WE M4 Magazine Revival

I have generally given up hope of keeping my WE M4 in good condition anymore. This usually results in it running dirty yet (usually) functional, if I go shoot with it. Perhaps not the best practice, but I’ve been shooting (and pouring money into) mine for many years past its prime – I probably should have given up on this one a few generations before WE “open bolt”/open chamber GBBR and conversion kits even hit the market. But what the heck, I might as well keep it running.

I recently have been encountering issues with most of my 9 working magazines refusing to lock back (I have somewhere in the range of 14, but the old gen internals just leak too often to be worth maintaining). Years ago, I did most of the common mods you’ll find on the internet and then some, in regards to getting the finicky WE M4 “open bolt” bolt stop to actually, well, stop the bolt when the mag runs out of ammo. A combination of many of those seems to have fixed my issue, but it has since returned… all things considered, I’m a little surprised that I’m just experiencing this now (much later than expected).

After inspecting the usual suspects and confirming those to still be in functional condition, I still couldn’t get it to work right with all my mags. A few ideas popped into mind – mag part that pushes up on bolt stop, magazine outer shells, or lower receiver.

Flyye Warranty

No photo(s) today – just a story about a surprising good warranty policy from a repro company in China.

GGG Minimalist

I picked this one up a while ago from DS Tactical and forgot to do a write up on it. So without further ado, may I present to you my custom Grey Ghost Gear Minimalist Plate Carrier, as I have been running it over the past summer:

• Grey Ghost Minimalist, Coyote
• Eagle Admin Pouch, Khaki
• Flyye Triple M4 Mag Pouch, CB
• Shoulder Pads from repro LBT6094, painted
• Z-Tactical Speaker Mic
• Eagle MBITR Radio Pouch, Khaki
• TMC Canteen Pouch, Khaki (Source 1L)
• Pantac Horizontal Utility Pouch, Multicam

Read on for my simple DIY modifications to the Minimalist, and my ideas on why I put pouches where I put them.

Partizan Oversuit

I had a whole thing written up on my phone a few days ago, but apparently the WordPress Mobile App hates me and refused to post it.

In a nutshell, this happened again:

Oh, Russian Partizan pattern, how I have missed owning you!

I wish I were a real tree

“Jester” and I have come to affectionately dub these our 3D leaf hunting camo – as the pattern itself features both a printed foliage pattern (similar in concept to a few more well-known hunting camouflage brands, such as Real Tree) as well as cut shapes to resemble leaves (once again, similar in concept to other hunting camouflage). We both noted that this pattern works well when wet from rain, rather well.

The main reason for my search for this camouflage set is due to inspiration from Taskforce Valkyrie and Team Cobalt (both have awesome MOUT/Mil-Sim YouTube channels, if you aren’t already aware of them). AFAIK, the dude on TF Valkyrie wears a higher end product, which definitely looks like a more useable pattern in itself… but in the end, I didn’t feel like shelling out the cash for a product that I wasn’t sure I would like to wear. That being said, the one I got instead has certainly proved to be an excellent test of this 3D pattern.

EDC Bag: Mystery Ranch Full Moon

Now that I am back in Hong Kong, it has become harder for me to carry things – thus I felt a need to buy an EDC bag. Since my favourite shop, DS Tactical, is now half way around the world, I made do with the equivalent in Hong Kong, Supreme Co.. After looking around there, I decided on the Mystery Ranch Full Moon.

LBT-6015A Coyote Tan (Old Gen)

From my latest LegitKit purchase through eBay – a used old gen London Bridge Trading radio pouch. Operator as f*ck with green zip ties, presumably to keep the knot on adjustable radio retention from coming undone. Previous owner Sharpie’d on his name, which was later obscured, presumably when he offloaded it.

Review: Tokyo Marui PX4

 

EDIT (June 16, 2014): See further comments in the comment section related to the slide mounted safety, and the fact that sending the slide forward has occasionally also turned the safety off unintentionally.

My general lack of interest when it comes to sidearms is well documented in these virtual pages, but for a very long time I’ve wanted to own a PX4. I’ve always been a fan of its sleek, sexy look; not to mention the fact that it was Leonardo DiCaprio’s sidearm in Inception, which is where I first became aware of its existence. I remember, upon watching that scene where he takes out dream-guards with a suppressed PX4 (and catches his own ejecting brass so they don’t give away his position), that I had to have that gun.

When a lightly used Tokyo Marui PX4 became available locally, I jumped at the chance. Review and video performance test after the break.

PIG FDT-ALPHA Gloves

After being hounded that I should pick up a pair of these PIG Full Dexterity Tactical (FDT) Gloves “just because” by Eddie and Ali at DS, I finally did – sometimes the stupidly simple sales pitch works.

I initially didn’t see the point in getting a pair of gloves other than replacement flight gloves for my favourite (but thoroughly worn-out) Blackhawk Nomex pair, but seeing as how DS no longer carries as much of the Hatch line as they once did, I guess it was time for a change… besides, why the heck was I wearing thicker FR gloves for Airsoft in the first place?

Personally, I much rather go play Airsoft games with gloves than without, but prefer the feel of a gun in my bare hands – as such, these PIG gloves work great for me.

Echo1 SOF 3 AEG

After many months of running my beloved CA SA58 as my dedicated high-cap-fueled full-auto-spam AEG, I finally decided to retire it in favour of a longer barrel and handguard that I had originally wanted.

May I introduce to you my not-so-brand-new Echo1 Enterprise Arms SOF 3! While it was brand new out of the box at the time these photographs were taken, it has been through a few months of bags and bags of BB’s per day… so I’m not sure if I can really call it “brand new” now.

Based on the Classic Army design of the DSA SA-58 (a modern FN FAL based platform in the real gun world), this gun actually features very limited compatibility with the original CA parts. CA 500rd and 1000rd high caps fit and feed in the Echo1 model just the same – and in the end, that’s all I really care about. Good news that the CA mags work (I was holding my breath about that), as the included Echo1 500rd mags don’t have enough spring tension to feed very well at all.

More notes on comparing the two after the break.