I wanted to write this up for any newcomers to Airsoft who’ve seen some of the awesome ghillie sniper YouTube videos out there and want to give it a go! My goal here is to explain how I’ve managed to (relatively) quickly become (relatively) successful at it and offer you my ‘cheat sheet’ on how to get where I am now, without spending quite as much time and money as I did.
A bit of background about me:
I live in the south of England, so all of this is geared around UK woodland environments and site limits/rules.
I have some disposable income (which allowed me to make some expensive mistakes) and what I’m going to recommend is not the ‘cheap and cheerful’ option.
I’m not usually a hands-on, practical, DIY type of person, but I can tell you that you don’t need to be a mechanic or engineer with a garage full of tools to fully upgrade a spring powered airsoft sniper RIF.
I have a vague recollection of Maths and Physics A-levels, but I’m not a scientist. When tuning my RIF, I did quite a lot of very basic experimentation and statistical analysis, but it was not particularly well planned or controlled. I just tried out a series of my best ideas and guesses and recorded the results.
This post will talk about my choices of general gear, and then at length about the experience of my first 4 game days as a ghillie sniper. I’ve spent time on these accounts and made them as truthful as possible. Obviously, they focus on the highlights, but I have made a conscious effort to remove the natural embellishment and exaggeration that the first drafts had.
Then I’ll describe my learnings in tuning my RIF, and how I achieved the most accurate possible setup. If you’re here for this, you can skip to the header “Sniper Teching!”.
Finally, I’ve written out a full list of the items that I recommend from use in my own RIF in the best configuration that I’ve found up to this point, along with my comments on things like their quality, compatibility, pros, cons, etc.
This journey started in the winter of 2023 when I came across some airsoft YouTube videos, and later podcasts too. One of the things that I often heard these ‘famous’ airsoft snipers say was that sniping is hard, and you should get a cheap AEG to make sure that it’s for you, before you spend a lot of money building a sniper loadout and end up disappointed. But I was sure that I wanted to get into sniping and, if I sucked, I would keep trying until I didn’t. My experience has been incredible and I would say that if you have the same kind of determination, then (perhaps besides the cost) there's nothing stopping you from diving right in at the deep end like I did.
In terms of a base suit for a ghillie, I thought the mostly muddy kind of green of the Novritsch ACP design could be adapted for UK woodland, pretty much spring through to Autumn, which I still think is true. I plan to just go a bit more brown or green, depending on the time of year. I unstitched probably 70% of 3D camo that comes on it, removing a lot of the uniformity and straight lines, leaving only macro patterns that blend quite nicely between the predominantly green and brown patches that I added. Silly Ghillie has a great video describing this principle of macro patterns, in case you aren’t familiar. You do need to sew down the new ends of the stitching that you create by removing sections of it, otherwise it will unstitch itself over time.
Then I used a KMCS summer crafting kit as well as a selection of the Novritsch fake leaves, although mostly just screwed up and zip-tied on, rather than in full leaf shape, which gives it some range of different greens and browns too. In the current Summer incarnation, it’s mostly green KMCS Adaptive Ghillie mesh (AGM) and fake leaves with a smattering of brown cottons and leaves, and several different shades of raffia selectively applied to some areas, in another kind of overlaid macro pattern; becoming more brown-heavy towards the bottom of the cape and around the elbows, which tend to be closer to the ground when hiding. Following the crafting tips and advice of KM himself, as well as Silly Ghillie and AKA Staten, it came together slowly but surely.
I decided against getting the ghillie trousers, thinking that they look too baggy and likely to get caught on vegetation and hamper movement and stealth. Of course, without them, you have to be aware of your legs being potentially more visible. But still, the human shape is very much broken up. It might be advisable to sew some 3D elements onto the field pants, to make them stand out a little less without dramatically increasing the surface area, although I haven’t actually done this yet.
For face protection, I decided to go with mesh goggles because I didn’t want to deal with fogging. Seems like there are a million solutions to fogging, and none of them work. I sweat a lot and I’m not wearing a fan on my head. I got some cheap mesh goggles at first, but I hadn’t realised how dark they would be. Also, they didn’t fit very well, so eventually I got some Heroshark ones with a rubber seal around the eyes and much better visibility. I could only get them in black, but I spray painted the mesh ‘lens’ inserts kind of green and Jack Pyke camo taped the frame.
I decided to go with a lower face mask which has mesh over the nose and mouth, and also mesh over the ears. Covering your ears is probably against best practice for a ghillie sniper, but thought I’d be safe rather than sorry. So far, I haven’t been shot in the ear mesh, but neither have I found it a particular hinderance. I also cut out and sewed on some mesh, as a kind of beard to hang under the mask and minimise shadow.
My sidearm had to be the Tokyo Marui MK23. I bought a pre-upgraded one with a Maple Leaf inner barrel and bucking, and the Hadron TDC hop. Got a nice little Sniper Mechanic Hex Suppressor and Jack Pike camo taped it all up. I’m shooting 0.4g BBs, and I haven’t had to do anything else to it. It seems very reliable and, in a stable position, its very accurate much further out than just the 30m bolt action minimum engagement distance.
For the primary, despite my “Buy cheap, buy twice” approach, I ended up buying 3 times. Originally, my research on the opinions of others led me to purchase a Silverback SRS A2 16” covert and, in hindsight, I was definitely on the right track. The thing looks sick, and I’m still of the opinion that it’s one of the best performing sniper RIFs out there. Then I bought some Stalker upgrade parts, a Vector scope, and spare mags for it, and went to town.
The first problem was, I discovered that the ergonomics of the SRS really don’t suit me. The mag release is very awkward, and I couldn’t pull the bolt in a prone position without a lot of effort and involuntary body movement, which is not ideal if you’re trying to stay undetected. I tried adjusting the buttstock length and short-stroking the Scorpion piston (which is a really cool feature that I later settled on using in a different RIF – more on that in the “Sniper Teching” section), but the ergonomic improvement was minimal.
On top of that, while I was merrily tinkering with the internals one evening, I accidentally pulled the trigger with the bolt drawn back! I had been diss/reassembling it a few times and, when something isn’t moving, it’s quite often that the trigger sear needs to be depressed to allow something to slide out. Anyway! I forgot what I was doing for a moment and the cylinder came slamming forward. Since then, the outer barrel is very tricky to remove/replace and has a definite misalignment. I haven’t fired it since, and I cringe when I think about trying to fix it.
Around the same time, I had developed the opinion that if I wanted a more conventional design of RIF, for the ergonomics, then a VSR-10 would be the best way to go. It has a long history, good reputation, loads of upgrade parts, and you see it in the videos all the time. So, I put one together from scratch, making a list of all the necessary parts, researching their compatibility, and then waiting like a child on Christmas eve for them to arrive in the mail. Long story short, I have almost enough parts to build two VSRs, because not everything went quite to plan. But at the end of it all, I learned a lot and I have a really sweet-looking RIF that is not your everyday VSR.
I made some adjustments, and it came out even higher on the second test. I spent over an hour testing different things, and got it down pretty close, but time was up. The safety briefing and first game were about to start. So, I actually played the whole morning of my first game day with only the TM MK23, and 3 mags. And I had an amazing time!
I really thought had made another classic noob ghillie mistake, having crafted my suit my bedroom without field testing it at all, but I was apparently very well concealed. I also observed some teammate ghillies with very out-of-the-box suits of various designs still being very effective, so long as they were staying still.
I didn’t know the map or the terrain but, when the game started, I ran a short way into the densest vegetation that I could see, on our far-right flank, and then crept as quietly as I could until I started hearing enemy players close by. I just knelt very still until I had a clear shot (probably 20 meters) and then took it. Very satisfying.
And it got better as the morning went on. There was an instance where I was aware of an enemy player doing their best to sneak slowly around, a little further out to the right than I was, and I stalked him so gradually and carefully. Eventually, I was sure about where he was, despite not having seen him yet, and I quietly stood up and got a headshot. The guy told me “That was f**king incredible”, and it made my day.
Later I was hiding in the same vicinity, really happy with my spot, and a larger group was approaching. I should have waited until more of them became visible, but I hit the first guy that came into view, and then had to stifle my giddy laughter listening to them discuss where the sniper could be. I got a few more of them, and they would medic each other back in again, before “Ceasefire!” was called (I never found out what for), and I made the mistake of thinking that the game was over. So, I stood up and revealed myself, and got a wave of compliments! It turned out there were 8 guys hunkered down around there for probably 10 or 15 minutes with no idea how nearby I had been hiding. Realising that the game could restart at any moment, the enemies agreed that I could walk back to respawn without being executed, which was very kind of them.
When I eventually did get hit, I had something like 14 kills in total (give or take), and I was absolutely buzzing. At the respawn I found out that our team had grabbed all 4 of the objective kegs early on and successfully defended them all morning, without any trouble from my side of the map.
I ended up repeatedly duelling with a guy who was using a shotgun and no camo at all, but who seemed to know his way around the field really well. He caught me out a few times, and wrecked my K/D ratio, but I got the last hit of the morning just as the game ended and we shook hands, which was awesome.
Whilst hiding the bushes, I’d had an idea about how to get the sniper down to the Joule limit, so instead of enjoying the complementary burger at lunch time, I made the adjustments and it worked. Just under 2.3J. Whilst tinkering, I didn’t get a chance to speak to many of the other players, but I did overhear someone mention the sniper “running round without a rifle” who was “completely shutting down” their flanking efforts.
In the afternoon I was really excited to be able to use the VSR, and it started out great, getting a mid-range hit with my first shot. But I hadn’t had much of a chance (or clue how) to zero the scope, I had the magnification too high, and got a bit frustrated that I didn’t have the accuracy that I wanted. I also found the rifle really long, heavy, and cumbersome in comparison to just using the pistol (obviously), and it was getting caught on vegetation and ruining my stealth! My instinct was actually to leave it on the ground when breaking cover, which I did a few times and almost couldn’t find it again.
So, the second half of the day was less fun, but lessons well learned. I understood why people record this stuff for YouTube, because I was having such a great time, I wanted to relive it and show off to my mates! I haven’t gone down that rabbit hole yet, but I may in the future.
But I knew that I wanted a conventional style RIF that was as short and light as possible. So, I bought a TAC 41L, a full Stalker upgrade kit, and also a Vortex Crossfire II 1-4x scope for it! I thought the quality of the Silverback and Stalker stuff that I had previously was really great, and this time I wouldn’t mess it up!
