L1ct0r

Afternoon all So, I have a TWI Raptor SAG folding M4 buffer tube on my CYMA cm.040. It's a nice feeling sturdy alloy piece, but it only just engages with the standard latch on the back of the CYMA receiver. When it is engaged its fine, but it means that if anything so much as brushes the release button, or if I torque the stock too hard when shouldering it, the latch will disengage and the stock will fold up on me. Clearly, this is a less than desirable situation. Does anyone know if you can get a replacement stock latch with a longer claw? Probably only 3 or 4 mm would do it. Failing that, is there an aftermarket drop in that would make it into a fixed stock rather than a foldable? essentially something that would replace the latch part that is locked in place so it can't disengage? Failing that, if I design one, is there anyone out there who could fabricate it in metal from a CAD/Sketchup model? Any answers gratefully received

Another successfull spray job. Forend, carry handle and stock were all the same blue polymer as the UMP. Once again, the black was built up with several light coats, with about 20 minutes drying time between. Once the coverage looked right I left it for 24 hours and then gave it a couple of coats of matt laquer. Once I'd sprayed the laquer there were a couple of spots that went cloudy, but letting It all dry for another 24 hours and then buffing it out with a drop of olive oil on a kitchen towel got rid of it entirely.

Ha! To be honest, I don't mind if you call them silencers or suppressors. I'm not *that* much of a pedant. I seem to have fixed my particular issue. I applied gentle corrective pressure in an upward direction, just to see if anything happened. there was a *pop* and the barrel was aligned with the same horizontal as the top rail. I think the outer barrel just wasn't quite aligned with the guides it slides on to. My plan is to fit a longer barrel and then cover it up with a mock supprilancer. I am hoping that a brass barrel going all the way down the middle of the outer barrel and the silessor will give it enough rigidity to keep things in place. Hence Forth, I shall refer to the barrel attachment in question as tubeymakebanggopop. I'm airing on the side of leaving it front wired because I prefer the look of the lower profile M4 stock.

https://www.silencershop.com/blog/post/silencer-suppressor 😉 Hmmm. That sounds like a bit of a bollock. That said, the long barrel versions look fine, so It must be possible. I wonder if that's why all the Sportline models seem to be G36C's. Maybe its expensive to make a long straight G36 barrel?

Not fully finished by any means, but the stock adaptor turned up on tuesday, so I borrowed my sons suppressor and tried out a couple of M4 stocks I had laying around. Its currently front wired, the hand guard is pretty easy to remove, and has space for a two or three cell Lipo brick. Do I leave it like that, or do I rewire to the rear and set it up to take more common AEG Lipos in a crane stock? advantage of wiring it to the rear are it would move the center of gravity backwards, making the gun nicer to shoulder on an all day game, and it would take commonly available batteries. Advantages of leaving as is are that you can use a lower profile M4 Stock which will fold up nicer, you won't see any wires when the stock is folded, and you can quickly and easily put the original skeleton Stock on if you prefer that look. Thoughts? I know the barrel looks bent in the photos. As far as I can tell it isn't. the whole suppressor and barrel assembly is straight and correctly aligned with the inner barrel, but the whole thing might be angled downwards a fraction when fitted in the gun. more investigation may be necessary, possibly some shims.

EDcase makes a fair point. My last comment is probably coloured by the fact that myself, and most of my friends that airsoft, can't resist taking things apart. Knocking cans off the wall at 10 - 20 meters should be comfortably within the capabilities of a £150 gun from the manufactures already mentioned, and a stray BB will be less risk to others than a stray pellet from an air gun. On the other hand, as others have mentioned, a battery and charger are necessary for an AEG and may be hard to include with a decent gun for your £150 budget. While more powerful, a .177 air rifle would be more accurate for pure target shooting. Providing you have the outdoor space, used responsibly, it should not be substantially more risky than an airsoft gun. You should also find it easier to get everything you need, at reasonable quality, for your budget. The downside of this option would be that it will be single shot rather than semi or fully automatic, and you definatley couldn't shoot it at people.

