What would be a good DMR?

[BlueberryMuffin]

Hey, I've been playing Airsoft for a few years now and have been interested in buying a DMR for quite sometime...love them!  Though, I have a hard time knowing where would be a good place to start?  I'd like a good quality gun with an ability for Upgrades in the future.   Any help would be greatly appreciate.  

 

Would this be a good choice?  - - - - - 

 

https://www.surplusstore.co.uk/ics-274-cxp-hog-dmr.html        

[BigStew]

Any thing can be turned into a DMR before you spend any money i would check at the site you play at what their policy is. the may require the AEG to be a single fire gun from the factory, or they may require a mechanical lock on the fire selector not just a mosfet. Also the big one to remember a well set gun is more important for range and accuracy than an FPS increase. 

[Dentonboy]

Best DMR base gun is a TM M14. 

 

Hop is the best, or if not, among the best, straight out of the box. 

 

 

[Rogerborg]

9 hours ago, BigStew said:

Also the big one to remember a well set gun is more important for range and accuracy than an FPS increase. 

 

There's only three things happening to the BB: puff, spin, point.  Improving two out of three sounds great, but why not go crazy and start by increasing the puff, then fitting a hop and barrel to match.

[BlueberryMuffin]

@Dentonboy Would that have a good ability to be upgraded at a later date also?  

[Wo1f]

The m14’s have a nice hop chamber, but any gun can be made into a good DMR. What you need to remember is, like snipers you can’t really buy one out of the box and expect it to be amazing. They need to be built for it. 

 

Personally, for a long range weapon I’d go with a gas gun if you’ve played for a while. Because of their nature they can throw heavy BB’s a really long way at relatively low FPS. You’d struggle to make a sub 400 FPS aeg throw a .36 past 70m

 

what are your site requirements for a DMR?

[Rogerborg]

23 minutes ago, Wo1f said:

Personally, for a long range weapon I’d go with a gas gun if you’ve played for a while. Because of their nature they can throw heavy BB’s a really long way at relatively low FPS.

 

With respect, this sounds like magical thinking.  Can you run through the physics with me?

 

A BB emerges from the muzzle with two properties: linear velocity (speed, direction) and angular velocity (rate of spin), right?  Once it's out of the barrel those are fixed, and the BB doesn't know or care what provided them.  At that point, two BBs which have the same mass, vector, and spin will fly in exactly the same way.  Can we agree on that?

 

I get that the puff imparted by a gas gun might be delivered differently from a piston, but how does what happened inside the barrel alter the reality at the muzzle?  FPS is FPS.  The only other variable is spin.  If the hop up in a piston gun can impart the same spin as the hop up in a gas gun, to a BB that emerges with the same speed, what will make those BBs fly any differently?

 

This is a genuine question, I keep seeing these aphorisms repeated, but I can't fathom why.

[Wo1f]

@Rogerborg Because of joule creep. An aeg has a fixed volume of air that propels the B.B. out of the barrel. If you have an aeg that fires a .2 at 350 FPS you get I think 1.13 joules. If you add heavier bb’s without altering the air/volume ratio the joules will lower significantly. You might only get .6 joules shooting a .32.. so your .32 not doesn’t have much energy to shead before it falls out of the sky. 

 

On the other end of the scale you have gas guns which have joule creep. My mws and mp7 will both chrono at sub 350 FPS on a .2, but th heavier the B.B. in a gas gun (generally at least) you get an increase in joules. So I might be throwing a .32 out of my 350fps gun but that .32 will still have 1.13j or potentially even more energy. I’m sure I don’t need to explain that a .32 with half the energy isn’t going to fly half as far or as accurately as one with double. 

[Davegolf]

An AEG or BASR can only impart the volume of air available within the cylinder at the expansion/power rate of the spring pushing the piston. For the most part this push is also fairly constant.

 

With a GAS setup you have an infinite 'volume of air', and the volume required also adjusts itself automatically (via the floating valve) to whatever weight BB is being fired, its like re setting your cylinder to barrel ratio every time you shoot.

 

Where does the extra energy come from? If you set a GBB(R) to an FPS of 328 / 1J with 0.2g for example it will for example take 1 second to accelerate the BB out of the barrel using 10cc of air (all hypothetical!)

 

If you now load a 0.4g BB it will take 2 seconds and 20cc of air, automatically adjusted, because the heavier BB is in the barrel for more time, more energy can be imparted to it.

Now when we chrono we are clocking 290 FPS, which equates to 1.5J

 

Should explain moreover

 

https://2shots1kill.com/joule-creep-testing/

[Rogerborg]

Aaaaah, realisation dawns.  Sorry, I'd read the "relatively low FPS" part in isolation, but it's in combination with the BB mass.

