Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies

If you want a reliable PTW learn PTW tech and do it yourself,or be prepared to spend up to 2000 quid for an FCC PTW or a bit less for a custom built Systema. Celcius are a bigger money pit despite the lower up front cost.

Kitchen roll can leave little chunks of stuff inside the barrel(But one or two shots to clear it won;t do any harm) but it depends on the brand of roll,one roll I use did not fall apart while another did. Cut up an old T-shirt for strips,soak it in white spirit you can buy in nearly every supermarket and you will be fine.

Nah,AEGs always cycle fully,unless you have a short stroked sector or piston or if it's stripped. Motor spinning speed has no effect on the tension of the spring or air seal quality. If you want more effective range: New hop up unit. ICS are not strong in hop up. You can mod the ICS upper to take a TM unit IIRC but it's a bit of bother. New hop up rubber. ICS are not strong in these either. PDi W hold,Firefly,Laylax/prometheus,Marui,Lonex and G&G make very good buckings. Make sure to seal it up with dental floss. More velocity & more consistant air output- Use heavy ammo with high velocity guns or else all the gains go to shit.Either jam in a new spring,get a TBB or do some air seal mods to get better consistency. Better consistency will means the BBs will be more stable in flight which means more range. New barrel or polish your stock one. Most stock barrels are usable and some polishing to even out the often poor inner finish can do wonders. Easy to cock up. Don't spin the cleaning rod to create swirls or uneven material removal,push in and out like the birds and the bees. PDi,Laylax,ZCI,Lonex/ASG Ultimate and Madbull make good barrels. Avoid madbull steel bull for the time being,severe machining issues like pitting and such from rushed work. Heavier ammo. Retains kinetic energy better,retains spin better. 'Accuracy' mods also give more range,it;s common sense.

TM VSR,JG BAR 10,A&K M24 and WELL L96 (Gen 3) are the best sniper rifles about. Plenty of parts available and the guns are often constructed to be easily taken apart so you can tune or upgrade to your desires. A&K M24 comes with steel trigger parts and a steel catch piston stock which means minimal upgrading. All VSR compatible. Only bad thing about these is the hop up but these take VSR 10 style units. They are often in spec too so most parts will fit. It's an often under rated sniper rifle.

Straffham hit the nail on the head,but left out a very common part failure on high power spring on the FAMAS. The Anti reversal latch fails very easily,and there are no replacements to you must have one custom machined. Basically,the whole drivetrain tends to commit sepukku hara kiri when on powerful springs. The ACM clones use standard V2/V3 drivetrain parts and standard motors,with only the hop up,gearbox case and other smaller air seal parts remaining proprietary.

TM Bolt lock is all mechanical. PTWs are expensive due to the production costs of a planetary gear system and gearbox. The Motors are also expensive to produce(Yet still need to be re-wound and modded to be height adjustable for the best performance) hop ups are also not as good as a Marui style design,Marui didn't allow Systema rights of use to their hop up mechanism so Systema had to knock something up themselves but couldn't nail it since Marui restricted them. You can mod PTW hops to perform just as well as a TM type one. They offer no better performance over a well tuned AEG or even a stock recoil shock out of the box,simply because of the design. PTWs are hit and miss because manufacturers try to cut as many corners as possible because the production cost is so high. FCC PTWs cost 2000+ for very good reasons(Also a reason why their receivers are not part of the Cracking lottery). PTWs have their disadvantages like any platform. They are just very expensive,and the bang for buck factor is honestly terrible. But You can get them working very well,their motors by design are fantastic performers(Hence the fantastic trigger response) And real dimensions are very nice.

It's hard to sue these pyramid scammers because what they are doing is technically legal,in the states at least from what I've read on yank forums and hives like reddit. May be different in the UK,I'd say Finius would be better in explaining the legal stuff about this.

FPS increase is always nice though. I generally bring guns to the very limit to squeeze every bit of performance. Allows BBs to fly a wee bit faster and you have to track targets less. Very noticeable gains with heavier weights. Does not determine range but it does have a sizable impact on performance.

One of These http://i.imgur.com/8fLoW5o.jpg in Tan and in much,much rougher shape.like sh*t you'd see in STALKER games. I have an older model with some minor differences. Quality is fantastic,stitching is great and the straps are insanely comfortable. I can hold all I need for a weekender in this,Tent and sleeping bag clipped onto the sides. Guns I have in a separate gun bag but I can even bodge that onto this rucksack. Russian made but not the quality of their sometimes atrocious military gear,I assure you. I don't know anywhere to get them outside of Eastern Europe I'm afraid