Not a problem Kirsty. I don't know how you feel about such things, but if he's a sensible 14 year old and wants to shoot at targets then have you considered getting him an proper airgun and a half-way decent pellet catching target? Obviously, that would completely rule out shooting at 'live targets' (even brothers) but a decent starter airgun would be far more accurate for target shooting than any airsoft. If you are in the middle of nowhere and you've got somewhere on your property with a safe backstop to prevent any stray shots leaving your garden then that might be a far more rewarding option than a cheap airsoft. Target shooting is another of my hobbies. Shooting a perfect bullseye is always a rewarding feeling, and it's great for encouraging focus, responsability, concentration, and hand-eye coordination. https://www.pellpax.co.uk/airguns/air-rifles/spring-powered-air-rifles/proshot-fox-cub-combo-177/54 Something like the above link, plus a pellet catcher, a pack of targets and a tin of 500 pellets should be around your £150 budget One thing I think most people on this forum would back me up on, Airsoft guns are like British sports cars. They look nice, and can be a lot of fun, but they spend as much time in bits on the kitchen table as they do 'on the road', and thats the good ones. Cheap nasty ones aren't fit for purpose and will likely fall apart as soon as you take them out of the garage. A good little starter air rifle thats looked after and properly cleaned will keep doing its thing for years. That said, if shooting at brothers is a must then a pair of CYMA electric pistols and a couple of sets of eye pro is probably your best options for airsoft based garden fun. Personally, I'd recommend the CM.127 as a solid little pistol that should just run for years and is repairable if anything does happen to it. a couple of extra batteries and a bottle of 3000 BB's should keep them going for a while.

Hi Kirsty I'm sure people here can help you out. If anything, you run the risk of getting too much information. If you can provide a bit more info about your requirements then anyone answering can better tailor their advice. How old is your son? Is he hoping to play regular games at a proper skirmish site, or will this be a gun for back garden play? If he's going to use it in the back garden you might want to consider something in 2 tone colours to make sure the neighbours aren't going to phone the police at the sight of a young lad with a realistic looking black rifle. when you say you had a bad experience with CYMA, can I ask if you can remember what gun it was? CYMA definitely have budget models that are of a lower quality than their more expensive stuff, but in the price range you mention, you should be able to get a reasonable starter gun that is sturdy/powerful enough to take onto a skirmish site if that's his plan. One thing to look out for is really cheap guns that have plastic gear boxes and gears. From any manufacturer, these guns won't stand up to any lasting use and the gear boxes are often not just plastic copies of the metal ones, so you can't upgrade them at a later point. when you are looking at possible purchases, most guns with metal internals will mention it on the web site or the box somewhere. Another thing to be aware of, if this is going to be more for back garden fun. An automatic electric gun (AEG) built for skirmishing on a purpose built site can seriously damage things like eyes or teeth, especially at back garden distances. I'd consider protective eye wear a must for him and anyone nearby if you end up with something of that level. I'm also fairly certain it would be an offence under UK firearms law if projectiles fired within your garden were to pass outside of your property. If he's old enough, and you have a nearby site, have you considered getting him a days skirmishing using hire equipment instead? £150 is a lot of gun for occasional backyard use, and if he goes to a proper site and enjoys it enough to want to go back then there will likely be plenty of people there who can advise on what to buy to get him started. I hope you found this helpful and I didn't sound at all patronising. As you say you don't know anything about airsoft I didn't want to blind you with jargon or overly complex explanation. if you have any further questions, ask away. I'm sure other people will also be happy to put their advice forward. Regards, lain

I think the 9 rps is more a function of the non specific Nimh pack it came with. I was using that just to check it worked and see what sort of FPS I was dealing with. On the Skirmish day it lasted about a game and a half (50 minutes?) so I reckon its a duffer. I've got a GATE nanoASR to go in it, plus i'll rewire it with 16 guage wire and put some deans connectors on it. with a gearbox re-shim and a Lipo pack I'm pretty sure the RPS will improve without me having to do much else about it. If I'm going to keep it I might go further, but if I end up looking to sell I want to make It a solid base that someone else can build off if they want, but don't need to. Hopefully it'll have a bit of unique style and make someone a great first gun, or a reliable back-up work horse.