 

And I see the point that if you chrono piston and gas guns with 0.2s and get the same FPS, then put a heavier BB in, the gas gun can continue to impart more energy as it travels down the barrel, while the piston gun runs out of puff.

 

Which makes always chronoing with 0.2 the issue.  But if a site insists on doing it, then what other choice do you have but to tune for 0.2g and 500fps (or whatever the site limit is).  Your targets will get hit harder, but that's not exactly your fault.

 

But if they limit by energy and chrono with the BBs that you're actually intending to use, that opens a whole other can of trust-worms, plus they'd have to keep adjusting the chrono, or looking up mass x FPS to energy on a quick reference.

 

I guess there's no perfect solution to that, although on balance I think I'd prefer sites to chrono based on energy rather than with 0.2s.  Aside, when's the last time you saw anyone using 0.2s, except maybe handed out with rental guns?

[BlueberryMuffin]

http://www.patrolbase.co.uk/airsoft-m4-m15-m16-variants/a-and-k-dmr-m4-w-suppressor-tan.htm#.WsOkTyOZOAw  

 

I just found this, is this a good choice?  I don't know too much about what I'm looking at if i'm honest--though I really want to! 

[Prisce]

1 hour ago, BlueberryMuffin said:

http://www.patrolbase.co.uk/airsoft-m4-m15-m16-variants/a-and-k-dmr-m4-w-suppressor-tan.htm#.WsOkTyOZOAw  

 

I just found this, is this a good choice?  I don't know too much about what I'm looking at if i'm honest--though I really want to! 

My brother has one of these in black, few other upgrades than this as standard. It was not good out of the box. Far from it, it needed a lot of fettling, it’s now at a standard where it’s pretty decent. He might be willing to sell it if you are interested. I’ll ask him.

[Iceni]

Personally I wouldn't do a DMR. So this is all IMO, and is more me waffling ideas rather than helping

The reason been that most sites only offer 50fps in upgrade speed, and for that you loose close engagement range, and full auto. It's easy to make the trade if the gun you want will be capable of 500fps and is single shot only like a sniper rifle, but for a long range AEG 50fps isn't enough to warrant the drawbacks. As it's not going to lift a significantly heavier BB over 350fps.

What I would do instead is have a main battle rifle,  get it tweaked to shoot flawlessly, Then use that like a DMR but with the bonus of been able to shoot a close target, or flip into full auto just to upset people who think you have a DMR.

The rifle models I would pick from would be the Fal/SLR, M14, G3. You want a gun that looks like a sniper, long and sleek, but takes mid/high caps, has a standard gearbox. And is capable of been tweaked to hell and back. You play it like a sniper, holding back, picking targets, single shot. And you let people fall into the trap of thinking you can't full auto them.


Good models to look at would be:

G&G GR14 M14 they do a full wood model  for just over £300.
Ares SLR The prices of these are wild £450 ish in plastic £540 in real wood.
LCT G3 £400 ish. Full steel construction takes real steel parts.



 

[Wo1f]

You cannot buy to my knowledge a good out of it he box DMR, they have to be built. 

 

If if I had to use an AEG I would use the ICS because it’s a top quality manufacturer and the split gearbox would make the parts testing and upgrading so much easier. 

[Prisce]

2 minutes ago, Wo1f said:

You cannot buy to my knowledge a good out of it he box DMR, they have to be built. 

 

If if I had to use an AEG I would use the ICS because it’s a top quality manufacturer and the split gearbox would make the parts testing and upgrading so much easier. 

I’d actually say build a L85 DMR, you can test the box without putting it back in the gun, quick change spring if you are over certain site limits, already has the long barrel.

Only issue is getting it to fire on semi reliably!

[Wo1f]

@Prisce the ICS is literally take the rear pin out, slid out the upper GB and replace with w lower FPS one like a systema. 

 

Also.. despite what American airsoft retailers tell you on YouTube, a longer barrel if anything is detrimental to performance. There’s a few on the airsoft sniper forum that run sub 300mm barrels in SR-25’s 

[Prisce]

1 minute ago, Wo1f said:

@Prisce the ICS is literally take the rear pin out, slid out the upper GB and replace with w lower FPS one like a systema. 

 

Also.. despite what American airsoft retailers tell you on YouTube, a longer barrel if anything is detrimental to performance. There’s a few on the airsoft sniper forum that run sub 300mm barrels in SR-25’s 

This I know. But if your going for the realism of a DMR role(some sites I play at will not allow certain guns to be DMRs-hence why I mentioned it) you need the longer barrel. Agree it does naff all in performance. I have seen a L85 DMR and not only did it look lovely, it fired superbly well. 

