Gun upgrades

[Aaronsaph]

Hi all

 

new to Airsoft but wanted to get some advise on the best places to buy and get a gun upgraded prior to sending out to me. Loads of websites just allow you to buy the gun but don’t offer upgrades 

 

any suggestions be great 👍

[JVacation]

Most reliable and consistent in the UK is definitely NegativeAirsoft

[MrTea]

If you're new i'd assume you don't have your UKARA meaning you can't buy a RIF (all black gun for example) from a retailer. This means you're buying two-tone. I'd heavily recommend playing as a rental and getting your UKARA before dumping cash into a gun, nevermind upgrades. Also, two-tone guns cost the same as the RIF versions, if not more because the retailer has to spray it.

Assuming you've got your UKARA, you've played a bit with rental gear and enjoy playing airsoft and want to keep playing. I'd also assume that you've noticed how lacking most rental guns are.

 

From here i'd suggest buying a gun and using it stock. Assess it against the rental guns you used and think about what needs improving further. From here you can A. give it to a local trusted tech B. A local player who knows what they're doing or C. send it to a tech such as the previously mentioned Negative Airsoft. Personally I can vouch for TheCageAirsoft who did the work on my MP5. As for Negative Airsoft his waiting list is quite long so you may be waiting quite a while and being a new player, you probably only have one gun (the one you've sent off) meaning you don't get to play or play with rental gear again.

 

PLEASE don't use Dave'sCustomAirsoft. The prices there are fooking hilarous for the work they do and parts they use.

 

Ask as many questions as you need to, there's loads of helpful peoples kicking around the forums who will bend over backwards to help you.

Edited August 18, 2023 by MrTea

[Rogerborg]

Ditto to that.  Unless you:

 

1) Really know what you want and why

or

2) Can really, really trust the tech

 

Then having an airsoft gun "upgraded" can just be an exercise in spending more to get the same, or even less.

 

Most low to mid range guns these days are perfectly decent and usable.  Clean the barrel, feed it 0.28g or so, and get the hop dialled in, and you'll be 90% competitive with anyone else out there once you factor in the whims of weather and that we're slinging tiny bits of plastic.

 

Have you played at all yet?  Do you have a specific gun in mind that takes your fancy?

 

[Tackle]

Agree with everything said above.......... 

BUT........ 

WHY ? 

Why do you need to upgrade ?, even most of the budget guns are pretty well set up straight outta the box, why potentially waste money for little or no gain, consider what you like the look of, make another post listing your likes & ask people's opinions, & if the stars align, buy the bleeding gun. 

Then play with it for as long as you can until:

A. Something breaks that requires fixing

Or

B. You are able to positively identify a particular weakness that needs addressing

 

What you quite literally waste on "pre-upgrades" could potentially buy you a second back up gun, a much better investment in my opinion. 

[Leo Greer]

Ditto to the previous three posts.

 

In the early days of my teching career, I attempted to upgrade a RIF and made some huge mistakes. It took me almost six months of fiddling and research until I was able to fix that RIF properly. And many “techs” are just as bad as I was. They throw parts in with no logic and no proper technique, and it doesn’t work well.

 

Before you upgrade anything, you should have a clear, concise idea of what you want to see improve and why. You should already be using high quality BBs and a good quality battery.

 

You should also be a confident player. You don’t have to be great at the game yet (it takes a while 😁), but you should be confident in how you play, or the upgrades won’t matter a bit.

[Madhouse]

First off, as a new player get your UKARA sorted out. It’ll save you the heartache of buying a load of kit and then realising it’s not for you.

 

Once UKARA’s sorted you’ll know more about how you play and therefore have more idea of what you want for your first pew.

 

When you get it, run it stock for a while, learn how it works and how to clean it. (Unless you get a G&G where I’d heartily recommend swapping out their mosfet for a Perun AB++).

 

Then think about what you want to try and improve and have a look at what other people with your pew have done and the results they got. There’s always someone else that’s had the same issue or upgrade plans you have.

 

After all that you should be in a position to make an informed decision on your changes.

 

Buying something ‘pre-upgraded’ is something I’d pass on personally, I’d want to know what it was like beforehand. Too easy to stick expensive parts in a pew and for it to perform the same or worse, which is why there’s lots of comments above about Techs you can trust.

