RostokMcSpoons

Worst - my Cybergun F2000. Got it because the F2K is my favourite gun in the Battlefield 4 game, and I wanted to make a build that looked vaguely similar. I've done that, and really enjoyed that journey, but the problem was my first test-fire I thought "hah, that's a slow and noisy, must be able to make that better", so I immediately embarked on a journey of upgrading the internals. It's had one outing to a skirmish and it locked up after a handful of shots. One day it'll be great. But it'll need a proper tech to fix it, because as it stands I've rather ruined it (and feel the disappointment in myself every time I look at it). Best value - Double Eagle M906C. Keeps on truckin', it's reliable, accurate, decent range, nicely built, has all the fancy features I could want (but don't need). Of all the guns I take to skirmishes, this has been the one I end up using. Superb for the £160 I paid. Best - Really it's still the 906C at this point, but the Umarex / VFC HK416 GBBR is just wonderful in terms of wanting to pick it up, rack back the bolt (full real-steel travel!) to hear it slam back, great build quality with all the trades. And firing it is so satisfying. I don't know how accurate it is at range yet, though, hence the 906 might still 'win'. But this gun is just great from a 'gun nut' standpoint. Mentions of the Cyma M14 mean I'll look forward to taking mine for its first skirmish (next weekend). I don't think it'll ever become my favourite, the plastic stock is just too creaky. Perhaps I should've bought the SOCOM version, but this one was a very good price from the classifieds.

I've been having another look today... the Sotac is definitely on the fine-to-good spectrum. I might not bother ordering the S1 after all, because I've worked out a lot of the distortion I saw last night seems to be caused / exacerbated by low light levels (the reticle looks sharper in the daylight) my shite eyesight (having been staring at screens from 1.5ft away for the whole day) eye relief (the more distance, the more apparent distortion) Thanks for the info about the duty etc, useful data as I might be buying an HPA-tapped mag from France (185 EUR, so I'll be expecting to pay 'stuff' for that)

I got a notification last night that Powair6 had new stock of these little beauties... https://www.powair6.com/en/stock-atelier/11842-p6-400rds-hpa-hi-cap-magazine-for-vfc-umarex-hk416-m4-gbbr.html So basically a high-cap mag with an HPA line installed in. That would save me paying out £50-60 per low cap mag, and give me stable FPS with no concerns of cool-down etc. Usual downsides of dealing with a line getting tangled, losing the fun of tactical mag changes etc, but I think it's a trade-off I'm willing to accept. Has anyone tried something like this, how did you find it? My current Tippmann HPA setup has a Dye LT small tank. It's just got an open/close valve on the top, along with a pressure gauge. I'm not versed in the ways of HPA... would I need to buy a regulator for this? Also, the Powair6 page asks for "EU or USA connector". As my setup is a Tippmann, is there any chance I've got USA connectors? How do I tell?

It'll be interesting to see how quickly it gets here, how much the taxes and fees work out... Did you get the S1, or something else?

Let's be honest, if people think it looks shit, it's a fail That's a good point about the recoil. I'll bang a few BBs with it on the Tippmann and the 416, see if it holds zero after a good shake!

Yeah, I've looked at it quite a bit since I took the pic, if I talk about 'panel gaps' from a car buyers vernacular, everything looks correct now (apart from the cutouts)... anything off in those pics is as much a photography / camera artifact as an actual misalignment. I still am impressed by the sight. Sure the S1 will be better, but this is damned good value as it cost only :checks notes: twice as much as some of the very much less impressive red dots I've bought in the past.