TM recoil shocks are a massive improvement over old TM internals. The EG1000 is a very good motor,the armatures on these things are fantastic and top choices for insane power frankentorques,they're one of the better stock motors about. The gears are sintered but the sintering is good and the steel is a good alloy- The main concern is the zinc sector gear,but it should not get chewed up by the spur unless you are running an m120 or over. Still not happy TM decided to go zinc on this but no mention of failures stock or under M120 springs. The piston is very strong and should not strip unless you cause the recoil system to miss-time or really fuck up AOE. Since it's a high stress part I'd recommend correcting AOE to a perfect 90 degrees to eliminate any chance of failing,but the stock AOE is surprisingly decent on recoils,not amazing by any means,Lonex stock guns have better for example but it's better than nothing. Just remember along with an M90 spring these gearboxes are also pulling back a 200-250g recoil weight along with a spring,so they have to be strong to be reliable stock(Which they are,unless,as said before you miss time the recoil by using an 11.1v lipo or somesuch)

Cutoff lever shit itself or the trigger contacts committed sepukku hara kiri is some way,often happens on some guns.

WE are making a Makarov PMM,along with a P99,P38 and some other goodies. There was a thread about it on arnies airsoft.

Well,you get what you pay for really. Dboys' pot metal is often on the better side but on the SCAR L I worked on it was pretty bad quality,It was worryingly heavy and felt brittle It's mostly cheese metal stuff and you do play the Chinese lottery with quality. When it comes to externals 'You get what you pay for' really rings true,unlike other airsoft kit which does not follow 'more $ = more better' formula. I can;t comment more than that,I lack experience in this area.

CYMA metal bodies are cast out of cheese metal,they are weaker than the other zamak bodies about and love to strip. I had a CYMA m4 and the body disintegrated form piss poor casting quality and the metal just being unsuitable. Although all gun bodies have a dominant but varying amount of zinc in them,some companies like to mix in different metal. IIRC G&G are unique as they use Magnesium a lot which is fairly suitable for airsoft bodies. You will have issues with the faux bolt & gearbox on that body,you will have to disable the blowback and file down a few support points on the gearbox shell to get it to fit,but that's estimation since I've yet to try jam a G&G blowback gearbox into a different body. If you want a good metal body that isn't Dairylea then be prepared to pay a fair amount,

Time to make a 'Nintendo 64 kid' video for the TM breacher then! Only it's not Christmas And it's with a 30 year old man

Cheers Marui

Unfortunately Marui have started crimping cylinder heads on VSRs,so you cannot get at the internals without trashing the cylinder. This adds a fair amount of expenditure on upgrades as you now need a new cylinder,spring guide,spring,piston and cylinder head,which is silly since the stock parts barring the piston are usable. Action Army make cheap and high quality cylinders & heads. Their pistons are also very high quality too. First off,you need reliability mods done since most sniper rifles come with poor quality stock parts,and what's a sniper rifle without reliability? It's one of the main reasons of getting one in the first place. For Springs Under M120 rating(Depends on manufacturer,this is the '120 m/s' rating spring which is a rough rating of your velocity in m/s.) You can stay with the stock 45 degree mechanism and still have reliability. You will need to replace the trigger sear,piston sear and piston to get the best out of it. SHS make a cheap and good quality sear set. Piston sears are wear Items,I recommend having two,one in the gun,one as a spare.The other stock parts will do fine. I highly recommend ball bearing spring guides. They reduce stress,make the bolt action smoother and increase power output by a bit. Also,I recommend placing some sorbothane dampers on the cylinder head to quieten down the rifle. For higher spring powers (120 and over) I'd go for a 90 degree mechanism. PDi and Action Army make my favorite. Laylax is good but expensive,the action army one is just as good and cheaper. PDi Is adjustable and has spare parts,uses higher quality metals and machining so it's a bit more pricey but the price reflects the quality ASPUK also sell the AirsoftPro czech made EZ triggers which are very cheap and pretty good quality,often come in bundles with the piston. You will need a 90 degree piston for a 90 degree trigger. PDi,Laylax and AA all make good ones. PDi's catch is carbon steel which is stronger than the stainless steel the other guys use. Once you have your reliability components sorted,you can focus on performance. The stock Marui hop up is good but is lacking in the adjustment mech. I reccomend doing the TDC mod for best results. Dangerwerx hop up arms are also a good investment. Otherwise,leave the hop up on TMs stock as much as possible since aftermarket ones are not that much better,worse in some cases. Stay away from the PDI Dual bar hop unit. For the barrel,the TM Gspec already has a 6.05 ''precision'' brass barrel which I find is pretty decent. PDi barrels are a good investment to get the most out of your gun but the TM one is fine,since it's brass it likes to scratch over time from BBs riding the top,but polishing it every 50,000 or so rounds should prolong it's life. It's only a worry for the long term,stick with it and get as much use out of the stock parts as possible if they are not impacting performance negatively. What else can I say? Search the internet for DIY mods such as masking tape barrel spacers,sealing the hop rubber with dental floss,use PTFE tape to seal the cylinder head, use good quality silicone grease for cylinder lubrication,and the stock TM O ring on the piston seals the best in my experiences.

