Bullpup rifle for a starter?

[EnragedOryx]

I have heard from friends and others the it is not worth getting a Bullpup rifle as your first rifle. Is this true and if so when would be a good entry time to get one?

[Sacarathe]

Be careful of two stage triggers as they're common in this category, some bullpups with these triggers cannot be locked to semi.

[Adam3088]

No real reason not to get a bullpup as your first, although there's not as many good bullpups as regular AR's but still a decent selection.

They often do have some compromises to get used to though.

 

Type 98b by realsword is a fantastic gun but the battery setup is tricky to say the least.

F2000 is generally all round good but the trigger system has some slight issues.

TAR-21 (ares, not the sportline) has great external quality but the internals are....ares and so a bit shit.

There's several decent L85's out there.

TM and G&G P90's are very solid if you don't mind the tiny ergonomics.

Plenty of AUG's out there, they generally don't have fire selectors though, so two stage triggers limit where you can use it somewhat.

There's also the APS UAR, cheap and fairly well made. As long as you don't mind the fact there's no real steel version.

[Jedi_Master]

Magazine changes are no more difficult with a bullpup rifle, it is just a matter of getting used to them. If the RAF can be taught to use the L85 then anyone can; an AR15 style gun may be simpler because it was designed for Americans

[EnragedOryx]

Thanks for the help

[BrightCandle]

I have an S&T Tar 21 professional and its been great. It needed some upgrades on the airseal and hop to really compete but its trucked along for about 50k rounds before it needed maintenance and that was a change of motor and piston. I think the main reason to avoid them is the difficulty in getting parts, it really is quite important when you don't have many guns that you don't end up searching for months looking for a part in random taiwan shops because its rare and not being able to play. There is nothing more frustrating than not getting out to play because the gun is broken and you can't find the part anywhere.

 

So plan to have a nice reliable M4/AK in your arsenal just to make sure you always have something that works and is easy to repair. Once a part goes on your bullpup odds are its done for and just spare parts.

[Iceni]

Augs can actually be modified without stripping the gun to have a single fire mode. You just need to grind the plastic safety bar to catch the trigger on a half pull, then make a V notch in the bar so it will lock on the metal shim in that location. Takes about 30 mins to make the modification with a small V file and a scalpel. You take off the upper receiver, pull the trigger to dry fire a single shot and mark it on the trigger plate then release. This gives you the measurement for the amount of material to remove from the safety bar. You cut a chunk out of the upper side left of the bar the same depth as the measurement, put the bar back in and move it while pulling the trigger to find where the bar needs to sit in the hole. Then you mark the point where the metal retainer clips dent is sitting and file the V at that point on the safety bar. When you put the bar back in you will have a new locking point on the safety that only allows single fire, and you still have single and full auto in the original position.

The Aug is a nice gun if you spend time on them. Out of the box you get a reasonable gun that is really loud to use because of where the gearbox sits. A bit of time and some padding you can make them very quiet. The gun itself has a lot going for it, nice optic on the A1 and it comes with the gun (can't be removed). Good inner barrel length 509mm, Almost stock v3 gearbox. The only special bits are the airseal nozzle and a second set of contacts for full auto.

In terms of parts availability, nothing is really special with them. A new plastic body can be bought if needed, all of the body pins are available, even the ejection port covers arn't hard to find and they tend to be petty cheap. Gearbox wise you can buy a full aug box or a V3 and put the old airseal and contacts on it. It's not modified in a way that means it's a gun specific gearbox at all. New uppers are also available. And there is nothing to go wrong on the trigger as it's a plastic slider with a spring. All of the mechanical parts of the trigger are on the gearbox.

The main fault with the Aug is the noise, Your head is resting on the gearbox, the a1 style front grips are poor and some of the aftermarket magazines are poor feeders. Outside of that there a decent enough purchase, easy to strip and work on. It's 2 screws and the slackening of 1 bolt to have the whole gearbox and motor out. 1 bar to have the whole upper receiver off with the barrels and hop. If you had a full spare gearbox you could swap it out in 2 minutes.