Cheers for the comment Jam. I do like a nice AUG. Do us a build thread if you start tinkering. I'm keeping my eyes open for a suitable M14 Socom. It would suit my play style and my regular site (quite woody, no really long sight lines) perfectly.

Cheers Loz, much appreciated.

I'm using Milanote for project planning, collecting reference images and generally keeping track of stuff. Out of interest, can anyone see my G36c board? It should be viewable on the following link: https://app.milanote.com/1OVs541EGnnzd3?p=QN3hsbkf31B If anyone else thinks Milanote looks interesting, then the basic account is free and allows you to create up to 100 individual items, i.e. a picture, a list, a comment box, etc. If you do decide to try it and you set up via my refferal link, then I get 20 extra items added to my allowance. This would be greatly appreciated and means I could start doing a viewable project board for future builds. No worries if It doesn't look like something of interest, but I figure I'm not hurting anyone by asking 😀. Link below: https://www.milanote.com/refer/rcE1UFqme45OgKzLSD cheers.

After having taken it apart completely (aside from the gearbox) I can find nothing to complain about on the Sportline model. If you paid more I'm sure you might get one that looked more real, but as toy guns go its fine. I chrono'd it before I started playing around and it was doing a solid 326 fps. From the outside it looks like its the same V3 gearbox as is inside the Sportline UMP45 (I see you have had a look on my thread on one of those). This G36 was also a two tone and the Vinyl Dye rattle can is doing an equally good job of covering all the blue. As far as construction goes, it seems solid but not necessarily made from the absolute premium materials. I'd say it's perfect if you want a solid skirmish day gun. If you want to stick it on the wall and pretend it's real then you might want to spend a bit more and get something a bit more high end. I'm pretty sure from the noise it makes when firing, and the fact it's got a barrel that is only a bit longer than the UMP, I'm going to find it's got a full cylinder but with a fairly poor air seal meaning it behaves like it has a ported cylinder. The gear box shell looks pretty solid, but it would probably benefit from a radius job on the front end. Unless you put a quite long barrel on it it's going to be over-cylindered if you fix the poor air seal. Now I've worked out the barrel can take attachments I'm thinking mock suppressor and longer barrel (300-330mm), then I should be able to fix the air seal and tone the spring down a bit so it can do an all day 325-330 fps without straining it guts. It should be an ok looking gun with pretty bomb-proof internals that will just run and run.

Milanote project board here: https://app.milanote.com/1OVs541EGnnzd3?p=QN3hsbkf31B if you want your own Milanote account the basic account is free and if you use my link to sign up, I get some extra space to make more boards you might be interested in. Referal link: https://www.milanote.com/refer/rcE1UFqme45OgKzLSD So, recently I picked up one of these guns second hand. Mainly to have fun tinkering and see what I could create. depending on what happens it may become a back-up gun, or I may see if anyone is interested buying it off me. As I continue to work on it, I thought I'd stick up the occasional post if I discover anything interesting that other people might want to know. One initial thought I had was putting a longer barrel on it, hidden by a longer external barrel or a mock suppressor. I had heard from various internet explorations that the stock plastic flash hider on the Sportline models was either molded onto the plastic outer barrel, or threaded but glued on. After a bit more research and looking at stuff about the Sportline UMP, it turns out that the G36 flash hider is threaded, and glued on. whatever adhesive they used is pretty unshiftable, until you warm it up. Some careful use of a heat gun (get it so the flash hider feels hot, but not too hot to grip firmly) and it should just unscrew easily (mine did, I guess different production runs may have used different adhesive). Underneath the thread seems like a pretty standard 14mm CW. I have a specna arms 14mm CW to 14mm CW adaptor and that fits perfectly, so thats what I'm going with. I would guess that any 14mm CW attachment or adaptor will do the same. The specna adaptor screws up nice and tight and looks perfectly straight, I'll probably put a bit of lock tight on it once I'm satisfied that its staying installed. My guess is that whoever manufactures the guns for Umarex (I think it might be S&T) sells into various territories, some of which require toy guns to come with orange tips and others which don't. Making the outer barrel and the flash hider as a two part assembly means it's easy to add a black or orange hider, depending on the recieving territory, without having to make two different types of main outer barrel. Whatever the reason. It's nice to know that you can quickly and easily modifiy the outer barrels on these without having to order expensive upgrade parts from Hong Kong (thats assuming you can find them these days). Happy teching.

