I enjoyed a cathartic day’s urban on Sunday at Hit Takers. The event is a regular fixture and I hope it will become an important aspect of my airsoft calendar. As such, I decided I need a CQBR upper. Again.

Ideally, I’d like the new or refreshed upper to coalesce around a RIS – a full on, serious quad rail – as opposed to a tube. I’m running two guns with tubes at the moment and I’ve owned quite a few different tubes over the years. I regularly use a gun equipped with what I consider to be the gold standard in tubes – the Noveske NSR – and there’s not a lot on the tube horizon which really interests me. I’ve also got a gun equipped with my favourite RIS – the Daniel Defense RIS II. So, the front end of the CQBR is something of a best guess – based on guiding principles – rather than a concrete desire for a particular item.

I think I associate full on RIS with urban because of the ease with which extras can be bolted straight on (light, VFG, DBAL etc). No fiddling about with discrete RIS segments. The latter are fine for tubes if permanently bolted on (or left off), but a potential PITA if changing environments require ad hoc add ons. The full on RIS is more versatile in this respect – but the user is penalised in terms of weight gain and compromised ergonomics. So, again, it’s a quandary.

I’ll update the blog when decisions are made.