What do you guys think? The windage and elevation dials aren't perfectly centered in the cutouts, but it looks straight to me. I suspect my quick attempt to wedge the sight protector into place had pushed it askew (which doesn't say great things about the screws fitting the hood to the sight, but hey-ho) Edit: Seems I'm going to be spending a lot of money on airline tickets shortly, so frankly a few quid here or there will make sod-all difference in the grand scheme of things - I'm now leaning a little towards sending this back and ordering the HW S1, as I now have 2 reasons to prefer it: [1] the reticle hopefully won't distort when viewed in the corners, [2] the screws aren't made of cheese and the hood will stay in the right place (though I do like cheese)

Thanks for pointing that out... I'm not enough of an Eotech afficionado to think it was anything else than "how it's supposed to be", I guess. I loosened off the torx screws and fiddled the hood into better alignment (maybe half a mil), and re-tightened them. I think it's looking much straighter. I also checked the overall aligment from the front, it looks correctly centred (the ADS pic was taken with no great consideration to lining it up nicely, so that may have been misleading) I'm off to play footy but I'll take a pic or two later so you can all give me an unbiased opinion on whether it's ok now.

Here's the Sotac... Basically the sight is really nice made, the buttons work well, the quick release mount was easy to adjust to get a solid fit. As you can see the reticle has the additional aiming marks, which makes it a nice change from all the plain red dot sights I have. It seems to go quite bright. At the low end there's a big jump from 'indoor dim' to 'very dim' on the last adjustment step. I presume that's for NV mode. The NV button makes the reticle green. It might do clever stuff with the brightness too, but I don't need that, so haven't checked the instructions The glass isn't strongly tinted or distorted, but I can see there is distortion of the reticle when viewing off-centre so it's in the top corners of the sight. Is it enough to make me send it back and spring the extra ~£60? I don't think so but I'll sleep on that.

My Sotac EXPS3 sight has turned up turned up (late... the shop owner was on hols, and then Snail Mail lived up to its name too, it was sent on Friday) £55 from eBay. Maybe I'll do a mini-review it in the thread where I asked which one to buy (and then bought this in a hurry), but the TL;DR version is the attractive reticle is nice and bright - but the brightness adjusters work in very fine increments (too fine?), the whole thing feels well built, the quick-release mount is good, and parallax is perfectly alright (i.e. horrible at absolute point-blank, a very few centimetres at 6-7m (more vertical than horizontal), and unnoticeable to my decrepit eyes at 15m+) I also bought a Red Dot Engineering sight protector... that will take a tiny bit of filing / Dremel work too fit, because it's too tight a fit, and there needs to be some relief around the battery cap retainer wire.

Honestly it was just stupid time-panic that meant I didn't use decent ammo in it (I had it in my mind to burn through all my 0.25g ammo I'd bought for my AUG before I changed the hop rubber in that, it just didn't suit the gun), and I didn't spend any time tuning the hop setting. Basically it left the range in the same 'happy at 15m with 0.40g ammo) setup as it entered it. Entirely my fault! I was also maybe too conscious of the fact I had 2 mags and therefore playing a proper skirmish with it would be a very different experience to what I have been used to ... i.e. laying down lots of suppressive fire as I push up.

Looks like I might as well go with Defcon Airsoft at £60 each then. But as I didn't sort out my gun at site yesterday, I'm still not fully committed... I suspect I'll wait a bit to see if Patrolbase re-stock at £50.

