BrightCandle

I have been wearing a lot of clothes during the winter so I have done away with the chest rig and moved to thermal under layers and a jacket. I hear the hits very easily on the jacket I have and you'll find that works out better for this purpose than the outer layer being soft, if needs to be a waterproof and then you'll hear the hits clearly. When its 0C I don't find just wearing combat gear is sufficient for me, I get cold so I wear more layers but as long as that outer layer is nice and rigid it makes lots of noise when you get hit.

All the sites I attend consider a lower mesh mask and goggles to be full face protection. Give your site a ring and ask them if they would allow you to do that to meet the requirement. I had the same problem getting down on the sights which is why I have cut my mesh mask pretty extensively with a dremel. I have made it contour under my goggles perfectly so I don't get any issues with BBs getting through or pressure from the mesh onto the goggles and I have cut the bottom a bit shorter as well to end at my chin. Then I have spent a reasonable amount of time making it push into my skin as well so that I can get a reasonable cheek weld on the gun. I get the combination of keeping my teeth and not taking face shots and the ability to get onto the sight. I still need a high mount but its not impossible anymore.

There are plenty of materials in the mask that flex, like the foam around the mask contouring to your face or the plastic gaps. Given enough energy you can force a BB through and get inside. It will have lost almost all its energy in the process but its still disconcerting when it happens. I had an odd moment with my desert locusts where I saw a BB coming right for my eye and when it hit I felt it. I went straight to a marshall who checked and found no holes and it turns out it was just the pressure wave from the BB hitting the polycarbonate and flexing it. We are talking about high amounts of pressure here, a lot of careful testing must be done to ensure they work as they should and in all directions and in all the sealing locations.

After replacing the hop are you saying that now the nozzle never comes out of the hop unit or it only does it when the slide is racked all the way back? Because its normal for the nozzle to be stuck in there for a reasonable amount of time, so long as it exits as the rack gets to the back its not a problem, indeed holding onto the barrel until the BB has left is better for accuracy. Like I said before, the hop rubber is what keeps the BB in the barrel on these guns so the BB rolling out is related to that, either the rubber is misaligned or its damaged. Either way getting the hop unit apart and working that out is what you need to do to fix that problem.

Its been a while since I looked into this but I have never used a set of goggles that weren't capable of taking a point blank shot from the highest powered gun on the field, ie 500 fps or about 2.5j. Since I have been hit in every possible direction around my head and eyes at this point I know that not having full seal is going to be dangerous in some of the sites I play at. Out in the woodland I am sure that a standard compliant set of glasses would probably do the job almost always, but I prefer to ensure the safety of my eyes considering how important they are to me. So I go with standards exceeding airsofts energy levels. My first set were Stanag 2920, that is it could survive a .22 calibre metal cylinder at up to 275 m/s. I believe the balls they use are about 0.8g so well in excess of the energy of a BB from a sniper rifle. My current set exceed ANSI Z87.1-2010, EN 166, infact they exceed it so far that it can stop buck shot out of a 12 gauge shotgun at point blank range. Again far in excess of the energy of a BB from a sniper rifle. These standards exist for a reason, so we know for certain what is stopped by them. They can test them under multiple strikes and very precise energy levels and confirm that they work as intended and continue to do so. My very first game renting was using a mesh goggles on one of those paintball like masks. Not only did the mesh block my vision and made tracking my BBs hard but I also had a fragment get throw the mesh right in front of my eyes. I got lucky but it wasn't the only time I found bits of BB inside of the mask. Then I had a look online on tests done on mesh goggles and the end result was that they are all penetrated at all the energy levels we see on the airsoft field and thus you will get hit in the eyes using mesh goggles. This is why there aren't any ballistic standards markings on them, they simply don't meet any of them. I clearly care more for my teeth (mesh lower) and eyes (standards complaint fan cooled full seal goggles) than most people but these standards in my opinion matter a lot and you should never be buying something that wont definitely stop a BB on the field and do so from the most powerful gun there and with a bit of margin as well.

Through the winter I have been running with a waterproof and wind proof camo jacket and just been sticking some hi caps in my pockets. I guess I am the wrong person to ask because even when I run a chest rig its 6 mags, a pistol mag and a grenade and that is it.

Initially what I do is take a prone supported position indoors 10metres at a paper target and determine the horizontal setting so I get accurate centre shots. Setting the hop at short range is difficult to do so at this point I will typically just set the vertical to hit centre on the target. Then on game day I will set the hop unit so that it produces a level flight path and dips down at the end (rather than up as some people do with over hopping it) and then readjust the vertical so its broadly right at the extent of the range against a tree or target at the site. What it typically means is my horizontal is right to within 1mm and my vertical on game day can potentially be out by 5cm's depending on long I go about determining the vertical setting and how much wind there is that day and such. But typically I get it pretty close with the combination. I don't find shooting the hopped gun at 10m is particularly useful but at some point I am hoping to know for each gun where the centre point is for optimal hop centreing so I can set the gun appropriately indoors and completely accurately.