At this point I’ll mention a few very small gripes that I have with the TAC 41L. First, while everything else about it is completely solid, the front end of the polymer chassis is not the strongest. It actually only attaches to the receiver further back, and the outer barrel is floating; not touching the chassis. I attached a bipod to the m-lok rails on either side of the front section, when levelling the scope, and as I would lean to one side or the other, I could see the polymer bending slightly. I do run it with a small foregrip attachment on the underside and, if I twist it, I can see a very small amount of movement in the chassis relative to the barrel. It’s not enough to cause any problems and I can’t see any damage from it, but I would say to be aware that it’s not designed for a lot of heavy attachments; it’s designed to be ‘Lite’. People’s comments on appearance of the Lite chassis buttstock have been pretty negative. It also doesn’t have any adjustment for length or cheek height etc. but I find it very light, solid, and comfortable as it is. So, it suits me perfectly.
The second point, which applies to all TAC 41s, is that the bolt handle is straight and lifts to a very upright position, closer to vertical than I would like, which forces me to grip it under-hand. The base of the handle arm is also right up against the end of the receiver and rail, so there’s no way to grip it or even get a finger close to the base. That means that you’re always pulling at a slight angle, rather than straight backwards, and you can see wear on the cylinder exactly where you’d expect. VSR users are quite spoilt for choice in this regard, but the TAC 41 doesn’t seem to have any alternative bolt handles available. One with a bent arm that would lift to more of a horizontal position would be a big improvement in my opinion. I mentioned this to Silverback customer service, and they said it wouldn’t be possible; I’m not clear on why that might be.
One final thing to note for prospective buyers is that the picatinny rail for the optic on all TAC 41s is already raised quite high relative to the barrel. Ideally, although it probably matters less in airsoft than for real firearms, you want the optic to sit as low and close to the barrel as possible. Silverback say that this design choice is to accommodate mask wearers, but I would prefer to have the rail lower and then allow people to use whatever height mounts will place their optic in the right position for them.
Given the amount of money you can spend on scope mounts, it's ironic that the £10 pair that I got for free with my first scope, and weren't actually suitable for it (Vector Optics VictOptics 30mm Picatinny (RIS) Low Scope Mounts (SCOT-54L)), ended up being the perfect height to mount the Vortex Crossfire II 1-4x, which is quite low profile (or however you would correctly describe it), and place it within 1 or 2mm of touching the rail at its widest point. If you were wanting to use a bigger lens scope, that requires higher mounts to give it clearance of the rail, then you may find that your scope ends up a bit further away from the barrel than you would like.
At this point I’m running a full Stalker upgraded TAC 41L with a short-stroked, medium weight piston, long airbrake, 330mm inner barrel, and a 60 degree bucking with a 3J+ Rapax spring and 0.45g Longbow BBs. I also got the Silverback Outer Barrel Base with a carbon fibre Outer Barrel Extension, which allows for a couple of cm of internal suppression foam. After my experience with the VSR, I primarily wanted it to be as short and lightweight as possible.
The TAC 41 passed Chrono first time, which was a relief after my previous experience, and it was shooting SO much better than the VSR. I’d got my optic set to a more reasonable 3x magnification, and I couldn’t wait to use it. The morning’s game mode was attack and defend, where we as the attackers had to carry a 4-man suitcase up a long straight dirt track while the defenders respawned at their furthest back player’s position. 20 metres either side of the track was out of bounds. I handed the TAC 41 to one of my mates, drew my pistol and volunteered to pick up a corner of the suitcase. No stealthy play that morning.
After we got the suitcase to the objective, in something like 1hr20, it was our turn to defend. At the starting position, I was our furthest player back. One of the martials had actually pointed out a really great spot to me, with some concealment, a good field of view, and markers for the 30m minimum engagement distance. I got some really nice shots off but, unfortunately, when my teammates had started respawning at my position, some of them had decided to lie down next to me in a line, so it wasn’t long before we all got sprayed.
The highlight of the morning was the last part of the game, where the enemy team had slowly forced us back to about 40m or 50m of their objective. There was a tower nearby the objective building, just within bounds. It was the first time I’d tried firing from an elevated position, because the field is mostly very flat, and conventional wisdom says that you just become a prominent target when peeking out of a tall and obvious structure. I guess because the enemy team were so close to their objective, I got very little attention while I stacked up kills. I would guess close to 20 hits. I was miraculously uninterrupted, with a clear view of a bottleneck, well within my effective range, firing almost as fast as I could cycle the bolt. I doubt I would ever have had such a great opportunity in any other game mode.
Part way through my spree, one of my friends called up to ask if it was me, and then a couple of them joined me, pissing BBs very loudly from the tower. We got some return fire at that point, but even the rentals were outgunning everyone with the height advantage. I ran out of ammo just before the game ended. The martials called it at 1hr30 without the attackers achieving the objective and we won the game.
We played some shorter games in the afternoon. One of them was very confusing for me because the respawn points were not opposite each other like usual, and the objectives we’d been set seemed to be in some sort of horseshoe shape around the site. I didn’t have much of a clue where the objectives all were, but the enemy team seemed to be very disoriented. I kept picking off players that were focused in another direction, or walking around very relaxed as if they thought they were way out of range.
I developed a tactic for part way through the games when the lines, especially on the flanks, are not clear; to save time creeping painstakingly through uncontested ground and get to the action a bit quicker. When leaving respawn, if a teammate looks like they’re going in a direction that I like, I’ll follow a short way behind them. Then I can move at a normal pace and, when they start talking fire, I can freeze or quickly find a spot to hide. It was working pretty well until, while a was focusing elsewhere, I lost track of the guy I was following. So, I went into stalker mode and eventually came right up behind him again, without him noticing. I was about 2 metres behind him when I saw him shift his weight like he might turn around. To avoid startling him, I quietly said “Yellow” which was our team colour. He turned around and said “You’re yellow? I’m blue” and shot me. I could have touched this guy; I was so close. So, that was frustrating.
Immediately after that, I was a bit on-tilt and went with a ‘shoot first, ask later’ approach, which lead me to take out two friendlies on their own flanking mission. I revived them and it was all good though.
The last game of the day was attacking and defending a small outpost in the woods, where the defenders had no respawns and simply had to last as long as possible. Because of players dropping out towards the end of the day, I got to switch teams and play the defending side twice, which I prefer. Both times I picked a spot at the back of a clearing, across from the outpost. I think I got hit each time because of how quickly I was moving to cycle the bolt and take down as many of the players swarming into the clearing as possible.
After testing a few different things out I begrudgingly decided I would sacrifice some amount of mobility in length and weight by using the salvaged 420mm inner barrel from my SRS, and the stock aluminium outer barrel with a short suppressor to cover it. This let me swap out the 3J+ spring for a 2.8J one with some spring tensioners, and I lightened the piston and shortened the airbrake to get it to 2.3J with a noticeably lighter bolt pull than before.
I also continued to touch up my suit here and there, and I improved the camo coverage of the rifle wrap to include the buttstock portion and cover the scope better, and finally Jack Pyke taped a few black parts that were still exposed.
When handing out armbands, the martials always called out for the ghillies in order to balance them on the teams, but this time I noticed that they put this guy on one side and the remaining 3 of us on the other. I realised that I’ve probably played against this guy every time and yet I don’t recall ever spotting him during the game.
The morning was one long battle over the whole site. Each team had a base with a nearby respawn point at either end of the map. Small suitcase objectives had been placed at all of the various landmarks on the field, the names of which still meant very little to me although I was starting to get to know some areas by now. There were also coloured flags to raise at a central location, with each team’s flag set a little way into the other’s half.
I set out with another of the ghillies towards our right flank and followed his lead, about 10 metres behind and to his left. When some enemies came into view through the trees, we weren’t in the best spot. I fired first and missed. Then he started shooting and got taken out. I got one enemy player, but quite quickly got hit when I tried to move position during a lull in the shooting. So, we met up again at the respawn and it turned out he was having trouble with his RIF and had to go and get his backup.
I tried to take advantage of the wide-ranging game to explore more of the site and try to map it out in my mind while playing. I actually have quite a dismal sense of direction in general, so I put some conscious effort into it.
At some point, probably an hour or so in, someone reported at the respawn that we were losing the game really badly. The enemy had control of the flags and they had raided our base and taken all of our suitcases. When I went back in, the fight was indeed right at our base, probably 50m from our respawn. No one seemed to know if we still had teammates inside the base, there didn’t seem to be any clear lines, and it was really difficult to tell friendly from enemy from dead players. I spent a few respawns flanking our own base through head-height nettles with my pistol, and each time I would surprise a few enemies before getting hit by someone that I hadn’t seen, at quite close range – ouch!
Unbeknownst to me, at this point, the martials rebalanced the teams by switching a group of 4 HPA guys with radio comms onto our side, and the tide seemed to turn.
I decided to take a really long walk around the familiar right flank and see if I could get all the way to the other team’s base. I pushed not-so-stealthily through some really thick brambles and eventually spotted trees with the site boundary markers and followed them around until I guessed I was roughly level with their base. Then I tried to approach much more carefully and quietly; and did a pretty poor job. There can’t have been any other players around, or they definitely would have heard me.
Eventually, I was creeping through some very brown terrain (not well suited) where all there was at ground level was pine-type tree trunks and dry twigs all over the floor – reasonable visibility but not very good for sneaking or hiding. I spotted the blue tarp roof of a structure, which I later confirmed was in fact the enemy base, where all of the objective suitcases were being held. I tried to move towards and around it to get a good view of the building and eventually saw a big Juggernaut helmet sticking up from cover. It looked like at least a few players were hanging out in there. In hindsight, I should have waited, watched and tried to get a better angle with more concealment, but I really wanted to shoot the big helmet. So, I did.
The first shot made a lovely noise and the guy put his hand up and stared in my direction. I stayed completely still and had no idea if he could actually see me. I could see movement and hear other players inside the base shouting. At least two players came out of the back and started moving into the woods to my right. I shifted position a bit and got the pistol out. I didn’t have much faith in my ghillie suit, with the very brown backdrop, so I opened fire as soon as I had a clear-ish shot of the people pushing up. I got one of them and another got me back. I walked past their base with my hand up and the Juggernaut guy said, “Well played”, which was cool.
Then, leaving the respawn, one of the HPA guys with radios who had been switched onto our team started calling out that we’ve taken back this landmark, or that one, and we’re needed somewhere in particular to make an assault on their base and get our suitcases back. I tagged along and had an awesome experience following these guys. They really knew what they were doing and communicated well with the people around them, as well as each other. They called me “Ghillie”. I got some kudos for picking off a target that they called out to me, and I asked them for covering fire while I ran to a position with a view of this or that. It was excellent fun.
