The Silverback TAC-41 challenge: is it a YouTube grade sniper out of the box?

[Rogerborg]

With the caveat that it'll need a spring to get it up from about 1.8J to your site limit, my tl;dr answer is:

 

 

This is based on 1 day's play, versus a Well MB-03 with some upgrades that I've been messing around with on and off.

 

Pros:

 

A numbered and indexed clicky TDC hop. All airsoft snipers should come with this.  Once you dial it in for a BB weight, take a note of the setting and you can just reset it to there again.  I should note that I'm bang on 8 out of 10 for 0.43g, so it should be fine for 0.45g but I can't speak to 0.48g+ "plastic".

 

A short, smooth bolt pull. It feels lighter than it actually is (17-25kg for a 100 Newton spring), but it's a pleasure to pull.  I didn't experience any struggling or fatigue all day, even while prone.

 

A decent adjustable and crisp 90 degree trigger.

 

A quick and simple bolt removal / spring change system, with all the tools needed stored in the gun.  The bolt comes unfitted, and the box urges you to Read The Fine Manual to figure it out.  It's well illustrated and very nearly written in English.  Once you've done it, you'll be ranting "Why aren't all snipers like this?"

 

Great consistency.  I deliberately didn't even clean the barrel, just tweaked the hop and spring to get 2.3J with properly hopped 0.43g, and played.  Once I had my scope adjusted, I was consistently hitting head sized targets (OK, heads) at 50m (airsoft estimate) and airsofter sized targets at beyond AEG range.  The limiting factor was wind, and my ability to hold it steady.

 

The bolt is ambidextrous and can be switched to lefty for Satanic sorts.  It's got nice indexing on the rotation, being positively up or down, and not wanting to muddle around in the middle.

 

The parts that matter all seem to be steel.

 

 

Meh and missing:

 

The body is a reasonable polymer, but not superb, and it's neither heavy, nor light.  The barrel is floating. This may be significant for bang-guns, but it's largely pointless for airsoft, and the slight flex feels a little peculiar.  It doesn't effect consistency, but neither does it isolate the handguard - resting it on an oil drum resulted in a lot of resonance.  I'll probably just shim it.

 

The lack of a cocked indicator is a little disappointing.  You can just about tell from the trigger.  There's apparently a double feed prevention system, but I managed to get one (1) double-feed today.

 

There are no sling mounts as stock. You'll need to buy some QD sling mounts - there are QD holes front and rear on both sides.  There's a decent long RIS rail on top, but the front and sides are m-lok, so you'll need a rail section even to add a bipod.  As a Scotch, this irks me a little.

 

The magazine well is just in front of the trigger, but feeds to the hop unit via a "feed ramp" with 20 BBs in it.  This needs "primed" by inserting a mag to fill the ramp, then removing the magazine and refilling it.  A little annoying, and it means the gun is never really "unloaded" unless you empty the ramp (and spill 20 BBs).  In practice, you'll likely just keep it filled and it won't be an issue.

 

 

Cons:

 

The magazines are a decent capacity, holding 48 BBs each.  They just fit in a pistol pouch, with a little wiggling.  However, they're tricky to fill, needing to push the feed down very slightly while loading the BBs.  That's also how you unload it, and it's an overly sensitive mechanism: I emptied a few mags while trying to wiggle them into pouches.

 

The mags have to go in straight, not front-then-back as they want to do.  This is explained in the  Fine Manual, but you're fighting against the gun slightly.

 

The cocking handle wants to unscrew itself from the bolt. I've seen another reviewer mention this.  I've screwed it in securely, and will threadlock it.  It's curious given how well everything else seems to be put together.

 

 

And that's it.  I can't find anything else wrong with it.  Once the mags are in, it's a joy to use.  As seen elsewhere here, this is what I'd hoped airsoft sniping would be like.  The number of times I LOLed out loud today as I face-shot folk sticking their head out of cover would do a "OMG CHEETAR PUNISHED" YouTube channel proud.

 

Keep all this in context, it's an airsoft toy, not precision engineering. Aftermarket parts are available, and might make it marginally more consistent or quieter.  However, in a world that contains wind, rain, grass, leaves and Plastic Magnetos, I reckon it really is actually good enough for me with just a spring change.

[Chicken pie]

Loved mine out of the box, ok it was fitted with 100nm spring and longbow chub nub but otherwise std.

.43 on number 3 with chubnub @ 70m

 

Treated myself last week to a sap piston from Longbow which Im surprised at how much quieter it is

( can't tell on my utube vids  so much but you do notice in the flesh)  and consistency and accuracy is yet further improved .

 

Love my tac41.

 

[Floperator]

Superb mate, exactly the information I needed. Don't suppose you have a link to the spring you used do you?

[Rogerborg]

2 hours ago, Floperator said:

Superb mate, exactly the information I needed. Don't suppose you have a link to the spring you used do you?

 

This'un: https://www.skirmshop.co.uk/silverback-aps-spring-13mm-100-newtonsrs-tac-41.html

 

I was actually going to go for the Rapax blue 2J+ spring, but of course they sold out while I dithered: https://www.skirmshop.co.uk/rapax-aps2-style-spring-2-joule-srs-ssg-vsr.html

 

Other alternatives would be the M140: https://www.skirmshop.co.uk/m140-aps2-type-13mm-spring-for-srs-pull-version-co.html

 

or M160: https://www.skirmshop.co.uk/m160-aps2-type-13mm-spring-for-srs-pull-version.html

 

Notionally an "M150" would be spot on, but they don't have that.

 

I also bought the Rapax spring tensioners, now of course... out of stock: https://www.skirmshop.co.uk/rapax-srs-ssg-vsr-steel-spring-tensioners.html

 

The 100 Newton spring with 0.43g and the hop set to 5 was coming in a bit spicy, so I lopped 2 coils off one end, then (because I'm a halfwit) 2 coils off the other end.  This got it down to about 2.27J in the garage.  On site, I had to crank the hop to 8 for 0.43g, which dropped the energy to about 2J.

 

The largest tensioner from the Rapax kit brought it right back up to 2.27J again at lunch.  I reckon I might have been OK with the 100 Newton spring uncut, but I wanted to be sure to come in under chrono rather than over.