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The 'How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? Thread

Ah yeah that sounds ideal, there were about 100 in total when we went back! Couldn’t even get in the safe zone we had to sit in a corridor ?

 
Hubris, over-familiarity and assumptions really messed me up yesterday.

So many glowing reviews of Airsoft Plantation on here I figured being a long weekend I'd have to try.  Not needing to book is nice in a way but should be accounted for in the game types better from what I saw, various areas are only linked by a few narrow gaps through hedges that you'd probably be injured by if you tried to push through.  The last game that was supposed to be turned around just wasn't because us on the red team held back the attacking side so long.

That aside, personally I screwed myself because I didn't actually bother to spend 30 seconds test firing my guns before packing them as they were working a few months ago when I last played, but some-fuckin-how my ACR sounds like it's stripped its' piston while sat in storage.  It is the old PTS which is OEM by Ares though so if I left it compressed I guess the cheese gave way.  My L85 (pictured) probably hasn't seen a game for pushing 6-7 years; the 345 FPS and high hop combined with me using up my .2s and a new optic was a recipe for shooting almost vertical - could not aim low enough to participate in the game and the hop dial kept spinning infinitely, which again I'm sure was fine when I put it away last.  It was looking like I'd have spent my cash and fuel for nothing and would be heading home about 1030 as I didn't even bring a pistol.  Obviously you don't quit til' all options are exhausted, so I took the bullpup apart, literally just looked and prodded a bit, looked down the barrel while adjusting the hop, reassembled carefully, adjusted the elevation zero as far as possible and in the end only missed maybe 45 minutes worth of play and the gun was running great after that.  I've been bringing 2 long guns to games pretty much since I started and I couldn't believe it when I was facing the prospect of driving an hour back home before lunch frankly, stunned.  That's life kicking me in the butt for being at this too long and getting lax, you can't let it happen as a walk-on.

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Anyway, mini review.  Price is good (£25), main guy running it is excellent, tons of covered benches in the SZ, gents are not bad and actually had hand soap and paper towels, I think the water was drinkable but brought plenty.  Burger van isn't bad at all, about £5.50 for chicken+bacon and some crisps since they don't do chips, quality middling but absolutely fine and they take card.

Was slightly taken aback they site doesn't do card at this point, but then they'd have to put the price up in fairness, just wish this was made obvious on their website (unless I'm a total blind bat).  We did start the safety brief almost 25 minutes late which frankly I was not impressed by, but the rule set seems decent overall, apart from perhaps the 'gas' (smoke) grenade thing which is weird.  They say they spot chrono all the time but I didn't witness that, what I did witness was 2 marshals having their own little mini game within the game, also disappointing.  I personally enjoy the fact of just leaving 2 chronos just outside the SZ for me to use myself, it's a pure honour game and on the one hand people can always modify and break energy rules, but if there's no morning chrono and rare (if any) spot checks I do have some small concerns.

Considering how many were in attendance, a 97% well behaved bunch it would have to be said, seems a good place for that.  There we a couple of kids and dragged-along girlfriends playing who seemed happy and content when I saw them which is a strong indicator.  I think the game types sometimes made poor use of a very large site and I think they've bitten off more than they can chew in terms of areas/props as everything I saw was falling apart and full of rubbish.  I wouldn't go back without a DMR/BASR either purely as those guys dominated given the layout, and it's a bit far for me to regularly travel given the layout doesn't lend to the closer in battles I like.  If you want 'woodland' type ranges but with more features and lots of players though, absolutely, give a game a try.

 
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Didn't see any slacking from the marshals but would pretty much agree with all of the above.

I got spot-chronoed at AP a few weeks ago, so they do do it.

 
Glad to hear it, I hope they do a good amount.

It was roughly middle of the afternoon, I'd died defending the killhouse area and had moved back to the village, was stood in a wooden hut looking through my 4x at the scaffolding arch that leads right through to the SZ entrance.  Was waiting a decent while as each fall back was taking the blue attackers a long time to push and I spent at least 5, maybe 10, minutes watching a marshal with a pistol having a little back and forth fight with someone out of my line of sight.  Wasn't just a test shot on a player.  Not the end of the world obviously, but I doubt there were no players he and his adversary could've been watching/helping.

 
I went to Spec Ops Blox for the first (and probably last) time yesterday.

Meh. Not amazing but not terrible - I expected better facilities and fields from a site that's been around for so long. Staff were friendly enough though.

 
I went to Spec Ops Blox for the first (and probably last) time yesterday.

Meh. Not amazing but not terrible - I expected better facilities and fields from a site that's been around for so long. Staff were friendly enough though.
Interesting. Iirc we live in the same part of the world, and I'm looking for alternatives to Ground Zero without having to go too far. Spec Ops was a possibility. 

 
Do you mean using certain coloured smokes as deadly gas to clear an area? 


Yellow smoke is 'poison gas' except if you have a respirator of a certain rating you can survive in it, apparently.  Except the radius it takes out wasn't explained, and I don't know anywhere else that does it so to me personally was an odd rule.  Didn't really matter, didn't see much of it, just not a fan myself.