When we approached their base, I realised it was indeed the opposite side of the same building that I had snuck up on before, and if only I’d had a radio and a little bit of patience, we could have done a really cool coordinated attack or something!
Although I was hit and not there at the time, I knew their plan had worked when a couple of our guys came storming past me with armfuls of suitcases, and we (they) had completely reversed and won the game by lunch time. At lunch I went and found them at the cool kid’s table, just to show my face and say how awesome it was to play with them.
About halfway through the afternoon just before the briefing for another game, I went up to the really dangerous looking ghillie on the other team and told him that, once again, I hadn’t seen him all day. To which he replied “Yeah, that’s kind of the point. I’ve seen you a few times”. I said I did recall a particularly heavy BB hitting me right in the face that morning, and we had a little chuckle. Half an hour later, he gave me a wave from the bushes after ringing my bell again. I planned to ask for some tips on concealment and stealth the next time I saw him.
I got a few comments throughout the day from teammates running up behind me, saying they’d had no idea I was there, until I shifted position slightly. So, I have good confidence in my camouflage. It seems that the tricky part is knowing how and when to move, or not to.
One of my mates from Game Day #2 came along again, so we tried to stick together as far as possible. In the first game of the morning, we were defending a little collection of huts and barricades that included the tower, also from Game Day #2, at the edge of it. We had a few minutes to pick a spot and after looking around we though that at least starting in the tower would be a good idea, even if we didn’t last very long up there. We were also joined by a quiet chap with a grenade launcher! I took a position in a back corner where I could observe the direction of the enemy respawn point. My mate was in the other back corner, to my right, and the quiet chap sat almost meditatively in the middle of the floor as if praying over his grenade launcher.
Once the game started, I called out everything that I could see happening, and prompted my mate to do the same, hoping that it would be helpful for our teammates on the ground. We lasted a fair while in the tower, trying to see out while keeping our heads down as we took a LOT of fire. I hit some enemy players, mostly in a particular spot where they all seemed to like peeking out from cover. My mate was rattling off shots on the opposite side. When I called out the position of an enemy who had managed to get in close, probably 20m from the tower, our meditating teammate suddenly sprang to his feet and blasted the grenade launcher right past my head. It was the first time I’ve seen one of those go off in person, and it was pretty impressive; he completely plastered the enemy player, his cover, and everything a few metres around him!
Someone called up from below that we only had 1 player left on the ground floor of the tower and, shortly after that, I was the first of us upstairs to get hit a second time; meaning that my teammates couldn't medic me back in again. By the time I returned from respawn, we had lost the tower. I pushed up to the closest hard cover, about 20m away from it, and found I had really good view across to our left where I was able to easily pick off the enemies moving up on that side and, if I crawled forward slightly, I could also cover the tower area with my pistol and managed to catch a few players making a dash. I spent a big chunk of the game in that spot and felt like I was being quite effective without attracting too much enemy attention. When the martials called that there were only a few minutes left, I ran in and took part in a last push to retake the tower, but we didn’t manage it in time.
Then they switched the sides, and we were attacking. My mate and I agreed that we didn’t want to run directly at the tower with defenders already inside it, so we went on the right flank with several other teammates already pushing up further ahead of us. We were both trying to move carefully, and I spotted a player in a black balaclava, best guess 80 or 90 metres away, towards the centre of the battle. My mate confirmed he could see his armband was the enemy's colour, so I lined up a long shot that I didn’t really expect to make first time; holding the crosshairs above the target. The BB sailed perfectly up and down the vertical crosshair and tapped the guy on the shoulder. I was really happy that my tinkering seemed to have paid off, and my mate was so impressed that he now wants to get his own sniper RIF!
In the afternoon, we played another one of those slightly confusing games where the two team’s respawn points were relatively close together, while our objective (an outpost in the woods) was off to one side. We were instructed not to attack each other’s spawns but, I suppose because it was less obvious where everything was supposed to be, I ended up falling back to defend against some enemy players who probably didn’t realise how close they’d gotten. A martial eventually showed up to turn away players from both sides that were heading towards the respawn points by accident. Meanwhile, our team had taken the outpost objective, and I took up a spot that I’d been in before, with a nice view across a clearing where the enemies were supposed to be coming from! We quite easily held the outpost for the rest of game, despite the dangerous looking ghillie turning up right behind us twice and talking out a handful of players including me each time! My mate didn’t take his eyes off the bushes after that, until the end of the game.
In the last game of the day, we were defending a pair of bunkers on a ridge line with only a single life and no medics, while the attackers had unlimited respawns and had to fist-bump a martial inside one of the bunkers within a time limit to win. I set up in pretty much the centre of a low wall of sandbags that links the two bunkers, because it had a clear field of view all the way to the enemy respawn point, which I think was around 100m away. When the game started, I was able to hit a few players right away, as they ran toward me, in a straight line, at the edge of my range.
We were doing pretty well, only losing a few players and repeatedly repelling the attackers, until someone called that they thought there were enemies behind us. Sure enough, dangerous ghillie had gotten around us again. I kept focusing on the front, which got quite frantic while my teammates were distracted. I was running low on pistol ammo. By the time dangerous ghillie was walking back over the ridge with his hand up, I was one of only 3 or 4 players left defending, but we kept holding it down. The enemy team probably did more than their fair share of attacking that day, and everyone was getting tired. Eventually, I was the last one left, and even the martials had apparently overlooked me as they called that the bunkers were empty with 1 minute remaining. A couple of enemy players staged a final dash to get the fist-bump and I used my last few pistol rounds to take them out within about 10m. Then dangerous ghillie shot me in the face again, just before time.
Once again, I received multiple compliments from teammates and martials throughout the day on my sharpshooting and my camouflage, including one guy who walked right up to and past me before double-taking and saying he’d nearly stepped on me without realising. The midrange shots with the TAC-41 were feeling completely effortless; only at longer rages, like 80m or so, did I get any misses that I felt were more down to the RIF than to me. So, I’m really happy with the set up that I’ve got, for now.
When you add an extra segment to the Stalker Scorpion piston to short-stroke it, it reduces the length of the bolt pull on the TAC 41 by about 17mm. It’s the last, most difficult to pull 17mm of the spring that no longer compresses because the trigger sear catches early, and the usable cylinder volume is also reduced by about 20%. So, it’s a considerable amount of energy that you do need to find other ways of regaining.
The most obvious way to make up the energy loss is to use a stronger spring. I tried a Rapax 3J+, which more than made up for it. I settled on a 2.8J with some spring tensioners, which was more comfortable to pull, although I also had to make the piston very light (full aluminium configuration) and the airbrake very short (doing practically nothing at this point) in order to get it up to 2.3J, and I knew it couldn’t be optimal.
One thing that does make the short-stroke more viable in the TAC 41 and SRS, verses a VSR-10 for example, is that the cylinder volume is larger to begin with. Silverback say the usable volume in the TAC 41 and SRS is 41cm^3, while I believe the stock TM VSR-10 is something like 34cm^3. So, even with only 80% volume, it still has 32.8cm^3 to use.
Which leads me to the question of cylinder to barrel volume ratios. With the full usable cylinder, and a 330mm length, 6.05mm diameter inner barrel (both the stock and Stalker Morpheus inners are 6.05mm), you will have a ratio of over 4.3:1. That means a lot of air rushing through, that isn’t really necessary. My understanding is that pushing too little air is likely worse for your velocity, consistency and accuracy than pushing too much, but the excess air causes unnecessary noise when leaving the barrel, and that burst of expansion right behind the BB once it has already left might also be negative for accuracy. From my reading and experimentation, it seems that the optimal ratio is somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1, depending especially on your BB weight, but also on every other factor imaginable. The actual optimum is probably impossible for someone like me to figure out, and it will likely vary by RIF anyway.
After my third game day, I started recording my chronograph results and calculating the variance of the shots. I realised that there are a hundred different ways to hit the Joule limit, but some of them have the BBs leaving the barrel with far more consistent velocity than others, which I reason is probably one of the biggest contributing factors to repeatable accuracy that are within your control. Naturally I want the most accurate set up that I can find.
To break down my methodology a bit, which was not exactly systematic or exhaustive, I think there are several major factors, and then a few minor ones.
Major factors:
Minor Factors:
The reason that I assign these as minor factors is not that you shouldn’t bother with an adjustable piston, but that every time I altered them with the aim of increasing or decreasing the energy output, with a different given set of Major Factor choices 2-5, I kept finding that roughly the same piston weights and airbrake lengths would produce the best results in terms of variance. With the Scorpion Piston, these were: Steel Head + 1x Steel section + 5x Aluminium section (plus the other bits and bobs on there), not a very heavy piston, and the airbrake extending 18mm from the piston head (not the cup), I’m unsure how much of that length is effectively used but, again, not a very long airbrake. I think that if I were using the full cylinder volume and the piston were travelling further, or perhaps a very different strength spring, that sweet spot would probably move, but I couldn’t argue with the results. Changing either of these factors by much would produce higher variance in the shots.
One final note on assembly with the upgrade parts: You will find plenty of instructional videos online, but you may also come across a few that say you need to file down the head of the screw that protrudes from the bottom of the bolt end cap, because the bolt doesn’t quite travel all the way forward once these new parts are in place. I think that these videos are now outdated, as I found no such issue. I’m sure that at some point Stalker have iterated on one part or another to allow the bolt to travel the final 1mm to the usual spot.
So, if you’re thinking about doing this, there’s really nothing particularly intimidating about the upgrade process. I’m not a DIY guy. I don’t have an extensive tool kit. I don’t really want to be filing things down or drilling holes in stuff. But I actually didn’t need to do anything like that.
All the stuff I bought, including my other general gear, was through a combination of Skirm Shop, Longbow BB, Empire Airsoft, Patrol Base, and Surplus Store, which all seem to be good UK retailers. I spoke with most of their owners or customer service teams at one point or another, and they were all great. I’m not affiliated with any of them, and I didn’t have any horror stories to advise avoiding any of them.
Most of the Stalker stuff is available as an upgrade kit on the Skirm Shop site. Note that although it might say that the kit is in stock, if a single item from the kit is not in stock, the site will glitch out and it won’t add to your basket properly. Definitely refer to the parts list in their product description of the kit; that was actually one of the best sources of information that I found. Also note that the Kit doesn’t include every single Stalker part that I listed above, and there are even others. For example, I didn’t touch the trigger unit, although I saw that stalker do offer spring upgrades for that.
Also, a special shout out to YMS Airsoft in Taiwan, who shipped out the 330mm inner barrel to me faster than anyone else could restock it when I was short on patience.
I will check back in case anyone has questions that I can answer.