I played there finally end of November last year. I didn't agree with his opinion after playing there. While the site isn't my thing I think its incredibly well run and I have no issues with the marshalling at all. The site has one of the best safety briefs I have seen and its one of those places where you feel the marshalls are really doing something. I think my friend may be one of those guys that likes to call others out because I can't imagine there being an issue on this site often. When there were moments of people doing stupid things (like a guy who ran into a room fully of friendlies, got lit up and somehow having been shot at from all the way across the corridor and got through the door and took 2 people out) that were obviously impossible they warned them for it severely. They reminded everyone about their molle gear hiding hits and to listen out for it. It was nice how after a lot of grumbling about hit taking they actually got the games back on track, which never happens at other sites.

So where do all the moderate Britains go to vote? Because there is a lot of room between foreign and racist!!!!! I looked at the political compass yesterday and was kind of horrified how authoritarian and right wing the entirety of British politics is these days, its a huge swing to the extremes. When the SNP is your only central party you know something has gone wrong! I just want to play Airsoft with my legally bought RIFs. I can live with them being brightly coloured if that is what it takes but I don't want to. I feel as each day passes the chance this harmless sport will get banned increases. We are living on borrowed time in a country that vilifies anything to do with shooting at all. At the shooting range (you know where olympians train) we were told to never say what was there to passer bys that asked, so it was also a lecture on something crazy like molecular biology or some such to throw people off the scent that they were near guns used by trained professionals for shooting holes in paper. This countries ruling elite is off the wall gun stupid. Yet when I travel back and forth to airsoft games I find the average taxi guy is quite interested in the sport and they certainly aren't afraid of it. I don't think the average Britain is afraid of a country knowing about weapons as the establishment is. My own pet theory is its just an attempt to control the narrative and try and disarm an ever annoyed public that might one day revolt when the strategy of working within the system becomes obviously pointless.

I would really like to see the crime numbers where UKARA holding individuals are committing crimes with RIFs. Because I suspect its not a big number!!! The wife will be disappointed, she was holding some notion that despite some craziness the Greens weren't so actively harmful. But banning our hobbies done between consenting adults is just dumb. Why is all of British politics so authoritarian? I don't understand why everyone wants to ban my exercise system or the computer games I play. Its all madness, I am not hurting a sole (well only the ones that sign up to be downstream of my BBs of course)

You might find that you are better off just buying pyro, as in stick grenades for a few pounds instead. A reusable grenade pays off after about 100 throws or so but you can't really throw them everywhere. Outside for example you'll want to avoid throwing them as they often get lost in the mud, and even some indoors are too cluttered to really use it and be able to always find it. Also you only get to carry what you have, they are heavy and so you are limited to under arm and below waist height throws and that limits the range quite a bit. In the end the generic lit pyros are more versatile and not all that cheap. So while I started with a TRMR I actually don't use it all that much and I find myself using the basic £3 a throw ones instead.

Agree fully. The main advantage of the TRMR is that it has no pin, just twist and throw so you don't loose any bits of it, but its also a bit more expensive. You get some shotgun caps and the grenade and you are good to go.

My guess is you have an airseal issue around the hop unit to the gearbox. When you drop the guns the barrels can shift or bend and at that point you can find the gearbox end of that with the hop unit can be misaligned.

There are three steps to fixing the leaking valves for top and bottom. 1) Get some silicon in there by putting some onto the valve before you fill with some green gas, just get some lubrication in there and it may just solve itself. 2) Tighten the valves. They should take a flat headed screwdriver access part and you can tighten them up like a screw, you can push pretty hard on these things since they are basically metal bolts. 3) Remove the pressure by firing or letting it sit for a bit with its leak and ensure its empty. Then open up the magazine from the bottom and take the valves and seals out. Check for any damage to the seals, lubricate them directly and refit. 4) If this still hasn't worked then buy some replacement valves and seals for the gun and again take the mags apart and replace the bits that aren't working. Its relatively easy I have done all of these with my We 229 mags and did so without any prior knowledge. Take a look at youtube for magazine disassembly, its really quite simple as they are just a metal box with valves and seals.

Try http://www.proairsoftsupplies.co.uk/ as in give them a call and ask. They are one of the We importers in the UK and they might be able to get you a replacement or suggest one that will fit as they have a lot of We guns in stock.