Here is a shot of it now that I've finished the respray. When I got it the upper body was made of that two tone blue plastic, rather than being a black one with a retailer spray job. Mag and lower reciever are the original black finish from the factory. I'm very happy with the match. I also opened up the mag and sprayed the fake rounds to look more realistic. The M4 stock is on a 3D printed adaptor and it still folds flat against the body when stowed. The lower rail section under the forend was missing and the bolt holes were partially stripped so I sourced a new bit of rail section and some more bolts. It's now permanently attached, as the best way of attaching the new section was to JB weld the bolts into the rail section and then more JB weld to fix the bolts into the holes. It looks proper and it's plenty strong enough to be used for attachments. Over all I'm happy with the way it's turned out. Pre-covid and the shipping crisis, I would like to have picked up a metal outer barrel for it and fitted a suppressor and a longer inner barrel, but those are like rocking-horse poo these days so it will have to go without. It's nicely shimmed and lubed internally. Chronos about 330fps on 0.2g BBs I would say vinyl dye and a matt lacquer top coat is a success.

So, it's been a while but I'm done with holidays and the kids are back in school and I've finally had a chance to play. I ordered this stuff https://www.vinyldye.co.uk/All-Vinyl-Dye-Color-Sprays/TRG-Vinyl-Dye-Spray-Paint/Black-Vinyl-Dye-Plastic-Paint-By-TRG and a can of the Matt finish clear varnish https://www.vinyldye.co.uk/Matt-Clear-Spray-Varnish The gun is an Umarex Sportline UMP 45 and the upper is made from a blue polymer, rather than just a black one that has been sprayed. I stripped the gun and took all parts off the upper so it was just a bare polymer shell, then gave it a light sanding all over with a 400 grit wet and dry paper. After sanding I rinsed it off with warm water and an old tooth brush and then gave it a final wipe over with isopropyl alcohol (99%). I applied the black dye in several very light coats (maybe 5 or 6). building it up with 10-20 minutes drying time between coats. Once full coverage was achieved I left it for 2 days. The finish at this point was excellent, with no pooling in markings, and the original texture of the polymer surface was preserved. the colour was an excellent solid black, but the finish was noticeably gloss. After a couple of days to make sure it was well cured, I applied the matt finish today. Two light coats with about 10 minutes between. After letting it dry the finish was a very good match for the black polymer of the lower and the black folding stock. I would say on very close inspection you can notice a very slight difference between the original black parts and the re-sprayed upper but overall the results are excellent. I believe that it may just be a case of adding a final application of the matt finish, but I've got a good result as is, so I'm not going to risk going to far. The only minor issue I found was that I accidentally sprayed too heavily in one isolated area and the finish dried cloudy in that one area. Once it was no longer tacky to touch, I put little olive oil on a paper towel and buffed the cloudy area and it want back to black. Further buffing with an oil free towel removed the shine from the oil, but the cloudy effect did not return. I think this trick would not save the finish if you applied too heavily all over , but in limited areas that are just a bit to heavily coated it seems to work well to save the overall finish. I'll put some photos up when the varnish coat has also had a day or two to harden and I've re-assembled the gun.

Yeah. The ZCI piston isn't tight in the cylinder normally. I'm talking about when I block the nozzle with my finger and then push the piston in as it would when under load from the spring. According to the previous owner, he skirmished the gun for about six years without ever servicing or upgrading it. The gearbox shell is steel and looks pretty bomb-proof. I've radiused the shell, but honestly I'm inclined to leave it as is. It's been doing regular skirmishes for that long with no signs of wear, and it's making 335 fps on the internals that are in there. I think the old adage of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' applies here. If something starts playing up I'll revise - or if a ported cylinder happens to fall into my lap I might experiment further to see what happens. Cheers for the input though. It sounds like my initial diagnoses wasn't a million miles off.