 

Havent owned an ICS yet, it is the next gearbox I wanna look inside though!

[ak2m4]

Cheaper options would be the Specna / E&C SAEC system which is worth a look - then upgrade gearbox, motor, inner barrel, stock, sight etc.  For the whole DMR thing I personally wouldn't bother unless you're willing to get involved with the build yourself.  

[Wo1f]

15 minutes ago, Prisce said:

This I know. But if your going for the realism of a DMR role(some sites I play at will not allow certain guns to be DMRs-hence why I mentioned it) you need the longer barrel. Agree it does naff all in performance. I have seen a L85 DMR and not only did it look lovely, it fired superbly well. 

 

Havent owned an ICS yet, it is the next gearbox I wanna look inside though!

Yeah, mine is the same. They wouldn’t let you run an mp5 DMR for example. I meant inner barrel, not outer. 

 

I rate ICS up there with TM except their internals are made for 450fps full auto and they just put a smaller spring (and sometimes weaker motor) for us in the UK. TM’s hop is better out of the box, but I’d say the ICS is a better gun as a whole. 

[BlueberryMuffin]

29 minutes ago, Iceni said:

Personally I wouldn't do a DMR. So this is all IMO, and is more me waffling ideas rather than helping

The reason been that most sites only offer 50fps in upgrade speed, and for that you loose close engagement range, and full auto. It's easy to make the trade if the gun you want will be capable of 500fps and is single shot only like a sniper rifle, but for a long range AEG 50fps isn't enough to warrant the drawbacks. As it's not going to lift a significantly heavier BB over 350fps.

What I would do instead is have a main battle rifle,  get it tweaked to shoot flawlessly, Then use that like a DMR but with the bonus of been able to shoot a close target, or flip into full auto just to upset people who think you have a DMR.

The rifle models I would pick from would be the Fal/SLR, M14, G3. You want a gun that looks like a sniper, long and sleek, but takes mid/high caps, has a standard gearbox. And is capable of been tweaked to hell and back. You play it like a sniper, holding back, picking targets, single shot. And you let people fall into the trap of thinking you can't full auto them.


Good models to look at would be:

G&G GR14 M14 they do a full wood model  for just over £300.
Ares SLR The prices of these are wild £450 ish in plastic £540 in real wood.
LCT G3 £400 ish. Full steel construction takes real steel parts.



 

I really appreciate the input into this answer, seriously gave me something to think about!  Made some really good points there...you're more knowledgeable than me at this subject so, if you don't mind i'll pick your brain a little bit!    I have been using the Stubby Badger, beautiful weapon, but really would like something with some more range, and like you said, I really love the longer weapons, something that has good accuracy.  What would be the best recommendation? 

[Iceni]

The G&G m14 is fantastic.

The gearbox on them is a bit funky but workable. I like the solid wood ones, but the plastic ones are significantly cheaper.

Mosfet goes in the buttstock, There's a fair amount of space for a good battery as well.

Most of the internal gearbox parts are standard, gears, bushes, piston, cylinder, ect. The triggers contacts are different, and they have a unique layout. It's a Version 7 gearbox in the M14 so do a little reading on those.

There are 2 hop units commonly used depending on the model. There's a long tube M14 specific (cyma and some TM's have this), and an AUG style rotary hop with an extension tube. It depends on the make and model as to the hop type. I believe G&G use the aug style. It's a decent hop unit, plenty of spares available, Metal and CNC variants are also easy to find and reasonable in price. The plastic stock aug unit is a decent out of the box unit.

The G&G should comes with a half decent inner barrel 6.04, and it should shoot well out of the box with no upgrades.

You have to be careful selection the model you want as some are locked to semi auto only.

The plastic top cover is probably the worst bit of the gun. Even the wood ones have it. So take a good look at that top section and if you can't live witht he plastic there then move to another model.



The LCT G3 is unparalleled externally. It's pressed and welded steel. The parts that are plastic like the foregrips and stock are solid and feel like the real thing. Internally it's decent, Good gears, reasonable motor, 6.02 inner barrel. Decent hop unit. Out of the box mine shoots very well. It is compatible with real steel parts, and will take wood furniture with minimal modification. There is loads of battery space in the stock, and a mosfet would also fit there without any issues. Gearbox is a standard Version 2 rear wired.