If you’re a noob, and this sets you on a path, then I’d love to hear about your experiences in response.
If you’re a pro, I’m very open to advice or critiques of anything I’ve said here. If there are errors, I’ll be happy to correct them.
If you can add anything to my understanding on the teching/physics side, I will very much appreciate your insight.
Happy hunting!
Edit: 17/09/2024
After a lot of conversation with ExtraLexical, to whom I am very grateful for his time and responsiveness, I started testing full cylinder builds. Based on the work of other great contributors to this forum, he suggested that the optimal cylinder to barrel volume ratio for the TAC-41 (and SRS) with 0.48g BBs is likely to be about 3.3:1, which conveniently enough is more or less what you get with a full cylinder and a 420mm inner barrel.
These results were recorded using the same full Stalker set-up with the hop left where I'd been using it in-game, with 0.48g Geoffs BBs. The only difference was that I had removed a section of the scorpion piston to bring it back to normal length. Then I tried several different springs.
You can see that I did try increasing the piston weight and airbrake length, anticipating that more would be better in this configuration, but that was wrong. I also tested the 'quiet' piston cup again, because the idea is appealing, and it does seem to reduce variance but the energy loss trade-off is too high in my opinion.
Having called the stock 90Nm Silverback spring that comes with the TAC 41L weak, it turns out to be a near perfect choice for UK energy limits, when combined with a 4mm spring tensioner; maximum permitted energy output with less than 1 FPS standard deviation.
Begrudgingly, I have to admit that this is marginally better variance than what I was able to produce in the short-stroked configuration, and I will have to get used the slightly longer bolt pull again. That said, it is a very, very light pull.
So, from now on, when a new TAC 41 owner asks me what upgrades they should do, I will simply tell them to get a 420mm 6.05 inner barrel and put the stock spring back in.
A bit of background about me:
I live in the south of England, so all of this is geared around UK woodland environments and site limits/rules.
I have some disposable income (which allowed me to make some expensive mistakes) and what I’m going to recommend is not the ‘cheap and cheerful’ option.
I’m not usually a hands-on, practical, DIY type of person, but I can tell you that you don’t need to be a mechanic or engineer with a garage full of tools to fully upgrade a spring powered airsoft sniper RIF.
I have a vague recollection of Maths and Physics A-levels, but I’m not a scientist. When tuning my RIF, I did quite a lot of very basic experimentation and statistical analysis, but it was not particularly well planned or controlled. I just tried out a series of my best ideas and guesses and recorded the results.
This post will talk about my choices of general gear, and then at length about the experience of my first 4 game days as a ghillie sniper. I’ve spent time on these accounts and made them as truthful as possible. Obviously, they focus on the highlights, but I have made a conscious effort to remove the natural embellishment and exaggeration that the first drafts had.
Then I’ll describe my learnings in tuning my RIF, and how I achieved the most accurate possible setup. If you’re here for this, you can skip to the header “Sniper Teching!”.
Finally, I’ve written out a full list of the items that I recommend from use in my own RIF in the best configuration that I’ve found up to this point, along with my comments on things like their quality, compatibility, pros, cons, etc.
This journey started in the winter of 2023 when I came across some airsoft YouTube videos, and later podcasts too. One of the things that I often heard these ‘famous’ airsoft snipers say was that sniping is hard, and you should get a cheap AEG to make sure that it’s for you, before you spend a lot of money building a sniper loadout and end up disappointed. But I was sure that I wanted to get into sniping and, if I sucked, I would keep trying until I didn’t. My experience has been incredible and I would say that if you have the same kind of determination, then (perhaps besides the cost) there's nothing stopping you from diving right in at the deep end like I did.
Choices of Gear
Most of mine is Novritsch. I’m aware that he’s controversial but I don’t know why. I went for the ACP Combat Shirt, Field Pants (with pockets for foam inserts for knee and elbow protection, which I cut and stuffed in myself), Leaf Shoulderpiece and Boonie, minimalist chest rig and rifle wrap. On the rig I zip-tied on a cheap pistol holster for the cross-draw (some of the retention or hide holsters look really good, but I haven't tried them), and on the other side I have a double pistol mag pouch. I also cut up and sewed on a few strips of mesh to cover the empty spaces between the shoulderpiece and rig, so that the 3D camo coverage is more complete from the front. Finally, I put a sniper mag pouch on the back of my regular leather belt, under the cape.In terms of a base suit for a ghillie, I thought the mostly muddy kind of green of the Novritsch ACP design could be adapted for UK woodland, pretty much spring through to Autumn, which I still think is true. I plan to just go a bit more brown or green, depending on the time of year. I unstitched probably 70% of 3D camo that comes on it, removing a lot of the uniformity and straight lines, leaving only macro patterns that blend quite nicely between the predominantly green and brown patches that I added. Silly Ghillie has a great video describing this principle of macro patterns, in case you aren’t familiar. You do need to sew down the new ends of the stitching that you create by removing sections of it, otherwise it will unstitch itself over time.
Then I used a KMCS summer crafting kit as well as a selection of the Novritsch fake leaves, although mostly just screwed up and zip-tied on, rather than in full leaf shape, which gives it some range of different greens and browns too. In the current Summer incarnation, it’s mostly green KMCS Adaptive Ghillie mesh (AGM) and fake leaves with a smattering of brown cottons and leaves, and several different shades of raffia selectively applied to some areas, in another kind of overlaid macro pattern; becoming more brown-heavy towards the bottom of the cape and around the elbows, which tend to be closer to the ground when hiding. Following the crafting tips and advice of KM himself, as well as Silly Ghillie and AKA Staten, it came together slowly but surely.
I decided against getting the ghillie trousers, thinking that they look too baggy and likely to get caught on vegetation and hamper movement and stealth. Of course, without them, you have to be aware of your legs being potentially more visible. But still, the human shape is very much broken up. It might be advisable to sew some 3D elements onto the field pants, to make them stand out a little less without dramatically increasing the surface area, although I haven’t actually done this yet.
For face protection, I decided to go with mesh goggles because I didn’t want to deal with fogging. Seems like there are a million solutions to fogging, and none of them work. I sweat a lot and I’m not wearing a fan on my head. I got some cheap mesh goggles at first, but I hadn’t realised how dark they would be. Also, they didn’t fit very well, so eventually I got some Heroshark ones with a rubber seal around the eyes and much better visibility. I could only get them in black, but I spray painted the mesh ‘lens’ inserts kind of green and Jack Pyke camo taped the frame.
I decided to go with a lower face mask which has mesh over the nose and mouth, and also mesh over the ears. Covering your ears is probably against best practice for a ghillie sniper, but thought I’d be safe rather than sorry. So far, I haven’t been shot in the ear mesh, but neither have I found it a particular hinderance. I also cut out and sewed on some mesh, as a kind of beard to hang under the mask and minimise shadow.
My sidearm had to be the Tokyo Marui MK23. I bought a pre-upgraded one with a Maple Leaf inner barrel and bucking, and the Hadron TDC hop. Got a nice little Sniper Mechanic Hex Suppressor and Jack Pike camo taped it all up. I’m shooting 0.4g BBs, and I haven’t had to do anything else to it. It seems very reliable and, in a stable position, its very accurate much further out than just the 30m bolt action minimum engagement distance.
For the primary, despite my “Buy cheap, buy twice” approach, I ended up buying 3 times. Originally, my research on the opinions of others led me to purchase a Silverback SRS A2 16” covert and, in hindsight, I was definitely on the right track. The thing looks sick, and I’m still of the opinion that it’s one of the best performing sniper RIFs out there. Then I bought some Stalker upgrade parts, a Vector scope, and spare mags for it, and went to town.
The first problem was, I discovered that the ergonomics of the SRS really don’t suit me. The mag release is very awkward, and I couldn’t pull the bolt in a prone position without a lot of effort and involuntary body movement, which is not ideal if you’re trying to stay undetected. I tried adjusting the buttstock length and short-stroking the Scorpion piston (which is a really cool feature that I later settled on using in a different RIF – more on that in the “Sniper Teching” section), but the ergonomic improvement was minimal.
On top of that, while I was merrily tinkering with the internals one evening, I accidentally pulled the trigger with the bolt drawn back! I had been diss/reassembling it a few times and, when something isn’t moving, it’s quite often that the trigger sear needs to be depressed to allow something to slide out. Anyway! I forgot what I was doing for a moment and the cylinder came slamming forward. Since then, the outer barrel is very tricky to remove/replace and has a definite misalignment. I haven’t fired it since, and I cringe when I think about trying to fix it.
Around the same time, I had developed the opinion that if I wanted a more conventional design of RIF, for the ergonomics, then a VSR-10 would be the best way to go. It has a long history, good reputation, loads of upgrade parts, and you see it in the videos all the time. So, I put one together from scratch, making a list of all the necessary parts, researching their compatibility, and then waiting like a child on Christmas eve for them to arrive in the mail. Long story short, I have almost enough parts to build two VSRs, because not everything went quite to plan. But at the end of it all, I learned a lot and I have a really sweet-looking RIF that is not your everyday VSR.
Game Day #1
I finally felt ready for my first game day, in early June 2024. In spite of having bought my own chronograph to get the Joule limit right beforehand, I hadn’t had enough space to shoot at range yet, so I was really guessing on the hop setting. I got there plenty early, in case I needed to make any adjustments after setting the hop correctly. It measured something like 2.6J, while the site limit was 2.32J.I made some adjustments, and it came out even higher on the second test. I spent over an hour testing different things, and got it down pretty close, but time was up. The safety briefing and first game were about to start. So, I actually played the whole morning of my first game day with only the TM MK23, and 3 mags. And I had an amazing time!
I really thought had made another classic noob ghillie mistake, having crafted my suit my bedroom without field testing it at all, but I was apparently very well concealed. I also observed some teammate ghillies with very out-of-the-box suits of various designs still being very effective, so long as they were staying still.
I didn’t know the map or the terrain but, when the game started, I ran a short way into the densest vegetation that I could see, on our far-right flank, and then crept as quietly as I could until I started hearing enemy players close by. I just knelt very still until I had a clear shot (probably 20 meters) and then took it. Very satisfying.
And it got better as the morning went on. There was an instance where I was aware of an enemy player doing their best to sneak slowly around, a little further out to the right than I was, and I stalked him so gradually and carefully. Eventually, I was sure about where he was, despite not having seen him yet, and I quietly stood up and got a headshot. The guy told me “That was f**king incredible”, and it made my day.
