NB: I AM NOT SAYING GET THIS CHEAPO OVER A G&G !!!!
(it is still a really cheap M4 starter way behind the SR range as said previously)
But WTF don't companies put ONE rail in there FFS !!!!
C'mon - a friggin rail to get ya going, drop the small pack of bb's or something ???
the £70 crappy cheapo brittle as f*ck cm515 comes with 3 plastic brittle as f*ck rails
(2 x short & 1 slightly longer one underneath)
so why can't others just put in one friggin' rail to get ya going
plus you would have a keymod rail to measure/compare against
clever marketing tactic - modify rail so that others need modding to fit
Oh better buy the G&G mounts then as they fit perfectly.....
pic of $hitty cm515 - any G&G peeps out there take note....
And again, 10 out of 10, ordered some desperately needed parts, came the next day (well the day after as I ordered at 2200 on the thursday morn and it came saturday morn).
highly recommended, and good quality stuff.
You joke, but the reason shooting sports still exist in this country at all is because of vocal lobbying groups. If there weren't that counter-point to the anti gun lobby then you wouldn't even be able to buy a bright orange water pistol. As for the UKAPU board raking in profits... I hardly think that's likely, I'd be very surprised if they have any money at all and lobbying parliament is certainly not cheap. In 2006 when the VCRA was implemented the only thing that saved the sport was a retailers association fighting for their livelihoods, the next time parliament wants to win a quick bit of public approval by 'being tough on guns' airsoft will need a vocal proponent to state our case, I believe that UKAPU is the only credible group at the moment and the more members they have, the louder their voice is.
As for BAC, it was a moneymaking scam invented by a retailer that didn't want to pay the fees to join UKARA, it's been proven a fallible system and has all but disappeared. If they were to be the voice of airsoft in the UK any lobbyist worth half their salt on the other side of the fence would have us looking like a bunch of unregulated sociopaths roaming the streets with RIFs we've been sold illegally by retailers who aren't in any way compliant with the law. The 'skirmisher's defence' would disappear pronto and we'd all have to start using two-tone guns.
I certainly don't have a problem with anyone wearing what they want. Ultimately, it's just a uniform and I can see why someone might appreciate German engineering and tailoring to the extend that they would want to wear it. What I don't get is why there is now a thread identical to this on ZeroIn and here and how he's already told us about his SS uniform back in July.
I come on here to talk about shooting people with toy gats. Not get my jimmies rustled goddammet.
When BAC launched they came up against howls of protest and abuse. Have a look at the old posts on the subject.
Whatever your thoughts and airsoft politics, I thought the chance to play at different sites and keep your defence intact was a good idea especially if you only play sporadically due to finance or family commitnents. I can understand why a lot of stakeholders in the industry wouldnt like this model though.
8mm bronzey bushings usually on 99% of them
(FireHawk has 8mm bearings for some reason)
These softer bronzey bushins do wear so replace with shs bushings over time
Gear ratios are "usually" 18:1 - though oddly FireHawk seems to be 21:1
most gearboxes use 18:1 as stock std gears - a few makes may use 16:1 but reckon 85% use 18:1
(some other types like L85's M14's may use 21:1 gears in longer stroke gearboxes but 18:1 is the "norm")
Piston is a 16 tooth type - well sometimes referred as a 15 tooth if 2nd tooth is removed/missing for AoE
But it is still a 16 tooth piston really coz sector gear has 16 teeth on std aeg gearbox
Think the cylinder spec is about 72mm x 23.8mm internal diameter - yup think that is about it I guess
screws to open G&G v2's are located on opposite side to a std non blowback box
don't know why but G&G put screws underneath on regular v2's - though think blowback's are on top
screws 90% will be allen key types - but some are still the odd phillips screws
Upgrades......
double o-ring cylinder head
o-ring nozzle
new piston head - better plastic one
cylinder - usually fine unless port is incorrect
you have a mosfet fitted anyway - can't say how robust it all is but a fet is there all the same so donkey work is done
TBH - leave it as it is for now - you have a fet so you could run on higher juice for a while
Then eventually when it NEEDS to, either it needs a service or she wears a bit or something busts..
