RostokMcSpoons

Impressive places you get to skirmish in!

Yup spotted this a couple of days ago and was going to post it myself. But I watched it yesterday and wasn't so sure about it. I presume there's going to be a part 2 to this because it was all really preamble, no real meat to it, and actually just acted as a lead-up to the advert for the combat training. I like the black belt lawyer videos so expect he will get to the useful stuff eventually... I'm hoping he'll cover the grey area that is shooting in your own garden, for instance, where we aren't covered by 3rd party insurance, and might attract the wrong sort of attention from the neighbours. (I might add a comment to the video to that effect)

Have you looked inside the hop unit and the rubber yet? While some grease getting onto the contact patch is always a prime candidate for losing the ability to hop, the fact it's so variable suggests something has got knackered / stuck / loose and the nub is moving around while you shoot, or perhaps the bucking has a split in it? Get the barrel + hop still attached out of the gun and make sure that moving the dial changes the inner profile of the bucking as you'd expect, and that there aren't any (technical term ahoy) 'flappy bits' hanging off the lips and getting involved.

I can personally recommend the Macaron 50 deg + Omega combo. The 50 is quite soft which means it can give more spin, but eventually it'll get chewed up and need replacing. A simple job. Hop rubbers are considered a 'consumable'. The 70 degree one in @Fatboy40's specification is a bit stiffer, and therefore more resilient when under the extra pressures his DMR will run at. Always a good idea to try here first... https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/internal-parts/hop-up-buckings-nubs because @ak2m4 is here on the forums and he's beyond helpful with any tech questions you might have I've got an ASG M105 spring in mine... different makes will give different results for the same rating so you might have to buy a couple before you hit the ideal power level. But hey they're cheap enough, and the quick change system makes them relatively painless to fit. If one is slightly too powerful and you can't be arsed to source a less powerful one, then you can always start cutting coils off the end (I've never had to as yet). Again, ak2m4 might be able to help with his experience. https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/internal-parts/springs ZCI barrels have a good rep, plenty here... https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/internal-parts/inner-barrels I've not got around to changing barrel on mine, I had a poor experience when I first 'upgraded' my TM AK47 with a tight bore, and then had no-end of jams with BBs failing to get through properly. I think that was more down to the poor state of the cheap ammo that I used back then, they're probably fine now... but my DE runs accurately with the stock barrel. One day I'll try a replacement - more accuracy is always welcomed! One more item to consider is the motor. The standard grey motor in the DE's is quite cheap and not the best. It can get a bit toasty under heavy load, so this https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/shs-high-torque-motor-16tpa-long is a recommended (but not essential!) upgrade... just a straight swap for the existing motor.

You need to be able to count correctly...

Do wear what's cool... temperature-wise I get very sweaty running around in my kit (British Army MTP under-shirt + jacket, combat trousers, belt rig) so always take along a couple of undershirts to change into (one for lunchtime, one for end of the day) so I don't get too cold when I stop running around. That's even during the winter. (Maybe I need to invest in some high quality running or hiking undershirts) I tried a cheapo combat vest from eBay. Made me sweat horribly, so I remain wary of plate-carriers and other stuff that'll add to the heat and sweat retention around the torso.

ACOG is looking good on that...

... well of course there are plenty of real-steel (har har) polymer guns these days, so you can have your realism/performance cake and eat it I'm not so au fait with those, and how well the TMs stack up in terms of realism though, tbh.

To summarise the TM / Plastic / Metal thing, I'd say you can't mistake a TM for a real-steel gun when it's in your hand. But it doesn't feel cheap or flimsy either, it's solidly built. It's an airsoft gun first, a replica second. The HK45 has a great reputation for long range, I don't think you can go wrong with that. Personally I've had more of a thing for 1911's so the Hi Capa D.O.R won the day for me, but pistols are a lot about personal taste. The only other thing I'd say is that not even all TMs are created equal... the latest ones have a bigger 15mm Blow Back Unit which works better in the cold. The HK45 is one of those (as is my DOR). Something to check on if you go for something different from the TM range. (A list of the upgraded pistols was on this forum, in one of my threads even, I think)

I can't remember what my gun was shooting at when new, but looking at a joule chart, you should be able to push to 313fps with 0.25's, although the hop setting makes a big difference. Still, there's probably some headroom for a better spring. And if you're doing the spring, you might as well change the hop rubber too... something a little softer than the stock one. I went for the good ol' Maple Leaf Macaron 50 Degree + Omega nub combo. You might just want to pick a G&G Green or Guarder Clear and stick with the existing nub. Seek opinions on that I've used 0.28s in my DE for a while now - very happy with those, until Windy Saturday (just gone) showed me that 0.32s are even better. They are noticeably pricier too, of course, but what's a few quid extra spread over 3000 shots, and given the overall cost of the day.