 
Yellow smoke is 'poison gas' except if you have a respirator of a certain rating you can survive in it, apparently.  Except the radius it takes out wasn't explained, and I don't know anywhere else that does it so to me personally was an odd rule.  Didn't really matter, didn't see much of it, just not a fan myself.
A site near me does the same. My local site is red = incendiary. No survival, everyone dies. It's a great way to clear an objective, or your own team if you get the wind direction wrong ?

I expected better facilities and fields from a site that's been around for so long. Staff were friendly enough though.
Worthing has also been around for a very long time but only just got a chemical toilet in this year ? Best staff though. 

 
Interesting. Iirc we live in the same part of the world, and I'm looking for alternatives to Ground Zero without having to go too far. Spec Ops was a possibility. 


Indeed - I think I'm only 15 or so minutes from you IIRC (I'm in Christchurch).

There is definitely some fun to be had there, and there seems to be quite a number of 'regulars' attending. Perhaps my standards are too high....

Some things I noted:

- Car park is too small - get there early to get a spot.

- The 'facilities' consist of a Portacabin and a single Portaloo (with a dodgy door). Food options were Hotdogs or Chilli Con Carne.

- No card payments. Had no idea until we rocked up (can't find it on the website), but they will take PayPal.

- The game areas I played felt tired and a bit unloved. Some covered pallets pitched here and there, a few broken structures that have never been fixed. Yes, there are a couple of 'features' on the fields i.e. a tyre fort thing and the trenches, but GZ has much better quality playable buildings and individual game zones etc. I like the terrain more than GZ though, especially the 'Dark Woods' area of the site. 

- The site is great for sniping.

- The games are around an hour long with four played yesterday, which leads me to.....

- Takes a lot of ammo/mags/batteries - I used more BBs yesterday than my last two playing days put together.

- I like the rolling 25-pace fallback re-spawn. It kept the pace up for both attackers (unlimited lives) and defenders (2 lives).

I would say give it a go and see what you think. I'm going to try Bravo Romeo next - it's only a mile or so further up the road from Spec Ops.

 
Indeed - I think I'm only 15 or so minutes from you IIRC (I'm in Christchurch).

There is definitely some fun to be had there, and there seems to be quite a number of 'regulars' attending. Perhaps my standards are too high....

Some things I noted:

- Car park is too small - get there early to get a spot.

- The 'facilities' consist of a Portacabin and a single Portaloo (with a dodgy door). Food options were Hotdogs or Chilli Con Carne.

- No card payments. Had no idea until we rocked up (can't find it on the website), but they will take PayPal.

- The game areas I played felt tired and a bit unloved. Some covered pallets pitched here and there, a few broken structures that have never been fixed. Yes, there are a couple of 'features' on the fields i.e. a tyre fort thing and the trenches, but GZ has much better quality playable buildings and individual game zones etc. I like the terrain more than GZ though, especially the 'Dark Woods' area of the site. 

- The site is great for sniping.

- The games are around an hour long with four played yesterday, which leads me to.....

- Takes a lot of ammo/mags/batteries - I used more BBs yesterday than my last two playing days put together.

- I like the rolling 25-pace fallback re-spawn. It kept the pace up for both attackers (unlimited lives) and defenders (2 lives).

I would say give it a go and see what you think. I'm going to try Bravo Romeo next - it's only a mile or so further up the road from Spec Ops.
That's right, I remember now. 

Great feedback with some very handy tips; lack of card facilities being a massive one as I rarely ever have actual cash now. Got to wonder why this is the case with various operators now. I get that it's often reliant on phone signal, but come on, post-Covid (Covid's ended now, right?) who uses cash as primary currency now?

I may well head that way in a couple of months as I need a break from GZ. It's convenient and generally a good experience, but it's all getting a bit samey now, and, as you say, the terrain is a bit of a PIA. The foliage is so dense as to be unpassable for all but the scrawniest of speedy bois! 

Good shout on Bravo Romeo at Bere. Forgot about them. 

 
Something I learned starting my own little side business designing and drop-shipping gear recently is how fees factor in; I actually had to quickly up the price on my own product a few $ shortly after release when I totally forgot to factor in card fees to my costs.  From what I've read over the years, airsoft sites don't make much profit margin and that's in a business that's mostly charged cash since it started (that's only really changed some places in the past couple of years).  When you suddenly lose around 3-5% of the money you take in (maybe more for these remote payment kiosks) that starts to make things pretty tight indeed.

Obviously it can take time, maybe petrol, to pay cash in to the bank but generally I'd wager sites save a good bit on operating cost by being paid cash by players.  I know if I had the option to pay £1-3 or so less per game for cash rather than card I'd take it every time.

 
I went to Spec Ops Blox for the first (and probably last) time yesterday.