Later I was hiding in the same vicinity, really happy with my spot, and a larger group was approaching. I should have waited until more of them became visible, but I hit the first guy that came into view, and then had to stifle my giddy laughter listening to them discuss where the sniper could be. I got a few more of them, and they would medic each other back in again, before “Ceasefire!” was called (I never found out what for), and I made the mistake of thinking that the game was over. So, I stood up and revealed myself, and got a wave of compliments! It turned out there were 8 guys hunkered down around there for probably 10 or 15 minutes with no idea how nearby I had been hiding. Realising that the game could restart at any moment, the enemies agreed that I could walk back to respawn without being executed, which was very kind of them.
When I eventually did get hit, I had something like 14 kills in total (give or take), and I was absolutely buzzing. At the respawn I found out that our team had grabbed all 4 of the objective kegs early on and successfully defended them all morning, without any trouble from my side of the map.
I ended up repeatedly duelling with a guy who was using a shotgun and no camo at all, but who seemed to know his way around the field really well. He caught me out a few times, and wrecked my K/D ratio, but I got the last hit of the morning just as the game ended and we shook hands, which was awesome.
Whilst hiding the bushes, I’d had an idea about how to get the sniper down to the Joule limit, so instead of enjoying the complementary burger at lunch time, I made the adjustments and it worked. Just under 2.3J. Whilst tinkering, I didn’t get a chance to speak to many of the other players, but I did overhear someone mention the sniper “running round without a rifle” who was “completely shutting down” their flanking efforts.
In the afternoon I was really excited to be able to use the VSR, and it started out great, getting a mid-range hit with my first shot. But I hadn’t had much of a chance (or clue how) to zero the scope, I had the magnification too high, and got a bit frustrated that I didn’t have the accuracy that I wanted. I also found the rifle really long, heavy, and cumbersome in comparison to just using the pistol (obviously), and it was getting caught on vegetation and ruining my stealth! My instinct was actually to leave it on the ground when breaking cover, which I did a few times and almost couldn’t find it again.
So, the second half of the day was less fun, but lessons well learned. I understood why people record this stuff for YouTube, because I was having such a great time, I wanted to relive it and show off to my mates! I haven’t gone down that rabbit hole yet, but I may in the future.
Between Games
I had fallen out of love with the SRS (£1000+). Recently, I’ve been thinking about trying to fix the barrel issue and then maybe HPA’ing it, but I’m not in a rush. And after the first game day, I was less enamoured with the VSR-10 (£1000+). I might come back to it if I get bored, or possibly sell it.But I knew that I wanted a conventional style RIF that was as short and light as possible. So, I bought a TAC 41L, a full Stalker upgrade kit, and also a Vortex Crossfire II 1-4x scope for it! I thought the quality of the Silverback and Stalker stuff that I had previously was really great, and this time I wouldn’t mess it up!
At this point I’ll mention a few very small gripes that I have with the TAC 41L. First, while everything else about it is completely solid, the front end of the polymer chassis is not the strongest. It actually only attaches to the receiver further back, and the outer barrel is floating; not touching the chassis. I attached a bipod to the m-lok rails on either side of the front section, when levelling the scope, and as I would lean to one side or the other, I could see the polymer bending slightly. I do run it with a small foregrip attachment on the underside and, if I twist it, I can see a very small amount of movement in the chassis relative to the barrel. It’s not enough to cause any problems and I can’t see any damage from it, but I would say to be aware that it’s not designed for a lot of heavy attachments; it’s designed to be ‘Lite’. People’s comments on appearance of the Lite chassis buttstock have been pretty negative. It also doesn’t have any adjustment for length or cheek height etc. but I find it very light, solid, and comfortable as it is. So, it suits me perfectly.
The second point, which applies to all TAC 41s, is that the bolt handle is straight and lifts to a very upright position, closer to vertical than I would like, which forces me to grip it under-hand. The base of the handle arm is also right up against the end of the receiver and rail, so there’s no way to grip it or even get a finger close to the base. That means that you’re always pulling at a slight angle, rather than straight backwards, and you can see wear on the cylinder exactly where you’d expect. VSR users are quite spoilt for choice in this regard, but the TAC 41 doesn’t seem to have any alternative bolt handles available. One with a bent arm that would lift to more of a horizontal position would be a big improvement in my opinion. I mentioned this to Silverback customer service, and they said it wouldn’t be possible; I’m not clear on why that might be.
One final thing to note for prospective buyers is that the picatinny rail for the optic on all TAC 41s is already raised quite high relative to the barrel. Ideally, although it probably matters less in airsoft than for real firearms, you want the optic to sit as low and close to the barrel as possible. Silverback say that this design choice is to accommodate mask wearers, but I would prefer to have the rail lower and then allow people to use whatever height mounts will place their optic in the right position for them.
Given the amount of money you can spend on scope mounts, it's ironic that the £10 pair that I got for free with my first scope, and weren't actually suitable for it (Vector Optics VictOptics 30mm Picatinny (RIS) Low Scope Mounts (SCOT-54L)), ended up being the perfect height to mount the Vortex Crossfire II 1-4x, which is quite low profile (or however you would correctly describe it), and place it within 1 or 2mm of touching the rail at its widest point. If you were wanting to use a bigger lens scope, that requires higher mounts to give it clearance of the rail, then you may find that your scope ends up a bit further away from the barrel than you would like.
Game Day #2
It was around my Birthday, so I managed to wrangle a handful of my friends to come along and play, which was great. They made fun of my ghillie suit. Thankfully, none of them let slip that it was my Birthday to the martials, as I have witnessed an unfortunate Birthday Boy being forcibly dressed up in fluorescent pink at paintballing before.At this point I’m running a full Stalker upgraded TAC 41L with a short-stroked, medium weight piston, long airbrake, 330mm inner barrel, and a 60 degree bucking with a 3J+ Rapax spring and 0.45g Longbow BBs. I also got the Silverback Outer Barrel Base with a carbon fibre Outer Barrel Extension, which allows for a couple of cm of internal suppression foam. After my experience with the VSR, I primarily wanted it to be as short and lightweight as possible.
The TAC 41 passed Chrono first time, which was a relief after my previous experience, and it was shooting SO much better than the VSR. I’d got my optic set to a more reasonable 3x magnification, and I couldn’t wait to use it. The morning’s game mode was attack and defend, where we as the attackers had to carry a 4-man suitcase up a long straight dirt track while the defenders respawned at their furthest back player’s position. 20 metres either side of the track was out of bounds. I handed the TAC 41 to one of my mates, drew my pistol and volunteered to pick up a corner of the suitcase. No stealthy play that morning.
After we got the suitcase to the objective, in something like 1hr20, it was our turn to defend. At the starting position, I was our furthest player back. One of the martials had actually pointed out a really great spot to me, with some concealment, a good field of view, and markers for the 30m minimum engagement distance. I got some really nice shots off but, unfortunately, when my teammates had started respawning at my position, some of them had decided to lie down next to me in a line, so it wasn’t long before we all got sprayed.
The highlight of the morning was the last part of the game, where the enemy team had slowly forced us back to about 40m or 50m of their objective. There was a tower nearby the objective building, just within bounds. It was the first time I’d tried firing from an elevated position, because the field is mostly very flat, and conventional wisdom says that you just become a prominent target when peeking out of a tall and obvious structure. I guess because the enemy team were so close to their objective, I got very little attention while I stacked up kills. I would guess close to 20 hits. I was miraculously uninterrupted, with a clear view of a bottleneck, well within my effective range, firing almost as fast as I could cycle the bolt. I doubt I would ever have had such a great opportunity in any other game mode.
Part way through my spree, one of my friends called up to ask if it was me, and then a couple of them joined me, pissing BBs very loudly from the tower. We got some return fire at that point, but even the rentals were outgunning everyone with the height advantage. I ran out of ammo just before the game ended. The martials called it at 1hr30 without the attackers achieving the objective and we won the game.
We played some shorter games in the afternoon. One of them was very confusing for me because the respawn points were not opposite each other like usual, and the objectives we’d been set seemed to be in some sort of horseshoe shape around the site. I didn’t have much of a clue where the objectives all were, but the enemy team seemed to be very disoriented. I kept picking off players that were focused in another direction, or walking around very relaxed as if they thought they were way out of range.
I developed a tactic for part way through the games when the lines, especially on the flanks, are not clear; to save time creeping painstakingly through uncontested ground and get to the action a bit quicker. When leaving respawn, if a teammate looks like they’re going in a direction that I like, I’ll follow a short way behind them. Then I can move at a normal pace and, when they start talking fire, I can freeze or quickly find a spot to hide. It was working pretty well until, while a was focusing elsewhere, I lost track of the guy I was following. So, I went into stalker mode and eventually came right up behind him again, without him noticing. I was about 2 metres behind him when I saw him shift his weight like he might turn around. To avoid startling him, I quietly said “Yellow” which was our team colour. He turned around and said “You’re yellow? I’m blue” and shot me. I could have touched this guy; I was so close. So, that was frustrating.
Immediately after that, I was a bit on-tilt and went with a ‘shoot first, ask later’ approach, which lead me to take out two friendlies on their own flanking mission. I revived them and it was all good though.
The last game of the day was attacking and defending a small outpost in the woods, where the defenders had no respawns and simply had to last as long as possible. Because of players dropping out towards the end of the day, I got to switch teams and play the defending side twice, which I prefer. Both times I picked a spot at the back of a clearing, across from the outpost. I think I got hit each time because of how quickly I was moving to cycle the bolt and take down as many of the players swarming into the clearing as possible.
Between Games
My second game day was much more like I had expected – mostly only using my secondary when I had to, for minimum engagement distance reasons, and I was much more confident in the performance of my primary. I really enjoyed how much easier the TAC 41L was to manoeuvre with, but I have to say that after pulling the 3J+ spring probably 300 times that day, I was feeling a bit of pain; especially in the middle finger on my bolt hand.After testing a few different things out I begrudgingly decided I would sacrifice some amount of mobility in length and weight by using the salvaged 420mm inner barrel from my SRS, and the stock aluminium outer barrel with a short suppressor to cover it. This let me swap out the 3J+ spring for a 2.8J one with some spring tensioners, and I lightened the piston and shortened the airbrake to get it to 2.3J with a noticeably lighter bolt pull than before.
I also continued to touch up my suit here and there, and I improved the camo coverage of the rifle wrap to include the buttstock portion and cover the scope better, and finally Jack Pyke taped a few black parts that were still exposed.
