.12's are too light, and generally very poorly made. They have crappy tolerances and often have seams and burrs. The break up in a gun, destroy the barrel and hop-up, they're inaccurate and have shitty range.

BB's are bloody cheap. You can get 4,000 .20's for $20. I find it hard to believe you'll go through that much ammo using a springer.

There are alot of online retailers that sell decent 0.2g BB at around ~10-12 for 5000, such as airsoftgi.com

thats a bit of a sore spot for canadian airsofters. we cant import and our last "legal" means of importing just went up in smoke. kinda sad realy

not really we have shootSOFT and some retailers in the buy sell section

seriously man, you live in a Canadian airsoft buyers dream. Several, if not all of us Canadian players wish we could buy several AEG's for the price of one we pay here! Your lucky, so why not buy a good gun for gods sake!

Have you considered Kraken?

PS don't use .12 the quality is just terrible.

I'm fairly certain that the SL-8 at least by other maufacturers use a modified Ver.3 gearbox. The loading nozzle is slightly longer than most other Ver.3 nozzles.

Anyone else know what the SL-8 takes?

SL-8 is essentially a G36 and uses a G36 version 3 mechbox. The BE one has a bit of a proprietary loading nozzel and TM/CA/KA/whatever normal G36 mags need a very slight modifacation to feed in it.

Cheaper will = less quality. That seems to be a point you're continually missing. Can you get a cheaper V3? Yes, probably. Will it be anywhere near as good as a more expensive one? Not likely. Will it be cheaper in the long run to buy one really good one instead of a bunch of cheap ones? Almost definetly.

CA is pretty good, if it's a complete mechbox for $80. It will eventually need some work, but I've had good luck with mine. Make sure it's the G36 mechbox though since the G36 has an odd little piece at the top that holds the mechbox against the back of the reciever.

???can it be done???

Depends what the limits of your skills are and the materials you are working with.

I really don't get what people expect from these threads.

"The question can it be done" is directly dependent on your own personal skills and how much time, effort, and money you're willing to put into the project.

So, can it be done? Yes.
Can it be done easily? Maybe, but it depends on your skill.
Can it be done cheaply? Compared to what? Buying one, high quality gun? Not likely.

Do some damned research. Look at how springers work, look at how AEG's work, then determine what would be required to do the conversion. If any part of those three steps are too complicated for you, then the answer to your question is "no, you can't do a conversion."

Yes, the one should fit into the BE SL8. Note I said should. Minor modifacations to the body might be necessary.

For a brand new mechbox it's a good buy. Some people use shotguns. But they use $300 TM shotguns.

Thanks, You are so helpful....I am looking for input from those who may have done this not someone who has an axe to grind

You can't modify a GBB to a springer without EXTENSIVE modifications. The way the trigger and firing mechanism work is not suitable to hold a spring/piston. The GBB trigger will hit the valve on the magasine, not release some kind of spring/piston assembly.