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If you're new, please take some time to look around the forums and view pinned topics. There is a lot of useful information. As a starting point.. Finding a place to play: New and looking for somewhere to play? The law and Airsoft: Our UK Law Forum The "Violent Crime Reduction Act" in Full Popular UKARA Related Questions Beginners Guides: Beginner Guide to Airsoft Ian's Guide to Noobism on a Tight Budget AF-UK App with useful stuff: AF-UK App Guides forum containing lots of useful info: Guides Forum Chances are simple questions will have been asked before. If you can't find anything on the above links then please search: http://www.airsoft-f...e&module=search

I played a really good game of BF3 with my squad the other day. It's pretty funny because I get accused of wallhacks halfway through. It's livecom and about 40mins long so if you have time to chillout then go take a look: Watch in 720p as anything lower is abit meh thanks to yt processing. I had to compress a lot due to the size of the file. My upload speed is only 54kbps after all! Enjoy

That paper trick is SUCH a good idea! I normally bung my bits in a little box, but I like your way better. Photographing everything is a really good idea. As might videoing be. I photographed my spring swap, but at the critical time I found I ran out of hands when changing my spring. Next time I'll video the process. As it's a split gearbox the spring swap was easy, I'm leaving the lower gearbox just as it is until I need to mess with it. Not that I'm chicken or anything, I could strip it down and reassemble it, easy! Okay, maybe not just yet!

Mate, notto be an arse or anything, just for future reference, I got a pair of those direct from China on fleabay for £3.13 in P&P...

as a newbie i havent bought anything amazing just some goggles from flebay i got the mesh type so not to fog up http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260985061415;jse...1415%26_rdc%3D1

I bought from them a few times as I was getting started. They really don't make you feel valued at all if you have any kind of direct contact with them. Phone and emails. They became very blunt and rude with me after a short time, maybe 5 emails at the most and a phone call or two. I was a noob, I was trying to get more info, I was unaware of the forums at that point as I wasn't a big internet user or anything etc etc. I was trying to get an idea of what I was buying and they just couldn't have given less of a shit, was my impression. Whenever I emailed them and the email contained more than 3 questions, they would never answer more than 1 of them and even that wouldn't be in any detail. They also have that automated response thing that says, "As we get hundreds of emails a day... blahblahblah" yeah right. Hundreds? That's got to be bollocks. Why don't they get more people working on responding to them? I'm actually fairly sure I've been added to some sort of block list, as I've not received a single reply to anything I've ever sent them since they were rude all those years ago. I try to avoid buying from them unless they're the only place stocking what I'm after. I experienced the fps issue you did as well, Adam. It was shooting around 390 and they'd said it was in the 350 region.

Imagine getting 10 of you, in tanks! That would be fucking epic shit right there. As for sniping, have you seen the 20x scope? If you go on the loadout screen in Battlelog, select the L96 in the sniper kit section and scroll through the optics, one of them is a 20x scope. But it doesn't show up on the unlock tree or anything... Might be one of those Dice only things, which sucks penis, 'cos I've been crying out for a decent scope since the game came out, even on Firestorm and Wake Island you could make use of a 20x zoom, let along these effing enormous maps!

I think it's a proper joke that the attackers in Rush get the AC-130. I always hated rush anyway, but spawning to get blown up in a matter of seconds by an airborn tank really just takes the cake. If the AC-130 were on the defender's team I think it would be quite balanced. I think Tank Superiority is the only mode really worth it as a result of the size of the maps. On conquest there aren't enough vehicles for everyone and it takes so long to get anywhere on foot that it's just not worth moving. Especially since on console there's only 24 players per map. The only way to find people to kill is to wait until you see a base getting capped and then move there like lightening to take them out, otherwise people are too few and far between to spot them unless you're using thermal optics in a vehicle. Sniping people from 800+m on Bandar Desert is spectacularly awesome though. I think that the artillery pieces are useless on console as well, mainly because I'm convinced giving it an aiming cursor was the most poinless thing ever, because it simply doesn't work, the only way to know when your shots are landing is to look on the map. Then on top of that, not enough people are in the same place at the same time for you to need to use them and without being able to increase the size of the minimap, it's impossible to tell where your shots are landing without bringing up the start menu and obviously if you're in the menu you can't adjust your aim, or move, or get out, or do anything, until you come back out of it again and by that time your target will have moved to avoid your last volley of shots. So in short, it's lame - with the exception of the tank only mode.

Any more news on this site? Is it worth a treck from Nottingham? What, if any, are the standout features of the place, the marshalling, or anything else that grabbed your attention? The few photos there are on the website make the place look pretty clean & tidy; is it? If it is all nice and clean, is it still ok to charge around the place clattering off/through the furniture/fittings etc. like you would at, say, The Stan, or do you have to play nice?

