Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

[bumhulio]

I was shooting my KWA M11A1 after fitting a red dot to it yesterday and it got me thinking how good the range and accuracy on it was, in fact it was actually better then my TM 1911 I had just been shooting 10 minutes previously, which got me thinking further.......

I've owned a load of Tokyo Marui guns from new and being 100% honest the range has only ever been adequate, and I was recalling the amount of time I've heard reviews and comments saying how good their hop up systems are, from my experience they've never been any better in my opinion then KWA or G&P systems. I always laugh when I hear someone talking about how especially exceedingly f*king good they are now because to me it's a load of rubbish passed down the line of Airsofting when Tokyo Marui was pretty much the only manufacture available in the Uk years and years ago.

That now led me to think about other highly overrated and exaggerated company's...brings to mind
"RA Tech".... Christ how many parts have I bought from them because they were rated as being really good quality parts! In truth the parts had poor quality control and often required modifying to work correctly upon fitting. Just because they were the only manufacturer at the time to start making WE GBBR parts dosnt mean they were in fact any good!

And on a positive.. After all the misconceptions about WE1911's being crap.. I had an MEU and it was actually one of the best pistols I owned! Never went wrong, didn't break, range was good, full metal and was cheaper then the TM version!!!
People kept saying they didn't work well in the cold but I never had an issue!

So what misconceptions and exaggerations have you had with Airsoft in your time?

[wildething]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

well this is all a matter of perspective but you have to weigh up the evidence if more people have bad experiences with WE than good there maybe other factors but it's a fairly safe bet that WE arent any good. Personally I have had several WE pistols and have to say they are crap. all of them vented badly on every shot the could barely cycle in the cold and something broke on everyone of them after too short a period of time. Now TM the GBB guns i kept for long time broke eventually but we are talking years of regular use not weeks or even days of use. I currently have a kwa Glock and a TM glock guess what the tm shoots further with more shots per fill and more consistently.

Misconceptions hardly any airsofters can judge distance worth a damn.

[aftershock]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

Well hop on maruis are great maybe you've had a few duds, heck my Aug is ridiculous for range and so is my 1911. Techs just say its fairy dust as the cloners cant replicate the range. Now if it comes to snipers there is very little in it as a tm needs upgrading out the box to compete but do well on range when its even. In my experience there is a reason players replace the barrels and not the hops on tm's

[tackle]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

Apologies if this has been said already, I'm on a poxy small screen, regarding TM kit, it may not be the best in every aspect, but its damn close, & without spending a shitload of money, ie keeping it stock, it does most things well.
I believe that's why their kit has a great rep, it's reliable straight outta the box, whether its new from the shop or has been sitting in the cupboard for 3 years, & the same can be said for their aegs.
IMHO.
Mark

[Tiercel]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

Ive yet to own a good WE gun... and Ive bought a lot, after years of playing airsoft when it comes to GBB pistols Ive reached the point where I will ONLY buy TM pistols. Theyre the only ones that I can 100% guarantee when Ithe SHTF and I need to draw my sidearm it will work, not lock up, vent all the gas or bb dribbles out the barrel like an impotent old man. I think Maruzen is the only brand Ive not owned a GBB pistol from, and universally every single one of them has let me down... except for TM. Oh and KSC, I had a KSC Cougar which was an amazing little gun, until the hop broke and it was impossible to get replacement parts for (this was about 5 years ago mind you, maybe its changed now). TM are reliable, filled with Nippon magic fairy dust, and they just WORK. Plus replacements/upgrades are easy to get hold of.

So in closing, WE can go eat a bag of di-.. BBs.

As for common long term misconceptions:

"FPS is everything! My 400 fps CYMA out of the box will outperform your 320fps finely tuned TM gun!" - yeah ok mate, whatever helps you sleep at night.

"anything stronger than 144a summer gas will make plastic pistols explode!" - Ive run a TM FN-5.7 (notorious for being their weakest pistol perhaps?), 1911, p226 and desert eagle on propane for years without a single one exploding.

"propane is dangerous! You cant use it our site!" - You mean you dont like the fact I can buy cheaper gas than your ripoff up-priced "special airsoft gas" so youre gonna ban propane from your sites? Ok. Fine Ill just buy gas holders and fill them with propane instead.

[KenIchikawa]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

I
"FPS is everything! My 400 fps CYMA out of the box will outperform your 320fps finely tuned TM gun!" - yeah ok mate, whatever helps you sleep at night.
.