THEN - re-do the box with tweaks/service/repair etc.........
That is my best advice - if it ain't broke.... etc.....
Even if you buy another "enhanced" or "upgraded" box it will still most likely need a tweak here n there
Quick change spring boxes are nice but on M4's you still gotta remove most stuff to change spring
just you haven't got to open box - but still gotta do 90% or removal to get to rear of box
(unless you wanna drill out a big dirty hole at back of receiver and need a stock change/adapter)
yes on some other guns (APS UAR) the quick change spring works great and 30 sec spring change but not on M4's
on a tweaked box you are gonna be looking at £100 aprox for a mofo lonex box
a £40/£50 gearbox will be nigh on just a std box and G&G boxes are pretty nice to work on with good compatibility
Leave it as is for now, run a bit more juice maybe
then say 6 months or so then get her tweaked and serviced a bit, drop in a neo motor and she will be lovely
BTW not saying run on 11.1v with a high speed neo motor trying to hit 30rps - that is silly
doing that will lead to piston pickup tooth snapping off - coz did that twice at first
but a little more juice or maybe a motor on 7.4v getting up near 20rps should be ok for a little while
probably replace small tamiya connectors with deans is cheap easy tweak
haha. I was in the same boat, I've got an old X3200 clone in fact that has done me proud for 3 years now. As soon as the X3500 came out I knew I had to have one :-) The larger firing tube is worth it alone for all those people out there who can't shoot straight haha.
So I thought I’d start a thread on here to document my latest Polarstar (“P*”) build, documenting what I purchased, where I purchased it from, my experience of the retailers, progress of the build, any problems/issues, some general FAQ’s and finally the finished project.
I’ll be doing this in the evenings after work, making sure to cover each step and uploaded pictures for reference.
Hopefully this can also serve as a basic guide for those people looking to get into HPA engines such as “P*”, alongside providing basic how to’s and answers to common questions.
I'm starting this tonight and will continue to update with pictures and progress in the evenings when I can. Please feel free to PM me with any questions or additional tips and I'll look to included them.
Happy Reading
Firstly….what did I buy and where:
G&G GC16 MOD0 30th anniversary Edition - Airsoft World, Link here.
Polarstar Jack (V2 Edition) - Beesting Airsoft, Link here.
Ninja LPR + 36" Braided Line (In Red) - Beesting Airsoft, Link here.
Retro Arms Speed Trigger (In Red) - Beesting Airsoft, Link here.
Retro Arms Selector (In Red) - Beesting Airsoft, Link here.
ZCI 6.02mm Stainless Steel Barrel - AK2M4, Link here.
ZCI Prowin Clone (I have both polymer and CNC in red) - AK2M4, Link here for polymer and here for CNC.
ZCI 12" Keymod Rail - AK2M4 - Link here.
APS Ver.2 Tactical Dynamic Trigger - AK2M4 - Not on website currently, was a direct order.
APS Evolution Tech Flash Hider - Ak2M4 - Not on website currently, was a direct order.
Maple Leaf Bucking and Omega Nub - Milspec Solutions, link here and here
Big Dragon Butterfly Aluminum Cocking handle - Airsoft Peak, link here
Element M16 Tactical Target Grip - Airsoft Peak, link here
VisionKing 1.25 x 26 Short Dot Scope - Ebay (VKTechLTD11), link here
Paracord - Ebay (md-flashlights-etc-ltd), link here
Pictures:
http://imgur.com/gallery/XR7VQ
My experience with these retailers:
Airsoftworld - Had no communication with them really, I simply found the item, paid for it, it arrived next working day. I've used them before though and not had any issues.