.. Is absolutely the best way to go I've 'done things' to a couple of my guns in an attempt to improve them, which really didn't - and I now regret (... a bit... at least I learned from the experience)

The brief was anything but, but on the other hand he had a lot of stuff to cover, he spoke fast, and he didn't waste words... so that was more an observation than a criticism The staff were good at Rift. As Dan mentioned, when it's dry it'll be great. But in the mud - Well, I'm just not fit and light enough on my feet to get around the site. The short and easy walk (or even jog!) from the front-line to spawn and back at Spec Ops felt like a huge relief compared to the awful slogs at RIFT.

Indeed, there were a couple of people on Saturday who's pistols de-gassed after a few shots in the cold*, whereas I mag-dumped all 25 rounds out of my TM DOR as fast I could pull the trigger, without a stutter. Brilliant bit of kit for shooting with, but I do like the feel of all-metal, I must admit. Edit: * it wasn't all that cold on Saturday, it might just have been coincindental... they might have run nearly empty, or had dry o-rings ... dunno guv. But the TM is great regardless.

Yeah it kind of sucks, but you can appreciate there are too many people out there who'd abuse an honour system with that. Plus the small matter that a gun that can shoot full auto at higher velocities is actually illegal... You might get away with just drilling and tapping a hole in the receiver and screwing a bolt into it, to physically prevent selecting full auto. I'd check with your site though. Even that's a bit too easy to reverse on the field. I'll let more knowledgeable people tell you how to do a permanent alteration (that can still be reversed by replacing one component, though it'll involve opening the gearbox) If the site limit is 400fps, you have to question whether losing full auto and the ability to engage at < 20/30m is worth giving up for that small extra velocity (which might only give you an extra 5 or 10m range) You made a good purchase, though, I love my DE 😍

Good day on Saturday at Special Ops Allegedly around 60 people in the morning, I think it was a little less than that, but better fewer than too many... I took my DE and my sniper rifle, and also my old TM AK47S and my TM AUG HC for a change. I soon realised I didn't have enough sniper ammo and Carlos didn't sell any, so ditched that idea. In the morning I took the AUG out to play. With the new hop rubber it was shooting nicely on 0.25s, but it was windy day. Luckily the high-ish rate of fire can make up for a bit of wind drift The only problem I found with it was it's such good fun I was burning through the ammo too fast. I swapped over to the DE once I'd used up most of 0.25s, as I'd only got 0.32s with me and I didn't think the TM would have enough oomph to lift those. The DE as usual was great, though it was windy enough that even the 0.28s were moving around a bit A few complaints about bullet-proof players ... it seems there were a bunch of Spanish who turned up and didn't seem to understand what 'one BB' means. Maybe they were thinking about 'Juan Beeby' (baddum-tish) Oh well, I didn't have any problem with them personally, and they left at lunchtime. Carlos fed us cheeseburgers AND hot dogs for lunch. A special mention as to how appreciated the 'free' (i.e. built-in to the upfront fee) tea / coffee, lunchtime food, and unlimited bottles of water (which are out on the game area for easy access) are. Compare that to my previous trip to RIFT where all that stuff was extra. In the afternoon the AK got a run out. I've only got a couple of old TM hi caps for that, and they may be showing their age - a lot of winding to get not many pews. Maybe I'm just too used to flash mags now. The gun shot well but on a 7.4v Lipo pushing the old motor it's a little chuggy. So after a while (and once I'd exhausted the 0.25s in the two mags, and the few left over from the AUG), back to the DE. Burned through the remaining 0.28s in that, and then tried the fresh bottle of 0.32s - wow, they hit nice and hard, and fly straight 👍 The player count was much lower (I think down to 12-a-side at the end), and this led to some great opportunities to do some 'hero runs'. I ran out of battery in my DE at one point (Dan - it seems my 4 round burst fire is as draining as binary), switched to pistol-only and managed a couple of good kills with that. Great fun. Decent weather (it had rained the night before but the mud was laughably minimal compared to RIFT), good people, looking forward to the next one!