This lot just arrived at my door: PDI fluted outer barrel PDI L96 tightbore PDI AI flash hider 1 PDI L96 hop chamber Happy as it somehow skipped all customs charges, despite the full price being on the package, 33391 Yen + 2800 Yen shipping.. Having problems already - the outer barrel simply refuses to screw into the bolt housing. The threads on the original and the PDI barrels are exactly the same, but it does 6 and a half turns then stops. Literally ripping my hard apart trying to screw it in. Anyone got any tips? Anything I add, like lube or whatever?

Did it not fit on with low mounts? I never liked the look of anything on high mounts. The scope looks nice though. What's the reticule/zoom/is it illuminated? etc.

I received one of these as an unexpected free gift when I ordered a bunch of stuff and I'm a lot more impressed with it than I thought I would be at first sight. That might be because I don't bother with any of the fancy ways of wearing it, but basically it's very comfortable neck wear without any trailing ends to get caught or tangled up on slings/webbing/bushes/etc. Personally I'd say it's still too warm to wear anything around my neck while skirmishing, even a top button done up, and I reckon the chance of a painful bleeder on the throat is worth it when balanced against the chance of a heart attack from heat stroke! BTW, Chris, how much did those Union Jack patches cost you?

I just wrapped mine in electrical tape to get it to fit snugly. As for the fit: The hop unit has two plastic pieces that sit in the front of it and grab the barrel. They're C shaped on the inside, so when they're together they form an O shape that grips the barrel. On the inside edge of the O shape there are some square protrusions, which are there to fit into the grooves cut into the outside of the barrel. The protrusions on both of my hop units were too big for the cuts in the barrel, so I just sanded them away completely and rely on the friction of all the parts in contact with the barrel to hold it in. It stays in fine, no chance of it moving. You can actually remove the two parts completely instead of sanding them down, but you'll lose a weeny amount of air through the space you create by removing them. So just sand them down a bit and keep them in. You might not have any issues. Since the parts are made of plastic there's probably a degree of difference in all the hop units made. I doubt the tolerances are spot on for each one. You might be lucky. But I was unlucky, twice. But as I say, sand paper can fix it in about 30 seconds and it doesn't alter the performance. If the parts do need sanding, you'll know because the two pieces will be a giant arse to get back into the hop unit. You can use the screws to fasten it back into the outer barrel to tighten them up and force it all back together, but then the barrel will be squeezed insanely hard by the protrusions and it actually causes the barrel to bow inwards, not enough to notice by eye, but your shots will get caught and you'll see a massive dip in fps, as well as general performance. So ensure it all fits together smoothly and don't force anything.

Cheers Ed, I have started using .25 already and I've really noticed a difference. I'm planning on going with many of your internal mods as you and Finius have obviously been doing this for a while. The 510 TK barrel is the almost the same price as many of the 6.03 ones I've seen and if you are both running it and have used tightbores there must be a reason for you having it. I do remember seeing something you wrote about the TK barrel being hard to fit into the brackets in the gun, have you used barrel spacers or simply electrical tape and did you need to modify anything to get it to fit? Thanks for the advice.

