Main thing you loose with a clone is the half decent QA Marui do, but if you’re ripping all of those parts out then you’re paying extra for no reason.
When it comes to bolties the only upgrade I’d put down as a performance increase is a TDC modification to the hop, simply ensures you can use higher weight ammo (0.45g or 0.48g) with better consistency.
Outside of that swapping parts is often more a matter of longevity rather than an increase in performance or to make them quieter etc, not actually making your BB go any further or any more accurately. It’s at least worth noting there is a degree of diminishing returns when it comes to throwing money at a bolt action rifle shaped wall. You could get that TM L96 running at 500fps simply by swapping the spring out, but I imagine those internals would shit the bed long before they would have at stock FPS.
To sum up, it’ll wind up as expensive as you want it to either way. My advice is to consider how much you’re planning to use the thing and go from there. If you use it most weekends for the whole day then go nuts, gut the whole thing and ‘enjoy’ the process of fettling all the aftermarket parts to get them singing together. If you’re only going to use it now and then (or have never tried the whole ‘sniping’ thing before) clean the barrel, slap a TDC on it and put a spring in that gets you at the joules you want to be at with the ammo weight you’ll be using and call it a day there. In either case, the clone VSR is a better choice in my eyes simply on availability of parts.
