New TM Tracer unit

Fallschirmjager

for as long as i can remember in airsoft and that is a long time, i have always been fascinated with the idea of tracers. By the time airsoft was legal here and i could get local aeg's what did TM decide to do, yes end of life the old tracer unit. Sometimes i feel i am friggen jinxed. it was like they were picking on me, da bastids. fear not, i bought the next best thing and got the g&P illuminated mags. THese are actually not too bad as it happens unless you only fire occasionally where upon the tracer rounds loose the effect. once they leave the mag and reside in your hopup, they start to loose brightness. the real problem with tracers in the field, like the real world is they work in both directions. so all number of ways have been tried, most copying the real world again and mixing 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 etc. of course they are totally pointless unless you are going to painstakingly load them in groups of standard and tracer bb. i tried that, quite frankly i think i was drooling and mumbling vegetable by the end of it with 10 mags. if you would like a suggestion on this get all your mags out and do a wave of tracer across them all, then a few waves of standard etc...thats the least painless way i found.
of course you could just fill mags. MUHAHAHAH!! that is far more fun to get the best aeg you have with the highest ROF, get the bb tracer rounds, load up and let rip...FEEL THE POWER OF THE DARKKK SIDDEEE!!! yes you will have a stormtrooper moment.

The next approach is i took my trusty dboys and gutted it (yes it still working and i must be close to the 80 or 90K bb thru it...yes original battery, yes original gearbox). i drilled a hopup unit but i still need to get it working as the led bulb is disrupting the flow from the mag so some adjustments are necessary.

Why didnt i do this mod with all aeg's i hear you ask, well i didnt want to screw around with the high quality ones and then when God shined his light of love on me one more time...TM released a brand spanking new designed tracer unit. Thank you Jesus!!!

So now you know about your options.

here what you get for 80 dolla (not including shipping)!!

one metal short sized silencer with an on off switch. 50 or so tracer rounds and an really nice box trying to show off as uber sexy...a black metal tube.

the silencer is the small type just a smidgen under 133mm or 5.5 inches in old money. it is the matt black with grip grooves near the base. it is 14mm thread for TM barrels once you remove the flash hiders. you also get a small spacer for a barrel for the anal retentive types that want the on off switch groove at some angle other then what you get just tightening it on. Now why exactly that would bother you in the dark, i dont know...but then thats just me unless i suppose you have some yokey thing on the top of your aeg that block the on off switch. TM also throw in for free i might add a small allen key to loosen the grub nut on a flash hider. What you also get is a big warning page, except its in Japanese, so like most i will just assume its grand and ignore it.

you now need 4 LR03 alkaline batteries. Jesus WTF is LR03, is that some japanese crap! its the wrath of GOd, real fire and brimstone stuff,does it have dogs and cats living together in the streets!

sadly, no...

they are the AAA types, yes the crappy small ones. they are quite specific about alkaline so no nicad or liion or i guess rechargables. Since it has a strobe i am not going to screw around with that.

to fit the batteries, you unscrew the silencer to expose the plastic inner. the cap holding the batteries on is particularly kakky. it doesnt have that lasting feel but works. the batteries go in the usual config, the slots have minus and negative signs on it. put the cover back on, screw the metal cover back on and you are good to go. put it on your barrel and push the on off button and bingo, let rip. actually when you power it on and look into it, you see a very faint red light, i assume thats the strobe.

i have just testfired this now and it isnt dark. the inner barrel is reflective to brighten the whole bb with the strobe flash (something the hopup mod with 1 led doesnt do too well as it happens). i expect you would also get a bright flash off the barrel tip. the bb is very bright. it wont work in the day you need it darkish, say 10pm darkish in current times.

so it works. i will test how long the batteries last this weekend and do a real comparison between this unit, the mags and the hopup mod.

i can tell you now from my experience with these, the Tm will win for one reason...its at the end of your barrel before the bb leaves on it way to score my killer hits (ahem) so you cant charge the bb any later. If like me you are not a big silencer person, at least we all have a choice.

so final thoughts

value for money...not convinced its worth 80 bucks (plus shipping) but then again each g&p mag is 25 dollars. Personally i feel its worth 40 to 50 but it is TM and that box is not cheap and neither is the logo.

if you are like me and you like tracers and just once before you die want a game with the 2 colours orange and green to depict sides and see those streams....then get it. its easy to swap from aeg to aeg.

the other good news is it would work for anything, pistols, aeps, aegs although you would have to get the smaller barrel conversion jobbies to get it to fit for pistols. it would make a pistol look cool. the other benefit it has over the g&p mid caps is that you could mix in a hicap and trust god to the mix and it will brighten the illuminated ones. thats the benefit both the silencer and the hopup mod has over the magazines. one other thing it isnt too heavy so its not going to add much to your weight or screw up your weight distribution.

Tm have apparently also got a brand spanking new illuminated round called hakko bb. hmmm, dont know about you but that sounds serious. in fact its a word that you will hear used by the geardos...have you got hakkos? me i used the g&g illuminated ones as both then and TM seem to be the better makes IMHO. g&g ones are cheaper but obviously, i say as i snortle, they aint hakko...

so to summarise

value for money 3 out of 5 (depends entirely on your view i guess)
adaptability 5 out of 5
ease of use 5 out 5
reliability dont know yet but at a wild guess it should be fine

doubletap

Hi
what site did you get the tracer unit from?
thanks