BrightCandle

I second this, its the way to go about understanding the real costs of getting a sniper rifle that actually goes further than an AEG. To some extent it matters only a little where you start in terms of gun as you are going to replace most of the innards anyway and the price difference in the end is marginal. I would factor more £500 minimum for a sniper rifle.

I think Op answered that, they believed a longer barrel was the key to extra range. Its not really true in real guns (a 14" M4 v a 20" M16 is only a small decrease in muzzle velocity) and its certainly not true in airsoft either. There is lots of bad advice out there, we have all seen it. The answer is that the extended barrel requires a cylinder that is 3/4 ported. Rather than replacing the hop put your effort into something that is likely to work - R hop it and you will mostly remove the whole problem with a terrible hop unit. You will probably then find your airseal isn't very good but that is a whole other problem.

Not all barrels have the same dimensions around the lip before the hop window, so sometimes what will happen when you change barrel is that you pinch the hop rubber and it causes more restriction than it should. I suggest manually testing it outside of the gun and confirming that the BBs can be dropped in the hop properly and they get to the top (the lips aren't in the way) and that then it takes "normal" force to get the BB through the hop unit into the barrel and it then rolls out freely. If it doesn't then a quick check of the barrels side by side might show you the difference around that window and you may find you need to grind some material off to get a good fit or perhaps a different bucking with narrower shoulders. You are also going to get cylinder air issues as I suspect yours is ported to accommodate the shorter barrel it had initially. So you need a new cylinder at this point and get the air volume back to a reasonable ratio. Given all that you should get the gun at least working. Then you'll find the range is identical because barrel length != range. Range is a combination of FPS and the hop units effectiveness, so in practice the way to go about increasing range is improving things like your air seal, air volume and consistency in general and then having a very effective hop like an R Hop in there.

I am far from getting to the point where I can say much about the actual gun because I haven't gotten it out to skirmish yet, but I am having one of those problems you just can't believe you would have! The Krytac guns say they support Stick batteries, crane stocks and the smaller brick batteries. In practice I can't get any of those types of lipos to fit in the darn thing! - The crane stock was the first thing I tried since I have a load of those, but the Vapex 2600mah 7.4V are too fat and while they "just" slide in you'll need pliers against the wires to get it out, and you'll brake your battery. - The brick battery space is just big enough for an 1800mah, except it isn't because of the way it clips on. You can close it but you'll never open it again because the buttons will get stuck by the battery. - The stick battery can't actually fit in the buffer tube because its got the fuse in there. Now normally on a gun the fuse and connector can come out so you can put them down the tube after the battery, but the Krytac comes with really short wiring and you can't get the fuse out of the way. About the only thing I actually think you can get into this is a 2 or 3 prong butterfly 1300mah battery. Considering its a 22 rps gun with a torque motor that doesn't sound like a good idea, those batteries are regularly an issue with torque motors. So yeah Kind of irritated with the entire thing now. I am going to replace the stock completely, it has to be with a crane stock because I can't get a stick battery in there and I want to make sure it supports something 2A or more. Krytac really need to design a better stock, the crane legs are too small, the back area clips are too tight for a brick battery and you genuinely can't get a stick battery in there. Being stuck on 1300mah or below batteries is a terrible design when their dimensions are so close to actually just fine. Had to vent.

Its a pretty poor purchase, not really a skirmish capable weapon IMO. Its not really worth upgrading its not really all that compatible. A modern sports class AEG rather than a plinking gun is necessary for an actual skirmish. You weapon will be severely outclassed in range accuracy, rate of fire by the rentals let alone all the custom guns.

Over a £1000 for a pistol?! It better be the best pistol ever made for that sort of money.

The Polarstar Jack when it gets released should provide a relatively inexpensive route to HPA, being around £300 or so. But then you have the bottles and a way to fill them and you may well end up needing other parts to change how it shoots in your gun (poppets and such) so the cost is going to climb a bit. I don't know if a Combat machine is really the place to be putting a P*, seems weird to take one of the cheapest guns and put such expensive parts in it. You are going to end up replacing everything to make it perform well so most people choosing something with decent externals like a VFC and then replace all the internals for the P*, hop and barrel so they have the best platform they can get. Why a Combat machine?