So a while back I acquired a second hand Umarex sportline UMP45. A few external bumps and scratches, but mechanically felt solid and looked in good shape. I stripped it down, cleaned it, shimmed and regreased it and had it running at around 335fps with the hop set for .2s. This was without changing any internals and the previous owner assured me he had owned it from new and never been inside it. I have no reason to disbelieve him and I had to break the factory warranty seal to get in, so it all seems above board. While stripping and cleaning I found that despite hitting 335 on the chrono, the stock nozzle/cylinder/piston had no air-seal to speak of. I had to leave it to go on holiday, but when I came back I swapped out the old piston for a nice new ZCI piston and head. even on the stock cylinder/nozzel this instantly created a good air seal when testing it outside of the gearbox. Everything went back together without a hitch and sounded like it was running smoothly, but all of a sudden the chrono is giving me 325 with the hop set for .2s. I put the old piston back in, and it's back up to 335. One theory is that the good air seal on the ZCI piston is slowing the piston travel down so much that a badly sealed piston traveling faster is actually able to produce higher FPS. My other thought was that the stock set-up is an unported cylinder with a short barrel (around the 200mm mark). Is it possible that that should be over volume for the barrel length, but the terrible air seal is essentially doing the same job as a port. If that was the case, fixing the air seal would be removing the 'port'. Can over-voluming reduce FPS? I'm pretty new to teching, so if anyone with more experience has any ideas then I'd love to hear them. I should add the stock piston head has 4 vents while the ZCI has 8 and a noticeably chunkier o-ring. Putting the ZCI o ring on the old piston head also provides a noticeably better air seal, but I am getting the best fps figures with the old piston and old o-ring. It also seems a tiny bit more accurate with the old piston set-up, but that could just be me imagining things. What does the hive-mind think?

Interesting stuff. I shall take it under advisement and report back. I'm just about to go camping for a week, so I plan to experiment with re-colouring the upper when I get back. I think I'll try the spray stuff first because it suits my setup better. But if that doesn't work I'll definitely look at trying the bath approach

Cool info gents. I didn't know there was a boil-in-the-bag style solution. The stuff I'm talking about is a spray. You apply it just like normal spray paint, but you have to build it up with several very fine coats with curing time in between. https://www.vinyldye.co.uk/TRG-Vinyl-Dye-Spray-Paint/TRG-Vinyl-Dye-Spray-Paint-Large/Black-Vinyl-Dye-Plastic-Paint-By-TRG I'll have to look into the heat in a pan stuff as well - although I don't think I have a big enough pan to get a whole UMP45 upper into.

So, I've got a second hand Umarex UMP45. The upper body is two-tone blue and I want it black. The problem is that it's not a black upper that has been sprayed blue, its made of blue polymer, meaning a normal spray job would reveal the blue again as it wears with use. I have previously heard of people using vinyl dye to customise NERF blasters because it actually seeps into the outer layers of the plastic and physically changes the colour of the material, meaning it doesn't wear off like a normal paint job. After a bit of research, it looks like its not hard to get hold of and it's not difficult to apply in a home workshop setting. It doesn't seem prohibitively expensive, as a single can would do several guns - but it's also not cheap enough that I want to waste it if it doesn't actually work with the sort of polymer that airsoft shells are made from. Does anyone have any experience with using vinyl dyes on airsoft polymer surfaces? Do you have any tips or tricks? Is there anything to watch out for? Before anyone replies to say that spraying a two-tone black is illegal - it isn't, providing you have a valid defence (I have this from a serving police officer who airsofts). Being a regular airsoft skirmisher is a valid defence under current UK law. Cheers in advance for any info people can share on this topic. Assuming I go ahead with it, I shall write up the experiment for the benefit of anyone who wants to try it for themselves.