Game Day #3
At the safety briefing I couldn’t help eying up the other ghillies. There were 4 including me, and one guy that had been there every time so far. His suit looked well-worn and certainly not out of the box. I thought the greens looked a little too dark, but what do I know? The guy was always crouching in full gear like a predator, off to the side of the martials during the briefing, and probably freaking out the rentals. He didn’t prep on the tables in the safe zone, but at his truck a little way into the woods. I’d never seen his face. The RIF looked like a TAC 41A, although I couldn’t be sure under the wrap.When handing out armbands, the martials always called out for the ghillies in order to balance them on the teams, but this time I noticed that they put this guy on one side and the remaining 3 of us on the other. I realised that I’ve probably played against this guy every time and yet I don’t recall ever spotting him during the game.
The morning was one long battle over the whole site. Each team had a base with a nearby respawn point at either end of the map. Small suitcase objectives had been placed at all of the various landmarks on the field, the names of which still meant very little to me although I was starting to get to know some areas by now. There were also coloured flags to raise at a central location, with each team’s flag set a little way into the other’s half.
I set out with another of the ghillies towards our right flank and followed his lead, about 10 metres behind and to his left. When some enemies came into view through the trees, we weren’t in the best spot. I fired first and missed. Then he started shooting and got taken out. I got one enemy player, but quite quickly got hit when I tried to move position during a lull in the shooting. So, we met up again at the respawn and it turned out he was having trouble with his RIF and had to go and get his backup.
I tried to take advantage of the wide-ranging game to explore more of the site and try to map it out in my mind while playing. I actually have quite a dismal sense of direction in general, so I put some conscious effort into it.
At some point, probably an hour or so in, someone reported at the respawn that we were losing the game really badly. The enemy had control of the flags and they had raided our base and taken all of our suitcases. When I went back in, the fight was indeed right at our base, probably 50m from our respawn. No one seemed to know if we still had teammates inside the base, there didn’t seem to be any clear lines, and it was really difficult to tell friendly from enemy from dead players. I spent a few respawns flanking our own base through head-height nettles with my pistol, and each time I would surprise a few enemies before getting hit by someone that I hadn’t seen, at quite close range – ouch!
Unbeknownst to me, at this point, the martials rebalanced the teams by switching a group of 4 HPA guys with radio comms onto our side, and the tide seemed to turn.
I decided to take a really long walk around the familiar right flank and see if I could get all the way to the other team’s base. I pushed not-so-stealthily through some really thick brambles and eventually spotted trees with the site boundary markers and followed them around until I guessed I was roughly level with their base. Then I tried to approach much more carefully and quietly; and did a pretty poor job. There can’t have been any other players around, or they definitely would have heard me.
Eventually, I was creeping through some very brown terrain (not well suited) where all there was at ground level was pine-type tree trunks and dry twigs all over the floor – reasonable visibility but not very good for sneaking or hiding. I spotted the blue tarp roof of a structure, which I later confirmed was in fact the enemy base, where all of the objective suitcases were being held. I tried to move towards and around it to get a good view of the building and eventually saw a big Juggernaut helmet sticking up from cover. It looked like at least a few players were hanging out in there. In hindsight, I should have waited, watched and tried to get a better angle with more concealment, but I really wanted to shoot the big helmet. So, I did.
The first shot made a lovely noise and the guy put his hand up and stared in my direction. I stayed completely still and had no idea if he could actually see me. I could see movement and hear other players inside the base shouting. At least two players came out of the back and started moving into the woods to my right. I shifted position a bit and got the pistol out. I didn’t have much faith in my ghillie suit, with the very brown backdrop, so I opened fire as soon as I had a clear-ish shot of the people pushing up. I got one of them and another got me back. I walked past their base with my hand up and the Juggernaut guy said, “Well played”, which was cool.
Then, leaving the respawn, one of the HPA guys with radios who had been switched onto our team started calling out that we’ve taken back this landmark, or that one, and we’re needed somewhere in particular to make an assault on their base and get our suitcases back. I tagged along and had an awesome experience following these guys. They really knew what they were doing and communicated well with the people around them, as well as each other. They called me “Ghillie”. I got some kudos for picking off a target that they called out to me, and I asked them for covering fire while I ran to a position with a view of this or that. It was excellent fun.
When we approached their base, I realised it was indeed the opposite side of the same building that I had snuck up on before, and if only I’d had a radio and a little bit of patience, we could have done a really cool coordinated attack or something!
Although I was hit and not there at the time, I knew their plan had worked when a couple of our guys came storming past me with armfuls of suitcases, and we (they) had completely reversed and won the game by lunch time. At lunch I went and found them at the cool kid’s table, just to show my face and say how awesome it was to play with them.
About halfway through the afternoon just before the briefing for another game, I went up to the really dangerous looking ghillie on the other team and told him that, once again, I hadn’t seen him all day. To which he replied “Yeah, that’s kind of the point. I’ve seen you a few times”. I said I did recall a particularly heavy BB hitting me right in the face that morning, and we had a little chuckle. Half an hour later, he gave me a wave from the bushes after ringing my bell again. I planned to ask for some tips on concealment and stealth the next time I saw him.
I got a few comments throughout the day from teammates running up behind me, saying they’d had no idea I was there, until I shifted position slightly. So, I have good confidence in my camouflage. It seems that the tricky part is knowing how and when to move, or not to.
Between Games
I continued to tinker with the TAC 41 and decided to put in a 70 degree bucking and use 0.48g BBs. This allowed me to increase the piston weight and airbrake length by a small amount, and also to remove some of the tensioners on the 2.8J spring; still producing 2.3J output, with a lower variance than before.Game Day #4
Once again, I was incredibly lucky with the weather. Every time I’ve played it’s been hot, but no rain and hardly any wind. As soon as I pulled up, I saw the dangerous looking ghillie guy at his truck, so before I could think too hard about it, I went over and said hello. He was really friendly and was happy to talk me through his whole loadout. It turned out to be an SSG10A3 under the rifle wrap, with a Maple Leaf mag holder on the bottom, which was what had confused me. He confirmed my suspicion that it had been my too-quick movement, raising my RIF to shoot, rather than my camouflage, that had given me away in our previous encounter. He also showed me a bunch of tricks that he uses to reduce the need for movement. He runs with 2 sidearms, and places one on the ground either side of him when in a hide position, so that he never even needs to reach across himself to aim one. Very cool.One of my mates from Game Day #2 came along again, so we tried to stick together as far as possible. In the first game of the morning, we were defending a little collection of huts and barricades that included the tower, also from Game Day #2, at the edge of it. We had a few minutes to pick a spot and after looking around we though that at least starting in the tower would be a good idea, even if we didn’t last very long up there. We were also joined by a quiet chap with a grenade launcher! I took a position in a back corner where I could observe the direction of the enemy respawn point. My mate was in the other back corner, to my right, and the quiet chap sat almost meditatively in the middle of the floor as if praying over his grenade launcher.
Once the game started, I called out everything that I could see happening, and prompted my mate to do the same, hoping that it would be helpful for our teammates on the ground. We lasted a fair while in the tower, trying to see out while keeping our heads down as we took a LOT of fire. I hit some enemy players, mostly in a particular spot where they all seemed to like peeking out from cover. My mate was rattling off shots on the opposite side. When I called out the position of an enemy who had managed to get in close, probably 20m from the tower, our meditating teammate suddenly sprang to his feet and blasted the grenade launcher right past my head. It was the first time I’ve seen one of those go off in person, and it was pretty impressive; he completely plastered the enemy player, his cover, and everything a few metres around him!
Someone called up from below that we only had 1 player left on the ground floor of the tower and, shortly after that, I was the first of us upstairs to get hit a second time; meaning that my teammates couldn't medic me back in again. By the time I returned from respawn, we had lost the tower. I pushed up to the closest hard cover, about 20m away from it, and found I had really good view across to our left where I was able to easily pick off the enemies moving up on that side and, if I crawled forward slightly, I could also cover the tower area with my pistol and managed to catch a few players making a dash. I spent a big chunk of the game in that spot and felt like I was being quite effective without attracting too much enemy attention. When the martials called that there were only a few minutes left, I ran in and took part in a last push to retake the tower, but we didn’t manage it in time.
Then they switched the sides, and we were attacking. My mate and I agreed that we didn’t want to run directly at the tower with defenders already inside it, so we went on the right flank with several other teammates already pushing up further ahead of us. We were both trying to move carefully, and I spotted a player in a black balaclava, best guess 80 or 90 metres away, towards the centre of the battle. My mate confirmed he could see his armband was the enemy's colour, so I lined up a long shot that I didn’t really expect to make first time; holding the crosshairs above the target. The BB sailed perfectly up and down the vertical crosshair and tapped the guy on the shoulder. I was really happy that my tinkering seemed to have paid off, and my mate was so impressed that he now wants to get his own sniper RIF!
In the afternoon, we played another one of those slightly confusing games where the two team’s respawn points were relatively close together, while our objective (an outpost in the woods) was off to one side. We were instructed not to attack each other’s spawns but, I suppose because it was less obvious where everything was supposed to be, I ended up falling back to defend against some enemy players who probably didn’t realise how close they’d gotten. A martial eventually showed up to turn away players from both sides that were heading towards the respawn points by accident. Meanwhile, our team had taken the outpost objective, and I took up a spot that I’d been in before, with a nice view across a clearing where the enemies were supposed to be coming from! We quite easily held the outpost for the rest of game, despite the dangerous looking ghillie turning up right behind us twice and talking out a handful of players including me each time! My mate didn’t take his eyes off the bushes after that, until the end of the game.
In the last game of the day, we were defending a pair of bunkers on a ridge line with only a single life and no medics, while the attackers had unlimited respawns and had to fist-bump a martial inside one of the bunkers within a time limit to win. I set up in pretty much the centre of a low wall of sandbags that links the two bunkers, because it had a clear field of view all the way to the enemy respawn point, which I think was around 100m away. When the game started, I was able to hit a few players right away, as they ran toward me, in a straight line, at the edge of my range.
We were doing pretty well, only losing a few players and repeatedly repelling the attackers, until someone called that they thought there were enemies behind us. Sure enough, dangerous ghillie had gotten around us again. I kept focusing on the front, which got quite frantic while my teammates were distracted. I was running low on pistol ammo. By the time dangerous ghillie was walking back over the ridge with his hand up, I was one of only 3 or 4 players left defending, but we kept holding it down. The enemy team probably did more than their fair share of attacking that day, and everyone was getting tired. Eventually, I was the last one left, and even the martials had apparently overlooked me as they called that the bunkers were empty with 1 minute remaining. A couple of enemy players staged a final dash to get the fist-bump and I used my last few pistol rounds to take them out within about 10m. Then dangerous ghillie shot me in the face again, just before time.
