Ian_Gere

If you're like me and can't rely on your memory for the details of instructions a few hours after receiving them, yeah some kind of pad and pen probably is a good idea, or you could use your phone, or a tablet. In December waterproof is probably a good idea also. I have an A6 size waterproof pad and DPM pouch for it - it is surprisingly heavy for such a little thing. I suspect that a little flip top notebook from WH Smiths in a ziploc baggie would do the trick just as well and would be a lot lighter. You will probably be given a printout map of some kind and I spose that could be handy to have in a waterproof forearm map pouch with a window which lets you examine it without getting it out, but again, folded in half (or folded to show the most relevant bits on one side) and placed inside a ziploc baggie would probably do fine. I have a printout map of my local site in such a bag which has lasted like that for a couple of years - if I wear my British Assault Vest it can go in one of the mesh internal zip pockets, but I've put it semi-rolled in a PLCE utility pouch, loose behind my WAS RICAS vest, and just loose inside my shirt also - I don't need it to find my way around, but it has been useful to show other people a few times. Tactical sweeties (I recommend mint humbugs) to keep your mouth moist while you're running around save you from drinking more water than you need and spending all day with your nob out in the fire zone... best kept in a pouch, because body heat in a pocket can make them very sticky and difficult to remove from the wrapping. If you don't have one, water in a Camelbak / hydro pouch is always a good idea when going back to the safe zone regularly is not part of the plan and, if you will be 'in game' for a couple of days, getting a removable bite valve/tap combo will allow you to easily decant water from your hydro pouch into an aluminium Crusader cup and make a brew on a hexi cooker. If night operations are part of the event, you will probably benefit from having a very dim torch as well as one or more bright ones, preferably UV, which the opposition will not be able to see from even close by, let alone far off (bear in mind that in woods at night it is extremely dark so even the tiniest amount of light, such as the poxiest fraction of a lumen which bounces off the ground to be reflected off branches above you, can be seen by anyone whose night vision is 'in', as it were, ie not recently destroyed by a white/yellowy light source. If guarding somewhere is likely to be part of the scenario, a gardeners' kneeling mat makes an excellent seat, which is quite comfy and waterproof, or you could go the whole hog and buy a Russian Army tactical seat or whatever they call 'em [i was going to link you but chaka98 who has them has closed down his eBay shop for a couple of months so i dunno]. I have wrapped my gardeners' kneeling mat in water resistant nylon, DPM on one side and black on the other, and used this to attach 2 straps, each with a 25mm side release buckle, which attach to belt loops allowing it to hang down by my arse ready for use and also make it a bit more flexible if i need to sit at a funky angle or kneel or something, as i can undo one or both buckles.

My Soviet-Afghan War loadout: ...apart from the boots is the period correct field uniform of a Captain of KGB circa 1980-85 I recently bought a pair of the correct canvas and leather boots too, but I've been away so they're probably waiting at my local RM depot. I'm also building a collection of period correct things to carry - wallet, documents, pen, wrist compass, 1st aid box, cigarette packets, and i'm after a petrol lighter and cut-throat razor - so I could do a filmsim of some sort one day, but also just for the interest. I also have a bright orange springer very similar to this: ...Beretta CX4 Storm At some point I intend to turn it into an RIF AEG and then go full ahead with a Battlestar Galactica loadout, including a converted TM FN 5-7, or 2 maybe, with wood effect pistol grip and the underslung heavy caliber Cylon killing thingy. I sorta could do it with my G36KV as one of those was used in BSG, but only for one episode, whereas the Storm pops up all over the place. There's a few cosplay suppliers who make the uniforms and also a company in the USA which make screen accurate belt rigs with one or two holsters for the 5-7/s (a la Starbuck) and ammo pouches. If I ever get the parts I have collected ready back (as someone has run off with some) I intend to make a dedicated 'post apocalyptic' AK which should be good for everything from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to Babylon AD, via Metro 2033 or even District 9 and yeah, gas masks particularly PBF 'orangutan' stylee Russian ones - I'm part way through making mine ballistic/BB proof. Something I saw on etsy.com and loved was a steampunk inspired AK AEG with antiqued brass gas tube and bits and some decorative cloisonne (sp?) type stuff inlaid with a couple of glass 'jewels'.

I'm going to fill my undies with custard. Not for armour: just because...

Yeah, and tbf the CM.048 needs the wood colour sorting out too, but it is a lovely gun to hold and fire.

