p90, my thoughts

[Deaftrav]

So, I am an avid fan of Stargate and that's when I saw the p90. I watched their fighting styles with it and I wanted it. my Squad commander calls it the star wars blaster...

Last year I deployed it at nf6 and struggled with it because of the large mags and difficulties in playing with the mags poking me. It became my backup weapon and I switched to the g36.

This year at Nightfall, after replacing my g36's hopup, the mags refused to feed the pellets and double fed/jammed. it got me killed quickly so I switched back to the p90 because when the mags jam, I can just tap the top of the gun and it dislodges. No need to take the mag out. I had to switch to a closer quarter, more aggressive approach.

Mags were hung from my belt, low off the sides of my hips so not to interfere with running. I had stretched the pouches by keeping the mags in there for days. I was able to carry 7 higher capacity midcaps. 3 on each side, 1 in the rifle. Because of the lower accuracy rate (it's accurate, but the accuracy drops off quickly and goes in random directions), I would get in far closer and spend less ammo trying to hit the target. The bullpup design allowed me to rapidly engage multiple targets without worry about smacking someone in the head with my barrel, and I was able to breach quickly. It also allowed me to edge around corners and use the gun as a shield while searching for targets. This is not a recommended approach with a victor as one actually broke a piece off of the back of my mag.

I only needed the vest to carry grenades, food, water and a spare battery. In smaller weekly games, I don't even use the vest.

The gun is light, the mags are clear so counting is easy, it's small and fits in the hand quite well, allowing me to deploy even a knife if necessary. Think of it as an oversized pistol with a ridiculous mag capacity of about 170 rounds for a spring loaded midcap.

so my thoughts from using the p90? It's an excellent CQ weapon. It's not something to play in the style of "call of Duty". It's used for defence, close quarters, breaching, anything where you have to move quickly and engage multiple targets. Fire discipline is extremely important because it takes a few seconds to change the mags. Changing a m4 or g36 mag is about 1-2 seconds, p90? 4 or 5. Although you can look down at your mag to see how many rounds are left so if you're getting low, you can get set up so the turnover rate is faster.

Pros? good cq weapon, allows for ease of movement and keeping barrel close without barrel being a hindrance. It's sturdy and can take a beating. Its lighness allows for the other hand to be freed up. The modes can be easily selected by your trigger finger as it is literally below the trigger. you can run staring down the barrel and still be relatively accurate as compared to a m4, or other weapons with longer barrels.

Drawbacks? Midcaps or lowcaps only. Highcaps are not a good idea due to the location of the wheel. So lower amount of ammo. Rapid fire lasts about 1-2 seconds and you can run out realllly fast. The shorter barrel means accuracy drops out quickly, about 100 feet or less with .20s. Mags take time and practise to switch out and the pouches are tight so it can be distracting in the middle of a firefight if you're not prepared.

I would not recommend this as a solo weapon, or as an all squad weapon. 1 or 2 men on an 11 man squad could use this at the most. The rest should be m4s or weapons with longer range, to allow the CQers to get in range. Because once I got into range, my kill rate got much much higher.

[R.I.T.Z]

short barrel? it uses a m4 length barrel.
bbs dropping off after 100ft with .2s?
use a heavier weight and a better barrel group.
and since when are mid-lowcaps a draw back?

[Deaftrav]

Originally Posted by R.I.T.Z

short barrel? it uses a m4 length barrel.
bbs dropping off after 100ft with .2s?
use a heavier weight and a better barrel group.
and since when are mid-lowcaps a draw back?

I measured the barrel. shorter than my g36. not by a lot though.

the drawback with the midcaps only is that you can't carry as much ammo as you would like and changing the mags takes practice. that being said I do enjoy fighting with it. just not changing the mags. I do use heavier rounds to keep the rounds more accurate.

[Amos]

Barrel length =/= range

[Jimjo2402]

I don't agree with the point your making about the p90 only being a close quarters rifle. With proper tuning it can easily match an m4 at range.

What mid cap mags did you find that you can actually see the bb's inside?

Personally my biggest issues with the p90 are:
1.) The large hight difference from the center of the bore to the line of sight. When peeking over the top of cover you end up shooting the cover a LOT!

2.) The angle of the trigger hand grip. Prone and certain crouching angles create a lot of strain in your wrist.

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[ThunderCactus]

The major drawbacks of the gun are the long mags, time consuming mag changes, shitty trigger design, extreme grip angle, and incompatibility with v2 parts (including smart mosfet units).

Generally, no one uses highcaps. So the fact its highcap sucks is irrelevant since no one else is using them.
P90 can easily do 20" groupings at 260ft by installing a new barrel with a flat hop.
No problem hitting 300ft with .28s with an Rhop.
Barrel length has nothing to do with range at all. I've got guns with 7" barrels that shoot 300ft.

If you find you don't have enough ammo with 7 midcaps, the issue isn't the mag capacity it's (sorry) your inability to hit people accurately.
Get the flat hop, use .28s, stop using full auto, and you'll find 7 midcaps is plenty of ammo.
Well placed BBs are more effective at suppression and hitting people than a bunch of inaccurately sprayed BBs.