First skirmish in 10 months (ffs!). I should have been at other sites, but never got off my slightly-fat arse to go try somewhere new. So Special Ops opened up again, and I'm back on the field. I had a selection of new guns to try, so I basically took 'em all, except for the M14. I wish I'd taken that too, but no room in a long gun bag for it AND the sniper rifle, so the sniper got the nod. I made a spreadsheet to try to get a grip on all the bits I needed, and what I could do to check / fettle before the big day (I posted it on another thread, I won't repost here, I look like an OCD loony enough already). That approach actually worked quite well, I remembered everything I needed. However, the sheer quantity of stuff it enabled me to drag along became overwhelming. To cut a long story slightly shorter I had intended to take some time fettling my new VFC GBBR and the Tippmann, but with the very large number of people on site (87 players?) I didn't get around to spending very much time on-range. I ended up firing a few shots with each, didn't really do anything to them, and then concentrated on getting Ol' Faithfull (the magnificent Double Eagle M906C) and the TM AUG HC (shorter range spray'n'pray) ready for combat. So what had been intended to be a major effort to fix my two most expensive (and potentially fun) guns instead became a rush to sort out my kit 'just to play'. This really wasn't helped by the kit overflowing off the one small table I had to set up on. I spent too much shuffling kit on and off to make use of the limited space. Lesson learned : If I'm going to try to sort out a gun or two - just take them, plus the DE My mood took a distinct turn for the worse when someone started firing their gun *on purpose* in the safe zone. As the first shot actually fired a BB that pinged off a tarp very close to me, I very nearly lost my shit. I'm going to draw a veil over what followed, because the chap came over to me and apologised profusely and shook my hand afterwards. He realised he'd messed up big time. Lesson learned for him : just because there's no mag in the gun, doesn't mean the barrel is empty Hmmm. I've typed a lot already and we've not got to the chrono'ing yet The chrono'ing took forever because of the sheer number of people. There were already mutterings of discontent. (I don't suppose I helped, turning up in the queue carrying 3 rifles and a pistol, but I got through it quickly and painlessly) The safety briefing kicked off maybe 30-45 minutes late? Carlos and Will did their usual good humoured job explaining the site rules and splitting the players into teams. Eventually the skirmish kicked off. Zombies game to start, as a warm-up, then onto the normal stuff. The morning was a bit disappointing for me, and by the louder mutterings, quite a few other people. Basically there were just too many players given the limited vegetation cover - so it all bogged down too easily. People got tired of the long treks back to spawn after getting zapped by long shots from unseen players (as much 'too many angles to cover' as 'man disguised as tree with sniper rifle') Those mutterings of discontent got louder and more frequent. I don't think I've hear people complaining at Special Ops before. The good news was that a lot of people left at lunchtime (half-dayers and/or malcontents). Yet the next games didn't go brilliantly either. There was an unfortunate game where the out-of-bounds area was misidentified by a marshal, so a bunch of us were moved from our defensive positions just as we were being attacked in a 'no respawn' phase of a game. That didn't go down well. After that game, a bunch more left, and between the reduced player count, and a different style of game, things got a lot better. I finished the day much happier. I'd got killed (probably mostly by Dan from these forums, including a pistol shot to the back of the head!) an awful lot, and racked up relatively few kills myself, but I left happy enough. (If I'd gone home at lunchtime I would have been very disappointed with the whole experience) Personal highlight of the day : My first attempt at sniping, with my Rossi M40/VSR clone .. first 3 shots = 3 kills at 60m. (I could have had a few more with that but I'd loaded up some of the mags with 0.25's for no sensible reason, and couldn't get the hop adjusted. Also the safety lever kept falling into safe at very inopportune moments, so went back to my AEGs)

I'm playing my first game in a loooooong time, and went a bit bananas today trying to work out what I needed. So I put all my kit into a spreadsheet (and greyed-out the stuff I'm not taking / don't need) It's a bat-shit crazy amount of kit I know it's quite an OCD thing to have done... I wish I could attend to important things with as much diligence The TL;DR version is Comfy clothes (plenty of cheap army surplus available) Decent boots with some ankle support (the first time you trip over a tree root or stick your foot in a hole, you'll thank yourself for buying them) They're a very personal thing, but I took a punt on Swiss Paratroopers' boots which are heavy, but good. Eye protection: Bolle Tracker 2's a cheap and good starting point, or British Army ESS goggles perhaps. Half or full face mask (cheaper than a visit to the dentist) Perhaps a Dye full-face mask if you're thinking of CQB. Baseball cap or bush hat (scalp shots hurt, protect yourself at least a bit) Gloves (knuckle shots hurt too) - Mechanix are great value. Battle belt or chest rig + mag pouches. You can just stuff things into pockets, but it's just not tacti-cool If you're thinking of spending upto £500 on a RIF then you could be choosing AEG, gas or HPA "The world's your oyster" - make some friends and ask to try their guns out on the field for a few shots, you'll soon get an idea which way you want to go (might be all 3 of course, in the long term) We usually advise it's best to rent for a few games, make sure you really enjoy it first before splashing major cash though. There are plenty of separate threads for more discussion on all these things so have a search... see if they help at all. Good luck and have fun! (And call your hits)

Excellent - a straight drop-in? I wouldn't need to adjust the shimming would I? I don't want to open the gearbox when it's been so reliable so far. Does it affect the responsiveness or RoF either way? The product description would suggest not.

