Colin Allen

Excellent! That is a success.

Mine had the classic Ares piston failure years ago and is on its second micro switch. Having opened it up, it seems that the threaded part of the cap that locks the spring guide into place had given up, allowing the spring guide to bounce around, which had jammed the piston. Fortunately, it was a plastic toothed piston so the gears survived. I have fabricated a replacement from a bolt and a piece of steel and moved everything into a replacement gearbox as one of the internal threads at the front of the old gearbox had stripped and the other was on the way out. All seems good.

Do the new guys running the site require players to wear helmets?

Today the lad and I were at an invitation-only day at Airsoft Plantation. Rather than the usual 150-200 players, there were forty of us, plus a group of playing marshals. Unfortunately, due to weather damage in the woods, the planned game could not take place; however, John, who runs the site, quickly came up with a set of alternatives that utilised the rest of the site. The day started badly for me, with my extremely old PTS/Ares Masada committing seppuku while I was setting it up. Given the poor availability of parts for such an ancient and unique RIF, I am not sure that it can be repaired. Therefore, I had to switch to the A&K version of the Masada, which performed valiantly all day. The first game was a simple attack and defence of the recently enlarged village; as the defenders, we had three lives in or touching a building, while the attackers, whose aim was to kill us all, had infinite buddy regens after a 30m fallback. For once, the lad and I started in completely different positions; he was on the left by the lake, while I was on the far right. This game was a good start to the day, with the attackers pressing hard and us resisting strongly, forcing them to take their time. As was to be expected from such an event, the level of play was excellent, with good communications, excellent hit taking and good sportsmanship. Eventually, of course, they killed all of us and took the village. After a short break to refill mags, the game was reversed; the lad and I were on different sides of the advance, with me going down the right and him on the left. I had a few good exchanges with defenders as we broke into the village. When the final defender fell after a gallant stand, we had completed the mission 2 minutes and 14 seconds more rapidly than the blue team. Hurrah! The next game was rather different and was based on part of the originally planned game. Each team was divided into four squads, each of which had part of a code in an envelope. Each player had three lives, after which they had to go to John at the hillfort, whereupon they would be allocated another three lives or given a mission. However, once the player carrying the envelope was hit, they had to hand the envelope to an enemy player, who would take it to John. The winner would be the first team to get all four parts of the enemy's code to John or, if neither team managed this, the team who got most parts of the code to him. The marshals, acting as a UN peacekeeping force on the border between the two teams, would try to keep the peace by shooting at players trying to infiltrate into the other team's territory. Our squad started by trying to flank around the site, coming up behind the enemy's start point at the DEA Base. Having avoided the UN forces, we ran into a large group of the enemy, so fell back in a highly organised manner. After this, the game became gloriously chaotic, with squads disintegrating as casualties were taken and new squads forming from the casualties. Having teamed up with other players for a while, I eventually met up with the lad and some of the rest of our squad near the Boathouse, from where we joined in an attack on the mortar pits. After a lot of wonderfully confused actions, including a small private war against the UN forces, the game came to an end. We had managed to get three elements of the blue team's code to John, while they got only one part of ours to him. Hurrah! Another victory! The lad, who had been carrying our squad's envelope, still had it with him when we got home. Next, we played a convoy game with the blue team forming the first convoy. They had to get their youngest player, who was at the front, to the building at the far end of the main street in the village. As the defenders, we could deploy within 20m of the street. The convoy players had infinite lives, while we had two. The catch was that the blue team could not break formation or shoot until they had been fired on. We decided to let them get just over half way along the street before opening fire. The lad and I positioned ourselves near the start of the street, so that we could deal with the tail of the convoy. Once the shooting had started and the enemy were able to move off the street and move 20m into the village, we harassed them, slowing down their advance and slowly falling back, while carrying out small hit and run attacks on them. Eventually, of course, they completed their mission after wearing down our forces. This was then switched around; the lad and I took up position at the rear of the convoy so that, when the shooting started, we could dash into the village and attempt to roll up the defenders on that side. This worked really well as we and a couple of other players pushed into the village, taking out defenders and supporting the general advance. We completed our mission, unfortunately taking 4 minutes and 12 seconds longer than the blue team. Boo! For a final game, we went to the mortar pits to play last man standing, with the marshals forming the initial attacking team. In this, I got a lovely grenade kill on a group of attacking players who had taken up a position behind the Bedford, lobbing a paper pyro over an earth berm; the cry of "Oh fuck!" just before it went off was very satisfying. This ended a great day of airsoft, played very sportingly with great hit taking. We will definitely attend the next invitation-only game that is organised at AP, if we are invited. Weapons used: Me: A&K Masada ASG XP18 Commander (CO2) The lad: G&G M4 No 1 G&G M4 No 2 ASG XP18 Commander (CO2)

I would still try changing both the hop unit and the nozzle.

I would start by swapping out the hop unit or pairing it with a Maxx nozzle; the Maxx hop units are very picky and can be prone to power fluctuations if they are not happy.

Try the new battery; however, it looks like your trigger is not always resetting properly in semi. I suspect it is some sort of trigger trolley/trigger interface/COL issue; it might be that the trigger is not engaging with the trigger trolley properly due to wear on one or both or that the COL is engaging badly with the trigger trolley. If the battery does not do the trick, you are going to have to open the gearbox up.

When you say that it doesn't shoot, what do you mean? Do you mean that the gearbox does not cycle or that it cycles and no BB's come out if you have a loaded magazine in it? Do you know the rating of the spring?

They might be realistic, but are they uber-realistic? Would I be making an assumption if I was to state that they might not be realistic enough for our new friend?

I heard it in my most utterly pedantic professor's voice:

Will you be selling an uber-realistic AR?

One does not make up an assumption, one makes an assumption. As an interested spectator, I am wondering what you are going to do if he does make another assumption about you.

CYMA make a 74 with wood furniture; however, the wood is not very good.

Yes, CO2 all year.

Ouch! That is a tough shift; been there, done that.

Excellent. We both run the ASG XP18 Commander, which is a variation on a Glock. The lad had his serviced by Sam at Kingdom of Airsoft, who did an amazing job on it.

CO2 is much better in winter. My son and I have been running CO2 pistols for a few years now and would not go back. Which one have you bought?

Correct.

If you want to obtain a UKARA registration, which is actually just a site membership number, you have to play 3 games at that site over a minimum of two months, e.g. the third game being 56 days or more after the first. There is no other way of doing it. UKARA registration only provides a defence relating to airsoft toys, not to any other form of imitation firearms. You probably should have checked the rules on importing imitation firearms before you ordered one from overseas.

If it doesn't, I can bring a gun for you for the 7th.

I have booked. Same here. I cannot remember when I last used full auto; I very occasionally use a three round burst.

Thanks for what seems to be a very objective review. It is a long way from me so I will probably never play there but, as DanBow stated, it is good and rare to see such a review.

A 7.4v battery with standard 18:1 gears and a standard G&G motor will be a bit sluggish. The G&G ETUs are designed to work with higher voltage batteries; the best thing to do is to swap the board for the Perun ETU++. Not only is it better quality and works with 7.4v batteries, but you also get adjustable precocking.

The G&G ETU generally does not like 7.4v batteries.