Esoterick

It's more comfortable not to have to and given there are ambi guns on the market i'd rather go for one as a left handed shooter. You can also do things like move the gun away from your palm and push the mag release with your index finger but it's not ideal. You also have to consider some people, myself included will load their mag pouches up on the supporting side of the body so switching hands(or grips) is clunky and not really all that comfortable or fast. yorkairsoft16 hopefully you like the HK45, the only issue i've ever had with mine is dirt stopping the mags feeding but that would happen with any gun. It's my favourite gun out of all the ones I own and as I think I said in another thread I love my other guns

Ambi controls are more important than switching out parts that don't need changing, likely to the detriment of the gun IMO.

Yeah this is what I always think too. Some people say it doesn't but i'm dubious how adding a heavier slight that is going to get cold is not going to effect efficiency. I get 2 full mags out of my HK45 per refill, I haven't tried going past that as I don't want to run out of gas half way through a mag Of course it's your choice OP but all the TM pistols i've used can hit targets accurately as far as a pistol can be used so I'm not sure what gains are to be had.

Only thing that isn't ambidextrous on the HK45 is the decocker/safety. No idea about upgrades, gas efficiency and accuracy are great by default.

You could try Socom Tactical in Fleet or Xsite in Lane End(just outside Wycombe) - Airsoft Armoury is Chalfont but i've heard some less than favourable things about them. I don't think you have any shops especially near you though.

Personally I use an oshiboom when I want an impact grenade and a dynatex when I want a timed one. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. One thing I will say is I hate reloading the dynatex in the field whilst the oshiboom is pretty easy to reload and doesn't rely on a tool to prime the striker - the manual recommends using a coin to prime it then using spent blanks after that, personally I just use my thumb. Timed can be thrown/slid a much greater distance and aren't reliant on a hard surface to detonate. However due to the timer players who have their wits about them will run away when it comes into their vicinity. Impact have a shorter range but go off instantly, they are somewhat to extremely reliant on the surface they land on depending on the make you buy. I've seen oshibooms go off in mud but it isn't guaranteed. My recommendation would be impact for primarily urban play or timed for more of a mix, although I wouldn't be keen on chucking my dynatex anywhere it might merrily roll off into a bush As TheGrover mentions 209 shotshell primers are much cheaper, it's also much easier to find places selling them compared to 9mm blanks. Whilst they are about half the size I can't notice much of a difference in the sound they produce.

I'd basically say leave them be as in my experience changing them both possibly made a marginal difference. On the flipside it didn't harm my gun so if you want to give it a shot look at the details in the forum thread I linked in my first reply. Just be aware it's very easy to kid yourself into thinking it's much better on the basis you spent time and money on it

My limited experience suggests it's luck as much as anything else. For instance a chap at my local has a Cyma M14, he's put a TM hop rubber and a tight bore barrel in it - Suffice to say when he uses it half the site is talking about how ridiculous the range is and that's sub 350 FPS.

I think people get carried away with how good their guns are hence why it's so common to see people saying how their gun outranges 90% of people on site. As much as I love my HK416 it's accurate out to 50-55 metres(on 0.25g blasters), which is the same as what any decent AEG should be doing. Up to you if you want to do it but changing the hop rubber and fitting a tight bore barrel made a very small difference at best. I treat it as a learning experience but outside of that I would say it was essentially a waste of money. Here is the thread I made on doing this if you are interested: http://www.airsoft-forums.co.uk/index.php/topic/23985-tm-hk416-barrel-and-hop-change/#entry174059 The next option is going to be looking at upping the FPS so it's closer to 350 FPS. Not that it's 100% helpful to you now but Fire Support offer an upgrade package which is both a more powerful spring and a Lonex gear set so they recommend changing both, but that package is limited to new guns: http://www.fire-support.co.uk/product/firesupport-marui-sopmod-scar-recoil-m4-340-fps-upgrade Personally I think it starts getting a bit messy and I would take it to someone that messes about with TMs for a living, for instance my mate has just bought a HK416 and it's due back this coming week after a few hundred quids worth of work done on it. However that's what I would do to my gun, if you are feeling adventurous then go for it - There's also a few guys on here that know a lot more about recoil shock upgrades than I do(which isn't hard) so might be worth seeing what they say too.

I know people like different things but I don't get the appeal of paintball once you know what airsoft is. The only value paintball adds is in hit taking and to be honest i've seen tons of cheating in paintball, plus it's easy to wipe the shell splatter off. As the paint is so greasy it's hard to tell if a mark is from the current game or the previous one and my mate was telling me how players wear clothing that absorb paint at a tournament level - although this may be more enforced these days. Hire airsoft guns shoot as accurately, if not more so than what he is demoing and they are based off real weapons. Plus the ammo cost difference

Pretty much it feels like a case of choosing whether you get stabbed or shot, either way it sucks. Last time loads of us(Brits) voted Lib dem and we get the tories by proxy? That just highlights how horrible our political system really is. If there was an option that said "none of these parties represent me or my beliefs" that would be what I would choose. As it stands I will be deciding who out of Labour and the Conservatives will do the least damage to the country and vote based on that. Not that they really have to follow through on anything they say to get in power it seems... As far as Scotland goes, I think they should be free to make up their own minds. However it all seems very vague: there seems to be no indication on how trade with England would go, how borders would work, the currency used or trade with Europe. Admittedly I haven't followed this closely so I could well be mistaken but it seems to be based on a hell of a lot of assumptions. There are a hell of a lot of considerations to make basically outside of feeling patriotic and wanting independence. Agreed on this point, it's an extremely flawed argument that Scotland is somehow leeching off the treasury. There's also reasonable evidence(although it appears to be debated) that Scotland actually contributes a great deal more than England economically to the point where the north sea oil fields are left out of some reports...

