Lozart

Seriously - protect your hearing while you can. You WILL miss it when you lose it. I have hearing loss and tinnitus caused by noise damage (both industrial and music related - I used to play in a death metal band) and it SUCKS.

Pictures?

Fair, the combination of earplugs and earmuffs is often more than just the sum of the two devices though: https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/893191O/earlog-13.pdf?fn=EARLog 13.pdf That shows that the NRR of combined devices can be as much as 50dB. The other thing to consider is situational awareness. If you're wearing ear defenders AND ear plugs to deal with a potential flashbang then you will NOT hear anything else. Attenuation due to distance is governed by an inverse square law which equates to 6dB per doubling of distance. Something that is 120dB at 10m will be 146dB at 0.5m (calculator here: https://www.wkcgroup.com/tools-room/inverse-square-law-sound-calculator/) IN OPEN SPACE! As for the Thunder B - while I can find references to "up to 130dB" I don't see anywhere that it says what distance that is measured at?

Good point very well presented. The main danger will be indoor events, I don't know of any that would actually be covered by their insurance (assuming you're in the UK) for anything over a MK5 indoors so that would immediately drop you to around 120dB. Personally I've never had an issue with anything in the UK while wearing active hearing protection (Earmor M32s and Howard Leight Impact Sports) so I would think you'd be fine. If your local site is allowing TAG grenades like the M67 indoors then I'd be looking for somewhere else to play. Also important to know is that your dB calculation is a bit off:

It's highly unlikely anyone has done this due to the spectacular array of confounding variables. For example - EG say their MK5s are 120dB at 10m. Obviously the closer you get the louder it is and it's NOT a linear progression. Once you put that measurement into an enclosed space you change the way that the pressure waves behave so a small space can make the listener perceive a higher noise level than the same distance in the open. Add to that the material that any room is made from will also affect the way that the pressure waves behave and you have an enormous range of measurements to try and deal with. As for manufacturers "often claiming 140-150dB" I don't know that I've ever seen any pyro that is covered by site insurance that goes that high with the exception of things like the TAG grenades. More to the point, why do you want/need to know?

...and they published it themselves? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

Source?

After I signed the petition the very next one up was to make Middlewick Ranges up the road into an SSSI to stop it getting built on. Sounds like the council are having a fun old time of it!

They're saying the site is protected because it's an SSSI but if you look up SSSIs in the area it's only the reservoir up the road, the boundary of which doesn't actually appear to cover the airsoft site. If the site was in the bounds of the SSSI then it would never have gotten permission to run! Signed by the way.

It was only a couple of weeks ago and obviously stuck in his mind. It's not that deep.

Thanks for that man, I'm sure the bike I have is fine (although it's getting a bit worn out). I have a tendency with all my hobbies though to look at what I have, identify an excuse a perfectly valid reason why it's not good enough and then go buy a new one. I've actually been looking at a Rockhopper Comp but a lot of my confusion was trying to work out what the current equivalents to my existing groupset is. To get the level of kit that has developed on my bike with a steel frame it looks like a £2k+ spend though so that ain't happening!

The new Gate Asters can do decock now too.

If you want the licenced bits then you have to pay the piper. Does it make it a better AEG? Obviously not.

I used to ride a LOT. Then work took over and I got old and fat and horribly unfit. SO now I want to get back out on my trusty steed but lo and behold - sitting in a shed for 15ish years doesn't do a bike any favours. I'm thinking I could (much like pretty much all my airsoft guns) upgrade some bits but it seems that the entire market has moved on apace in my absence. My bike comes from a time when it was all about cross country riding. It has a tiny frame and a long whippy seatpin, loads of anodised titanium frippery and a mix of groupsets that seem to have have gone the way of the Dodo. So my question is - what would the equivalents be now? Said parts: Shimano STX RC (front and rear mechs) Shimano LX (crankset, chainrings, cassette) Shimano XTR (Rapidfire SL shifters and V-Brakes) Shimano XT SPDs (although they are almost definitely responsible for the pain in my knees so probably swapping them for an unused set of Time ATAC pedals I have) Wheels are good old 26" Bontrager BCX3 rims with Panaracer Smoke and Dart tyres (the beige ones without any carbon because light = good) Frame is a triple butted 16" Reynolds STEEL (yes, steel) frame that literally nobody seems to make anymore, which is a shame because I like a bit of flex in my frame. Rockshox Quadra 21r forks. Inform me oh wise denizens of the web!

I have a 62cm melon too and the aforementioned XL FMA Ops Core is tight (the PJ regular cut one is good but the SF High cut and the Maritime are tight). The XL FMA Wendy bump helmet on the other hand is a lovely fit! I think it's as much to do with the actual helmet shape as it is the size though so obviously, YMMV.

I like you, you're funny!

Hi and welcome. Never scrimp on eye protection. Those are a cheap knock off of Bolle x1000 goggles. Personally I'd suggest you spend a bit more and buy the Bolle ones.

You're the kind of guy that makes it rain by washing your car, aren't you?

As an STR stock enjoyer, you won't fit any half decent battery in the "storage" parts of the stock. As mentioned above you'll be limited to something that fits in the stock tube, additionally, they're like rocking horse poop in the airsoft realm unless you spunk the cash on a real one. The pistol grip...there are some half decent ones by E&C if you can find them in stock, the old PTS Magpul kit is in the realms of scouring ebay as they are LOOONG out of production. The PTS EPG grips are sort of reminiscent of them but they're not really that close. Decent grips though.

Let us know what they're like. I sweat like a paedophile in Mothercare when I wear a helmet so anything to make life better is good!

Do you just want to replace the handguard or do you want to ditch the front sight and delta ring as well?

I managed to miss that entire debacle because I dropped most of my FB airsoft pages. Sounds like it was amusing though.

I'm not sure that a cheap Chinese knockoff ACOG even has a prism (happy to be proven wrong).

Right, if you're after a "normal" rate of fire and using 18:1 gears (which is what will be in the gun to start with by the way), you won't be running the gun so fast as to be experiencing the issue in that video. (for anyone else https://youtu.be/2vRmh9UTsSU?si=nHgoCniiX9LoE5ve ) Hop up you can do whenever, it isn't going to affect things like trigger response and rate of fire. It may well affect your power because the Maxx hop units are notorious for fitment and alignment issues and may need a different nozzle to match up with it. I'd say either do it first before you fuck about with the gearbox and see if it works OK with the nozzle or do it AFTER the gearbox so as not to introduce a problem that may throw you off something wrong with your tappet timing. I'd do etu first, then the motor, then the gears IF it needs it.

Yes....and no. The issues with pre-engagement will still be there if the gears are cycling too quickly, adding a delay to it won't help. In answer to your "what should I use" question, have you actually tried it with the stock gears and the 11.1v battery yet? Do that, swap the motor for the brushless and try it again. If it's still not quick enough, try a set of 16:1 gears (preferably a decent set like XT or SHS). Make sure you shim the gearbox properly or you risk it failing. Don't just throw the bits all in at the same time because if you run into a problem, you won't know what caused it. Go slowly and change one thing at a time. With the best will in the world, you are unlikely to turn a £150 rif into a £400 one by throwing loads of cheap parts at it, but you will (hopefully) learn how a gearbox works and have some fun along the way. Just don't set your expectations too high and you'll be fine.