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As someone who has just started this journey I'll add my 2 cents. It was my son who suggested we try airsoft. He's only 12 but having played with Nerf guns (myself aswell) for a few years he wanted to try airsoft. After he got over the initial shock of being hit he really enjoyed playing. Personally I enjoyed it more than I thought I would! Cost - I think its comparable to other hobbies, fishing, paddle boarding, and cheaper than many, cycling, golf, sailing. Heath - I don't think this is mentioned enough, outdoors (mostly) and as physical as you want it to be, I know I come home knackered... Social - Team building, meeting new people, sharing experiences Mental - Keeping your brain active with marksmanship, strategy, problem solving. Most of all its fun and a good way to forget your day to day troubles. I'm not playing airsoft with my son to train him to be a killer, we are spending time together, he's getting more confident and learning to be responsible. I think its a great outdoor activity and good value for money. You can tell i work in Marketing LOL....

But I like shooting puddles.

We F226 with Full Trades. It's chunky and delicious!

Can I scare you by shouting "right turn Clyde" ?

I was hoping it would make my son realise that in the army you only get shot once.....compared to how many respawns he had to do on a typical skirmish day. Don't mind him signing up to learn a skill/trade and serving that way. I don't want him being Cannon fodder for whatever cnut has managed to persuade an alarmingly small proportion of the population to put them in power....when was the last truly justifiable armed conflict we were involved in (outside of local peacekeeping)? The Falklands.... maybe the first Gulf War (the first part liberating Kuwait). No criticism of those serving....it's the ones hiding behind their power I despise for taking advantages.

I could have written that! My son was two years older but he as well came from Nerf guns and found Airsoft videos on YouTube. I was surprised by how much I liked it. It reminded me of the fun part of my army days without the cluster f&@k from who ever could shout the loudest and had more stripes than you. Playing Airsoft with my son has improved our relationship immensely. Before that we didn’t really have any thing to talk about. I tried to get him into Golf (my other expensive hobby) but he didn’t like it. So he got me into his hobby instead. My wife doesn’t know who is more nuts about Airsoft now, my son or myself. I do more research while he does more larping. Last month my son managed to recruit 6 other boy soldiers from his year group. Let’s see how many will join us for the next skirmish.

Hi here is my Snow Wolf AEG Weyland Yutani Commando M41A Pulse Rifle, the upgrades are mostly cosmetic to represent the Alien 3 screen used prop, the Thompson and dummy grenade launcher will both be converted to full GBB in the near future! My next project is to convert my Snow Wolf Colonial Marines to full GBB and I will hopefully start a build and upgrade thread if someone please can tell me in which section I should start the thread??

Not the way I do it ?

Awe, MANNNNN! You've just ruined airsoft for me now, no one said it was exercise.

District 23 in Billingham has started running it's junior squad evenings twice a month for players aged 12-16 which I reckon is a great idea for getting younger players into the hobby. Personally I think it's got to be better for younger players to be playing against others of the same age group and not shouty middle aged blokes taking it way too seriously.

I did literally this at Warfighters way back for my best mates stag do. Everyone had an adapted rifle with the same system that the army use for not actually shooting each other on exercise (headband with IR sensors etc). Everyone had a speaker box that made pew noises and if you got "killed" it made a death groan and your gun stopped working. They also had round counting on the mags so you got 20 shots or so then had to physically change mag to start firing again. It was....different.

Spot on Ed, funnily you mention your biker friend who plays (you a biker too ?), as a biker myself I've experienced similar in that you get talking to people who've never ridden, some can be quite enthusiastic about it, but others act like your the lunatic spawn of Satan for riding motorcycles & your probably a criminal who shouldn't be on the roads. Obviously as a biker who also has a gun fetish, I must be an absolute thundercnut. ?