Unless I am mistaken this is more to do with troops making do with what they've got rather than it being the optimum weapon for the situation. I've heard of US marines putting the butt of their M16 over their shoulder or under their armpit for room clearing. I can hug walls really tight and aim down sights using a pistol or a short gun like my breacher, with my HK416 I'd have to either extend the gun past the corner or stand back to do the same making myself more exposed.

Not sure but I would recommend you get a tech to rewire it to deans instead as the work will cost the same, if not less and allow you to use bigger batteries. That's what I did on mine and I run 1450 mah nunchuck batteries and they aren't actually the biggest that will fit i've just found those fine to use all day using anything less than about a bottle of 3000. At least with the TM mags you know that you won't have to faff about with velcro mods etc if the 3rd party mags you have bought don't feed properly

Looks like these are for sale now: http://www.incentivedesigns.co.uk/#!scene-4--id-5/c3uz Edit: was looking at the wrong thing.

You'd want this: http://eagle6.co.uk/shop/accessories/lonex-magazine-adaptor-for-m4-hk416-next-generation-recoil-shock-series.html Otherwise you need to use magazines that are categorised as SOPMOD. For the HK416 it's: recoil shock HK416 magazines(slightly different to M4/STANAG, one comes with the rifle for reference), M4/Stanag SOPMOD magazines and PTS PMAG SOPMOD magazines. The PMAGs are hard to come by but there's a few kicking about on Ebay unopened if you look around, added benefit is they hold 120 BBs instead of 82. As Spatch said you lose the bolt lock function so it will keep firing when the magazine is empty, so depends how much you value this feature.

My mates bought a TM HK416 and it's being sent off for a load of work including having an R Hop fitted. I'll be interested to see how it performs, the best performing AEG i've seen by far is a Cyma M14 with a tight bore barrel and a TM hop rubber which makes me wonder if it ends up being more luck than anything else. It certainly doesn't help getting a sense for what's what when it's fairly common to see players on forums saying stuff along the lines of "my gun outranges 90% of other players guns" - which is said enough to make it a very large 10%

I've found different gas behaves differently also. On my HK45 filling with Abbey sniper gas you couldn't see any gas escaping until the mag was full, with Abbey predator it escapes straight away. I think my P226 was the same but I've sold it and barely used it so can't say for certain.

Pretty much this, only thing for me is my pictures end up being that "what I think I look like, what I actually look like" meme lol.

Yes, although they can be a little bit tighter in the pouch in my experience. Shouldn't be a problem though.

Their Banbury/Com3 site is really nice, I went with a mate a few months back. Overall it was a good experience and of particular note I would say the attitude of the marshals was the best i've seen by far. Tony was really enthusiastic giving the safety briefing which is a good start to the day. Then once you move out the Marshal that went with our team to our respawn/starting area where there is a map suggested tactics we could use, they also congratulate players for good plays or taking hits throughout the day. It's done in a way that doesn't feel patronising though and i'm sure it makes people feel good about being honest. We went a second time with another mate last weekend and again it was a good day. Tony who is the head marshal must have recognised I was not a regular and spent about 5 minutes chatting to me when I was walking back from regen. I can't think of another site where that has happened and it made me feel he really cares about the site and the players. The games on the second visit were different but well thought out and as with our first visit a lot of players are keen to work as a team to complete the objectives. The site has sensible FPS limits and it's not uncommon to be taken out by a DMR. If a grenade is thrown into a room you are not allowed to leave so it effectively kills everyone the second it's thrown, the rooms are small enough that you'd be in the 5 metre kill radius so I think that's fair. The staff are all excellent and other sites should take notes from them on how to run a site. Layout of the site is solid and the way it is set out makes it feel deceptively big.

I've got one of their softshells and the build quality is great, it's also ridiculously warm for such a thin jacket which is a plus point when you want to still feel hits but not freeze your balls off. Edit: this is the one I have http://www.uktactical.com/p-9594-pentagon-k08012-reiner-sf-jacket-level-v-black.aspx

The Eotech 551/552 clones look really tidy IMO and that's what I ran on mine till the glass got shot out. I'd recommend getting some form of lense/glass protector as the person I bought it from advised me to lol. I'd agree with The FNG its more preference than anything else. Things like range markings that the ACOGs have are useful on a real gun, but not so much on an airsoft gun - although if you like the style of the scope go for it.

It's a shame more sites don't acknowledge DMRs. I'm sure I am not the only one that wouldn't hesitate to get one built if 450 FPS with a 30 metre MED was standard.