If you don't get on with the L85A2 you could always join the dark side... we're always looking for new recruits

Thanks Chock once in a while the good stuff percolates to the surface I disagree regarding M4's - it's true that they are eminently upgradeable,* but in fact the V2 gearbox they use is a pig compared to the V3 gb used in AK's and G36's. The hop up unit in M4's is hardly a triumph of elegant simplicity either... The gb in an ICS L85A2 is apparently a delight of simple, well thought through design, with features built into it which are obviously a response to the most common complaints about all sorts of AEG design flaws - for eg the variable spring tension allows you to tune your FPS without replacing the spring, messing with the air seal, or swapping barrels. It is also quick change, so you can get the spring out without dismantling the whole gb if you want to radically change role. IIRC you can also disengage the anti-reversal latch from outside the gb without taking the motor off (which is a handy way to overcome the non-specific jams from which all gb's can suffer - nobody really knows the whole story on this phenomenon and it's not something you should worry about much because changing to full-auto for a burst is normally all that's required but sometimes, just when you really don't need it, it can be a full lock up - it may simply be due to temperature causing various components to expand/contract at different rates). *Obviously a large % of upgrade parts for M4's are shit - it's a popular gun so every Tom, Dick & Han with an injection moulding machine know they'll get some buyers no matter how compatible, useful, or not, their efforts turn out to be long term. Also, many of the parts available 2nd hand are the 'Y upgrades' I mentioned above, stuff which seemed like a good idea to people who didn't know that they would want to do something quite different once the BB's start flying and the sweat begins to roll. But that should mean that, whatever parts you decide you want when you have some experience, they will be 'Y upgrades' to somebody, right? Theoretically yeah, but in practice we are not so unique as we would like to imagine. In short, if you don't want the same looking gun as everyone else, their significant other, and their dog (cats obviously have their own requirements), there are plenty of good quality alternatives, some cheap, many good to take to any skirmish OOTB. All I would say is that, if you shoulder an ICS L85A2, flick through the fire select options, dump a mag and replace it, and decide it's not for you ergonomically, for your first gun do follow Chock's advice about not being quite so keen to dump 400 notes into a retailer's pot, because 250 will generally cover it. Have you thought about a battery, a spare battery, a charger, spare mags, something to carry them in and, more importantly, eyepro & boots?

G&G certainly seem to be heading that way. Trouble is that they seem to have chosen a pretty shit FET to base their system on

And yet the Kobra & PK1 etc exist as real steel sights... because the AK-74 is no more nor less accurate on average than any similar era assault rifle and the modern variants, the 103-4-5's are high spec modern weapons. However, a red dot is not about accuracy anyway, it is about speed of target acquisition.

"Push harder" Maybe they are also midwives!

Oops, forgot to say - you want to avoid adding switches to such a system. Switches are high resistance parts and getting rid of them is the main point of using MOSFETs.

It doesn't add any time to the cycle - at least the BTC Chimera doesn't: the Voltage remains the same. Taking the 20rps example where a cycle takes 0.05s - if you then use the control unit (because BTC Chimera is not just a MOSFET, it is 2 parts, one of which deals with power handling and the other which is the programmable part) to drop to 10rps, when you fire full-auto, or a burst-controlled short burst, or one touch burst (as it has all of these options), each cycle still takes 0.05s, but there is a 0.05s pause between each cycle. Bear in mind it is also an AB MOSFET so it is capable of absorbing additional energy remaining in the motor after each complete cycle. The thing is that it will use more battery power and that power has to be available quickly, because each shot is effectively a semi-auto shot and the motor will need an initial high current draw to start it moving again, but so what? You don't go fitting an £89.99 part and not make sure your wiring can handle the current, you're using Deans connectors, and a better LiPo than some random 15C 'airsoft recommended' arse, eh? You fit 16AWG, or 14 if your receiver has enough space around the gb, and use a Turnigy Nano Tech 50/25C LiPo, plus a spare. It may well heat up the motor and/or FET more than ordinary full auto but, to quote The Beatles, "Happiness is a warm gun..."

