RostokMcSpoons

... not tempted by an HPA tapped GBB rifle / SMG? Or a Tippmann? Or go Full Nuclear (on your bank account) and go for a DAS?

I'm so sorry I missed your post for some reason - but thanks for all the info - it's making me feel like it's a toss-up between the two. Is there a way to visually tell v1 and v2 apart, in case I spot one in the Classifieds?

My 416 is an Umarex / VFC. It's built like a tank externally, excellent recoil, feels great, but obviously I can't speak to what it's like to skirmish and live with yet... Negative Airsoft's Luke hates VFC AEGs from what I can see

Just to chuck this into the mix... and because I'm borderline-obsessively looking at MP7's and MP9's, even after getting my 416... This is currently "news banner number 1" on the Patrolbase website... https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/umarex-h-and-k-mp7-a1-airsoft-gbb-smg So that's £290 for a full trades MP7. From a quick search on reviews etc it seems the upsides of the Umarex are: 1) Full size 2) Higher RoF than TM MP7 3) Slightly cheaper gun 4) ... errr that's it? And the downsides are 1) Expensive mags (£54 vs £40 for TM) 2) Less good at low temps 3) Allegedly less reliable 4) No need for a number 4. 5) Five is right out. Personally I'd question the reliability issue - we know the TMs aren't perfect with sleepy trigger, and chassis cracks, so it's a matter of what breaks on the Umarex, and how pricey to fix? There are owners on YT and Reddit who say their guns have been perfect, so obviously, as is always the case, YMMV The mag cost and a more pronounced cool-down effect are the actual deal-killers, in my eyes. Any Umarex MP7 owners out there care to comment? Edit: Oh, just happened to notice @sjhirst has one on his sig. How is it?

That AUG looks a beauty by the way ? One thing I picked up from, on some of the excellent reviews on YT, is that the tracer unit is always active. Apart from burning up the batteries a bit faster than it really needs to, it also means there's a muzzle flash which I could see in the low-light test firing. Has anyone told either of you that they can see the flashes and it gave away your position? I've always played woodland so tracer units are a rarity, but I played against one guy who perhaps had the full 'muzzle flame effect', and he drew more attention to himself than Miss Whiplash down at the docks... The rest of the review comments were overwhelmingly positive though. I'm not sure I'll spring for the full £100 for a new one, but I'll be watching the Classifieds and eBay for a cheap 'un.

Very interesting, thanks for posting that. This perhaps ties in with the fact that AliExpress seems to have a lot less airsoft content on it than it used to - specifically suppressors, as I'm shopping for a chunky one to stick on my new 416. It seems Ali only sell suppressor covers now... perhaps they too are restricting them to comply with foreign laws.

Thanks @PureSilver My HK416 should be fine with the suppressor fitment. My Tippmann has a long 'honey badger' style handguard on it now, but I think that's big enough to encompass it. The DE will be fine. The M14 might look a bit odd, but should accommodate it alright. My AK and M16 are in the loft, but they'll be ok. I think my AUG would struggle though. I'll have a play with a similar diameter plain stubby suppressor I have on my F2000, but if just one gun out of the collection is an issue, I've done pretty well. All my AEGs will be running high caps, so not fussed about ammo-counting / burst /stop on empty with those - I'm used to testing the rattle

Cheers, I've got one the same diameter on my DE which I'd forgotten was chunkier as that's under a leafy sniper cover ... that's a decent size, should do nicely!

That's good to know. The only thing is I really would like a chunkier suppressor, something a bit more Toyota Supra Coffee Can than the Austin Metro exhaust pipes all my existing ones are What diameter is this? I suppose I could wrap one of these on it https://www.amazon.co.uk/Viper-Tactical-Moderator-Cover-MULTICAM/dp/B07C3VV8NJ/ref=sr_1_12 to give it a bit more visual heft?

I'm rather liking the idea of this little box of tricks... https://www.fire-support.co.uk/product/xcortech-x3300w-mk2-counter-new-version-black £99 for a suppressor + tracer + chrono seems a good deal from the outset. I've searched these forums and YT and can see there were complaints the PEQ box was very flimsy but otherwise it seems pretty good - what's the opinion these days? Did the V2 bring in a better build quality, or am I going to bust it in the first skirmish? Do all the gizmos actually work well?