You don't have to do a single bit of soldering! All you have to do is trim the ends of the wires,twist them and screw them into the terminals. It's perfectly idiot proof.

If you want a high quality control unit and are willing to spend money no point in an ASCU,Black Talon Chimeras are far,far better quality and not that much expensive than an ASCU http://www.btcairsoft.com/chimera_v2gb

Seconding this. Plug in mosfets are a complete sham. They are only good for programming fire modes but over priced for just that and offer bugger all protection. Gate Pico SSR2 is the smallest mosfet around,it's probably the best option.

BB King BBs are generally the cheapest usable BBs I know of. They are surprisingly good for the quality,QC is decent for a Chinese company and not a lot of air bubbles inside. Excel BBs are also pretty cheap. If you can fish out another 3 quid you can get a bag of 3700 from zero one for 7 pounds. Excel is also a great bang for buck ammo brand. Their ammo tends to have air bubbles but the overall shape consistency is great.

Laylax SP110 Spring made my gun illegal 355FPS Average,+/- 3 FPS,that's about 1.15J with .20s So I got a SP100 to bring it down,shop gave me a little discount too which is nice. Now at 335 FPS +/- 3 with .20s but this is fresh after install,I'll bed it in by blamming away the rest of my .20s,should bring it down a bit lower. It's all really for the sake of allowing it to be used at sites,chrono with .20s and not by Joules with the ammo used. It spits out .30s at 1.2J (or was it 1.3? I forgot ) Because of the stupid amounts of overvolume. To be honest,there is no massive change. Dents in a can are a little smaller,and there is a very minor difference in speed. Accuracy and range are the same it seems.

Materials- Both are made out of a mix of Zamak/Aluminium & Plastic,next to no difference in material usage. TM's plastics,especially the ones used in the recoils feels much better than VFC however. Otherwise both are equal footing material and build quality wise. TM has a better looking finish IMO but that's down to preference. Performance- Have to hand it to TM. VFC gearboxes have overall left me unimpressed,especially for the money you are paying. The overall parts quality was pretty bad,the pistons,tappet plates and other plastic parts are made with the shittiest clear plastic VFC could find,the pistons grenade themselves even on Irish legal 1 Joule spring in my experiences. Gearsets are standard sintered stuff you find in most guns and are usable,but have 'self shimming' axles which to be honest,are horrible for long term. It seems the self shimming stuff degrades over time and becomes a screechfest Air seal parts are decent and usable. Gearbox shells are not the strongest but usable. Hop up units are where VFC fall even more,Again,for a high end gun the hop up units are generally bad performing. A cheap CYMA will outperform a VFC with stock hop up. Again,VFC's internals are not necessarily bad quality overall,but bad quality for the price you are paying. TM,although not the best stuff around still win out over VFC. Gears are twice as thick as VFC's. Bevel and Spur are made of Sintered carbon steel according to one Italian review site, the sector is made out of zinc. The zinc sector is there so the japanese government is happy that people cannot upgrade over 1J. The piston is perfectly fine,very strong actually. It should not break unless you are using very powerful springs or really cock up angle of engagement. Remember,in addition to a spring it's also pulling back a 250g recoil weight and spring. The other gears are perfectly usable,when upgrading you can replace the sector only and still have decent meshing,but stock it should be reliable as the gears are twice as thick as standard. Air seal parts are perfectly fine,quite good actually. Piston heads are not ported but still seal well. Hop up units,especially on the recoil are bloody fantastic,it's agreed by a fair amount of techs that TM did a good job on this. Price wise- It depends. TM recoil scars are heavily marked up outside of Japan,in Japan they cost 420$ which is 250 pounds,but be prepared to pay 400 pounds because of the VATman,retailer markup and various things. Overall,i'd say it's worth it. Better internals in some areas,better performance overall,and you get recoil and bolt lock,which makes the gun miles more fun to shoot.

Never lube the barrel and hop up rubber. Hop up rubbers should be dry and a little bit sticky to grip the BB better. It certainly does not need lubrication,otherwise it will slip and give you bugger all range. Clan hop up rubbers by taking them out and bathing them in warm,soapy water. I find fairy liquid does a terrific job of cleansing hop up rubbers. Barrels have to be as even and polished and possible since the BB rides the top,Silicone oil inside the barrel will prevent corrosion,but ruin performance. Clean barrels out with rubbing alcohol,and polish thoroughly,maybe use a VERY LITTLE bit of compound suitable to the metal. Barrels should be dry- Silicone gets into the micro pores in the metal and can give an uneven slipperyness so the friction of the BB riding the top will be uneven. You may find after lubing the hop up rubber and barrel will results in awful performance,get some isopryl alcohol to clean the barrel and wash the bucking in warm soapy water like I said.