last post THIS IS MY RIFLE…
THIS IS ...OR WAS MY RIFLE…
WHILE HE WAS WRITING THE T4E PIECE, FRENCHIE WAS AWARE OF THE LIMITED RANGE AVAILABLE COMPARED TO THE VAST RANGE OF AIRSOFT GUNS THAT THERE ARE, OR HAVE BEEN. THAT GOT HIM THINKING ABOUT SOME OF THE MODELS THAT WERE AVAILABLE AND HAVE SINCE DISAPPEARED, EITHER BECAUSE THEIR TIME HAS COME, OR BECAUSE THEY HAD A SOMEWHAT LIMITED APPEAL.
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ome guns are just too niche to prosper where it is more difficult to acquire them purely as collector pieces and others were frankly not brilliant, even if they have done relatively well despite themselves. So, for this month’s Last Post I’m going to trawl my unreliable memories of guns that came and went, or didn’t really do well despite decent availability. It is inevitable that this will not be an exhaustive list, so if there is something that fits here which I’ve missed, forgive me! I’ll begin with a couple of favourites of mine, the Sten gun and the M41 rifle from Aliens. The Chinese-made Sten was solid, affordable and worked really well. It was built around a Marui M14 gearbox with all the troublesome selective fire bits removed. The original version, with the fixed hop, shot brilliantly, especially if you changed the hop rubber. I ran mine on 0.3s at 328 fps and it truly shot for miles. Downsides; It’s a crude gun with the ergonomics of an unwieldy pipe. Magazines could be hard to get and were limited to 50 BBs, you couldn’t
run a hi-cap sideways sadly. It was never going to challenge ARs in terms of use-ability and really only
“SOME GUNS ARE JUST TOO NICHE TO PROSPER WHERE IT IS MORE DIFFICULT TO ACQUIRE THEM PURELY AS COLLECTOR PIECES AND OTHERS WERE FRANKLY NOT BRILLIANT, EVEN IF THEY HAVE DONE RELATIVELY WELL DESPITE THEMSELVES.”
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JUNE 2022