I went for Ant's sling swivels, but I went to eBay and bought a repro M1 Garand sling for £16 as it's going to spend time on my M14 too I've also bought some of Ant's RIS rail covers cos damnit, the rails on my new 416 have some sharp corners! A fiver for 12 rubber covers is good value. I've ordered a set of clip-on plastic covers from eBay as well to see which I prefer.

I had a hankering a while ago to ditch all my high cap tactical maracas for a full set of mid caps, and therefore looked at the Odins. One suggestion I gleaned from that investigation was that I could buy a cheap copy off eBay/AliExpress/Amazon and then buy the official Odin 'upgrade / maintenance kit' to replace all the Chinesium bits that would break in the cheap copy. And I'd therefore end up with something as good for only £25-30. Is that still a thing people do? I see that Fire Support do have an upgrade kit on their pages, but it is, naturally enough, sold out at the moment. I ditched the mid-cap idea in favour of (1) moving more slowly with mags which are absolutely brimmed, which keeps the noise down (2) realising the sound didn't actually carry that far anyway (3) buying four Lonax flash mags ... I've not used them in combat yet, but they seem great as winding high caps definitely does suck

I've got a sniper rifle sitting in the corner, needs a sling on it so I can carry it around hands-free at the site. Trouble is it has no sling fittings, and I don't know what I need to buy It's a plastic hollow bodied Rossi sniper rifle in the standard M40 style. There is a small plastic nub at the front with a hole drilled through it, that can probably take a swivel.. but maybe it's a fitting for a bipod. How do I fit a swivel at the butt end? I'm not sure if I need a bolt or a wood screw fitting? https://outdoorzone.ie/product/rossi-ds24-storm-sniper-rifle-pro-version/ Oh yeah, I'm intending to share the sling with my M14 which does already have swivels on it, so it'll be some sort of classic simple sling with buckles on the ends, or the spring plate style attachments

... that's a not insignificant £77 outlay, and no-one seems to have them in stock in the UK anyway. I'll wait until I'm sure I like the GBBR gameplay experience before committing to that ?

Yeah, that's the case with these VFC 416 mags, the feed lips are the only way in or out. My TM Hi Capa mags are a breeze to load up in comparison. Still, I'm sure once that adapter is glued on and I've repeated the process a few times, it'll get easier too.

Ok, thanks Nick, I guess a bit of practice and I'll be good. I'll superglue the adapter on and get another of those speedloaders for my belt pouch.

I've just bought an Umarex HK416 GBBR. My first gas rifle, but I've had a couple of gas pistols already. I've worked out how to load the pistol mags pretty quickly, but the rifle mag is.... harder. I've got a cheapo M4 mag speed loader that's pretty rubbish... pressing the big button rarely outputs a BB. Might as well go in the bin. So, that leaves me with a couple of little pistol speed loaders. And one adapter. It's all a bit like herding cats Not using the adapter means trying to use finger tips to help funnel the BBs in one at a time against decent spring pressure and through the resistant rubber lips. Using the adapter, I found I can do it a little easier by tilting the loader at an angle. Obviously I have it pushed firmly onto the lips ('yub yub'), I left a gap in the photo so you can see 'em. With this approach quite a few of the BBs will go in, but there will inevitably be some more that manage to escape and ping off into the four corners of the room, or get jammed up without going in ('hurrr hurrrr'), or the adapter gets forced off (will superglue it on, if this is the best approach). :Sigh: Is there a trick to it, or an adapter I can buy? I've seen people use Odin speedloaders and I'm aware there are adapters for those, but Odin's seem to be hard to source... and it's a bit 'overkill' when I have this 1 (one, count it) magazine that I need to fill (That's "at the moment". Assuming I enjoy skirmishing with it then I'll buy at least a couple more) Or do I just have to accept they're fiddly little bastards, and loading mid-battle just ain't going to work? Any thoughts, as always, much appreciated!