I know the feeling. When my Tar 21 was misbehaving and my M4 was in pieces again I just got fed up of fixing it all, going to the game, having it perform poorly or outright break and then having to spend yet more tech time thrown into it over and over. In the end thankfully I pushed through it and now the Tar 21 is working wonderfully and the T4-18 is going to get repaired for the last time and then sold and replaced with a Krytac SPR. In the end I needed to rid myself of the items that were dragging me down like an anchor. I think everyone that does their own tech and finds themselves doing more than they want to gets that nagging feeling like they just can't be bothered doing dealing with the problems anymore.

That sort of money you can are talking about decent guns, G&P's, Krytac's, VFC etc etc. Lots of good options.

There is a genuine use for it, they have a faster trigger response so you can fire more shots on semi. But personally I really don't want to be using anything that is outside of the realism window (10-15 rps).

I can attest to the fact its a complete pain in the backside to do and tweak, despite the claims of how easy a Z kit is to actually install, practically I spent a day on a site just messing with it.

Specifically mentions assault vests and chest rigs, PCs are not part of the kit otherwise they would be on the list. I know a few of the guys broke the gear setup last game but I don't intend to. I prefer not to wear a PC because I want to get down on the ground properly and make sure I feel hits to the front as well. Its a bit of a pain really, I can't find anything in flecktarn that is suitable. The olive one looks ideal just not the right colour.

Rent a gun and equipment for your first game, they will kit you out to get going and then you can have a chat with the other players and find out what they use, try it out and see what you want. Go slow with your kit up is my main advice, you don't need a lot to get started once you determine you want to play the sport but getting it right to begin with can save a lot of aggravation.

Mainly a milsim gear requirement, its also why I need flectarn. You wont find ex USSR countries using plate carriers, its all assault rigs, combat belts and chest rigs. Its also one of the ways you can tell the various groups apart.

I am starting to show a couple of wear items on hard to replace parts. The first is that the blow back metal is starting to loose its shape and its failing to catch on pulling the bolt back, so you need to hold the bolt back to adjust the hop. In addition the spring release is sometimes not working either and seems related to the failure for the bolt to catch. The rail is attached to the top via hex screws into reinforced plastic and this is starting to loose rigidness. This is becoming an accuracy/optics issue with a heavier optic. Neither of these is easy to get replacement parts for and I think that realises the issues with custom guns like this that don't have specific replacement parts on sale and aren't that well made to begin with. Nothing too serious has gone wrong (that wasn't my fault) but since these parts started showing issues I thought I better mention it. No outright failure yet.

My S&T Tar 21's initial hop unit absolutely hated 0.28g BBs, it just couldn't lift them properly at all. The initial rubber was garbage but I replaced with a G&G green and it worked a lot better then, but only with 0.25g BBs. Some hop units just really can't apply the steady pressure necessary to lift the heavier BBs and as a result the range is quite limited. Are we talking 90 feet effective (flat trajectory point) or maximum range (when it hits the floor after a flat shot)? Because its effective range its pretty normal for a stock gun, for maximum range that is hop not working well at all. But I would try some lighter BBs and you may find it performs better.

I used to use a chest rig and it seemed like a decent solution to carrying gear until I also got a water pack, at which point I end up with a lot of straps to get in and out of my gear. For okto milsim I ended up getting a flecktarn african assault vest because plate carriers were not allowed and I needed the different colour and well it seemed like a reasonable option with the water carrier and all the space for a milsim op. However my primary issue with it is the ammo pouches. Because its all prestitched you can't move them about and there aren't enough ammo pouches on the left hand side, they are mostly on the right or so high on the straps they interfere with shouldering my rifle. What I am looking for is a solution that includes support for a 3L water pack that is mostly molle and would put much of the storage low on the body, sides and to the rear rather than on the front. I was sort of thinking a battle belt with yokes but I didn't find anything that included water packs and I do want to do away with the additional straps. Anyone seen something like this that I might want to consider?