When I played in Spain I found them to be very similar to how we played over here in the UK. As a caveat, this was in 2008 - 2010ish, which was a time when airsoft was incredibly niche to the point that there were no "sites", it was just a bunch of us on a forum who showed up to an abandoned urbanisation to play BB wars. No marshalls, no briefing, and often no chrono were the main differences, though I'm pretty sure it's not like that any more. However there were very few instances of cheating as the community was self-regulating; if you were known to be a cheater or a dickhead, nobody would invite you to play. The main changes to get used to were simply language-based ("muerto" instead of "hit", for example). Apart from the language, the gameplay was basically identical to the UK. One hit and you're out, bolt action snipers and DMRs had MEDs etc. It was just a good few years behind the UK in terms of development, but the underlying culture was the same.

That's got to be a record for necroposting

CQBR? Good choice. CQBRs don't have to be tacticool modern either Also, adding a carry handle is a LOT easier. Changing outer barrels on the MWS is a faff

it's just an added bonus that will reap the rewards when civilisation falls.

Yeah agree. My fav is seeing how many shots to knock a complete leaf off. The amount of times I've been hit while distracted by playing'You're dead leaf' ?

XT one uses UH grade magnet as well, my guess is they all do and it's nothing to get hung up on. I like the toggle switch of CH though, less for the customer to fuck up!

You'd best check for 'cad' too. Most bounders tend to be cads from what I hear

So, I’ve been playing a few years now Definitely, spent more time on the field Marshalling than I have played And you start to notice different playing styles, from players who attend from different countries. What I have noticed, is that players from the Far East (Hong Kong in particular) Like to maybe “ignore” the first couple of hits just to test if it was a ricochet ? Then will eventually accept the next 6 if the shots bounce off their dome! Having had to chat to a few of them, I asked why they find it so difficult to accept the playing style here in the UK - you get hit, you stick your hand up. Simples I believe it stems from the way the gaming is run in HK which is predominantly small indoor sites, small because rents for commercial properties are MASSIVE , combined with the fact that games are very quick and short. For the site to make a viable business, they have to run lots of fast paced games with several groups all at the same time (woodland/outdoor sites can be hours away) You could be sat out a long time after you are eliminated before the next game starts as the indoor sites run several groups during your session, so when your game finishes, you need to wait until say the next 4 groups have been through. So if you are shot out in the first few seconds of the game, you have a long wait until your next game….. So why not just ignore that shot that hit you and play on. I’ve witnessed many a player who has started their Airsoft hobby in HK indoor sites play this way in woodland games, and they seem to find it an acceptable “tactic” and are quite obviously perturbed when you give them a tug for trying it on. One lad ignored 4 test shots I’d issued just to see if he would take them! This isnt a rant or a dig at our brethren from abroad, as an education with them and some training eventually gets them playing in a sportsmanlike manner I played last weekend, and had a delay between a couple of games, caused by marshals eventually giving up on the polite suggestions of how to play and accepting the rules, and asking 5 players to leave the site due to their rule bending and non hit taking.. Has anyone else experienced a similar play style or something different from players who started Airsoft abroad?

It's OK, we won't hold it against you! Thing is that while we know we're just playing toy soldiers with better sticks, there's a huge swathe of the general populace that think it's silly and unfortunately there's more of them than there is of us. I mean, there's way more violence and injury connected with kickyball than there is with airsoft and yet it's the most popular sport in the country.

Yeah, I imagine it would feel quite different and not necessarily better. I was just saying that its the only way to make it a more legitimate 'sport'

Yeah, I go to Rykas in Dorking most Sundays. We gun nut bikers are definitely the worst ?

I've just played cqb laser tag in a works night out. Great fun and everything in a short dose, but trying to get the darned things to register hits, even at 6 ft away was often a bit ridiculous And there's always some one backed into a corner with their arms crossed over the front sensor, who is pinging people as they go past with total impunity. I played a full range version at the Milton Keynes karting track a couple? few? years ago, where the sensors were on mock plate carriers and helmets. That worked ok-ish but I think most of the guns shoot way off from the sights and it was very hard (ok, impossible) to tell how far to aim off when you're in combat. I was good at that and got voted MVP in both sessions, but it still wasn't a patch on Airsoft

... acorns...