Once again, I received multiple compliments from teammates and martials throughout the day on my sharpshooting and my camouflage, including one guy who walked right up to and past me before double-taking and saying he’d nearly stepped on me without realising. The midrange shots with the TAC-41 were feeling completely effortless; only at longer rages, like 80m or so, did I get any misses that I felt were more down to the RIF than to me. So, I’m really happy with the set up that I’ve got, for now.
Sniper Teching!
If you’ve skipped to this part, by my 3rd game day my set up was a TAC 41L with a full Stalker upgrade kit: Scorpion piston (short-stroked and lightest possible), GBB airbrake (short, screwed almost all the way in) and cylinder head, Kraken hop unit, 60 degree bucking, 420mm Morpheus hybrid inner barrel, 2.8J Rapax spring with about 23mm of tensioners on it, and 0.45g BBs.When you add an extra segment to the Stalker Scorpion piston to short-stroke it, it reduces the length of the bolt pull on the TAC 41 by about 17mm. It’s the last, most difficult to pull 17mm of the spring that no longer compresses because the trigger sear catches early, and the usable cylinder volume is also reduced by about 20%. So, it’s a considerable amount of energy that you do need to find other ways of regaining.
The most obvious way to make up the energy loss is to use a stronger spring. I tried a Rapax 3J+, which more than made up for it. I settled on a 2.8J with some spring tensioners, which was more comfortable to pull, although I also had to make the piston very light (full aluminium configuration) and the airbrake very short (doing practically nothing at this point) in order to get it up to 2.3J, and I knew it couldn’t be optimal.
One thing that does make the short-stroke more viable in the TAC 41 and SRS, verses a VSR-10 for example, is that the cylinder volume is larger to begin with. Silverback say the usable volume in the TAC 41 and SRS is 41cm^3, while I believe the stock TM VSR-10 is something like 34cm^3. So, even with only 80% volume, it still has 32.8cm^3 to use.
Which leads me to the question of cylinder to barrel volume ratios. With the full usable cylinder, and a 330mm length, 6.05mm diameter inner barrel (both the stock and Stalker Morpheus inners are 6.05mm), you will have a ratio of over 4.3:1. That means a lot of air rushing through, that isn’t really necessary. My understanding is that pushing too little air is likely worse for your velocity, consistency and accuracy than pushing too much, but the excess air causes unnecessary noise when leaving the barrel, and that burst of expansion right behind the BB once it has already left might also be negative for accuracy. From my reading and experimentation, it seems that the optimal ratio is somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1, depending especially on your BB weight, but also on every other factor imaginable. The actual optimum is probably impossible for someone like me to figure out, and it will likely vary by RIF anyway.
After my third game day, I started recording my chronograph results and calculating the variance of the shots. I realised that there are a hundred different ways to hit the Joule limit, but some of them have the BBs leaving the barrel with far more consistent velocity than others, which I reason is probably one of the biggest contributing factors to repeatable accuracy that are within your control. Naturally I want the most accurate set up that I can find.
To break down my methodology a bit, which was not exactly systematic or exhaustive, I think there are several major factors, and then a few minor ones.
Major factors:
- Cylinder Volume
How much usable air is there in the cylinder of the RIF that you choose, and are you doing anything like short-stroking (or maybe porting? Idk) which will dramatically impact that? I think this should be your starting point.
- Barrel Length (and diameter, I suppose)
If you keep in mind to aim for somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1 cylinder to barrel volume ratio, it should be relatively efficient. I don’t have a strong opinion on very high or low barrel diameters, as I haven’t tested it. It does seem logical though, that the wider the barrel, the higher volume ratio you would need, as more air presumably escapes around the BB before it exits; and vice versa.
I read a lot of ‘shorter barrels are better for heavier BBs’ and ‘realistically, it won’t make a noticeable difference”, but (and having only tested 330mm Vs 420mm) I found the longer barrel strictly better for consistency in every configuration that I tested. I like to think this is because it put the volume ratio into the right ballpark at about 2.7:1 (not factoring in the airbrake or shock absorption pad inside the cylinder). The longer barrel, other things equal, also produced a 5% energy increase, for reasons that I haven’t looked into enough to explain.
- Hop-up Bucking
Although I haven’t tested a large number of different brands and I’m somewhat tied into using the Stalker ones now, I found the hardness of the bucking has an impact on output energy. Going from a 60 to 70 degree bucking with the same amount of hop applied, other things equal, produced another 3.4% energy increase. I haven’t been able to do a lot of testing on trajectories, as I don’t have a 100m garden. If anyone has opinions on the effects of hardness and amount of pressure being applied, on velocity and accuracy, then I would like to hear them.
- BB Weight
The natural instinct is to go as heavy as you can. A heavier BB with the same amount of energy will be traveling slower when it leaves the barrel but, in theory, it will retain its velocity longer during flight, be less susceptible to wind, better at punching through vegetation, and give you marginally longer range (assuming that you can hop it). I want all of that, however, my testing showed that going from 0.45g to 0.48g, other things equal, produced a 5% energy increase but also an ugly increase in variance; and nothing that I could do with the piston weight or airbrake would return it to the same energy level with as good consistency again.
- Spring Strength
I originally thought it’s mostly about having the highest draw weight that you’re comfortable with, because more energy must be better, and there are ways to mitigate and/or use excess energy. However, the full circle of my testing brought me back to the wisdom of using the lightest spring tension possible as the BEST way to reduce the variance of the shots.
Eventually I tested offsetting all of the above energy gains from the longer barrel, harder bucking, and heavier BBs by removing some of the spring tensioners from the 2.8J spring, which then produced the lowest variance 2.3J set up that I have found thus far. That’s what I used in Game Day #4, and I would say there was a small but noticeable accuracy and range improvement. As I expected, I had to increase the hop slightly from where I had been testing it at, but it read 2.30J on the nose 3 times in a row at chrono.
It also occurs to me that I could use a much lighter spring if I weren’t short-stroking, but since I’m quite set on it, I haven’t yet tested the variance of any full cylinder set-ups. So, I don’t know if the spring strength factor would be more or less important than the theorised optimal volume ratio. I may investigate further.
Minor Factors:
- Piston Weight
The main idea is that the heavier the piston is, the slower it will accelerate and the longer it will take to complete it's travel. I've heard theories saying that this gives a heavier BB slightly longer inside the barrel to accelerate, while others say that a heavier BB will reach it's maximum (permitted) velocity over a counterintuitively shorter distance than a lighter BB does anyway. I couldn't really say, but in practice, by increasing the weight, you will typically lose energy output but hopefully gain consistency and perhaps reduce noise. Whether that works out in each instance depends on what you increase the weight from and to, as well as the other variables of the set-up.
- Airbrake Length
This is a kind of pin that enters the nozzle of the cylinder head just before the piston head impacts it and reduces the rate at which the last bit of air can escape the cylinder. By increasing the length of the airbrake, in theory, you will lose energy output as the piston is slowed down slightly early at the end of travel, and quite possibly less of the air in the cylinder gets used to effectively push the BB, but you reduce the noise of the piston hitting the cylinder head.
The reason that I assign these as minor factors is not that you shouldn’t bother with an adjustable piston, but that every time I altered them with the aim of increasing or decreasing the energy output, with a different given set of Major Factor choices 2-5, I kept finding that roughly the same piston weights and airbrake lengths would produce the best results in terms of variance. With the Scorpion Piston, these were: Steel Head + 1x Steel section + 5x Aluminium section (plus the other bits and bobs on there), not a very heavy piston, and the airbrake extending 18mm from the piston head (not the cup), I’m unsure how much of that length is effectively used but, again, not a very long airbrake. I think that if I were using the full cylinder volume and the piston were travelling further, or perhaps a very different strength spring, that sweet spot would probably move, but I couldn’t argue with the results. Changing either of these factors by much would produce higher variance in the shots.
Cheat Sheet
If you are looking for a shortcut from zero to the sniper RIF that I’ve used to produce my best results to date, without spending money on other things in trial and error, and without spending weeks tinkering, you will need the following:- Silverback TAC 41
I chose the Lite version because its practical. The Aluminium, foldable stock version, with the handguard and a big suppressor, does look cooler but is quite a lot heavier and might require a more DIY camo wrap or paining, which I’ve been reluctant to try.
A note for those who are new to airsoft and don’t yet have a UKARA number – you will need to purchase a two-tone version that will be an obnoxious and highly impractical colour, but once you get the UKARA number, a replacement stock for the TAC 41L is much cheaper than others.
- An Optic
I chose the Vortex Crossfire II 1-4x, more for the high-quality reputation of the brand than for the looks. It has very long eye relief (4 inches, I believe) which, in my limited experience, seems like something that you do have to pay decent money for. With my other scope I was struggling to mount it close enough to my eye, but with the Vortex that’s not an issue at all. I am very pleased with it. I know that you can get away with something much cheaper but it’s a bit of a lottery.
- Magazines
The TAC 41L comes with a single, small 50 round magazine. I bought a pair of extended 110 round Tac 41 magazines, and a Kydex mag holder with belt attachment. In terms of capacity, most of the time I haven’t even needed to change mags during a morning or afternoon length game. I’ve run out of ammo once, but that was after I emptied half a mag onto the floor. Which leads me to a slight warning: The extended mags seem to have an issue that the smaller ones don’t – they have a hyper-sensitive and exposed button on the top, whereby the slightest touch causes them to rapidly empty themselves! If you search YouTube for “Longbow BB TAC 41 extended Mag Mod” you’ll find a video showing how to disassemble them and slightly stretch the spring out to make the button much less sensitive. They’re not the easiest things to diss/reassemble because they’re pinned closed, and you have to hammer the pins out and back in again, but it does solve the issue. If I can do it, you could too.
- Rapax 2.8J Spring & Spring Tensioner Set
The TAC 41L comes with a weak spring installed, because of local laws where it’s produced, but it also comes with a 120Nm Silverback spring in the box when purchased in the UK. I haven’t figured out how Nm translates to J, or how these guys are measuring, but I believe it should get you pretty close to 2.3J output right out of the box. I didn’t test that.
As I described above, I find the Rapax 2.8J in the short-stroke configuration ideal, and the use of the tensioners gives you a valuable lever to pull when tuning. The tensioners come in a set of small, medium, and large, so it’s quite finely adjustable in different combinations.
- Stalker Scorpion Piston
Other weighted airbrake pistons are available, however, if you want to short-stroke, this is actually the only good option that I’ve seen. If you don’t want to go ‘Full Stalker’ you could get away with just the piston. The airbrake set that comes with it is compatible with the stock TAC 41.