Hmm, did you buy it second hand? Those faults seem very uncharacteristic of the ICS L85, it ought to come stock with an M120 spring, which on the middle tension setting ought to be around the 350-360 mark. Either you have a fault with either the piston, piston head, cylinder head or air nozzle, or you've got a really low power spring in there at the minute, probably an M85 or 90 if it's only shooting at 250 - 290 fps. If the trickle issue has sorted itself then it's probably best to leave it as it is for now, it might have been something to do with the hop, it might've just needed a few shots through it to bed in or something. Airsofting isn't an exact science unfortunately. The fire selector thing sounds quite odd, I've never known mine push further than it's supposed to go, but I'd hazard a guess that if you push it beyond a certain point then the bar that connects the trigger mech to the fire selector will be pushed into an unusual position in relation to the gearbox. The position in relation to the gearbox is important because the bar interacts with the cut off lever in order to provide your semi fire mode. The bar moves with the cut off lever on the inside of the gun when in semi and as it moves it pushes the trigger off the contacts, breaking the circuit after one cycle. On auto the bar and cut off lever are left to their own devices, but if you push the lever too far, it might block the cut off lever's movement, which would cause a jam in the gears = no firing. If the selector moves beyond the semi and auto selection points very easily then I'd advise replacing the fire selector assembly. Which is something I'm not sure how to do. But if the issues persist then you could damage the cut off lever, or strip the piston if it slips from auto to semi during a full burst. It'll probably survive a lot of harsh treatment because it's built like a bomb shelter. But unnecessary harsh treatment is best avoided I think. You might find that just taking the gun to bits and reassembling it will sort some of the issues, break out the tools, dismantle the gearbox and barrel/hop assembly, check them for anything that looks broken and then reassemble and test, there have been a few times when I've been unable to diagnose a fault and just taking it to bits has fixed it... It's weird. Not sure it'll work for the fire selector unless you dismantle that part as well, but I've never touched that before so I wouldn't know what to advise. If you get the BB trickle issue back though, then take it all to bits, it might well work. You might find that you aren't suffering from over hop or double feeding as a result of the low fps it's shooting at, as the fps increases the BBs pass the hop faster, causing them to spin faster, which gives them more lift. You'll have to wait and see how it shoots once you've fixed the fps up to 340, but using .25s will generally sort out over hop. I'd advise using .25s anyway if you want the most from the gun, range and accuracy are far better with .25s, that goes for any gun in my experience. As for my set up: I'm running a madbull M120 in mine currently and on the low setting it's running at about 365 fps, which I thought was pretty high, well, very high... But I figure it's just bedding in as it's only been used for two day's skirmishing over the last 4 weeks. My site limit is 370 so it's not an issue anyway. For 340 I'd say either get an M100 and use the highest setting, or an M110 and use the middle or lowest. You'll have to test the different settings with a chrono, but I imagine both springs will be capable of providing the right fps value for you. I find I get the best performance by using .25s at about 310fps, so aiming for 340 with .20s is probably a good plan. Be aware though, you might have to put a few thousands rounds through the gun for the spring to bed in, so if you're worried you might be shooting hot it might be safer to go for a lower power spring over the higher power option. For barrels, you can get any length up to 510mm, anything longer will be visible through the flash hider. The stock barrel is 480mm long though if you wanted to know. Any M16, AUG, AK, G3 length, AEG cut barrel will fit completely fine. A Madbull 6.03mm will improve performance, combine it with a Madbull blue hop rubber and you'll see a pretty noticeable improvement. Me and Finius both use TK Twist barrels though, which only come in one bore and I'm not even sure what it is, his is 480mm long though, like the stock barrel. Mine's 509mm. We also both use the Madbull blue rubber, but instead of using the nub it comes with, we use Big Out H Nubs. Though to be honest, any nub will do an alright job, I used a biro ink tube cut to size for quite a long time. You tend to need so little hop with the twist barrels that getting a snazzy nub is sort of pointless anyway. For mags, I use Magpul Emags now, but if you're after regular STANAGs then what I used to use were MAG made plastic mid caps, which I think come in either boxes of 8 or 10, I can't remember which, but they're around £50 in most places. I got mine from airsoftsupplydrop. Every mag I've tested so far has both fit and fed fine though. KWA, G&P, ICS, G&G, TM, my Magpul Emags obviously. Finius uses Ares mids if I remember correctly. Might be best to just shop about for the best deal. What was that you were saying about a long post?

Well I've skirmished my L85 twice now and I’ve finally managed to get it chrono'd. It’s totally stock and now I’m wanting to get started on improvements. Current niggles, stock spring on M setting 275-280 on High 290, this was a bit disappointing. On auto before lunch I would get 4 or 5 shots on auto fine then the next 3-4 seemed to trickle out of the barrel, this didn’t happen on semi or after lunch (I didn’t do anything). My fire selector often passes beyond the marks when this happens on semi it stops firing. Bonus I don’t seem to be getting the over hop issues or double feed others were getting. I realise Finius and Ed have both posted up guide to their setups but as you have now had a time to tweak stuff I would like to condense the current upgrades to this gun and get some ideas for how to fix some problems. Specifically what are you using for the following parts: Spring (can you give a rough idea a spring that will give 340 on the mid setting without playing with the nozzle) Barrel (brand, bore and length please, Ed I remember you talking about several different ones and even saying you were going to go to a tight bore from the twist) Hop rubber and nub Finally I’m after a decent set of mid-caps the bigger the better. Sorry for the long post, cheers for getting this far. Nick

Seems to be having a lot of problems...espeically for a £320 gun, not as if it's really cheap or anything... anway I'm a massive newbie so don't know why I'm joining this discussion...sorry...lol