Beesting Airsoft - I cannot comment on how helpful this company has been (Danny in particular). I've purchased all of my HPA parts from them, in fact this is my 2nd P* build, 2 x Jacks, lines and regs. I can see myself using this company time and time again, happily recommending them to friends, family and fellow airsofters.
Ak2M4 - Another great company I use a lot for internal parts, especially the barrels and hop units. Honest to god, best value for money and great customer service.
Milspec solutions - Ordered from these guy quite a few times now, Spoken to Ian on a few occasion about upgrade parts etc. Always happy to offer advice, well packed and speedy delivery
Polarstar - I spoke to these guys after they did the post about adding pictures, put both my builds on there and got speaking to a chap, I told them about my experience with their products and my small issue with the short FCU, they immediately offered to send me two extended cables. Absolutely shinning example of customer service, would certainly recommend them
Airsoft Peak - My products arrived after a few weeks, took them about 6 days to process my order, but the items did arrive and the prices were great. Now I know the timelines I'd definitely use them again, but for items I don't mind waiting for.
md-flashlights-etc-ltd - Ordered some paracord, was unsure on colour/length so I gave them a ring, they were polite and helpful. I even asked about next day delivery on this order and some other paracord and I only got charged the cheaper option but had them in my hands the next morning. Will be using them for all my paracord related purchases in the future.
vktechltd - Made a best offer on a sight, then accidentally bought it now, ebay in it's wisdom then tried to make me pay for both. The guy was nice enough to cancel one of the orders......the cheapest best offer one lol I wasn't to annoyed though, would use them again as the quality of the scope is great and the item was well packaged.
Overview and quality of the parts:
This particular P* build is going to be a DMR, I'm aiming for range, accuracy and consistency, which is why I've chosen the parts I have as they've served me well in previous builds including my last P*.
My base gun is the G&G MOD0, I got this as I've installed a Jack into other G&G's gearboxes and I found them easy to work with and give good alignment. Not to mention the price for AirsoftWorld was great considering it's full metal.
I picked up another Jack as the I was really happy with the first one and for the price it's a great start in the HPA engine world. The regulators I use are the Ninja LPR's, they are easy to use, easy to maintain and once broken in they offer great consistency.
The barrel I'm using for this build is the ZCI 6.02mm Stainless Barrel, normally for a DMR I'd use something a bit wider, however the last ZCI barrel I bought was great and I've been using them in other builds. Not to mention they have a slightly wider hop window than most stock barrels and Madbull barrels.
The hop chambers I've got are the ZCI Prowin style, one is polymer and another is the RED CNC'd one. Again these are great and apply a nice pressure, with good range of adjustment, alongside good build quality.
In regards to buckings/nubs......this is pretty much personal preference, I have tons of barrel/hop combos set up in various rifles at the moment. The ones that work for "me" are:
ZCI 6.02mm barrel + ZCI Hop Chamber + maple leaf bucking with maple leaf omega nub.
ZCI 6.02mm barrel + ZCI Hop Chamber + G&G green bucking (flah hopped) with Prommy purple tensioner. Tanio Koba Twist Barrel, this is in my custom Tippman M4, running standard nub and G&G Green bucking. considering the barrel is 200mm ish....it's great.
For this build I've ordered various nubs/buckings and will update my experience with each.
Where to start:
First thing first, I needed to get the gun apart, which as I’m sure more of us know isn’t the most difficult of things to do on AR style guns.
Stage 1 – Removing the gearbox:
1 – Remove front body pin, slide the upper receiver forward* and pull the charging handle back and slightly up in order to unhook it from the top catch on the gearbox.
*If the gun is front wired, you’ll need to unclip these tabs in order to remove the upper as the cables will get caught.
2 – Remove the motor by undoing the 2 small screws on the base of the pistol grip. Once removed you will need to unhook the motor wires from the motor itself and then remove it entirely. Once removed you’ll need a long phillips screw driver to remove the screws which hold the pistol grip to the gearbox.