So almost as long ago as the last person to comment on this thread!

Bit some Spas are more equal than others ?

We P226 with full trades from the Classifieds on here.

Yeah, spreading the word is hard. Some might hear about it if they've played paintball. Others randomly find airsoft gameplay on YT (that doesn't put them off) Talking to friends about it can be awkward. One of my biker friends plays but the others give me funny looks when I explain that its a bunch of wannabe soldier blokes shooting each other with toy guns in the woods ? And gets even worse when I explain that its an honour game where there can be cheating... ? We really are a rare breed ?

That would certainly be in the spirit of the Olympic Games ? But it would also be a block buster on TV. Just imagine the USA playing Russia!

Yes they are MilSpec

MK16 will be the same profile, so you should be good to go ??

Hi Andy, lovely gat and welcome

Would love to make a Colonial Marine load out..... watched Aliens the other day for the gazillionth time. LETS ROCK!

Airsofters gonna airsoft ????. Drawing todgers in the frozen stream at AWA was a fun way to warm up the pews whe. It was -6 a couple of Christmas' ago. Also fun chopping down ferns, brambles and stinging nettles "for the greater good".

Have a joint account and then each one has their own account as well. My wife doesn’t ask what I’ve spent on Golf or Airsoft and I don’t ask how much the latest handbag was. Otherwise I would have been in deep trouble last year ?

Thank you it's a labour of love, I am about to start my Colonial Marine version upgrade to full GBB when all the components arrive!

'tis a thing of sheer beauty

The other thread on attracting players ties into this as well. Particularly of note are the mentions of exercise / health benefits The Olympics have been mentioned, which is of course a topic that comes up among many activities every 4 years when someone makes a post such as “How come breakdance/gymnastics/latest demonstration is in the Olympics and x isn’t? They aren’t a sport and my thing is” The answer is that people involved in those put in the effort to participate, establish national bodies, collaborate internationally and go through the national and international recognition processes. Airsoft does not have to discard types of airsoft to make itself politically correct, it would in fact fracture itself and make backward steps. It should not be pursued as a route to the Olympics but as a route to a number of benefits within each nation - healthy activities, benefiting society Numbers are required - but that’s not the be all an end all Delta Force (those who market themselves in shopping centres selling ‘discount’ tickets - which turn out to be paying the pitch and staff cost to obtain a booking phone number) have jumped on the bandwagon a few times claiming to be the representative body and trying to convince Sport England that everyone who has ever signed a rental disclaimer with them is a paintballer (to qualify them as representing all paintballers in the UK) They were laughed out The UKPSF is the recognised representative body by the Home Office since before it was the UK (it was a European body run by one man in the UK until others took on the mainland Europe elements) They represent the industry and players The process for sports has been going on for a number of years. Paintball still has not achieved sports recognition but is recognised as on its path, during Covid the UKPSF were treated by Sport England as if they were a formally recognised sports representative body and opening for UKPSF member sites in accordance with the UKPSF policies submitted was approved (Non UKPSF sites may also have opened including Delta Force - and did so in breach of the reopening regulations) (shooting each other of no concern as far as Sport England are concerned) International tournaments take place already, even with different laws & rules in different countries - the national & international leagues set rules appropriately (Even an attempt for one international organisation set a ‘standardised international rule book’ consisting of world rules and US rules, let alone competing leagues in the US and each country) Note that tournaments do cover the obvious speedball format, but there are also woods/scenario leagues - airsoft can have both recreational & competitive skirmishing plus speedsoft etc as a range of activities - these also can be shown in recognition submissions as inclusive pathways from grassroots to varying destinations and crossovers from the ‘professionals’ putting in support to local sites and groups On a numbers basis Sport England requires a minimum of 1600 paid up player members. The UKPSF did run a free basic membership promotion for a few years - no good for qualifying numbers, but a step along the way and have moved those on to annual / 5 year memberships (On a quick check - I’m due for renewal this year) They commissioned a study with Leeds Becket University, some parts of which I’ve seen, but I’ll avoid mentioning what as I do get involved with other members of the industry and could be discussing public and non public parts of the study. It covers numerous factors to establish benefits covering health/exercise, social benefits etc Every now and then they publish a point from the study but are using the data in their bids with Sport England, lottery funding, information to member cohorts etc so are cagey about what fully goes public from a pricey study and also because they are pushing elements to improve One quote published is about social anxiety, confidence etc https://www.facebook.com/UKPSF/photos/a.290380091078069/3752634168185960/?type=3&mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v Sites are a factor - contributing to the economy and providing facilities - though commercial they can be supported by community initiatives for grants etc if they build a case for how investment aids them to provide leisure to the community With the VCRA / UKARA airsoft must be able to establish evidence of a good level of paid up membership, and as a shooting activity could follow the same pathway as the UKPSF ….. it’s not essential to have one body covering sites/retail/trade/players/teams

