The_Lord_Poncho

2-3 times per month for me - at least 1 woodland weekend morning, and at least one Wednesday evening CQB. The weekday evening games are easier to get a 'pass' for, but not quite as enjoyable - at least from me! I'm lucky to live only 15 minutes or so from the place I generally play at, so as I only play mornings at the weekend, i can be back home by 12:20ish, thus not eating into too much family time.

If you are going to the trouble/expense of upgrading the barrel and hop unit, then yes, it would seem to make sense to put in a quality bucking. I personally use Maple Leaf (look up the pro's and cons of decepticon vs autobot and silicone vs rubber), and ensure that you choose the correct hardness (expressed as 'degree') - 50 degree would probably be optimal for a pistol. I hear that Flamingo buckings are also highly rated, but I've never used them myself.

I'd be interested in this too - the trigger pull is one of the worst bits of the pistol. Does it still allow you to work it in single action - i.e. manually lock the hammer back? I have a tendency to inadvertently depress the hammer against me/my kit when playing, and vent all of the gas in a mag as a result, so i tend to leave the hammer cocked back when its holstered to prevent this.... edit - just found a tutorial at this link. https://www.onmymk.com/post/2017/10/11/Double-Action-Double-the-effort Still interested whether it allows the hammer to be manually locked in the cocked position though....

I'll explore whether i can get a pass....!

which day? I might try and nip along myself if i can one morning.

Thank you for the explanation, this makes sense! I think i am going to strip it down, sand and polish the inside of the receiver where the bolt tracks, check the barrel and hop is seated correctly, and re-tighten the upper (TTI carbine) receiver to the lower, in case the mags aren't sitting quite right for some reason. I might also try withy a range of different BB's in case the .32g Vorsk i was using aren't playing ball when the metal work gets a little colder than room temperature. Trouble is, i need to wait until a coldish day outside to try to replicate the game conditions again!

Hmm - that's interesting. So what you are saying is, the MAPP gas isn't likely to be a workable solution, at least not for the second half of the mag? I would have presumed that the gas would stay mixed and the different components of the gas vent equally through the mag's load. I think I need to look at more of the mechanical side of things then, and work out why, (only) when cold, it's not scooping a new BB from the mag.

I was using a mixture of mags- the original Action Army one, three army armaments, two We standard sized, two we extended. They all behaved the same, albeit the extended ones did feed a few times first before failing.... I'm wondering if somehow the TTI receiver is two tight, causing the metal to shrink slightly when it gets cold, and rub on the bolt- just enough to stop it fully retracting to pick up a BB? Albeit I didn't notice a loss of the full range of movement of the bolt, and it wouldn't even fire the first BB after manually cocking it...

To add to this - you mention that you have applied PTFE to the hop rubber - I've needed to be careful when doing this myself in the past, as you keep the tension on the tape as you wrap, it can pull the rubber around the barrel so that the mound is not sitting centrally in the window. End result, more hop applied to one side of the BB, meaning it curves off during its flight.

Thanks ! I'll order some MAP gas, and give that a go then. Would swapping to a lighter bolt help matters (e.g. the 5KU lightweight bolt)? Do we think that the 150% nozzle return spring is helping or hindering?

So I have recently built up an AAP carbine – based around the TTI PCC kit, with a 210mm inner barrel. In terms of working parts, the only upgrade has been to add in a 150% nozzle return spring. In testing, everything worked absolutely fine – reliable feeding, good accuracy/range, and shooting at about 1.2 j (its semi locked). However, in its first game at the weekend, it initially chronoed at 0.7J for a couple of shots, and thereafter entirely failed to feed on any of my mags. Weirdly the bolt still happily cycled back and forth with every shot, it just wouldn’t feed. It was circa 14/15 oc, and the mags were filled with pure propane from a plumbers bottle. Back home at the end of the day – everything now feeding happily again at circa 20 oc. I know that gas guns don’t do well in the cold, but at 15 oc surely it isn’t that cold? And why would the bolt still be happily cycling but the gun not feeding – this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me? Any thoughts welcome + any potential solutions!

That's really interesting. I have a fairly positive view of the marshalls there - there is usually 4 or 5 per game, and 2 or 3 are usually older, more mature, and happy to get stuck in to sort issues out. The younger ones, much less so. I've been rather a lot, and only have seen one proper incident of aggression between players that left a bad taste. To be fair, the marshalls were right on it that time. Cheating, I've not really much of a barometer, but generally not something that I feel happens enough to spoil a game. The teams are never deliberately imbalanced in my strong view, but I can see where that accusation might come from - briefing takes place from a stage, and then the players are divided down the middle, counted, and the requisite number of people asked to volunteer to swap to the other side. BUT - it is always the case that significantly more young kids and rental players always stand on the left hand side (when facing the stage) - not really sure why this is - but probably because there is more space, and its less intimidating to be a little further away from the regulars/more seasoned players. This does therefore mean that there are usually more rentals on one side than the other - definitely something that the site ought to sort out! Re. pauses - I only play mornings - yesterday's 2.5 hour game aside, usually you get two games in a morning - 09:30'ish to 10:30, 30min break then 11:00 - 12:00. I presume the same pattern for the afternoons, but I wouldn't know! I'd definitely like a shorter (or no) break - 10 mins to grab a quick drink and bomb up the mags would be plenty.