The downsides of the LCT are it's steel, and needs the edges knocking off the pressed parts or they will cut you to ribbons, The midcaps have a feed issue that can be corrected with shimming, They don't have a mosfet. Mag compatibility is 0. You must use LCT mags.

Out of the box you may need to shim the magazine (takes 5 mins and needs 1 allen key). The plate on the bottom of the mag comes off and there is a space at the front of the mag where a length of plastic rod 5x6mm can be inserted and cut off. The range and accuracy stock are very good, I have yet to do any modification to my gun other than the shimming.

The LCT G3 looks fantastic, Feels right, and there is 0 wobble on it. You could use it like a club. They have to be seen and held to understand just how frighteningly real the thing is. It also takes all of the real steel claw mounts, Ris mounts, and slings.



The Ares SLR I know less about, the guy I go shooting with has an older no longer produced king arms steel variant. The Ares is the newest SLR in production and should have the best mag compatibility and internals. But you would have to research the model.





On track with what everyone else is saying, You don't need to go with a long rifle at all. Any gun with a 300mm or longer barrel will give the same accuracy if setup right. The most accurate out of the box guns are not the longest, or the most expensive. It's the one that gives the right upgrades. A decent inner barrel and hop, setup well on a perfect airseal should offer no more advantages than anyone else with an equal configuration.

Any of the decent brands should offer you this. ICS get a lot of love because they get the quality control right at the factory. Other brands vary in QC, but all guns that are solid should be capable of shooting well. It's just some take a little more love.

And just to make you want the LCT here's a few picture of mine! LOL

https://www.flickr.com/photos/iceni_photo/albums/72157693949766564






 

[Dentonboy]

I have spoken to 2 people with TM M14s and they said it was a laser. Very consistent groupings. 

[Careless]

your question to yourself should be, what gun do i want to turn into a DMR?? and then aeg or gbbr??? most airsoft guns are essentially all the same anyway! with expections for aeg-gbbr , for me i like the the SVD dragunov, H&k g3 series , so lct as mentioned above would be perfect for an AEG g3 MSG90 or psg-1 build , Aslo being dmr/semi auto i would recomend going gas , the trigger /blow back feeling is sooo much nicer with no whiney motor! just a nice thwack!!! really changes the overall experiance of airsoft,

[Tackle]

2 hours ago, Iceni said:

Personally I wouldn't do a DMR. So this is all IMO, and is more me waffling ideas rather than helping

The reason been that most sites only offer 50fps in upgrade speed, and for that you loose close engagement range, and full auto. It's easy to make the trade if the gun you want will be capable of 500fps and is single shot only like a sniper rifle, but for a long range AEG 50fps isn't enough to warrant the drawbacks. As it's not going to lift a significantly heavier BB over 350fps.

What I would do instead is have a main battle rifle,  get it tweaked to shoot flawlessly, Then use that like a DMR but with the bonus of been able to shoot a close target, or flip into full auto just to upset people who think you have a DMR.

The rifle models I would pick from would be the Fal/SLR, M14, G3. You want a gun that looks like a sniper, long and sleek, but takes mid/high caps, has a standard gearbox. And is capable of been tweaked to hell and back. You play it like a sniper, holding back, picking targets, single shot. And you let people fall into the trap of thinking you can't full auto them.


Good models to look at would be:

G&G GR14 M14 they do a full wood model  for just over £300.
Ares SLR The prices of these are wild £450 ish in plastic £540 in real wood.
LCT G3 £400 ish. Full steel construction takes real steel parts.



 

Iceni makes some great points, some sites will specify a minimum engagement distance because if the slightly higher fps.

i have previously played sites where guns had to be based on real world equivalents, for example an m4 with a box mag isn't a support weapon, & a dmr is generally a full length rifle set to single only, slr/g3/m14/mod0 spr are all great examples of this.

tm m14 would be my first choice, well set up gun straight from the box, & an fps that's usable in any site in the country.

dont forget this is airsoft, dmr'ing is like sniping, a big part of it is quite literally "state of mind", playing style has to be altered accordingly.

get a TM m14, turn the selector to single & play a few games without switching it back, pick your targets carefully & enjoy the warm glow when you take them out with one or two shots.

if after said few games you decide it's for you, get it set to permanent emu & see about upping the fps to 420-450,game on  

[SilentMelon]

As it's been said before, any gun can be a DMR if you throw enough money at it. Personally I have a Real Sword SVD as my DMR; 400 fps out of the box and super accurate too. It's also built like a tank so there's very little chance of breaking it. Yes they are rather expensive and hard to come by, but totally worth considering as a DMR option that doesn't need a lot of work if any.