Tuning is getting the best out of your hardware, whether it's your gun or your car. I would've thought someone on a modding/overclocking site would be well placed to get that. No-one says that once you've hopped up an airsoft pistol you have to shoot people at close range, any more than tuning your car means you have to spend your time breaking the speed limit in school zones. UKARA is a byproduct of the Imitation Firearms portion (s.36-41) of the 2006 Violent Crime Reduction Act, which deals with weaponry, drinking- and football-related violence amongst other things. It imposes a blanket ban on import and trade of Realistic Imitation Firearms, with specific defences of museum ownership, film-making and historical re-enactment. Obviously, airsofting isn't on that list. To try and stay legal they set up UKARA (a retailers' association) as a kind of self-regulating system to pre-empt Government crackdowns that would further restrict their business. It requires stricter checks on your age and your use of the RIF, and demands that you actually show that you use the guns for airsofting before they'll let you buy them.
All i'm saying is, there are fps laws for a reason, and the moment you start playing with the FPS above the stated limit in your area, your a *****. Tuning could mean putting some fresh silicone lube on, putting a new hammer on with a little fairy design on it. Tuning usually refers to making improvements, intentionally causing serious damage to another person is not an improvement. The same way that if we saw someone heating a gas magazine on a radiator or one of the heat lamps we have on in the winter, they get chucked out and told to stay out.
Le'ts go with the definition of tuning John's using, which appears to be mechanical modifications and upgrades to increase the muzzle velocity of the projectiles. Whether that is an improvement depends upon what you're doing with the gun. If you're a backyard plinker, and you're not exceeding legal maximum muzzle energy (which, IIRC, is 1.35J in the UK, usually lowered to 1J for airsofting) I don't see anything wrong with seeing what your toys will do. It's like delimiting your Mercedes so you can exceed 155mph - fine, if you do it on a track. If you intend to leave the upgrades on for 'softing, then you're an a******* (just as you're an arse if you attempt 155mph+ on public roads) but something tells me John's probably not very interested in skirmishing (at his age ).
You can break skin with a bb fired from a gun firing well within the legal limits allowed within the UK. I'm pretty sure a pistol capable of firing 0.2g BBs at around 330fps could break skin if you were hit at close range, especially if it impacted on somewhere like your forehead or fingers.
I've very rarely come away without bleeders. 350fps from an AEG at a fairly close range is enough to break skin, and that's the "legal" limit. However, if you talk to people from airsoft groups outside the UK where 500fps AEG's are all the rage, and start hearing their injury stories.. I'm happy with the power limits as they are, not too high, and not so low that it turns airsoft into a pointless game of tapping your opponent on the shoulder.
I agree, I think 350fps is a reasonable power limit for AEGs/pistols and 500fps is reasonable for single shot rifles with a minimum engagement range. It's a good middle ground between giving the guns a decent range and preventing any injury more serious than bruising or slighly broken skin.
As for Gunner he is pretty cheap but his service is also pretty shocking. Keith at RSOV.com is much better but charges a lot more in postage.
I'm happy with the current power limits as far as urban go - 350fps is enough to make people stop and think tactically at close range, as opposed to running in on full auto. As far as woodland goes, the longer engagement distance means feeling less impact. Personally I think AEG's should be able to fire closer to 400 so that we can have more ranged skirmishes. That said it's not all about FPS - need to have a good hop unit in there aswell for some long distance shooting
Advice request - I bought a KSC M8000 Cougar F from a certain well-known London airsoft retailer. I'm not UKARA registered - and I only needed the gun as a pattern model, not for 'softing - so I told them to get it two-toned for me. I picked it up today without opening the box - big mistake - and was rather horrified when I did get a good look at home. It looks like it was painted by a retarded monkey. The grips were OK (horrible flat baby blue, but OK) but the slide was just pathetic. It was evidently sprayed without the artiste troubling to remove the slide-mounted safety/decocker, so that was blasted, leaving a black shadow behind it in the unsafe position. The lettering was wrecked, the inside filled with overspray, and orange peel and runs like you have never seen dominated both sides. Unfortunately, I needed this model weeks ago, and in a hurry used paint stripper (having tested it on the inside of the grips and an unobtrusive patch inside the slide) to try and clean the worst off so I could at least sketch the damn thing. The grips and some slide components faired fine, but the main body of the slide literally melted when the stripper hit it properly - I guess it was a different grade of plastic. Anyway, eager to salvage either some cash by parting this thing out, or a new slide, I guess I need the address of an airsoft trading forum. Can anyone recommend a good one?
PM'd Wolf "We strive to be elitist and refuse to acknowledge anything we don't sell - And everything we do sell is at a butt-**** stupid price" Armouries >.>
It was indeed... The service was quite good (as it should be, for that kind of money) but the paintjob was just unreal. Cheers for the PM, liratheal, +rep. If Wolf Armouries aren't the recommended shop around here, what do you guys use?
No problem chap. My personal preference is Fire-Support - Nick and John (Frank too, but he's more on the email side these days) are super blokes who really know their stuff. Beyond that, I tend to either sift through second hand forums - The one I linked you - And a couple of "classic" ones, or if I have to - ZeroOne. Not exactly my favourite bunch, but they do their job for a reasonable asking price.
I've never used them, Ending Credits, but I have seen their site before. If they're just down the road, might as well pop in and see what they're like if they have a store front Not sure about Ireland, but there are one or two Irish 'softers around here somewhere!
How easy is it to sell airsoft guns and parts second-hand these days? I'm not currently a member of any site.
Pretty easy. Just pop on zeroin and hit up the sales section, at least that's what I usually do. Mind you depending on the wares we may be interested in it.. (By we I mean the bit-tech collective)
