The_Lord_Poncho

Kind of my experience too - I bought a Well L96 @£100, then an upgraded hop unit at £20 (didn't fit), another upgraded hop unit at circa £40, new bucking £8, new inner barrel £30, metal trigger box £30 (didn't fit), new spring, piston, guide £30, and finally a new Cylinder when the original one failed after a game or two -£80. In due course, the original plastic trigger will fail, and then i'm into an £80 replacement. Total spend - £340 so far, and will soon be £420 when the inevitable happens to the trigger. As an example, Patrolbase currently have the Nov SSG96mk2 for (an entirely coincidental) £340, which already has all of those 'upgrades', a trigger box that is unlikely to break, and the added benefit of a TDC hop. Plus you retain your consumer rights with it. I'm not sure if i purchased a lemon in the original Well L96 (albeit internet based chatter seems to indicate not), but it wasn't really useable in its stock form - generally outranged and outshot by most of the cheapest AEGs. It's shooting nicely now with all the upgrades, and there is a sense of satisfaction from doing it yourself.

I've only progressed the paypal claim earlier this morning so not heard back yet. Worst case, i only lose out on £20 - and frankly, less if i can work out how to extract the broken valve and replace it - so not the end of the world, but I was still rather surprised by the response!

I believe that the dimensions of the magazines are all the same - at least the manner in which they fit and lock into place in the grip - but i'll try to take some proper measurements later. The outlet valves do vary in appearance, from memory, looking variously like the below.

To counter the rather positive reviews above - I ordered 3 hicapa mags from them in late December. The pretty fast postage is unfortunately where the good service ends - one of the mags turned up with its fill valve missing its entire outer part - so is loose in the mag, with obviously no gas seal to speak of, and no way to tighten it. Their stock response after several emails is the same - 'we check every mag before its sent out, so you are lying'. Not great!

I’ve an issue with my Army Armament R34 (Glock 34) apparently light striking with all mags (inc WE, Action Army etc.) except the one that it came with. At least I assume the problem is light striking - a little pfft and an initial very low powered shot, with zero blowback. Pistol works perfectly however with the mag that it came with. I’ve tried an uprated 120% hammer spring (finding out in the process that Glock hammer assemblies are a pain to take apart , or more accurately, put back together), and it made no difference. In fact, the hammer then also had intermittent issues latching back/the sear catching. So I then popped in a full WE hammer assembly - making no difference - worked fine with the original AA R34 mag, but none others. Anyone got any suggestions? I have a WE spec BBU on order to try, but failing that, might I then need to look at modifying the WE mags somehow? I’d rather not invest in a load of new Army Armament mags, and instead use the 8 glock mags that I already have!

Hiking etc!

dribble a bit of silicone down there, let it work in, and then use something long and thin to give it a nudge?

I have the same lowas as you- to be honest, if you are struggling with them, then you really do have issues! My lowas are too expensive for Airsoft use, so I use a cheap pair of ankle height magnums ('ultima')- even lighter than the lowas and very very squishy/trainer like. They've lasted two years of reasonable use so far, albeit the waterproof membrane is non existent now. Very comfy. https://bootcampstores.co.uk/product/magnum-ultima-6-0-waterproof-boot/

Got a photo finally:

I have 3 IKEA skadis peg boards that I use, mounted on wood 'legs' long enough to reach the floor. In the spare room I have a couple of desks (for airsoft teching!) , and I can then sandwich the wooden legs between the back of the desks and the wall. Holds them very securely, but is a wife friendly option, allowing for removal without a trace when we have guests.

Scope type - in fact this exact one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005368187238.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.208.30621802F13b2w Very much at the budget end of the spectrum, but works well. Mount is serviceable, but requires the nut on the quick detach arm to be manually tightened each time it is replaced onto a rifle, otherwise its sloppy.

Unless your radio came pre-programmed on PMR446 channels (unlikely), I'd recommend when you get some spare time that that you re-programme your radios onto those licence free frequencies. Not that I am personally fussed about licences etc (and lets face it, the Baofengs don't comply with most of the other PMR446 rules) , but as the Baofengs have such a broad frequency range, there is a possibility that your signals could be interfering with other licenced frequencies that are used for somewhat safety critical operations (not the emergency services these days, but maybe e.g. hospital porters, warehouses, public transport, event security etc.). PMR 446 frequencies found in the bottom of this page if interested: https://www.radiotrader.co.uk/news/facts-about-licence-free-radios.htm#PMR446 Frequencies

Same for me to be fair. In fact, I've only recently embraced using a sight on my (non-DMR) AEGs at all. Until a month or so back, I'd just instinctively shoot with both eyes open, and if needs be correct and follow up with another few shots. Worked absolutely fine, but my head was turned on one memorable occasion when an enemy player and me spotted each other at the same time, at perhaps 30m. I missed with my first shot, whereas his was absolutely golden and nailed me in the face - using his red dot. Since then, I've been rather enjoying one - especially useful in woodland night games as I don't use a tracer and therefore can't walk the shots in.

Eye of the beholder and all of that, but am I the only one to think that vectors just look, well, wrong?