Dogtag is adequate, Driver Wood is pretty good in my view. But then i haven't been to Worthing or Southdowns, so i can't form a comparison for you I'm afraid. My slight whinge in my post above aside, I'd be interested to hear what other negatives that you've heard for Driver Wood.

This last Sunday I had the first rather average morning I've ever had at Driver Wood. They seemed to be experimenting with a longer (2.5 hrs) game rather than two shorter games and a break- fine - I'm happy with that. At least 30 minutes extra game time packed into the morning, and of course people free to head to the safe zone for a break whenever they wish. What was less good was the decision to relocate the team spawns to the far corners of the playing area in order to spread people out all around the map. The Orange team spawn was hidden in a dense maze of rhododendron right on the edge fo the map - I genuinely spent 15 minutes walking in circles trying to find it, and even the times I managed to locate it first time, it was a tedious 5-10 minutes trudge from the middle of the playing area there and the same back. I know there is a balance to be struck - ultra quick re-spawns can be equally frustrating if you are trying to dominate and take objectives and the enemy players that you take out are re-emerging under a minute later (knowing exactly where you are). But being taken out of a game for 10+ minutes once you are hit is just boring. Driver Wood doesn't seem to suffer endemic cheating, but yesterday morning was different - with most players choosing to retreat a few hundred meters when hit, wait in a bush for a few minutes, and then come back into play rather than trudge off to try to locate the spawn. And frankly, I sympathise! Lets hope that they stick with the 2.5 hour games to maximise playing time, but have a careful re-think about spawn locations and suitable playing area size for the numbers.

Like the Sniper head nets that we were once issued for an exercise in the west of scotland - perversely not to use as a base for a ghillie head and shoulders - but rather to protect against the clouds of famously microscopic scottish midges. Seemingly ignoring the fact that the nets in question having holes that were circa 1cm x 1cm sized.....

We were actually issued waterproof samsungs, with secure comms apps for certain things, including urban. Never got a nice pouch for them though!

Kind of counts for this thread I suppose - A TTI PCC carbine build around an AAP-01. 210mm Unicorn Airsoft inner barrel+ unicorn hop rubber that came with the barrel. 3d printed short stroke buffer, semi lock selector plate, and angled fore grip. Performance seems pretty decent - good accuracy and hop at 1.2 joules (305fps) on a .28g bb - I'll try some heavier ones later. Whole thing is very solid, and rather light/'pointable'. Only bit that is annoying me is the octarms M-Lok handguard - even with no shims there is a gap at the back of it of at least 4mm between it and the receiver. I might need to try a different design that doesn't simply rely on set screw holes in the barrel nut and shims to align.

I'll give this a go, thanks for the tip!

Albeit if that example in the photo - laden as it is with all the 'bells and whistles' - is in any way lighter than the L85, I'll eat my hat! I've been known to sack the issued grip pod thingy into the locker and swap the susat for irons on certain occasions in a desperate yet somewhat futile attempt to try to reduce the weight of the L85.

Cracking evening of CQB this past Wednesday at Invicta Black Site. As always well run, very very little time waiting around between games, and fast paced jumpy CQB action in pitch black darkness. New Glock 34 was playing up (mag related I surmise), so most games played with the ASG JW3 hicappa (bought second hand from the classifieds for peanuts, and thousands of rounds later continues to perform flawlessly), and the Double Eagle UTR45 (great, but in tight CQB I still prefer a pistol). Quite pleased with my performance, but as ever, the more tired I get in the later games, the more fast, frantic, and poorer thought through my movements seem to become - with so many more players getting the drop on me as a result. I really need to work on slowing down my pace in the last few games and taking a breath... Took some of the most painful hits i have (drew blood through my clothing) - so its convinced me that, heat be damned, I need to invest in a plate carrier when playing indoors! Only negatives (aside from the overly painful hits) was that, when you have an hours drive home and the last game doesn't finish until 11pm, you really could do without waiting 10 minutes for a marshal to unlock the car park gate and sign you out....

100% my thinking too! Only drama being, as long as my wife doesn't see all my black M4s/ARs in one place at the same time, i'm ok and it is entirely plausible that I own just the one..... A tan rifle will somewhat stand out as new......

I have a number of different Lipo batteries that fit different shooters, so always use the storage charge function on them after a game day- whilst I wouldn't tend to leave it over a month between games,there is no garuntee that any particular battery wouldn't end up being left for months on end. And it's not really any hassle.

Or a lightweight molle only chest rig - e.g. the new one out by Mil-tec that's a little over £20 - and some cheap Osprey mag pouches. You can always add different/bigger pouches later on in your airsoft career. The Osprey MTP mag pouches (both in 1 mag, and 2 mag flavour) are insane quality and blow most commercial pouches out of the water, yet can be had on ebay for £2-3 each (and many are brand new). I'm surprised not to see more of them in use.

Ah, that would explain why the CTR stock i bought a month back got returned to seller before it left china then! (refunded by AE as soon as i spotted the return on the tracking and requested it)

Loads of stuff ordered over the years - the majority has arrived before it's due date, and 99% turns up. There is the odd thing that has never arrived, but I've always been refunded no questions asked.