jcheeseright

first thing that came to mind: Please let us know what you think of the drac, I'm after something to replace my very worn PCU

no way should ricochets count, clearing room etc would be a simple case of hammering a high cap into the door frame from the correct angle and letting the bouncing BBs do the job for you! That said, sometimes it's very difficult to tell the difference between a ricochet and a direct hit... if in doubt and all that, it's just a game after all.

I suppose it depends largely upon your playing style. I put my gun and sling through a lot more than most people (Kurt Cobain et al excluded) will put their guitars through. Like the marui GBB thread argument happening in another thread on the forum, it all comes down to anecdotal vs experiential knowledge. I've seen lots of Chinese made sling hardware (loops, triglides, swivels, clips etc) fail over time eventually resulting in the gun hitting the floor rather hard (happened to me in fact with a knock off magpul MS2 sling, £500 gun fell 4' onto concrete when the front clip sheared). For the sake of a few quid is it worth buying a cheapo sling?

couldn't agree more. Everyone always goes on about how airsoft is a game of honesty, yet so few people will trust in the honesty of their fellow players. 99% of the time, if you're shooting at someone and they haven't called hit, it's because you haven't hit them! I've used this as an example before I'm sure, but Beard at Spartan Airsoft (near Bristol, good site) once did a test with an oil drum: He placed the drum on a long flat path with no obstructions and set up a firing point 30 yards away. Players were asked to stand at the firing point and using aimed shots to shoot at the oil drum, most players missed by a fair margin. There were some who were off by several yards and many who's BBs were overhopping so much that they were clipping branches above the drum. Even with a marshall stood next to the drum (which made a loud noise when hit) there were a hard-core of "I don't miss, call your hits!" types who insisted that they MUST be hitting the drum when they clearly were not. With that in mind, next time you're shooting at half a hand sticking out from behind a tree stump 40 yards away with a shitload of foliage in between... there's a good chance you're nowhere near it.

Definitely true, the handguard is wrong. The cutouts are in the wrong position and the 12 o'clock rail should moulded in as a single part. Ares also seem to have added a serration to the front of the magwell for no good reason. With a gun that has that many high quality and high resolution pictures available there's not really much excuse for getting fundamental details like that wrong. There's no such thing as 'close enough' as far as I'm concerned (barring technical issues like AEG grip widths). It's either a replica or it's not, this is not a replica of the AAC honey badger, it's a close approximation.

doesn't really bear that much resemblance to the AAC honey badger, admittedly they've improved upon the design (in my opinion at least) by making the top rail modular, but if you're gonna call it a honey badger... at least get it right!

the nylon will hold up, but will the stitching, will the cheaply made clips and triglides? more importantly, for the sake of a few quid is it worth the risk?

would you trust a 5kg gun that cost over £300 to a bit of chinese nylon and monkey metal that cost £10? I certainly wouldn't. especially not when you can get a decent one point made by a reputable manufacturer for less than £20: http://www.tactical-kit.co.uk/blackhawk-storm-sling-qd-version-70gs15bk-1802-p.asp Or a 2-point for £10.95: http://www.tactical-kit.co.uk/blackhawk-universal-tactical-sling-70ut00bk-533-p.asp Both of those slings will hold your bodyweight if you need them to, the china sling... maybe not.

I've run all of my TM guns on propane, no issues.

buys £300+ gun, admits that it's really heavy... spends £10 on a sling.

I'm a big fan of the 2-point sling myself, used to use a 1-point but found that the moment you let go of the gun it just does whatever it wants!

it's a non blow back gun, the strength of the gas is irrelevant. Some (read not many) TM GBB pistols with weak slide designs and massive expansion chambers (5-7 springs to mind) will break on green gas, most will not.

yeah.

nope, CYMA are TM clones, it'll be off-spec for a G&P.

it relates to the shape of the nub that pushes against your hop bucking, a flat one applies even pressure across the whole hop-window in the barrel allowing for a more consistent contact patch with the BB; Flat hop nub looks like this: Normal stock one looks like this ignore the bucking, the little round bit is what we're interested in): with the standard nub you only get a sideways 'push' down on the bucking, with a flat nub the whole hop-window is filled so it pushes the bucking down over a much bigger area. The benefits are consistency from shot to shot (bigger contact patch, small variations have less of an effect) and slightly higher FPS because you don't need to apply so much downward push to achieve the same amount of backspin.

you don't have to use the proprietary mags with a TM, you can buy an adapter for about a tenner that'll let you use standard AEG magazines. Though you do lose the bolt stop feature if you do that.

no.

The quality of the hop-unit is as important as the bucking imo, a cheap unit will have flex in the parts, or inconsistencies in the finish which will alter air seal at best and inconsistently apply hop-up at worst. I've often said that there's no such thing as an accurate airsoft gun, just a consistent one. The key to finding that consistency is removing all of the variables; hop-arm flex applying inconsistent pressure on the rubber, hop rotation (along with the barrel) caused by an off-spec hop unit not fitting snugly in the outer barrel, a loose adjustment dial moving around with the vibration of the gearbox, off-spec chamber leaking air because the bucking doesn't fill it properly, or worse being too tight and deforming the bucking resulting in mis feeds and jams... I could go on! Short version, decent hop-up unit is key to performance. One of the many reasons Marui am bestest... they make the best hop-up units going.

I've had no problems shooting GBB guns in the winter, you just need to use the right gas and manage your expectations. Can you do a full auto mag dump in 5C weather? Of course not, but when you've only got 2-300 shots anyway why would you want to fire 40 of them in one go?!

Anything less than 400fps is definitely soft bucking territory. I recently broke the cardinal rule and replaced the bucking and nub on my TM M4, with a bit of fettling (the flat nub I used needed trimming to fit the hop-window properly) the improvement in shot to shot consistency was immediate and VERY noticeable. I highly recommend the firefly soft bucking/flat nub combo. Doesn't give you any much more range, but does improve consistency at the very end of the BB's flight.

I highly doubt it'll spread, if anything I expect more sites will start to allow them now that there are properly powered CO2 guns hitting the market .

Yeah I've been to a couple of sites with a blanket ban on CO2, doesn't matter if the chrono says it's in limits CO2 = not allowed.

why not just buy the standard HK416 if you're going to change the stock anyway? save yourself £80!

Like Mack I prefer a plastic piston, if your AOE is squared away and you're not running a stupid 30+ RPS idiot cannon a plastic piston will last a long time anyway. When/if something does go wrong the plastic piston acts as a mechanical fuse in that the gears will strip it long before any damage happens to the gears/bushings/motor/gearbox shell. With a metal toothed piston whichever part is weakest will break first; might just be the £5 pinion gear on your motor, might be the gearbox shell, you just don't know!

7.4v LiPo, 20C or above.