The weird thing is CYMAs I've noticed keep getting hotter and hotter on FPS meaning you have to downgrade them anyway. They'd make nice CQB guns out the box. But a CM P90 somebody bought (with a ridiculous barrel defeating the point of the P90) scored 435FPS with 0.2s at a CQB site. He was told no way.

[bumhulio]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

I appreciate your comments, I see theirs many TM fans... Lol! and yes I've heard the fairydust quote before, the thing is.. I think it's just not true! My last 2 tm pistols were a desert eagle and a mk23 nbb, both hops started dipping after about 25 meters and were no better then my we 1911 or kwa hk45. I've had a lot of experience with different manufactures over the years and think I'm pretty well wised up to what's good and what's not, in terms of We I pretty much agree that a lot of their GBBR's are crap, the only one I liked was my scar. But I have to say they do sometimes make a good pistol.

Don't mean for this to be a Marui bashing thread as I know they are reliable and good value out of the box, if nota little bit pricey, my main point is that I think people over exaggerate how good they are. As with other brands.

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Oh and the 144A gas thing, I'm sure that's just a ploy by retailers to meet a quote, I've never had an issue running green gas in any of my guns!

[Tiercel]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

The weird thing is CYMAs I've noticed keep getting hotter and hotter on FPS meaning you have to downgrade them anyway. They'd make nice CQB guns out the box. But a CM P90 somebody bought (with a ridiculous barrel defeating the point of the P90) scored 435FPS with 0.2s at a CQB site. He was told no way.

I can only assume its something to do with the American airsoft market, where YEE HAWWWWWWW 500 FPS! Is their "normal" AEG limit... or something like that. So Chinese manufacturers appease the bigger, money making, yank market.

[Thingy]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

I'm another in the TM pistol fanboy club, whilst I can't say it gets better range or what some would considder "better" FPS than some other guns it sure as hell is reliable - I've had my 1911 for about 5 years now (and I bought it second hand) and never had an issue! With a pistol I'd rather pull it out the holster and have it fire every time than it being full metal or full to the brim with gucchi upgrade parts and only work when it feels like it

Misconception wise:
It makes me cringe to see people who have bought an expensive gun, be it a systema or such and assume that just by using said gun it will make them a better player...

The weird thing is CYMAs I've noticed keep getting hotter and hotter on FPS meaning you have to downgrade them anyway. They'd make nice CQB guns out the box. But a CM P90 somebody bought (with a ridiculous barrel defeating the point of the P90) scored 435FPS with 0.2s at a CQB site. He was told no way.

I get a bit peeved when I see an on site retailer selling guns like these (not mentioning any names, but a particular repeat offender springs to mind) without telling the buyer, then tries to charge them extortionate amounts to downgrade it when they find its hot on the chrono

[Wilkes 1875]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

I think there are many misconceptions and exaggerations in airsoft!

The 144a gas one is very true!

Ones I often see are that lipos are dangerous; upgrades are needed straight out the box and gbb guns need a lot of maintenance!

The lipo one stems from a lack of understanding I guess but it still pops up all the time!

Regarding upgrades I think people get too hung up on it all! Buy a gun that is higher end and reliable from the start and go out and use it! Buy the time you've bought all your upgrades and paid someone to fit them all you may as well have bought something higher end and a lot of the time, what you've actually done is made the gun more unreliable.. (This is a generalisation as I know people like messing with their kit and some do it well..) But for a newbie to start playing and going and doing this. For me that's the incorrect way to go!

Gbb guns need a little lube and they will go on and on. That's my experience. Anyone giving advice saying 'maintenance' is needed as a downside to owning one, I really question!

Regarding what's been said. I have to agree that WE get a hard time as recent guns have become better and more reliable. HOWEVER they have only gone from bloody useless, to mediocre, and just that. I have and do own WE pistols, but none go anywhere near matching my TM guns in quality of finish, gas efficiency, range or accuracy! KWA guns are nice, but again seem to be sub par with pistols to TM.

I wouldn't consider myself a TM fanboy. But after years of chopping and changing guns and spending (read wasting) a load of cash, I now have a TM primary and secondary as my go to guns. This isn't because they are necessarily the best out the box, best value for money or nicest to own, but they just work. The fact of the matter is, they do most things better than most other things on the market. I now want to be able to pick up my kit, take it to a game and know everything will work perfectly, and no one does that better than TM imo.