Our resident ICS L85A2 expert is Airsoft_Ed - his was a true thing of beauty. Personally I'm not really into bullpups and I'm more of a Rus-softer / OpFor type of bloke, so AK's and other Russian/Eastern European guns form most of my collection... but I want an ICS L85A2 anyway and I will buy one sometime within the next 6 months, simply because they are one of the best AEG's available. I'm pretty sure you'll not be able to put a DD rail on a carbine length one without butchering it though. For that money you could also look into getting a Real Sword Type 97 - although the real steel is a Chinese weapon, it uses STANAG mags (because the Type 97 is the export version of the Type 95, which is chambered for a custom Chinese round). It is lighter than the ICS L85A2 because the real gun is lighter and RS have faithfully reproduced the original weight. You could always fit a magwell converter to a G36C so it will take STANAG mags - they are quite popular so cost between £10-20-ish. If you're not convinced by the G36C stock, you can replace it with a "Variant" adjustable stock (as seen on the G36KV) and, depending on the make of that stock, you can also rewire it to take a battery inside the rectangular cross section tube (a mahoosive battery if running for a whole weekend event on a single charge is something that might interest you) which is a big advantage over the small space available in the handguard (unless you buy an upgrade plus size handguard specifically tailored to allow for a bigger battery). Obviously this is personal, but unless you want to look a bit 'praying mantis' stylee with your arms folded up against your body, I'd avoid the likes of the P90 and F2000 and, of course, there's also the fact that both are among the top 5 fugliest guns going. As for pulling the whole thing in under £400 including upgrades, it depends upon the upgrades - you can fit a perfectly decent AB MOSFET for £20, but there are some which cost £90 or more. "Necessary" is subjective, not just depending on the gun chosen but what you want from it. I see you've already joined the 'barrel-length-doesn't-matter' faction, but there is a reason why long PDI barrels remain in production despite their cost. As a general rule an H-nub will improve the accuracy of an AEG, but not all hop units can take them - a similar effect is achieved by a PDI "W Hold" hop rubber (and CYMA stock hop rubbers). If you decide that your budget is best spent on a cheap gun and expensive upgrades, to achieve accuracy you need consistency of power through a good air seal and stability of back spin in flight, which is achieved through evenly applied hop up and a good quality inner barrel surface. Depending upon the base gun it may not be particularly useful to replace all of them, but the parts to consider first are: Piston Head Piston Head O-Ring Grease Air Seal Nozzle Hop Up Chamber Hop Up Bucking (Rubber) Nub Inner Barrel and there are a few bodge-mods/procedures which can also help. Bear in mind however that, although you think you know what you want, which sounds like DMR performance from a CQB platform (and who doesn't?) once your skirmish style develops, some aspects of your gun's performance will become more important to you than others. Your best bet then for a first gun is to choose one which is good out of the box and skirmish it a while before you go spending money on upgrades which may very well ultimately prove to have been a waste of money (when you decide that actually you want 'X feature' which means discarding 'Y upgrade' you already have in favour of 'Z parts' to make X work). Don't buy a Tar-21. If you do your experience of airsofting is going to begin with frequent frustration. In fact, don't buy an Ares either. While saying all of their internals are shit is an unfair generalisation, there are enough cases where it's true that you're better off not taking the chance for a 1st AEG.

The reason to reduce ROF, not from 25 to 20 rounds per second say, but rather from 25 to 15 or less, is so that you keep the fast trigger response and get a wider spread of fire from your 3-4 round bursts (when exercising good trigger discipline) for shooting at moving targets, or save ammo when you're using full-auto to suppress targets in cover. Some people may also want to do it for realism.

I was in the process of building a 'post apocalyptic' AK, from a real steel wooden (lol) stock, G&P ali receiver and CYMA alloy RIS handguards, which I intend the Elcan SpecterOS replica to go on - but the bloke who was drilling the stock for me, so it will accept the lug from the receiver, has disappeared so I dunno what to do now. It's definitely not right for my franken-AK build, as it is a 3.4X scope, not a red dot. I like it on Morena my '74, but she's also the gun to go with my original period Soviet-Afghan War uniform and gear and i dislike taking off/putting on sights all the time, because it loses whatever zero you have. IMO the C-More style red dot on a side mount isn't a million miles away from a Kobra so it is staying for the time being, but if the replicas do not come back in stock for a while, I may change the side mount to a skeleton one I have and dress the whole thing up more Kobra-esque with some plastic and Fimo. Another gun I've decided I want to build is a tactical RPK with a D-Boys X47 full body RAS, locked off to semi as a DMR and I think the Elcan would go well with that, or perhaps [heresy alert] put rails on Agnes my L1A1 and use the Elcan on her...

Aha! Thanks for clearing that up then, Loz! Thing is... I still dont trust 'em

To me "PWM" stands for "Pulse Width Modulation" - I dunno what it means in this context...?