To be fair I am kind of dreading spending this afternoon fixing my R hop. I got one great day out of it then a bit of the glue appears to have come loose and is hanging into the barrel and is destroy the amazing range and accuracy it gave me. On the other hand knowing how the gun works and how to replace parts and how they should look has allowed me to build a custom gun that outperforms almost everyone on the field, giving me an accuracy and range advantage that is very useful. You can try and get a shop to do custom work but if you look at the price of custom guns around the UK shops (like landwarrior) they are frighteningly expensive and aren't always even containing best of breed parts let alone being hand tuned to perfection. I faced the dilema on buying my very first gun before my second game of airsoft, I just made the call to go all in on understanding how they work and 14 months on I am more than competent and benefiting from that decision (but at the cost of time).

To be fair I am kind of dreading spending this afternoon fixing my R hop. I got one great day out of it then a bit of the glue appears to have come loose and is hanging into the barrel and is destroy the amazing range and accuracy it gave me. On the other hand knowing how the gun works and how to replace parts and how they should look has allowed me to build a custom gun that outperforms almost everyone on the field, giving me an accuracy and range advantage that is very useful. You can try and get a shop to do custom work but if you look at the price of custom guns around the UK shops (like landwarrior) they are frighteningly expensive and aren't always even containing best of breed parts let alone being hand tuned to perfection. I faced the dilema on buying my very first gun before my second game of airsoft, I just made the call to go all in on understanding how they work and 14 months on I am more than competent and benefiting from that decision (but at the cost of time).

KWA combines the metal construction and the heavier recoil with decent quality construction. I don't really think anyone else does, We pistols are kind of terrible quality on the whole, KSC is cheaper versions of KWA designs and there isn't a lot else out there.

Every airsofter is always faced with the dilema of repair themselves or pay someone else to do it. Really does depend on how deep into things you want to get in the sport really. I view maintaining your own guns as part of the activity and the thought of paying someone £30 to replace a spring in a basic device like this annoyed my sensibilities. But ultimately I think every gun is repairable and its almost always cheaper to do that than buy a new one.

The problem you face is the more realistic you get the less compatible you get. If you get a lock back bolt and mag release feature then its partly dependent on the follower on the magazine and hence you will have mag compatibility issues. The Systema PTW is probably about the best realism AEG out there but its custom mags and bits everywhere, good gun but not compatible. Gas guns don't swap magazines at all so that is a major team issue. There is a real challenge here to getting the benefit of Stanargs or AK magazines across the entire team but then if you can't actually swap magazines then its not as useful as it might first appear. I think the biggest issue MDF had in the last game in this regards was BB weight. We are using anything from 0.20's all the way up to 0.30g BBs in our magazines, and of course many peoples guns could not cope with my very heavy BBs, and my custom gun no longer works well with light BBs. There is more to the problem than just guns and magazine compatibility, its also ammo which is gun dependent as well.

At the Mall the mood was getting quite horrible and the organisers got us all together and gave us a good talking to. The key point was that in all the big fancy gear it was easy to miss the fact we had actually been hit, especially when moving when you can't hear the impacts over the other noise. They made the point how often do you call a hit in the area of your chest rig verses the rest of you, and I realised how many hits I must have not taken in the past. Its odd how you mostly get hit around your rig but rarely on it especially when moving? Even odder for when its the centre of your chest no?! Made me think. Its one of the other big reasons I don't use a plate carrier and why these days I use an african assault vest. it all sits on the sides and rear and it dramatically improves the chance of me feeling a hit. I wish more people had been at that talk and felt like I felt about the very likely situation that you had been hit and not noticed because of all your gear. I care so much about it I now wear a very different loadout and I wish others would as well.

I wear a UBACS with a chest rig all the time, I don't ever use a plate carrier (too darn hot!). I have never had one of these mythic gear heads complain about my loadout even when its just a jacket or whatever, I am not convinced this mythical stereotype person exists in any real numbers. You can play in just some shorts, a T shirt and a pair of flip flops and no one cares. One thing to note about UBACs however is that the body covering material is quite thin compared to your usual camo clothing. The hits will hurt quite a bit more as a result. I did a UBACs in Bunker 51 one night and came out looking like a piñata after a beating all across my body.

I use a Swiss Arms gun carry and a British Army Bergen to carry everything else.