The Novritsch looks nice enough, but it's marked as 'out of stock' for both the polymer (EUR 229) and metal (EUR 299) variants. So unless you're prepared to wait for them, DE would seem to be the best bet. Amazingly enough, BBguns4less seem to have been consistent for a while in actually having DE's in stock... https://bbguns4less.co.uk/products/double-eagle-m907d-ar15-rifle-with-falcon-system-in-black.html Here's the shorter. less expensive variant that I run (and has been great for me) £189 is about as cheap as it's been anywhere for a couple of years now. https://bbguns4less.co.uk/products/double-eagle-m906c-ar15-rifle-with-falcon-system-in-black.html If you'd rather go with Patrolbase, they have this one https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/airsoft-m4-ar15-m16-variant-assault-rifles?*brand=61&*inst=y Edit: The only thing that a couple of us have had issue with is that the stock spring seems to become weak and inconsistent fairly quickly. Thanks to the fact springs are cheap (get an M105 for £10) and the Quick Change system works beautifully, its' a super-simple fix. (The motor also tends to get a bit toasty on extended full auto fire, so some day I'll get around to changing mine. While it works though I'll leave it as-is!) Edit: I see the Rate Of Fire on the Novritsch is a big step up from the DE's. That and 'pre-cocking' seem to be the main advantages over the DEs. My 906 runs at about 16rps on 11.1v, so it's not a massive gap, but the choice is yours...

One thing to bear in mind, which I picked up from at least two different sources, is that the Gen 4 17 has the big mag release catch, and apparently it's rather too easy to bump that and pop the mag out. I also got warned by @1967PF44 who's owned plenty of pistols is that the TM G17 Gen 4 was the only that had broken on him. Twice for the slide, and once for the hammer. Maybe he's very unlucky, but it's something to bear in mind. Anyway, I'm happy with my cheapo G19 for the moment, I need to spend all my 'spare' cash on G36 and HK416 mags ;] I don't have room on my battlebelt for two holsters!

Here's a pistol I can personally recommend. It works perfectly in the cold. You can take a look at the pictures, it shows what proper hi capa mags look like (fatter!) He's open to offers, maybe you could buy this and sell yours on?

Yeah, looking at all the immaculate-looking Bio BBs scattered around the end of my garden, it does feel like a marketing / green washing / rip-off exercise. Perhaps they just mean the BBs will bio degrade in 10 years instead of a 100 😕

That's a nice gun, I bought a couple of raffle tickets to win one at Airsoft Competitions, sad not to win it.

Hi! All the advice so far is about hiding your new hobby from your other half, we don't even know if you're married 😁 (I've been soooo fortunate with almost all my new guns and parts turning up when my wife has been at work. If you can't be good, be lucky!) Ask all the questions you like, we're happy to help

That's good news, thanks! A tenner is a good price, isn't it? I've been much busier buying guns than consumables, so I've lost track of the pricing trends these days.

Spotted these... https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/evolution-airsoft-0-28g-target-6mm-biodegradable-bb-1kg-bag At £9.99 for 1kg ~3,500 BB's they're appear to be decent value, and when I'm about to buy other bits and pieces I like to add stuff to the order to get my money's worth out of the delivery. The only other BB's that Patrolbase sell at the moment are Vorsk and Nuprol. Are Evolution thought of as better than those (or indeed, are they thought of at all???)