[sparrowhawk]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

I think people need to avoid general sweeping statements and to compartment their thoughts into different genres ie gbb pistols, gas blowback rifle,aegs, parts, and again into sub categories ak or m4,internals/externals etc, parts and accessories and customer service, because some companies excell in some categories and not in others.
Tm seems to get favorable reviews because it's the best all rounder,which is fair enough, I'm not concerned about all the positive reviews companies get,but it's the damning negatives statements that is easily thrown around and half the time it's just been copied by people who probably never owned one,or had a friends dad's brother who had a bad experience seven years ago, positive reputations are hard to build but are easily reduced by heresay and gossip

[Trouble]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

I appreciate your comments, I see theirs many TM fans... Lol! and yes I've heard the fairydust quote before, the thing is.. I think it's just not true! My last 2 tm pistols were a desert eagle and a mk23 nbb, both hops started dipping after about 25 meters and were no better then my we 1911 or kwa hk45. I've had a lot of experience with different manufactures over the years and think I'm pretty well wised up to what's good and what's not, in terms of We I pretty much agree that a lot of their GBBR's are crap, the only one I liked was my scar. But I have to say they do sometimes make a good pistol.

Don't mean for this to be a Marui bashing thread as I know they are reliable and good value out of the box, if nota little bit pricey, my main point is that I think people over exaggerate how good they are. As with other brands.

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Oh and the 144A gas thing, I'm sure that's just a ploy by retailers to meet a quote, I've never had an issue running green gas in any of my guns!

The desert eagle is probably the best performing TM GBB pistol. The MK23 is the best performing gas pistol in terms of range and accuracy, nothing else comes close to it. Sounds like you need to have a fiddle with the hops.

[Fizzy]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

Misconseptions?

Barrel length = more range

FPS = more range

(both may get you a bit more range, but not what people claim)

As soon as you've bought your gun, you NEED to upgrade it

Scopes and lasers make your gun more accurate

You NEED UKARA to buy a RIF

FPS limits being 'law'


Exaggerations?

The usual one, RANGE, usually accompanied by comments such as "My gun out ranges everything else on the field"


As for TM being no better that G&P?

Well, G&P always used to have damn fine externals, but generally their hops suck out the box and their M4s used to eat tappet plates. It's not often you have to do much to a TM out the box, if anything at all. That's why they have such a good reputation

[JFSebastien]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

Misconception: bitching to your mates about hit takers during down time achieves anything positive

[CZ01]

Re: Magical misconceptions and exaggerations of Airsoft

I'll put in my 2p on TM's...All this is "imo" of course....

I've not a lot of posts on here, but I've been shooting maybe 40 years (I'm an old sod...) - and shot just about everything in that time. I got into airsoft guns circa 1995 ...ish.
I didn't think much of the early TM's, many had a very plasticky finish, along with appalling seams in the castings. Western Arms were way ahead.
However, TM have been continually improving. I used to spend my spare time repairing and modding gbb's for people (until quite recently in fact) and I used to get in just as many broken TM's as anything else. Slides, hammers, sears, valve knockers, loading nozzles etc.
One thing with TM, is that the aftermarket support is superb, therefore, if someone has a part failure it's simply no big deal and no fuss is made. Take KWC however, aftermarket support is trash, so if they break it's a big deal and people will moan and groan and slate them.
There are also many who upgrade their TM's from day dot. Notwithstanding that, some are also "afraid" of slating a TM, due to the many fanboys on forums. Never seems to go down well if you slate a TM!!

Don't get me wrong - these days TM are a pretty safe, reasonably reliable package out the box, but they are not the be all and end all of gbb pistols.
Reliability remember, also depends on the rounds fired. It's all very well saying "I've had a TM for years and it's still fine", but how many rounds has it actually fired as a secondary? I'll think nothing of putting maybe 600 rounds through one of my gbb's in just one weekend!

Re: WE

I think the reputation at first was deserved. However, they now seem to be making great efforts to improve. Yes, the QC is still hit and miss with some lemons, but overall they are getting much better. Two of my most reliable guns atm are a WE XDM & PX4. The finish on the XDM (imo) is much better and realistic than the TM - the frame is more solid and looks less "plasticky"
They are also better than most at churning out new models and "trying" to listen to customer input.
They will (imo) keep getting better and give others a serious headache.

My opinion of course (but based on experience) - your mileage may differ!........