3 – Next remove your stock; once again you will need a long phillips screw driver to remove the retaining nut holding the stock onto the body/gearbox. Once you’ve undone this, you should be able to remove the stock tube.
4 – From here you should have a gun that looks like this.
5 – Next you will need to remove the gearbox from the lower receiver, which is a case of removing the rear body pin , small body pins and the mag release.
6 – Once the gearbox is removed from the lower, proceed to strip it, I won’t cover this part as there are loads of guides online. The only parts you’ll need are the trigger (I’m changing mine), trigger spring, spring guide, trigger board screw and safety cut off lever.
Stage 2 – Installing the Polarstar Jack:
1 - Put the Jack into the front half of the gearbox, where the original cylinder was, there are small dimples on the Polarstar Jack which will line up with the gearbox shell. Simple
2 - Next you will need to install the new trigger board, which is a simple case of pressing it GENTLY into place, once lined up, proceed to secure it using the original screw you kept earlier.
3 - From here you will need to connect the wire from the Polarstar Jack onto the trigger board and also attach the harness, it should look like this once done.
4 - Put the trigger back, check to make sure that it's all in place correctly and the spring is secured. * will vary gun to gun, trigger to trigger. At this stage you may also need to put the spring guide back in, in order for the stock screw to have something to anchor to. * again it varies on the AR variant you have.
5 - Depending on how the airline from your jack is lined up, you may have quite the bundle of fun trying to close everything up lol. On my first Jack it laid flat and was easier to work with. This one however pushes up against everything.
*A quick note at this stage, the Polarstar Jack is meant to be rear wired into the stock, however you "may" be able to front wire it or have the battery in the pistol grip and FCU in the stock tube. Our own Qlimax kindly sent me a custom made battery cable which should give me enough length the have the FCU in one place and the battery in another.
6 - Once you've worked out your cabling arrangements, reassemble everything again (part 1 in reverse), making sure not to pinch any of the cables as you do. The airline at this stage will be coming out the pistol grip.
7 - Make sure that you get the gearbox in and lined up nicely. This is achieved but making sure the gearbox is in a straight line as is the nozzle, you can check by reassembling the upper and making sure the nozzle enters the hop chamber straight and without the nozzle getting pushed all the way back. This part can take some time, it may involve tightning/losing either the stock screw or pistol grip screws, as both of these will affect how the gearbox sits in the receiver.
The Externals: **Ongoing**
So I've done the bulk of the build now, stuck all the externals on that I currently have, However I'm still waiting on a pistol grip, suppressor and charging handle. Externally I'm trying to set this up to be light and low profile. Hence the use of the Keymod rail (Brought from AK2M4, Here. Quality wise was just as good as the other ones you see from retailers at double the cost).
I added the red trigger and red selector....because it just looked cool. That and the fact they were kindly donated from Beesting Airsoft as I thank you for using them to purchase my HPA bits from. I will be revisiting my other P* build and using the APS trigger provided by AK2M4 as it's a nice dark grey and will suit the worn look. The trigger was fairly annoying to install, purely because the return spring in the G&G was stupidly strong* and a pain to hold in place. *This will differ by gun.
The fire selector was also a PITA to fit, as the small plate that sits on the inside of the gun, was too wide for existing hole, so I had to widen it a bit. Also to this day I'd never actually removed/installed a selector.......and to tell you the truth it was so stressful, I had to put everything down and walk away lol.
Basically you have to pop the dummy selector which is pressed/glued in. Then use a small screw driver to remove a small screw which holds the plate to the selector. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO THIS ON A WHITE PIECE OF PAPER, there's a tiny spring and even smaller ball bearing which will drop out, roll onto the floor and disappear forever leaving you to raid through your spares box and remove them from another receiver you had laying around.......you have been warned. There's a handy video on removing the selector here.