Oopsies! Bit of an impulse purchase... Umarex HK416 A5 GBBR. It's my first gas rifle. Let's see if I can get by with 30 rounds instead of 300 in a mag ;] I've chucked the sight and grip on there... looks like the sight could come off the riser mount tbh. And I might change for a longer, or angled grip. But I think it does look rather smart, always had a soft spot for the looks of the 416

Yeah, can't argue with that. I went with the cheap option (KJ Works G19) because there's realistically every chance that two pistols are one too many in my loadout. I'll get to try out the Glock to see if that weird itch was short-lived or not, and I can move the gun on for what I bought it for, and upgrade to the TM 'as and when'. Edit: For anyone following this thread interested in a TM G17, there's one in the Classifieds (It's a gen 3 not the gen 4, so the smaller BBU, but it'll still be pretty damned good, I'm sure) In the meantime (and blowing my budget to bits), there's another Gas Blow Back gun about to join my collection...

If I do go ahead with a TM, it'll be because of the cold weather performance from the plastic slide, so although the metal upgrade would be nice, it's not so vital. I'm sure it'd be great in the summer though, and maybe I'll be trying to spend money I don't have at that point! I am unsure about the AA R17 with the plastic slide (and the cheaper-looking plastics) because it might still be a bit of a poor performer in the cold, and therefore £70 not brilliantly spent But, as I said, I'm sure I could recover most of my outlay if I don't like or use it. Also, rather annoyingly, I bought a specific Hi-Capa retention holster for my TM, rather than the AmoMax universal that I could have tweaked to hold this as well, so there's a bit of a shortfall in my kit that might be enough to stop me buying anything! Edit: Seems patrolbase have a lot of the retention holsters on sale for discounted prices, so I could get a universal, or even a specific Glock holster and swap over... https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/swiss-arms-adaptx-level-2-adaptable-holster?pv=16886 Edit2 : Bought @cart3rlfc's G19 so I'll have a Glock to try out... if it floats my boat then I'm sure the TM will happen in the future Thanks all!

No you can't Do you think the plastic slide will improve the winter weather performance much? Had another google to see if there were any cheaper prices than the £70 at Wolf. Hah, darned things used to be £57 at some retailers. That is proper 'impulse purchase' territory. Looking at SFA's unboxing video, I can see it does look pretty cheap, but also looks quite snappy... Special Ops usually have a selection of AA pistols for sale, I'll see if they've got one I can take a close look at. The TM... well it's still the best long-term option isn't it.

Thanks Roger, that's £70 new by the looks of it. https://wolfarmaments.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1179 Given the amount of skirmish use it'll actually get, it would be a logical choice. Especially as I'm sure I could punt it on for [not much less] if I still wanted the TM after I tried it. I've bought some tickets at the Airsoft Competitions site, so maybe I'll be winning a TM FNX or Glock soon anyway, because I'm always soooooo lucky in raffles and lotteries (NOT) Edit: Also bought tickets for the Cybergun Scar-PDW (which looks very nice, but is expensive) Ball 89 came out... which no-one had bought. Re-draw... Ball 88 came out. No-one had that either... I had ticket 87. Re-draw... someone else won. Bah humbug.

"Buy once, buy TM" seems to the regular take-away message

I've got this weird fascination with Glocks - weird because I always thought they were the crappiest looking mainstream gun in existence. But then I got to shoot one, just a few plinking rounds fired, and I "got it". I've been to the clinic, they couldn't clear it up. So although I really, really, really don't need another GBB pistol as my TM Hi Capa DOR is absolutely peachy, thank-you very much, I still keep looking in the classifieds and YT review videos. I tell myself "no" but "no really means yes", in this particular instance, I suspect. Now obviously the Gold Standard of shoot-ability is probably going to be the new gen4 Tokyo Marui. For mil-spec realism, probably the VFC / Umarex metal slide gen5? They're both knocking on at around the £160 mark. Should I hold out for one of those, or are the boneyard / bargain bins likely to yield something vaguely worthwhile? There are WEs and AAs that show up around the £60 mark, but if they're not going to shoot on a cold day, there's not all that much point. I've got some other fish frying / irons in fires, such as wanting a GBBR of some sort, or a Specna G36, which will probably drain my budget before I get around to this. But damnit, I might as well know what I'm going to do. Any thoughts and experience from The Hive Mind?

... having a chrono is very useful for identifying whether changes improve or spoil performance. This one from @Ak2m4 is cheap, but effective, if you're on a budget https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/ht-x3006-chronograph?search=CHRONO Argggh, just noticed its Out Of Stock. They're available at AliExpress if you don't mind a wait