TM M14 Magazines & Other Q's

[spyther]

Hello all,

Out here in Jersey I am my team's designated marksman, and use a pretty heavily upgraded Marui M14 for the job. (We only use authentic Vietnam uniforms/gear/weapons, etc.) I've searched around the forums a bit and couldn't quite find a comprehensive answer to this question. As full auto is not available to me, nor would I use it if it were, I need really reliable lowcap magazines for my sniping. So far I have bought 3 G&P Midcaps, and 2 TM Lowcaps.

My results were this:

The G&P Mags are pretty damn terrible. They seem to fire one round, dry-fire two, then repeat. This is TERRIBLE for sniping purposes. When I crank the large spring in my rifle, it's so painful knowing nothing is coming out. So far one of the 3 G&P Mags' screws has fallen out. Great. Will any normal screw work?

Now for the TM Lowcaps: They seem to work pretty good, not really any dry-fires until the last game I played. When I put the mag in the gun, the bbs were pretty much shooting out as far as I could throw them, with really weird arcing in different directions. At first I wondered if it was the gun or the hop-up, but upon switching to my other TM magazine, it seemed to be fine, (aside from the first shot.) I looked at the magazine that was giving weird performance, and noticed that when I opened up the bottom, the plastic housing that was holding the screw had snapped. I didn't know if this could cause performance problems, but seeing as how my other mags made the gun shoot fine, I decided it must have something to do with the broken bottom. But all in all, the TMs were vastly superior, albeit a much lower capacity to their G&P brothers.

Now starts my next question, are the Kings Arms magazines good? I think I recalled reading somewhere that someone had to shave down the piece that holds the BBs down for them to not dryfire? Anyone else have any experience with them? Do the lowcaps or their midcaps dry fire? If not, buying a 10 count box of them would solve my magazine problems quickly, but I'm sure like all things airsoft - it isn't that simple.

So are the Kings Arms magazines the way to go? Or do I have to keep forking over more money for the Tokyo Marui ones. (God I wish the M14 wasn't infamous for having magazine difficulties, unlike my teammates' CA M16A1's and CAR15's..)

And finally, my last question. I seemed to have lost the little "J" shaped piece that goes under the bolt of the gun, that acts as a cover to the beginning of the inner barrel (I think?) You can see this piece when you pull back the bolt of the gun, I'm pretty sure it's to stop dirt and what not from getting into that area. I lost mine, and my gun works perfectly so I know it's not too important. My question is this: Is there any place I can find a replacement?

I know this was a long post, so lemme just recap my questions:

1) Can anything be done to make G&P midcaps more reliable?
2) Can any screw fit into the bottom of the G&P midcap, to keep it from falling apart.
3) Are the Kings Arms bundle packs reliable standard mags, especially for a sniper application?
4) Where can I find the replacement "J" shaped piece, that I am missing?


Thanks for reading all of this! Appreciate it!

[The Saint]

1) Strip, lube, pad the spring until they're nothing more than 70rd locaps, then do the KA midcap mod on Arnies forum to them.
2) Any screw with the same threading, yes, assuming the mag's threading hasn't been stripped.
3) KA locaps reportedly feeds more or less the same as TM locaps. KA midcaps might require the modding you mentioned. For sniper application, locaps should be plenty.
4) Find the part number using your instruction manual, then contact the person listed under the 8th article on this page: http://airsoft-news.eu/news.php?10 Or contact user JAFA on this board, same person, I think.

[spyther]

Thank you very much for the informative reply. I can't for the life of me find my instruction manual, (You can see I am very absent minded) is there any place that has them online in PDF? I know Airsoft Depot does, but not for the TM M14. Would TM send me a new one, if I inquired?

[spyther]

And on a side note, how are the deepfire M14 lowcaps? Anyone know?