Every optic I have+ torch has a little perspex disc (ebay) attached to the front via a 3d printed collar. They are sacrificial - had the ones on a torch shot out twice, and originally one of those flip up protectors smashed to pieces, but they did their job. All in CQB mind....

A rather boring 180% nozzle return spring to try to sort out the issue of the brand new SSX303's trigger sporadically not resetting (yes I've emailed the retailer too for a solution!)

Awesome Sunday morning at Driver Wood. First game i was using the new SSX303, mags loaded with red gas. I can only surmise that it was too cold for it (8 degrees c) - even keeping the next mag warmed up in a pocket, FPS and range was wildly inconsistent, and dare fire three or more shots in succession, and the BBs dropped 10m on front of me. Still, managed to about break even, with a memorable charge with the Glock19 on a kid who wasn't keen to accept the (albeit low powered) hits from the SSX303! Second game I swapped onto a MK18 AEG that I had largely re-built from parts - its first proper skirmish, and it performed superbly. With a rolling objective capture, 25 re-spawns allowed for the defenders on each objective, I managed to pull off a flank that left me a few meters directly behind the objective being defended. Must have shot at least 10-15 of the enemy team (mostly a very unsporting in the back!) before those returning from their spawn lit me up good and proper. I'd like to think that my little action there was a key element to us winning that game. Also first game wearing my new Multicam Tropic combats - awesome! Cheapo set from Aliexpress, and only an hour or so needed on the sewing machine to lengthen the legs and sleeves to fit...

Driver Wood is an option - 80% of it is woodland (albeit much of that has now been opened up and is nowhere near as thick as it used to be). The remainder is open 'corridors' - with buses, helicopters, man made barriers etc - and tends to be a bit of a magnet for much of the action. Most games seem to make use of the whole area, so its up to you which patch you frequent.

Pure coincidence, but received a second hand AA R604 today. Annoyingly, it turns out that none of my WE 5.1 hicapa mags work in it, only the AA mag it came with (obviously) and....the mag that came with my ASG Combat Master (which i believe is OEM'd by SRC/is a branded babayaga). It was light striking on all the WE mags (possible solution an uprated hammer spring?).

I've wired/soldered a simple cheap (£20ish from memory) ASG mosfet into a couple of my guns, just to protect the trigger contacts. I was hoping that i would notice an increase in trigger response, but I suspect that any improvement is somewhat imagined. I have a few guns that don't have mosfets in (including a Cyma MP5), that i have used on a 7.4 battery for a few years without any drama at all. As an alternative to the Peruns recommended above, I recently popped a T238 mosfet (V2 1.9) from Aliexpress into a boneyard gearbox/gun that I fancied tinkering with. Cost of £27 including postage, a pretty simple operation, and works perfectly. Provides for a binary trigger, stops gearbox lock up+ overspin. To be honest, the main reason I fitted it was that a gearbox I bought had electrical issues. As the T238 eliminated the trigger contacts, and came with all the wiring etc, it was just as easy to pop that in, rather than re-wire and solder everything together to replace the standard electrics.

I made one of those bags - very quick to do, basically a sewn rectangle of fabric, left open at one corner, and the neck and cap of a 500ml drinks bottle superglued on. I think I did it after my first time airsofting as I found the same issue of BB's going everywhere when trying to pour them from the very soft poly bag the site that I started at gives you your rental BBs in. Whilst I now use midcaps, the bag is still going strong and gets used when I lend friends a gun+Hicap.

Oh, that's a new one on me - thanks for alerting us!

Thanks all for your thoughts. Actually, i hadn't considered that venting the mag a bit would help it cool, and create the necessary temperature difference to assist filling. That would actually have been quite useful for me to do the other evening when i had the mag filling issue, and possibly goes some way to explaining why people feel there is some truth in the 'air bubble/lock' issue - if the 'remedy' is actually solving a different problem they didn't realise they had! I think i need to resolve the lack of temperature differential in other ways too - I might need to sew up an insulated sleeve for the gas bottle, within which i can chuck in a disposable hand warmer on cold game days.

I've come across posts (generally not on this forum mind) which indicate that you can get air trapped inside your GBB magazines, and to remedy they advocate purging them. Usually via a process of depressing the knocker valve for a few seconds as you fill them. Is this really a 'thing'? It seems surprising to me that air can become trapped in a magazine - and that it wouldn't as a matter of course vent out when you fire a few shots. Without knowing anything about how gases behave, I would also naturally assume that when you fill a mag, the liquid gas you are injecting falls to the lowest point, and any air that is trapped, rises to the highest point - in which case, with the mag inverted how would depressing the knocker valve release anything other than liquid gas? I'm not trying to start a debate for the sake of a debate - after the second fill of my hicapa magazines the other night, I only managed a few lacklustre shots out of each. Almost certainly because it was pretty cold + the gas can i was filling from was the same temperature as the mags; but I'm wondering if in parallel there could be other things that I could do to help.

I think your problem is that you are clearly using the wrong wooden cylinder. Tropical hardwood is what you want, just not that Beech!