Firstly, legally, an air rifle is limited to 12 ft.lb before it becomes a section 1 firearm. An air pistol can only be 6 ft.lb. Make no mistake, if you are caught with ANY weapon that's not held on an FAC that produces more than 12 ft.lb, with ANY projectile that they can stuff down it, then you WILL end up with a criminal record and you WILL forfeit the gun. Now, for a weapon to be considered "airsoft" (i.e. a toy, not a "lethally barreled weapon for the purposes of the firearms act) Home Office guidance sets out a muzzle energy below 1 joule, so about 330fps with a .2g projectile. In theory, anything above this level is considered a "lethal barreled weapon" and falls under all the provisions of the firearms act 1968, as amended. Practically all this means is that any weapon which is capable of firing more than one projectile without repeated pressure on the trigger (i.e. fully auto) is a prohibited weapon under section 5 of the act. This is why single shot, and semi auto guns are often seen with higher energy levels. Now, this isn't actually included in settled law, only in guidance, but it would seem silly to risk the criminal record and seizure of guns that might result from a prosecution for having a S5 firearm without a certificate. For one joule, with a .2g bb, your velocity will be 328.08 fps. To hit the 12 ft.lb legal limit before a firearms certificate is required, you would need to propel the .2g bb at 1323.4 fps, which is going to be tricky with any of the standard mechanisms used in bb guns.

My boss would love that sorta thing...He's into ladyboys and allsorts (Not even joking), so that was a bad example But no worries! If anything thats a good reminder to get my supporter membership sorted

My loadout isn't spot on but it's more NI soldier than anything else, and I'll be carrying an SLR too... And this bit is the least authentic Uploaded with ImageShack.us

That's how I felt Craig. It's a great rifle waiting to happen, it's just that the version 2 gearbox is so horrible to work with that I'd actually rather pay for someone else to do it than me do it myself... Except I couldn't be arsed to do that either, hence why I offered it up for sale. The bloody motor connectors were doing my head in, really ended up buggering up the soldering, the soldering iron I've got is about as good as an old man with a dab-on blowing on the bloody solder... The selector/cycling/feeding issues can be sorted by fiddling around with the selector plate a bit, the firing issues are just a case of fiddling with the gears a bit. So, gears, selector plate, motor connection and job's a good 'un. Nothing ought to need replacing, just a bit of a readjustment, bit of new wire and that's it. Shouldn't cost anything major, just standard service costs and the labour charge. If it comes to more than that then they're just trying to milk you like a money cow. You might want to cut the spring down slightly as well, it's got a brand new M120 in it at the moment and I never got chance to chrono it, but I'd guess it's pushing 370 if not higher. Good luck with it anyway, I'd been planning on turning it into a USMC FN M16A4, complete with licensed FN receiver with "Burst" on the selector and everything.

yea i just can't be bothered doing anything to it so i'll just send it off someplace

I had been waiting on a couple of bits turning up from lands afar, but those arrived so now the rest of my sidearm purchases during my little stint in the south atlantic are about ready for public display. My second custom build from ESC, but this time around I wanted something that would be about as skirmish practical as physically possible (while still looking a bit pretty) so it's almost entirely made of TM parts. Upper setup is just for the lulz and photo ops, lower for actual usage in the field. Night Warrior 3-Dot Sights M.E.U. Slide M.E.U. Outer barrel/Barrel bushing etc to compensate for the base gun being a 4.3 Desert Warrior Nineball Purple hop rubber Nineball 6.03 Tightbore Desert Warrior frame 1911A1 Trigger VZ Grips G10 Operators II in 'Military Brown' Strike Warrior magwell Since my good old A1 is entombed with a carbine kit I wanted something in the classic style, just as a display piece if anything; so there's my Series 70. Replaced the stock grips with some real rosewood ones, and like that it shall stay. KJW A1, just a cheap trainer gun to go along with my target-range-only G&P WOC-X. The combination of compatibility with my existing magazines & holsters, the low price and low number of shots it'll fire per gas fill make it suit that role perfectly I feel. Got those nasty grip weights out of there and put on some proper wood repros of the WWII diamond style grips. Took some dremel work since the frame on this has the CO2 bulb protrusions, but I much prefer the balance of the resultant weapon vs. the original. Had a few comments regards my selection of grips on my HurricanE Kimber Covert II when I first posted it elsewhere a while back, so I've swapped out the cheaper RS Colt rubber grips that were on there for some VZ Grips 'VZ Recons' made of G10 in their Desert Sand. Quick family shot of the collection so far to finish off:

Took a trip down to the royal mail depot today (which is unusual because normally parcel farce snaffle anything that comes from the U.S.). Picked up two sets of VZ Grips for 1911s in G10 (Operators II and VZ Recons), a Hardpoint Equipment low-pro belt and a Bitter End stamped steel lower face mask (very impressive bit of safety gear).

Why is that if ever a part is missing from it kit - it's usually the most important, and probably the smallest? Unable to do anything with my rails and l85 until I get a tiny, tiny screw