[Kzwi]

Rent at different fields, they might have different rifle type to try, ergonomy is important

 

Definitely try to play your RIF stock first. Get yourself a decent aeg,Save the money of the upgrades and get yourself first

1) a pistol, they are cool ( did i mention how cool it is to go in a building and go close range with a pistol

2) some nice comfy boots

3) some quality eyepro, i played years with cheap ( impact rated but cheap eyepro ) and that’s made a huge difference

4) maybe some cool gear like a chest rig

5) a second replica, most of us have different ones, i like short smg/assault rifle for cqb and i like dmr 

6) figure out which replica to upgrade how:

a) i dont need to upgrade my marui pistol because i am happy with how it shoots

b) my hk416c could use some higher rate of fire, so that’s how i’ll upgrade it.

c) i upgraded my dmr for consistency more than range 

d) look at the hop up and barrel first for any replica to upgrade, i started with JG ak years ago, hop and barrel made a world of difference

 

DO NOT START  with a bolt action rifle, they can be cool, but youtube does not show you accurately what it is to play with those, and some brands and platform will be easier to upgrade/tech/repair because they use a lot of standard parts or are clones of standard replica.

[Dan Robinson]

As above.   I've spent money upgrading a gun, and it was great.  I've also bought a budget gun, and it's equally great out of the box with a few attachments. 

 

 

The tech I used to upgrade my Specna was Cage Airsoft (https://www.thecageairsoft.co.uk/).  He was reasonably priced, quick and helpful. 

 

But if you go with an M4 platform,  frankly,  it's pretty straightforward to work on the gun yourself with all the pointers here and elsewhere.

Edited August 19, 2023 by Dan Robinson

[Adolf Hamster]

It's been said well enough already but it's a message worth repeating.

 

When a much younger (but no less handsome 😛 ) hamster was starting out in this hobby he bought himself his favourite gun, a g&g f2000 because bad company 2.

 

Needless to say as a serial tinkerer it didnt take me long to have the thing to bits and back again, and whilst the g&g implementation of the v6 box is an absolute dream to work on compared to an m4 it just means you can skip right past the easy mistakes and into the sneaky buggers that haunt you for years.

 

For example, i installed an active brake mosfet after learning the hard way how quickly an 11.1v lipo can eat a set of trigger contacts if you let it. Had it been your common m4 of ak a new set of contacts is no big deal but being an oddball i had to order a whole trigger module from the states.

 

So began the problems, i could never get it to fire reliably in semi auto, full auto was fine but the lack of semi annoyed me no end. I tried fully rewiring to heavy gauge wire, i tried different motors, i tried different gearing, nothing worked.

 

And so she sat, for years, i loved and still love the quirky look, but every time i'd bring her out to play the janky trigger (bad enough at the best of times) always had me reverting to something else because even if she was running well i just didnt like using it. Turns out that looking good in a video game and actually handling a thing is a big difference.

 

Eventually as my constant tinkering continued i ended up throwing in a warfet that was spare from another build and the penny dropped- gone was the semi auto issues that had plagued her the whole time i owned her, turned out all the fettling and filing of trigger components, lining things up just so wasnt actually the problem, it was the damned active brake.

 

But by this point i was basically an ak convert, turns out that's the platform i most like using/working on, at least as far as airsoft goes.

 

There are 2 key points from this story:

1. Taking some time, and actually getting hands on with a gun is worth the effort, you might love the looks of a particular platform from video games/movies etc and thats absolutely fine but you may well find that what you actually preferr to use irl is something completely different.

 

2. Jumping straight into trying to modify your pews, especially when you dont have a clear objective in mind and its your only pew is gonna be a recipe for disaster, trust me the walk of shame when your gun's stopped working or is shooting so wildly you couldnt hit the broad side of a barn from inside said barn gets real old the tenth time it happens and when you're just starting out it will happen a lot.

 

That isnt to say you shouldnt get into tinkering with your pew, its fun and ultimately quite rewarding and something i absolutely advocate people should have a go at, but it's definately smarter to wait until you've got a reliable spare to fall back on.

 

As has been mentioned paying someone to work on your pew is a minefield, there are a few about who will do excellent work but just as many who either dont know, dont care or both and will just about go through the motions of fitting whatever expensive parts they think they can convince you to spend money on with no care as to wether or not that will actually improve the guns performance.