Ian_Gere

Easily done... You: On the one hand I have a realistic imitation firearm; on the other I have apron strings. Rents: [jaw drop] Er... when you put it like that... right. Er... phone when you get there, ok?

^^Let's be fair here, they do look a bit more like a bunch of thieves who just happened to each know somebody with enough sense not to be photographed, or indeed to be elsewhere while the job is in hand, than they do a military unit. Love it!

You're right, Nuts, there is no UK distributor importing a £1M+ worth of stock, but there are retailers acting as sole distributors for certain brands, but on a much smaller scale; for eg Fire Support are ICS for England & Wales and Land Warrior are ICS for Scotland - now in one way this makes no sense at all, in that surely tf national boundaries have less impact than the texture of shite on our boots on the already relatively small market for the whole of airsoft, let alone ICS products in particular, but FS have occasionally really taken the piss over prices (even of stuff that wasn't in stock lol) and I suspect that without LW as competition, Frank would get in there and dip his bread at every opportunity. I swear to you, I imported a set of ICS fast & quiet helical gears MC-108 from the USA, paying the VAT and courier fee, and it was still cheaper than Frank quoted me over the phone and a week faster too... And then there's Zero One and the infamous "we'll have 'em soon, honest" CYMA CM.048 and CM.048M... how can it be over £40 cheaper to get one imported from Poland when you add in postage (free from Poland ffs)? These are not niche items. If you don't want an M4, or you do want an opfor gun, they are the best available as an alternative to wombat machines. But with Airsoft World and Action Hobbies muscling in, somehow none of 'em are managing to keep CYMA/Cybergun in stock reliably. But there are distributors, like a good bloke who is into airsoft for the love of it as well as making a few quid who supplies ammo and pyros to a fair few sites, probably most in the East Mids/South Yorks, as well as some guns and spares... but he is pretty limited in what he gets and it's for the reasons already outlined: he just hasn't got the capital to keep stock on the shelves which may not sell before he needs to scrape his cash and pre-orders together for the next import. Also there isn't enough money in it for him to do nothing else to make a living. Another company, made up of people who came into it from love of the sport/hobby and have translated that now into literally the best customer service ethic I've ever come across bar none, genuinely do do their best to get anything people ask for and if you talk to them in person will attempt to beat any price you can show them is legit, but... they don't have the spending power of even the small time 'distributors' or the larger retailer-cum-distributors. So we are currently stuck between people who would love to have piles of whatever we want and sheds full of old/rare stuff that they themselves would dip into frequently, but just don't have the money to do that, and people who may well have had a love of the sport/hobby but in trying to make a living now come over as if they would simply love to have sheds full of our money. In my estimation our only way forward is to grow the market... paintball has made several multi-millionaires - airsoft is slowly but surely taking over the 'combat shooting game' market so it has the potential to become huge, but it also has the potential to get very expensive, if a few larger companies manage to raise the kind of capital which would deliver the stock levels we would prefer but the market does not grow as rapidly as forecast...

KGB Group «Zenit» Operation Storm-ZZZ Seen here dressed in Afghan uniforms: @least 2 fat bastards, so I'm ok for historical accuracy I'm just not going to even bother trying to get original Afghan Army uniforms though. Quite apart from the scarcity they were made of something similar to, but probably rougher than, the wool battle dress of Brit WW2 & 50's troops. Lol, just watching a sky arts prog about The Small Faces and they got onto Itchycoo Park! Itchycoo neck, itchycoo rash round the waist, itchycoo leave it airt, John! It's all too something or other...

So here I am in my Moscow apartment circa 1983... ...no seriously, my landlords do keep a straight face when they refer to the "decor" in the common hallway Kit List Syriyka hat w/ subdued star {Telnyashka w/ black stripes (marine) = in the wash lol} Afganka w/ subdued Mechanised Rifle & Captain insignia + KGB Academy Pin & KGB Shield & Lenin commemorative pin Y-strap size Large PU/Canvas Belt Pistola Makarova Leather Holster in cross draw position a la KGB Group Zenit Canvas Double Grenade Pouch Canvas 3x AK Mag Pouch 0.7L Aluminium Canteen Partisans' canvas belt w/ subdued buckle holding pants up & modified GP5 Respirator bag as a Dump Pouch {GP7 Respirator bag = full of ghillie cape in wardrobe} Boots German Para MK4 (iirc) AK-74 named Morena = modified CYMA CM.048 w/ modified MAG 80+rnd midcap 80's Soviet Issue Canvas Sling Pistol HFC HG-106 (to my shame) And for the lulz:

Craig who runs helmetworld is a good bloke. His prices are a bit gasp-worthy at times but he's got the X3200 at a cool price and, by his attitude towards me, I'd expect him to take it back if it turned out to be a clone that doesn't work. I suspect that some, possibly all, of the Xcoretech's that we have bought recently are clones, but if that is the case some seem to have all the functions of the original, such as shot memory, while some don't.