Is that 280fps with 0.20's? You may just have suffered the Double Eagle Cheese Spring issue. Trying slapping in a new M100 or M105 spring, and also put in a new hop rubber. That should get you back to 340-350fps, and able to lift 0.32's to a decent range. You might be happy enough with that before trying the full DMR approach, with the problems that brings (i.e sites that need a hardware change for semi-auto, rather than just programming the gun... the MED range issue... etc etc)

More choices Here's the T1 style sight, and the other sight on a lower riser, and none at all. Just for completeness.

God I'm easily distracted from work... I chucked my main 3 sights on to my AUG in turn, hopefully it'll be helpful to you... The LVPO is a great sight, but I wouldn't run it on the AUG. It is too heavy, I wanted this as a lightweight run'n'gun / CQB rifle. So the Feyachi / KIngScope is the preferred sight. It's on a small riser, I could've taken it off that, but it's the same sight line as the Eotech clone, and it's comfortable. (I wear a lower face mask + goggles combo which doesn't interfere much with the cheek weld) Bah, I forgot my T1 clone, sitting in my kit bag or toolbox. I'll get a pic of that later - it's the nearest thing to the V30 you mentioned.

I happened to watch this on YT last night and thought of you... An Aug with an Eotech + magnifier... but as you can see it's on the rail directly on the receiver, rather than the carry handle / riser of the A2... though I guess it's not that much higher than what's on show here (and on my AUG HC carbine)

I did used to use the windows screen capture and then paste the pics straight into the posts, but having been bitten by running out of my personal storage space on the forum, I now use the screen caps, paste them into Paint.Net, then save them as jpegs at reduced size and quality to cut the pic size down to as little as 100k, I then 'insert media' from my local folder. Job is then very much a good 'un 😋

I'm very happy with my Sotac XPS3 as well, but I believe the Holy Warrior is supposed to be brighter, and that would be good when it in open areas... Is that extra brightness worth an extra £50? I'm not sure.. I think you're probably better off keeping the money and putting it towards the magnifier, but if you don't mind spending the cash then go for the Holy Warrior so you know you've got the best Other thoughts... You're having a sight rail that is quite high over the barrel... Personally I really like the AR platform as the 'height over bore' is quite small which is an advantage when peeking over cover, so when going with my other guns I like to keep low profile... The dirt-cheap Feyachi 'coyote'* sight works great. An LVPO on an AUG does look quite top-heavy, and with the high rail on the A2 it might feel that too...? * you'll know it if you've ever played Battlefield 4

Your pics don't show - I suspect direct links are blocked, unfortunately...? Honestly I have no idea how you got so far up that hill, top effort. I got to the base of it and held there (until I got shot from behind by a very clever flanker) Seeing you fall down was one of the reasons I decided I'd had enough and bailed out early. It was too easy to imagine knackering knees and ankles in that boot-sucking mud.

I got zapped at RIFT on Sunday, walked back from the front-line with my hand in the air, stopped for a breather for five minutes (the deep mud and slippery slopes made even the shortest walks hard work, and I'd just gone in and out of the quarry section). I then started walking back to spawn, and I got shot again by the same guy who'd got me before, he'd flanked around the whole edge of the game area. Needless to say, where I was, I didn't feel the need to have my hand in the air - a dead man rag might've stopped me getting shot in the arse But... would everyone know (or care) to not shoot someone with a red flag on one arm? I question that. I've been at one of the tables at Spec Ops, messing with my gun at a table with a big red 'dead man' scarf (provided by the site) draped over my head, and still got lit up!

Bio's are mandated by some sites. Yes it may well be a con, but if it's an effective sop to the council / environmentalists / land owners, then it's a worthwhile thing to have to keep people from trying to ban our sport, because plastic waste is such a hot topic these days. I've previously commented that my bio BBs in the garden didn't seem to degrade and might last an awfully long time, but I've since read they're supposed to break down in 90 days. Three months is a good while. Looking at the end of my garden there aren't as many BBs lying around as I'd expect, so maybe they really are disappearing. The ones I see are in fairly good nick, so perhaps the breakdown takes most of that 3 months to occur, and then it happens rapidly? I've picked a handful up and thrown them into a corner of the garden I don't shoot in to, so they don't get fresh ones mixed in, and I'll see what happens to them. I'll drop some new ones in there too. Another vote for Geoff's as 'the best' but I've found the 'BB King' brand in their cheap-looking bottles sold at Special Ops have given me zero problems in any of my guns. I've mostly used Geoff's 0.40s in my GBBR though. When you're shooting low numbers of rounds through a gun, might as well give it the best stuff!