Still counts as a kill

Yeah, we got carried way off topic. Lets stick to what we've got and forget making it more mainstream ?

I have seen people sent home for shooting out of bounds after clear warnings about not doing so, deliberately taking out a hot gun, letting off a round in the safe zone (that was an interesting one), smoking weed in the lunch break, and repeated non hit taking despite warnings.

I'd say airsoft is way more accessible than in the past and far more mainstream than ever. With the rise of social media companies are able to reach a far greater audience including those who might not have heard of airsoft. The same applies to youtubers. Compare this to 20 years ago when the only online places for airsofters was a couple of forums similar to here. Costs are comparably lower as there were no clone companies so your choices of manufacturers was pretty much TM, Classic Army or ICS and magazines were £25 - £30 each

Hello & welcome. Never converted anything but I bet if you started a thread detailing what you're up to it'd be followed with interest.

Just for reference, my SCAR is the old G&G SCAR L, and it has a PTS MIAD grip on it.

I hope someone can help and look forward to seeing the final results

thanks for the feedback on the grip base plate, I'll add that to the description. I have more motors but for now I'm holding them back and waiting on more feedback, just in case.

It's a difficult one, changes in society haven't helped. For example, 40 years ago every youngster & his mates chased each other around with realistic looking toys & no one on the street gave them a second look, the miltary was treble it's size, & there was literally a waiting list of people wanting to join up, in London almost every borough had a ta Hall, cadet units representing all 3 services (+ plus the marines), surplus stores aplenty, & very little gun crime, essentially lots of things to nurture interests in shooting pastimes & there was no stigma applied to anyone remotely interested in anything "gun shaped". Fast forward, sprogs in nurseries & primary schools are forbidden from even fashioning a pistol from lego, the army is tiny & can't fill it's ranks, a massive proportion of the ta & cadet units have disappeared, a small number of terrible gun sprees have massively impacted all forms of gun ownership, coupled with commonplace gun crime. All of this has changed UK societies mindset on guns & associated pastimes. Needless to say those of us that are hooked have an uphill battle to encourage others to consider joining our ranks, or even turning out once for a "taster" ?

How about we talk about inventing a ruleset for new airsoft sport (Neosoft?): 1. A presentable version of airsoft that highlights sportsmanship and benefits of being the safest gun sport available 2. Long term goal to becoming an international sport federation recognised by IOC so we can have gunfighting Olympics

I sympathise with the need for a system of defense such as UKARA, but to be fair to the OP, my son's situation would mean that if he were 18, it would be incredibly difficult for him to maintain a UKARA defense, and once I leave the UK, it will be the same for me. We'll only be back for a month or two at a time with lots of family visiting responsibilities to fit into a limited budget when it comes to car hire, fees, ammo, and possibly having to rent an air BnB for the duration. Hence, as discussed in other threads, I maintain an album of site generated pictures of me and him participating in the hobby to help us form a defence of our own should we ever be pulled over by the fuzz with a car full of RIFs. Which I know doesn't help with retailers... but then this is the reason for this thread I suppose. Mind you the OP didn't do himself any favours by not at least trying to explain the situation. Just playing devil's advocate.