[Styrak]

Because of the lower accuracy rate (it's accurate, but the accuracy drops off quickly and goes in random directions)

Yeah that just sounds like you're using too-light BBs, like 0.20's.

[MadMax]

A longass time ago (when the TM P90 was still pretty new) I heavily modded one for myself. I was attracted to the TM P90 because the upper receiver is so well registered to the barrel. I really liked how I could register my optics to the barrel via the P90 upper assembly which offered great consistent alignment of the barrel axis within the assembly.

I hated the mags. I addressed this by doing something ugly. I sawed off the entire upper sight rail and gantry so I could stick mags together back to back. Initially I used adhesive backed velcro to stick the mags together, back to back, so I could do a super fast flip reload by rolling the pair of mags. The tactical reload was excellent and I almost always found a bit of time to strip off the empty upper mag and replace it with a fresh ready mag. I later removed the velcro and stuck on some machined bits that would key my mags together kind of like a G36 mag.

I also mounted a stub of rail to the remaining chunk of front post at the front of the sight gantry to mount an RDS optic to. It looks goofy to have an optic so far forward, but the unusual mounting provided an unexpected benefit. With the optic pushed so far forward, I found that I could very quickly acquire the dot. An RDS emits it's dot rearwards in a narrow cone where the dot is visible. That narrow cone gets wider the further you get away from the RDS which means that all I had to do was get my eye somewhere in a bigger fatter circle cast by the dot that was pushed unusually far forward on the gun. It looked dorky as shit, but man that gun was fast.

I also swapped out the short stock barrel and replaced it with a M4 barrel hidden in a suppressor shroud. That gun had a lot of reach until it slipped out of my underarm holster and I dropped it out of a tree.

[Styrak]

Got any pics?

[Deaftrav]

King's Arms are the mags I use. They're clear plastic, but dark tint though. I can see the ammo on the side and in the middle on the top.

Barrel length only helps on accuracy. I've seen puppy sized rifles range a m4 with only 2/3 of the barrel length.

Yeah I think part of the issue is the lighter rounds. I tend to use .25s though

And yes, lol, if you're not careful, you can take a chunk of the cover off with you. I tend to use it to peer around corners rather than on top.

The grip isn't an issue for me. But I admit, it has to be held differently.

Midcaps are just ammo-limit drawbacks, it's not a full auto weapon even though it can be. I used 1 or 2 caps at most, at nightfall during each life. Often one of the last to get killed. However, during a battle with a victor where it had me pinned and I had a narrow arc of fire to peek around, I did use the entire 7 clips. Boy was that a lot of ammo.

[MadMax]

Can't find them. My pbase account went dead maybe a decade ago. Pics are probably on one of the dozen or so HDDs I've taken out of computers that went dead through the years. I really ought to get all my images back together.

[ThunderCactus]

Originally Posted by Deaftrav

Barrel length only helps on accuracy. I've seen puppy sized rifles range a m4 with only 2/3 of the barrel length.

Barrel length doesn't affect accuracy, either.
Barrel length only increases the maximum possible fps you can have, and is sometimes used to match cylinder volumes when cylinder porting isn't an option (bolt action) to reach optimal fps of a spring.

A 260mm barrel is exactly as accurate as a 650mm barrel.

Accuracy is mostly your hopup and BB weight, in more detail; the hop chamber, anything in the body that might affect barrel wobble, and all your compression parts.
Range is your hop, BB weight, and muzzle energy.

In airsoft, the barrel doesn't actually count for much. You want the best one possible, but they're not going to add any accuracy or range that wasn't already there. They only remove range and accuracy when they have issues.

[Deaftrav]

Hmm, I may update my hopup unit, see what happens, it is an older model.

[ThunderCactus]

The hop CHAMBER isn't the problem. Upgrading the hop chamber to one of those fancy angel custom or prowin units won't do anything unless your stock chamber is broken or REALLY poorly manufactured.

The hop RUBBER is what puts backspin on the BB, that's the bit you need to upgrade.
Modify flathop would be the easiest way to get really good range and accuracy on .28s or heavier.

[RainyEyes]

Originally Posted by ThunderCactus

The hop CHAMBER isn't the problem. Upgrading the hop chamber to one of those fancy angel custom or prowin units won't do anything unless your stock chamber is broken or REALLY poorly manufactured.

The hop RUBBER is what puts backspin on the BB, that's the bit you need to upgrade.
Modify flathop would be the easiest way to get really good range and accuracy on .28s or heavier.

Of all the Brand's you mentioned why did you mention those two. Prowin makes good hopups for every gun well except the p90. It is off spec and the bore of the hop up unit is too small to fit both a hopup and barrel.

Angel custom... Has their ups and downs.

Just anticipate having to get the thinnest hop up rubber you can find in order to fit the barrel into the hop up unit with the rubber on.