Well, keep us posted - it will be informative for those of us who buy from Poland regularly and also those who are concerned about their customer service when considering buying from them. They do have to compete with taiwangun.com, who are also Polish, though and twg's customer service is excellent.

^^That's a good point James, but if the metal mag is cold, because it's winter, then maybe not. I spose we shall need someone to buy one and compare it to metal - not me, I don't have the right pistol!

The way I did the one pictured above was by sanding, then painting on a stain made from 'Van Dyk Crystals' which is a traditional wood treatment made from burnt walnut shells. It's not actually that good at penetrating the wood, although perhaps if I'd used something other than the recommended water as a solvent, it may have been better - petrol for eg. Once dry I sprayed it with 3 coats of Humbrol aerosol satin varnish. This proved insufficient for some areas, but tbh I was so worried about causing drips that I suspect my coats were not as thick as they could have been. Anyway, so far I have decided to let the wear stand and just sprayed a few more layers of varnish on top so it doesn't get any worse. I think it looks quite good, but I suspect that using Briwax applied with steel wool on the freshly sanded wood may produce better results. One thing you definitely don't want to do is slap some ordinary stain/varnish on there, because the finish is high gloss, which is not only Wrong compared to the real steel, but looks like plastic in photographs.

No, that is one thing I remember quite clearly about BWKK's - the ROF is controlled by voltage, so it slows the cycle to lower it. With the BTC Chimera the cycle remains at the same speed, but the shots are timed electronically. I'm pretty sure that only BTC MOSFETs do this so far.

Yes, I guessed that English is not your first language and attempted to use less idiomatic language and/or contractions - your English is pretty good though. I honestly do not think that any kind of glue will suffice and, when the glued bits fall off, they may get jammed in the fire selector mechanisms. Can you tell if there is anything special about the E&L gearbox design? If not, a V3 shell need not be that expensive at all. I am not at home for a few days so I cannot take detailed measurements of some standard V3 gearboxes, but over the weekend I could do. This will allow you to check whether yours is compatible and, if not, if a standard shell can be modified to work with the E&L design gun. Of course, if anyone else reading this has the inclination to help, that could save some time. Nonetheless, the damage has occurred as a result of a faulty part, so no matter how expensive, the retailer ought to replace the gearbox shell. Did you buy it from gunfire.pl?

Ahhh, that makes more sense now. There must have been an extra bit hanging off the end of the rod, partially cut but still attached well enough to get stuffed into the hole. Because, as you say, just pressing the button couldn't break that rod - just no way! The end of the rod does not look right. You can tell that it was not finished correctly, so hopefully showing the retailer a picture of it will convince them to send you a new rod and button. When you say "retainers" do you mean the flanges on top of the gearbox which the latch/button fits between? Because, if you do, I don't think super glue will hold it - you will need a whole new gearbox shell...

...and fuck you. The latest: ...which is one of these on an ICS side mount. Unfortunately Kobra replicas are OOS everywhere at the moment and have been for a long time. You see real steel ones going for as little as £150 sometimes, but £180-200 is more like it - new old stock/refurbished they are about £280.

I don't see the point of plug'n'play MOSFETS really, unless to convert to semi-auto only. But I will have to look into the BWKK V2 more carefully now, because pre-cocking is something I want. However something else which the BTC Chimera does is ROF control by timing discrete shots, so you can have your GB cycling very fast, at 30rps say, but set the control unit to something realistic like 700rpm and in effect you get about 11 semi-auto shots in a second with tiny gaps between them - apparently it sounds very cool as well as saving ammo.

^^Yeah, the 400rnd one with the door and string you are describing is a 'flash mag' and if the one supplied does not have that door, or a winder, it is a mid cap which requires a speed loader. Well, let us hope that the retailer accepts that it was like that and replaces it, because you should not have to repair something which was broken when you received it. My worry is that, now you have dismantled it and have several broken pieces, the retailer may claim that you broke it and refuse to honour any warranty. The thing is, the way most AK's are assembled, that rod is supposed to fit into a slot in the side of the barrel base assembly containing a spring, which is then covered along the side by the receiver, so it makes a hole into which the end of the rod fits - it is by pushing against this spring that the top cover latch/button, on the other end of the rod, is depressed, which then allows the top cover to be lifted off. I am afraid that the way you have described it, it sounds very much like you did misunderstand something and did break it.