We have some serving police officers that play at our site. I asked one this same question. I paraphrase his answer below. Don't have your RIF on display in public, the firearms squad will treat it as a real weapon until they have satisfied themselves that it isn't. If you are stopped by the police while transporting it (in the boot of the car, or in some kind of slip while on public transport, etc) you will need some form of defence for having it in public. 'I am an Airsoft skirmisher on the way to an Airsoft site' is such a defence. You don't actually need a UKARA number to use that defence and having one is not a magic license to do stuff, it is just an easy way to legitimise your claim because you need a registered site to vouch for you in order to get one. As stated above, you can manufacture a RIF if you have a valid defence. Being an Airsoft skirmisher is such a defence. If a concerned citizen sees you manufacturing a RIF through the kitchen window and calls the police about seeing a scary black gun then the firearms squad won't know you are an Airsofter until they have kicked your door in, and that will be your fault for not being careful enough.

I picked up a 2 point sling for mine from ebay. I got one with the quick adjustment cam on the strap, which works very well. You can quickly loosen then tighten again to shift position from front slung to rear slung, or to cinch it in tight as another point of contact when in the aim. definitely very usefull and worth having. Try and get one with some sort of quick release at at least one end. while I'm here, does anyone have any idea what rating the stock spring is on the latest AS-02 rifles available in the UK might be? I've had chance to chrono mine now and it was shooting 410-420 fps with the stock Spring and .20g BBs. With .30g it was getting around 380 fps. I've got room to upgrade the spring without exceeding site limits but I don't really want to spend loads of money upgrading everything else to cope. My local site is small and very wooded so I don't need monster range. I just want to push those .30s a bit faster but I don't want to start buying new springs until I know what I'm running at the moment. Any help greatfully recieved, Thanks

Thanks for the speedy reply mate I found a site with the AA hop wheels in stock, so I've got one of those on the way. Glad to hear I've got the latest version of the gun. What does a one-piece cylinder do for me? Does that mean that I don't need to worry about replacing it at all, or would an after-market one still be better, but no longer a 'requirement'? Do you have any recommendations for a new hop rubber (assuming I'm only going to replace the rubber and add a TDC wheel)? I'm not so bothered about the noise as long as the BBs are going where I point them. So what BBs would you recommend? Is it worth going to .3s or .25s or should I just stick with .2s? Does my new-style body pin mean it would continue to work fine with a custom cylinder, or would I still have to get rid of the cocking indicator for continued smooth operation? Do you have any recommendations for cleaning the inner barrel? I have heard the best way is to take the inner barrel out of the hop unit and clean it with alcohol rather than any sort of gun oil. Thanks again

Hi Hopefully I'm not reviving a completely dead topic. I've just picked up a new AS-02 as my first bolt action. My knees are feeling too old to run and gun and my local site is quite small and mostly wooded, so I'm looking for more of a scout rifle concept than a full-on long range sniper. I've got two 14 year olds who are happy to charge in on full-auto so I'm just going to sneak about in the bushes and take things slower. I've watched a lot of videos about various upgrades and I think I probably need to do a few things to make mine what I want. Also, I just like to tinker. Looking around it seems hard to find some of the things like the ED 1 cylinder upgrade kits and the hop adjustment wheels. Speaking from 2022 in the UK, what do the experts recommend as 'must have' mods these days, and where should I look for them? I'm generally pretty competent, so I'm happy to do most work myself as long as there is a decent walk-through video to follow. I've not chrono'd it yet, but the shop said it should be running about 400 fps as is, although I don't know what BB weight that is with. They may also be fibbing, or guessing. For my local site, I don't think I need to up the fps if it is near the figure I've been quoted. I'm most interested in finding the best bb weight for it and then making it as accurate as I can as well as anticipating known weak points (like low quality stock cylinder, etc) and replacing them before something fails. At the moment I'm thinking something like better hop rubber with the adjustment wheel upgrade and tighter barrel as well as a good after-market cylinder so I just don't need to worry about that either. On a related note. I pulled the body pin earlier while familiarising my self with basic field stripping procedure. I notice that on mine the cocking indicator looks nothing like the one I've seen in videos warning against problems caused with using custom cylinders. Have Ares redesigned that part recently? Mine looks nothing like the blade/spring arrangement I see in the videos. It's more like a little silver bullet-point and I can't see how I would begin to attempt to remove it without replacing the entire part (pictures attached for anyone who is interested). I'm interested in hearing what people who have been there before me would recommend to a first time AS-02 owner. All tips and info gratefully received