Im pretty new to airsoft and i want to put a better looking handguard on my jm gen 8 m4a1 do i have to use a handguard thats for a gel blaster or would i be able to buy a full metal handguard for a airsoft gun i know probably a dumb question but can anyone give me some insight about exterior mods thanks
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No, you need to use an adaptor for that.
Threaded handguards won’t fit it, but I believe the split screw champ jobbies do.
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Yeah definitely need on of those adapters @Jondgb , but I also found that I actually had to make them a stronger fit onto the front of the Gen8 receiver by using longer grub screws and drilling small depth holes into the old twist guard boss in line with the grub screws in the adapter.
The original adapter relies on short grub screws to “pressure fit/grip” onto the end of the receiver, which I wasn’t comfortable/confident that it was enough clamping force to be able to firmly hold the handguard in place 
By drilling through into the receiver nylon itself and then fitting long grub screws through the holes in the adapter, it locked it in place as solidly as physically possible and never had any issues with them 
Another method I tried earlier in the piece was to machine up an Aluminium sleeve that was a press fit over the end of the old twist lock protrusion to add further strength to the assembly, but also had to make sure that everything was able to be disassembled and removed to be able to split the gearbox to be able to work on it as well 
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It was probably the biggest drawback with the Gen 8 M4 design, that bayonet style handguard and buffer tube attachment.
Which is why I riverdanced when JM introduced us to the Gen 9 with threaded receiver and screw on buffer tube.
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Yeah that’s why I had a few of the old SKD/STD HK416’s and M4SS blasters, which were released at the same time as the old Gen8’s, but at least they had proper threaded receivers for both the handguard and buffer tube
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The SKD M4ss was definitely pick of the bunch at the time. 
For reasons above.
And first MOSFET blaster on the market with 3 round burst fire and mag prime as well!
Same with the SKD HK416 too, well ahead of the game with other manufacturers at the time 
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Does the jm13 hk416c use the split grub adapter or screw on
The JinMing J13 HK416 uses a completely different design that is extremely proprietary from everything else out there on the market.
Like with anything in this hobby, this doesn’t rule out the possibility of being able to adapt commonly available parts to be able to fit this style receiver, pretty much the same as adding a handguard adapter to the Gen8 models
Correct we’ve all had to do some fettling to make it so.
A lot of time buy and fit does not quite work.
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Like everything in this hobby mate……. nothing ever simply just “bolts on” 
Extremely frustrating when trying to explain to many people around the world that they actually need a brain and some hand skills to be able to make shit fit and work properly, as there’s absolutely nothing that’s high tolerance exacting engineering behind anything available with these blasters!
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That’s what need to understand from get go for the above reasons. Only so much you can advise on.
Bit frustrating from my point of view because I want to help people. But I don’t know everything. It’s impossible. Just give it a good Aussie bash.
Yeah, it definitely comes down to individual ability.
Hard to help a mate out with his new blaster when you advise ratting a slot out with a small round needle file then getting a response back like “Wait… what’s a needle file?”
You can’t always explain basic principles easily and I’ve found that if the mindset and experience isn’t there it usually ends in tears.
Then it ends up in front of me on my bench anyway. 
One of my favourite quotes “gelball specs and standards are wank. They don’t work very well from factory, and quite often it is a miracle it works at all.”
And that is where we come in. Modifying and upgrading to make it run well, perform better and more efficiently, and look cooler.
Quite often part A for blaster A, doesn’t fit and work properly, when it is advertised as being for it. That’s annoying. Most parts are simply not “made to work”, they have to be made to work. We end up with a pantry cupboard and several boxes of stuff and can’t find a part you know you have cause it didn’t work… etc!
True that… which is kind of liberating for us. We’re not locked into the “made to fit” mindset.
Years of building frankenblasters and looking at parts wondering “what do I have to do to that to make it work on that blaster?” makes you pretty good at lateral thinking.
BigMuthaDrums pretty much embodied that approach.
If something doesn’t quite fit, no problem… we’ll make it work. There’s always a way.
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Exactly. My first blaster was from a forum member that was local to me.
Looked ok on outside. Holy mother of god when opened up. Somebody had a dance with an axe. Innards went bin WIV2. 