With the keymod rail I had to use some barrel washers (2) in order for everything to line up and be rock solid, I'm not going to explain installing it as it's pretty self explanatory
Luckily for me the G&G MOD0 outer barrel lined up perfectly with the 12" Keymod rail, which means a suppressor will sit flush with the rail. I'm hoping to get a better suppressor on there shortly. (Payday).
Once the charging handle turns up with the PSG-1 grip, I'll update with some more pictures.
Hop and Barrel Combo (inc nub, bucking and chamber): **ONGOING**
So I'm currently running the ZCI 6.02mm Stainless Steel Barrel and Polymer Prowin Hop Unit (Purchase from AK2M4) and for the moment I've just popped in a Maple leaf Bucking (75 degree) an Maples leaf Omega Nub (courtesy of Milspec Solutions, thanks again Ian).
I'm going to be experimenting with other barrels and buckings etc to see which for give the best results for "Me".
Here are some simple pointers though:
A benefit of a tight bore barrel is less air (PSI) is needed to get the correct FPS. When using a wider bore barrel (6.08 - 6.20) you will have to up the PSI to accomodate for the large volume of air required. As an example in my first P* when running a 6.02, my PSI was set to 75 ish and I got 346 FPS on a spare TK barrel of the same length but wider bore (6.08?) I had to run 85 PSI.
This basically means tighter barrel = Less PSI = Less Air Used = More shots per tank. and the opposite for wider barrels.
The current argument is that for longer range, wide bores are better when used with HPA and set up correctly. However for air efficiency and short to medium range, TBB's are good.
From my experience, it's all relative....at 150-200" any decent barrel, bucking, nub and chamber should perform alright. So from that perspective get a TBB a it's cheaper and more air efficient. However if you're going down the full DMR route and want that 250-300" range then get a decent wide bore. You'll have less shots per tank, but you'll be using a DMR on potentially higher FPS anyway, so 700 shots on a 13cl tank should be more than enough for semi auto.
It really depends on how YOU play and the ranges that YOU engage people in. You won't need a wide bore, flat hop and all the time required for a full DMR if you're running and gunning at 100". In that case a decent bucking and barrel would be more than enough.
In regards to flat hops, they are pretty easy, they work great and are worth the 15 minutes or so needed to do. Heres some buckings and nubs I've had success with:
G&G Green and Purple Prommy pensioner or black for higher FPS
Prommy purple bucking and tensioners
The buckings AK2M4 sell work really well and due to the material they trim down well with a stanley blade, the prommy/G&G are "squidgy" and move alot without actually being cut lol
Prommy blue sucks balls...end of.
Madbulls are OK, but I noticed they didn't seal well once flat hopped.
Falcon bucking, ripped at the mere idea of being flat hopped. Wouldn't use.
Another note about flat hops is they are only as good as the barrel you put them in, so it's worth going for a good barrel. Another reason I used the ZCI barrels is they have a slightly wider hop window than some other brands, which is perfect for flat hopping as it allows for more contact.
Setting Up The Polarstar Jack (FCU Settings): **TO BE UPDATED SHORTLY**
The finished project(s): **May also include my 1st Polarstar Jack**
Performance: **TO BE UPDATED SHORTLY**
Common Problems, Simple Fixes: **'ll be adding to this after tonight lol*
FAQ's: **TO BE UPDATED SHORTLY**, hopefully everyone can chip in and we can add to it
Very surprised to see that UAR in that condition as spoke to the APS rep the other day and he was saying how much they improved the internals. How many BB's had been through it?
Really like them myself. I should have a replacement spring guide in stock, pretty sure it's the same as most of the other QD gearboxes on the market. I can even check for you as I've got a whole bunch of samples in from APS, no V3 gearboxes but their V2 gearboxes uses the same system.
On the whole I'm pretty impressed with APS - hopefully going to be stocking their M4 parts soon
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