Meh. Not amazing but not terrible - I expected better facilities and fields from a site that's been around for so long. Staff were friendly enough though.
This set off a bit of a walk down memory lane for me. I was playing at spec ops before it became spec ops - at the time mr spec ops ran the games at Ground Zero and spec ops was an invite only all day long proto-battlesim type thing. No hicaps seemed like such a big deal then and I spent loads of money on TM standard mags cause it was either them or the Star "realcaps". Mad to think midcaps weren't invented yet.  Fond memories of ruining my jetboil by using it to make pepperami instant noodles. I also helped build some of the first structures there. I also lost my USP on its first game which sucked but a guy cheered me up by doing a peter griffin impression. This must of been in 2006-7 or so. Funny to know they still do hotdogs and chilli con carne as that was the menu all those years ago. I went again I think 2014 or so hoping to meet aforementioned mr spec ops but he wasn't there rip. There were rumours that there were abandoned houses out in the woods, there was also a supposed sighting of the "beast of bloxworth" and also during a night game, a ufo. We never did come across any of these houses but I note that the site down the road does have one. So maybe there was a beast of bloxworth after all...

 
Tax dodgers like me
My local (very expensive) chippie also will only accept cash, been doing it for about 3 years, back then he had 1 shop, he's just opened his fourth & his cousin told me last week that he's planning on buying himself a Bentley ffs. 

Mind you, they'll take it all off him when they catch up with him. 

 
My airsoft day has gone very badly. 

I got all my kit together over the last few days, including rebuilding my F2000 with a new 14 tooth piston, and it seemed to be shooting pretty well, so I had 5 guns to take for the day.  New set of Lonex flash mags in my mag pouches.  And I woke up this morning to sunshine.  Marvelous! 

Drove to the site to be greated with an empty car park and not a sign of life.  Did I turn up a day early?  Nope, it's been cancelled and I'd missed the email ???

The local council has blocked use of the woods for airsoft.  Bastards!  I need to pew pew! 

 
Well as expected we got back home after a night out and several alcoholic beverages at a around 3.00am. Gameday morning hits and nobody's answering their phones, nobody shows up at the event.... It's just me and big bro.?‍♂️ Well with that being said I'd like to congratulate myself for showing up with no sleep, no food and slightly hungover. 

Anyway, Game day harboured some pretty epic results for my TM CQBR block 1 and the angry gun nozzle. Only 2 minor jams and was hitting targets from absurd ranges that left me baffled. It was certainly a shock to see player hands go up from down field. 

I opted to play a defensive and super conservative style opposed to my typical aggressive style, just sitting back and patrolling areas whilst looking down my 4x Acog. Sometimes I wouldn't even fire a single shot for the first half of the games since I had to make my three "35" round mags last.

Got some awesome compliments about running a GBBR. "He's playing airsoft on hard mode" < - I need a patch of this, somebody make it happen lol. I was the GBBR guy for once which was pretty damn cool. It was also interesting to see so many players say they are looking to get into them as opposed to running AEGs. 

Besides that, player hitting taking was overall pretty good. However there were some slightly annoying issues with over shooting from the enemy team which had multiple players making remarks including myself. I don't typically lash out after being overshot, but coming off a hangover and with no sleep or food left me angsty and more irritable. I mean I'd raise my hand and call out loudly "HIT", I keep my hand raised clearly whilst repeating "dead man walking" But the enemy team would continuously keep shooting until I walked out of sight. So yeah, a lot of "F-bombs" and "C U Next Tuesdays" left my mouth. Still a pretty decent experience and as usual I'm continuously learning of ways to improve my performances and making amendments to my loadout and gear. All of this would've been better if my squad actually turned up though. ?

So what did I learn? 

  • Magnified Acogs are probably not a good idea with GBBRs with heavy recoil as I'd constantly lose sight of my target after every shot. But this is probably a disciplinary issue on my end, just not having developed the muscle memory to prepare for the recoil and properly stabilize after years of running AEGs.
  • Get a better quick release rise mount, as the recoil would keep knocking the entire mount along with the optic off after a while.
  • My m4 pouches suck. Dropping mags all over the place and the retention has completely gone. So pretty much will be binned



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Good to see you guys are having fun!

My day never started, yesterday I destroyed my chrono by letting a 30rps burst onto its screen and today we had to cancel the game because of heavy rain (and because people are pussies).

On a positive note, I now have some time to sort the tournament M4 (1.05J, need to knock off one more tooth from the sector to bring it below 1) and start figuring out what I'll be carrying on the upcoming 21h event.

 
Well, today's game at Reforger turned into a bit of an impromptu AFUK day out.

Arranged to meet up with @GAMBLE and @Honey Badger 63, then before the morning brief we bumped into @Floperatorand @Keldon

Was a great day, slightly marred by some dickish behaviour from the other team. For example Gamble getting full auto in the back of the neck at very close range, Ramon getting full auto in the goggles while he had his hand up (Marshall witnessed this and went ballistic), but otherwise a really fun day at a great site, with a bunch of tossers I would definitely play with again.

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