/417 aesthetics, the drum rear sight, the A5 style stock, the longer barrel and the 7.62 mag all add up to a very good looking gat.