I think that there are limits to the usefulness of better BB's. In typical AEG's (sub 368FPS) the wind (by which I mean anything upwards of a good fart) and inadvertent shooter movement (by which I also mean deviation from perfectly horizontal in the X-Y plane) will affect accuracy far more than the difference between BB's of a minimum quality - I'd draw that line in the wallet at BB Kings with Bulldogs on the wrong side of it. Blaster Devils are very good IME, but unnecessary for AEG's - ordinary Blasters get just as many hits in skirmish and it's only when shooting at targets such as the upper half of someone's face peeping through a 6" wide opening that the difference between Blasters and BB Kings comes into play. At higher muzzle energies, where small differences will have much further range in which to affect trajectory, and particularly when shooting BASR's when single shots count far more than when firing semi-auto AEG's, yeah I think it's worth spending more, but not, it turns out, as much as £23-odd for 2000 Madbull 0.4g Tan BB's which do not live up to the hype...

Hmmmm... is that an RIF in your pocket or have you got a spectacular tattoo? From airsoft-club.com: APS Quick Magazine Release Push Bar for AK Series AEG - $7.99 (for Morena ) APS ASK Cocking Handle for AK Series AEG $11.99 (for Phatima V^^VGrrrrrr) + Shipping from HK $5.95 - an almost laughable £15.44 What can one say? Get ordering from HK now while the USD is where it belongs... in the bog

I almost said something similar, but I didn't think anyone else would get it

At last! Steel outer barrel housing for SVD [AirsoftPro] - €16.20* Reinforced piston for manual SVD - Gen. 2 [AirsoftPro] - €20.30 Plus airsoftpro.cz own springs: progressive M130 - €5.8 and linear M200 - €7.10 + shipping from Czech Republic and tax €7.30 = €56.70 I was beginning worry that I'd never be able to get one of these buggers.* Everytime they came back in stock they'd sell out before I had the cash handy to get one. I've been hassling Jan for 2 weeks! Last time I wrote about them I opined that I didn't think it would make much if any difference, but since then I've changed my mind. There is the additional weight to consider, the simple inertia, but also the additional stiffness: SVD's have such a long barrel that these miniscule effects probably do affect L<=>R accuracy.

It's an alternative to booze...

Where did you get that axe, PT?

??? this is a typo, right?

TBH, for the spring strengths we use in the UK, bearings are better than bushes for tuning your gearbox. Kanzen are best; Modify are very good; Element will do.

Thanks mate. Bit small, but still tempting... Had to buy an Element M95 spring because my Falcon 6.03x455mm barrel is giving Morena an average 361.4FPS (with hop on) from her Guarder SP100 spring, but fliers up to 374... :gulp: My plan had been to leave her as stock, to see how long she would last and what would break first when running an 11.1V LiPo, but I'm going to have to do something about that degree of inconsistency. I already have an ali air nozzle that had been for another proj - so I've ordered an SHS V3 spring guide - that and the M95 from Bullseye Country Sport (inc 10% UKAPU discount) £20.23 posted <- can't recommend them enough

+1 to what Alex said I've found this MOSFET to be very good... until it burned out lol - but the bloke has sent me another one free of charge, no quibble, so I feel ok recommending it. TBH I have not noticed any difference in performance between Modify silver plated lo-res wire and Maplin 16AWG 2 core (red/black) and the latter is considerably cheaper. Once you have a high C (25C sustained 50C burst) LiPo battery, 16AWG wire and Deans connectors, there is a small but noticeable difference between reusing the spade connectors to connect the motor and soldering the connections instead. If you do go ahead with a MOSFET, you need to make 100% certain of your wires' insulation because the tiniest short can destroy one of the transistors on the MOSFET board. I recommend Turnigy Nano Tech LiPo's from hobbyking.com but it does take a fair while for them to arrive. This is the best deal for Deans that I know of and you don't have to wait long. Heatshrink is essential for preventing shorts - the 3mm clear stuff from here is TDB.

Do me a favour, Happy? Measure the dimension I've marked on this pic, please.

^^There's always something, eh!?! It looks like a really good design, if not for the nub being made out of cheese.

make a whole sheet of them, man!

Being the renowned fortune teller I am, you can trust me when I foresee a new nub in your future...

I saw one advertised a few years ago. Few grand iirc...

Exactly. There's a queue though...

Just bear this in mind: the police have got far better things to be doing than chasing up someone who may have painted a toy gun 3 days before they had a definite defence against prosecution for having done so, which defence they gained by turning up to an airsoft site with said gun, especially since the intention to do so is the defence, in this aspect of the law, but also since the Association of Chief Police Officers have said the law is unenforcible (hence our hypothetical coppers would have a bit of explaining to do when their arrest record for the week was scrutinised). Plain and simply, nobody who understands the law can take it seriously and, by definition, anybody who attempts to give you grief about it doesn't understand the law so fuck 'em... Just don't be a dick with your AEG, whatever colour it is, and you'll be fine. Naturally, should you decide to test the limits of what "being a dick" entails, it will not be contravening the VCRA for which you will be arrested, but any of a string of firearms and/or public order offences which existed before and will exist long after the VCRA has been quietly superceded.

I've got an Ares one. It's shit. One day I hope to have it work for longer than 1/2 a day skirmishing, but who knows...?