The piston also comes with 2 cups; a shiny finish one which is supposed to produce higher energy output, and a matt finish one which is supposed to be quieter. I found that the energy drop with the matt one was quite significant, although less so in combination with a heavier piston. I didn’t try to accurately measure the sound difference, but I don’t think it is dramatic. Since I’m using a relatively light piston, I have gone with the faster, shiny cup.
- Stalker GBB Airbrake Set
These go with the Stalker Cylinder Head. The set that comes with the Scorpion Piston won’t work with the Stalker Cylinder Head because its nozzle is wider.
- Stalker GBB Cylinder Head
This will not be compatible with the stock hop unit or inner barrel, which is AEG type. It comes with rubber shock absorbing pads; one for inside the cylinder, but also two small ones for the front where it meets the hop unit. I haven’t seen this anywhere else, but I like it.
- Stalker Kraken Hop Unit
This thing is very well designed; much more fool-proof to install than others that I’ve fiddled with. It’s a TDC (so is the stock and other silverback units) and comes with a decent concave nub, which I can’t see a problem with. One slight drawback is that the adjustment wheel doesn’t have any numbers or feedback clicks. I put a tiny sliver of tape as a marker on it, so I can tell what it’s doing at a glance. I haven’t noticed it moving around by accident at all during games, so it’s a small issue.
- Stalker 60/70 Degree Bucking
These are designed for the Stalker hop unit and may not fit at all in other units, although I have not tested that. They have a wing on both sides, matching the shape of the hop unit, and an extra little one on the inside at the bottom, which matches the Morpheus Inner barrel. They say it makes it impossible to misalign or install incorrectly, and that seems quite true. If you’ve found aligning VSR buckings very tricky before, then you will love this design.
- Stalker 420mm Morpheus Hybrid Inner Barrel
They talk a lot of talk about this being the barrel to end all barrels, or something like that. I don’t know if they’re THAT fantastic, but I have absolutely no complaints. Certainly, the way that it easily fits and aligns with Stalkers own buckings and hop unit is enough to recommend it. At 6.05mm diameter, it’s not an especially tight or especially wide diameter barrel, judging by what I see on the market. It is also available in lots of different lengths.
As I’ve mentioned, the 420mm inner will extend about 9cm past the stock outer barrel. I wanted a carbon fibre outer, for the reduced weight. However, the barrel base + carbon barrel extension combo doesn’t allow attachment of a suppressor as there are no threads on the muzzle end. I’ve seen that EdGi make a 330mm carbon fibre outer, that does look like it has threads, however they are expensive, so I judged that the cost/benefit was not quite there. I settled on using the stock outer with the small Silverback carbon suppressor, which matches the 420mm inner barrel length.
- Silverback Small Carbon Suppressor
Just to cover the extended inner barrel – you could go longer if you want some actual suppression, but I prefer to keep it shorter. In testing, I noticed that with the 330mm barrel, it did reduce noise noticeably, but it wasn’t my top priority.
They sell an aluminium barrel stabiliser that is designed for inner barrels that extend into the suppressor. However, on mine at least, I could see that the end of the inner barrel is not PERFECTLY centred with the hole at the end of the suppressor, so I chose not to add one in case it would actually harm the alignment. The inner barrel is obviously a steel tube, and with the 3 stock inner barrel stabilisers provided which are a very tight fit (lube required!), I didn’t feel like the final 9cm was going to require any further stabilisation anyway.
- Stalker Red Cylinder Guide Rings
They say it ensures the cylinder nozzle is correctly positioned. I am not sure how important it is. The only obvious difference from the stock ones is the colour. But they’re not expensive so, why not?
- Stalker Metal BB Stopper with Featherlight Spring
Judging by the wear that is visible even on this metal stopper, they’re probably right in saying that the stock plastic one can easily get damaged and cause feeding issues. It might just be because the Stalker Cylinder Head nozzle is bigger.
Note that you will still need the little red button-looking thing that sits on top of the stopper and spring inside the outer barrel, from the stock RIF.
- Novritsch SSG10A3 Camo Cover
I found this fits the TAC 41L really nicely. The outer barrel part is slightly long but bunching it up a bit doesn’t have any negative impact. It has elastic around the barrel and grips well. It will be too tight on the barrel to fit over a suppressor – I have to remove the suppressor to put it on, and then reattach it. Then I also put on a Novritsch suppressor Camo Cover, cut down a bit to fit better.
The Buttstock portion isn’t a perfect fit, although it can be modified. I folded over the large rear elastic strap and sewed it down on itself. Now it’s actually a nice bit of padding on the shoulder. There’s empty space in the underside of the buttstock, which could be cut off, but is harmless, and I actually found that I can just about squeeze in the small 50rd mag, for emergencies.
- Longbow BBs
On game days, I’ve been using Longbow BBs which seem to have a reputation for being high quality and, as far as I’m able to tell, they are.
I bought some cheaper BLS BBs in a larger quantity and variety of weights for testing, because even if you collect your test BBs afterwards, you don’t want to be putting them through the RIF again in case they’re damaged or dirty.
One final note on assembly with the upgrade parts: You will find plenty of instructional videos online, but you may also come across a few that say you need to file down the head of the screw that protrudes from the bottom of the bolt end cap, because the bolt doesn’t quite travel all the way forward once these new parts are in place. I think that these videos are now outdated, as I found no such issue. I’m sure that at some point Stalker have iterated on one part or another to allow the bolt to travel the final 1mm to the usual spot.
So, if you’re thinking about doing this, there’s really nothing particularly intimidating about the upgrade process. I’m not a DIY guy. I don’t have an extensive tool kit. I don’t really want to be filing things down or drilling holes in stuff. But I actually didn’t need to do anything like that.
All the stuff I bought, including my other general gear, was through a combination of Skirm Shop, Longbow BB, Empire Airsoft, Patrol Base, and Surplus Store, which all seem to be good UK retailers. I spoke with most of their owners or customer service teams at one point or another, and they were all great. I’m not affiliated with any of them, and I didn’t have any horror stories to advise avoiding any of them.
Most of the Stalker stuff is available as an upgrade kit on the Skirm Shop site. Note that although it might say that the kit is in stock, if a single item from the kit is not in stock, the site will glitch out and it won’t add to your basket properly. Definitely refer to the parts list in their product description of the kit; that was actually one of the best sources of information that I found. Also note that the Kit doesn’t include every single Stalker part that I listed above, and there are even others. For example, I didn’t touch the trigger unit, although I saw that stalker do offer spring upgrades for that.
Also, a special shout out to YMS Airsoft in Taiwan, who shipped out the 330mm inner barrel to me faster than anyone else could restock it when I was short on patience.
Epilogue
Thank you for reading. I really hope that you got something out of this post which, in itself, became something of a project for me.I will check back in case anyone has questions that I can answer.
If you’re a noob, and this sets you on a path, then I’d love to hear about your experiences in response.
If you’re a pro, I’m very open to advice or critiques of anything I’ve said here. If there are errors, I’ll be happy to correct them.
If you can add anything to my understanding on the teching/physics side, I will very much appreciate your insight.
Happy hunting!
Edit: 17/09/2024
After a lot of conversation with ExtraLexical, to whom I am very grateful for his time and responsiveness, I started testing full cylinder builds. Based on the work of other great contributors to this forum, he suggested that the optimal cylinder to barrel volume ratio for the TAC-41 (and SRS) with 0.48g BBs is likely to be about 3.3:1, which conveniently enough is more or less what you get with a full cylinder and a 420mm inner barrel.
These results were recorded using the same full Stalker set-up with the hop left where I'd been using it in-game, with 0.48g Geoffs BBs. The only difference was that I had removed a section of the scorpion piston to bring it back to normal length. Then I tried several different springs.
| Spring | Spring Tensioners (mm) | Piston Cup | Piston Mass (g) | Airbrake Length (mm) | Energy (J) | Variance (J^2) | Deviation (J) | Velocity (m/s) | Variance (m/s^2) | Deviation (m/s) | Deviation (ft/s) | ||
| 2J+ | 0 | Fast | 93 | 18 | 2.41 | 0.00032 | 0.018 | 100.22 | 0.14 | 0.37 | 1.21 | ||
| 2J+ | 0 | Fast | 93 | 21 | 2.46 | 0.00043 | 0.021 | 101.32 | 0.18 | 0.43 | 1.40 | ||
| 2J+ | 0 | Fast | 107 | 21 | 2.42 | 0.00138 | 0.037 | 100.42 | 0.60 | 0.77 | 2.53 | ||
| 90Nm | 0 | Fast | 93 | 21 | 2.20 | 0.00021 | 0.015 | 95.69 | 0.10 | 0.32 | 1.04 | ||
| 2J+ | 0 | Quiet | 93 | 21 | 1.82 | 0.00030 | 0.017 | 86.97 | 0.17 | 0.42 | 1.36 | ||
| 2.8J | 0 | Quiet | 93 | 21 | 1.93 | 0.00015 | 0.012 | 89.58 | 0.08 | 0.28 | 0.93 | ||
| 100Nm | 0 | Fast | 93 | 21 | 2.55 | 0.00017 | 0.013 | 103.02 | 0.07 | 0.27 | 0.87 | ||
| 90Nm | 0 | Fast | 89 | 21 | 2.20 | 0.00036 | 0.019 | 95.77 | 0.17 | 0.41 | 1.36 | ||
| 90Nm | 8 | Fast | 93 | 21 | 2.33 | 0.00030 | 0.017 | 98.61 | 0.13 | 0.37 | 1.20 | ||
| 90Nm | 6 | Fast | 93 | 18 | 2.39 | 0.00022 | 0.015 | 99.82 | 0.10 | 0.31 | 1.01 | ||
| 90Nm | 4 | Fast | 93 | 18 | 2.31 | 0.00018 | 0.013 | 98.08 | 0.09 | 0.29 | 0.96 |
You can see that I did try increasing the piston weight and airbrake length, anticipating that more would be better in this configuration, but that was wrong. I also tested the 'quiet' piston cup again, because the idea is appealing, and it does seem to reduce variance but the energy loss trade-off is too high in my opinion.
Having called the stock 90Nm Silverback spring that comes with the TAC 41L weak, it turns out to be a near perfect choice for UK energy limits, when combined with a 4mm spring tensioner; maximum permitted energy output with less than 1 FPS standard deviation.
Begrudgingly, I have to admit that this is marginally better variance than what I was able to produce in the short-stroked configuration, and I will have to get used the slightly longer bolt pull again. That said, it is a very, very light pull.
So, from now on, when a new TAC 41 owner asks me what upgrades they should do, I will simply tell them to get a 420mm 6.05 inner barrel and put the stock spring back in.