After getting my first gun I avoided buying a chrono for as long as I could. I took my gun to a shop that had a suitable place to test it and they clocked my G&G M4 carbine in at 335 - 340. I checked with the site (who have a limit of 328) and they told me I needed to get it downgraded. The gun was specified to be 328 fps so it was a little disappointing to have it too hot out of the box. I then had a decision to make, pay the shipping and send it back to reseller to do the work and pay for a spring and pay a local shop to do the work or learn how to do it myself and pay just for the spring. So in the end I decided I should probably learn a bit about the guns so I watched some tutorials, bought a spring and decided I could do the work myself. Then I had the same problem, what does it chrono at now? So I bought a chronograph. It clocked 315 with the downgrade. Since then I have used it quite a bit when diagnosing problems or upgrading internals to confirm what I expected happened and ultimately now I know how the guns work, how they go together and all the parts and what is working well and what isn't. I often see someone with a problem on site and I can give them an idea on what to try to see if that is the issue. I am far from being the uber tech of course but I know enough to maintain my own guns. You have a choice to make really with your first gun. Do you do the tech or do you pay someone else to do it. Both are valid options and I meet people on sites that do both but you do have to choose. If you choose to tech yourself you need a chronograph, its going to be a go to tool for testing if the gun you put together is sealing as it should and that you haven't just bumped the FPS by 30 with your replacement part. Otherwise find a local shop to test and confirm or if nothing else just take it to the site and they might limit you to semi auto if you are a little hot to begin with. Its not uncommon for them to be a bit overpowered initially for some sites but the spring/seals etc take about 1000 rounds to settle.

I have gone through quite a few different brands and weight of BBs now and what I have found is that it depends on the gun. I recently tried some G&G PBSP 0.25s in my S&T Tar 21 and the gun loves them, it halves the spread at maximum range it just loves them in comparison to the devils or the blasters. But then my G&G M4 seems to prefer the devils and the PBSP ones aren't quite as good a spread at range. So I suspect the answer for the best BB is dependent on the gun. I have had decent results with blasters, Devils and PBSP and less good results with some less well known ones. Weights anywhere from 0.20 to 0.28 seem to work reasonably well and I would recommend you try and compare a bundle of different ones over time and see what your gun likes.

Mechanically the way it appears to work in my We F228 is that the hop holds the BB in place. So take out your inner barrel and hop: And then when I drop a BB in the back it catches on the hop rubber and wont move forward even with a blow, but it will fall out backwards: If yours wont vertically stay put just in the inner barrel then this is potentially your issue, the hop rubber is worn out or not seated well. However if it does catch here with the gun apart then its probably the nozzle extending too far and pushing the BB past the hop catch point which should hold out against pretty much anything.

As in they aren't being propelled or that the next BB isn't being held in place for the next shot?

There are situations where a reloadable grenade is good, but I think one where the enemy has your grenade is bad! Imagine you throw your grenade, kill a few and then someone who avoided the blast sees the grenade and recognises the make. He picks it up, twists and throws. Now a bundle of your guys are dead and someone just used one of your caps. Its potentially a liability unless you can guarantee you can take the area after the grenade goes off. I think where this is useful is that you don't need to carry spare ammo into the game. You load up the grenade at the beginning and you'll get enough uses out of it to complete a game (or use 6 grenades which is more than a realistic loadout might hold).

We live in a country where the prevailing thought is that guns are just bad and people have no need for them in their lives. Thus pictures with RIFs are deeply disturbing to many people. Its usually best to keep the hobby under wraps and only disclose to the people you think will respond relatively positively to the news. Avoid having pictures on your facebook that could link you to the sport. Its not about legality its about people prejudices and odds are you are going to find people offended by it. We don't live in a society where our first thought is to ask "oh whats airsoft", the first thought is "he's a gun touting lunatic, deport him". Its not your fault, its theirs, but we live in their world not ours as it is for so many minorities we have to do things to fit in so everyone else is comfortable even if they are living a lie.

I just wear a camo baseball cap which I have so far found to keep the sun out of my eyes and so far has provided excellent protection from getting hit in the head. I have taken quite a few on the forehead and so far none of them has left a mark through the cap, if anything I would say its a bit too good because I barely feel them. Having seen BBs bounce off helmets and the owner not notice due to other noises I myself am quite cautious with adding hard armour to myself through which I wont feel a hit. it might look cool but it also frustrates your opponents when they ping off it and you don't call it because you can't feel it.

Just don't get the ones with fingers cut off, those end of finger shots are going to sting. Learn to live with full finger or just your trigger finger cut off to avoid the pain and suffering. I like my mechanix, been very happy with them they have been tough can flexible and I barely notice I am wearing them. But honestly if you have gloves to protect your hands and they are doing that job you don't need anything else.

I don't know when it happened but they certainly weren't available in the middle of last year. Now they haven't made a product pack containing the lens but they do have them on sale individually: http://www.revisionmilitary.com/store/desert-locust-thermal-replacement-lens.html There seem to be no suppliers in the UK with them available yet (tactical-kit does the goggles but not the lens yet) but I have asked them to get some in. I wonder if all the manufacturers are going to do this soon, fans or no the thermal lens seem to be gaining popularity with players.

I need a wider range of material choices really. What I want is a replacement hop unit for my Tar 21. Its all plastic, doesn't hold its setting and isn't very consistent. But I feel a very high quality finish is necessary to make such a thing and its beyond the technology as it stands. More than likely you aren't going to be able to print any internal parts, just mostly external ones that don't need to be strong (like foregrips or pistol grips, maybe a stock) but also limited by size. I tried printing a magazine with fibre driven windows for basic ammo count but the tolerances just aren't sufficient to do it well. So I have tried to do this a bit with airsoft parts already, and I am still considering it, but the quality so far hasn't been to a standard where I feel I can really use it.