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I'd rather shit in my hands and clap than play at apocalypse 😂

Yeah some really good points. It sort of makes me think I take it all for granted a bit. I just turn up nowadays and expect it all to be nipped, but I always make an extra effort to not piss staff off (yapping in briefings even though we have all heard them a million times is a bit of a pet peeve of mine) lol. I have ran some big games in the past and booked out sites for exclusive use, that was hard enough. By the sounds of it I think one thing that we can all agree that makes a "good" site is: Staff/Management - who operate a tight ship. No favouritism among the regulars is a key operational show of excellence to me, as well as a firm and fair way of managing fair play (aka hit taking) - at Spartan, the staff carry rifs and will test you. Tackle is quite right, you can have the coolest site ever like Longmoor which is used by MOD still for FIBUA - but if you get some not so great staff, then that can ruin the day no matter where you play. And yeah Galvaton, again I think you hit nail on head. I think I know why Spartan does a pay to book only now! 😁 My philosophy is that we play the game for the enjoyment of others, in that - taking hits is about ensuring your fellow player has a decent day, this is of course philosophised in perhaps the naïve sense that others will agree with this lol. I am sure I am not the only one who has seen a patch in the woods somewhere and thought "hmmm maybe I should start an airsoft business"...I can barely run a bath these days! 🤣

A site near me has done a lot of work to improve the pretty substantial playing area, clearly investing time & money, safezones pretty good too, but every time I've visited (prob 5 or 6 times over 10 years), I've come away disappointed due to the bad organisation on the day, shit marshaling, poorly thought out games, etc etc. Yet I've played some really barebones sites, bog standard woodland, that was amazing, thanks to the people running it putting some thought & effort in on the day. Remember playing longmoor once, on paper what a site, so many features in a workable size plot, but the staff & organisation on the day was horrendous, vowed I'd never play with that firm again.

KS-1 is 98% done. and the only thing better than a 1911 is obviously a 2011. Staccato P with orange RMR.

With the cost of living going up some players are going to be spending less so sites will have less income while running costs increase. Add to this land owners seeing a better return on another use or redevelopment (especially CQB sites) and tbh I'm not surprised we're losing sites. This. I know I've had sites described as both and found then to be the opposite which is why I recommend trying as many different sites where possible

Firstly, stop using .2s. You will get much better range and performance with a heavier BB. Hop applied will affect FPS downward. Secondly, what you are referring to is Joule creep with a heavier BB. It will retain more of its energy (cos physics and stuff) and therefore maybe result in a creep up in power. Now, this is usually more of a GBBR problem than an AEG one but if you do change weight of BB be sure to rechrono your gun so that the new weight of ammo comes in under the Joules limit. This is why Joules are better than using FPS as its frankly too much of a ballache to try to figure out if my .3 is doing the correct FPS compared to a .2 out of the same rifle. So, simply, put heavier ammo in, read the Joules score, if its under the site limit you are golden. If not, well then a test and adjust is needed.

Played my first game of 2025 with a mate at Combat Airsoft Thetford today, we both agreed it was a great day. The owners have done a bit of work in some of the game areas which helped to change things up a bit, and everyone seemed to get involved in the games which was nice. One repeat non-hit taking offender which was a bit annoying but they left early anyway. Really happy with the L119A1 today, did take the Glock 17 along but never had a chance to use it. If the rest of the years airsoft is like today, then it'll be a good year.

Yes possibly. I suppose we should have started off by setting some universal definitions as in: What constitutes a "crap" site? What constitutes a "good" site? There seems to be a lot of factors in determining this. Is a cheap to run site defacto crap, or are they doing something right elsewhere on a shoe string budget...and of course vice versa I wonder if they do a "site of the year award" somewhere. 🤔

Maybe the crap ones are cheap to run so they're more resilient, but the good sites have higher running costs and more susceptible to market/financial issues.

Sigh. Couldn’t not could I?

did you see this just got announced? https://www.facebook.com/platoonstores/posts/pfbid06bQyz6vRn1Pfv16xbrTmvkDbMSeLgaJiCNhYm4NfpWJShXQo1Gyuptpx9B1SVa7El?rdid=YpVoKeWvjC0saVhM#

Why would you chrono on a .2? That's ridiculous. Is that at the request of the site? If so, they need a slap.

Any site that chronos on .2s is asking for trouble. Every site I go to chronos on the weight you intend on using in game as it gives the most accurate depiction of the gun's power. If you're chronoing on .2s when you intend on using heavier BBs, I'd class that as cheating and potentially dangerous. Pretty sure if I got my m700s firing 500fps on .2s, they'd end up being over 3J, possible over 3.5J, on .48s because of massive joule creep. Springers don't joule creep as much as gas, but you'd still probably creep up and be over the limit.

In the latter part of last year I was surprised to learn of an indoor site not too far from me, F&O Precinct 13, and when I checked last week they actually run games 5 days out of 7 every week - Wednesday to Sunday (obviously evenings on the week nights). I was pretty happy with £20 for a walk-on evening game in an old, disused shopping centre just on the outskirts of Birmingham. The site is in pretty good condition as it presumably hasn't been all that long since it fell out of use for its' original purpose. Alas of course it's no 'The Mall' and probably only 1/3 the size, but that place spoiled me for life. However Precinct 13 it is extremely easy to find and access, with loads of hard stand parking right above the site. While the play space is pretty small, I'd say the folks running it have done about the best that could be done with what is there. There's more than sufficient wooden barriers through the whole concourse and in almost every shop to basically maximise the gameplay potential. At first there was only 5 of us actual customers playing, then a couple more showed up and some staff joined and we hit a max of 10 before some went home. I'd say 10-14 players being optimal in there since there's only really a couple of lanes. Apparently the cap is 30 which they sometimes hit on Saturdays or Sundays and it gets too stalemate-y. Grenades are allowed and I took my FRAG-C for it's first outing, which was great in terms of weight and worrying less about hitting someone with it, but having the extra shots in my 3x TRMR would've been brilliant in such a compact arena. As with all such sites they tend to bring in the player base who want to play airsoft like paintball, so the very start of the first game I get a non-hit taking accusation from a young lad who hit me in the head "like at least 5 times" (I only wear a cap, no helmet) which had me worried for the potential course of the rest of the evening, but perhaps he did ping one off the very edge of my ear pro head band velcro that I had no idea about... 🤷‍♂️ Fortunately I didn't personally have any other problems like that, though one rental wondered in to the game area minus his mask then fired away in auto and argued with the head marshal over it, credit to that guy for keeping his cool and being polite but firm on that one. Overall, I felt like sometimes the boundary restrictions we often had seemed odd since the place is already very 'cosy' but they run good games and the staff were very solid. For myself, I was glad both AEGs comfortably passed the chrono, as my very-much-indoor-themed VFC AR that I'd taken to UCAP Vendetta at the tail end of '23 had failed and I very nearly wasted a the drive/game fee on that occasion (went back in to Negative Airsoft for a power downgrade in the interim period); trigger response on it is the best of any gun I've ever owned and it sounds pretty smooth indeed. Ideal for such game types/sites. The one piece of kit I had never used before did let me down, in typical fashion, but honestly it's such a weird one it's almost funny. I've been using primarily Blackhawk Omnivore holsters for years just so I don't have to go buying 1000 different specific kydex holsters for different guns and gun/light combos and different camos/colours etc - have not had a problem so far. I think I ran in to the old swiss cheese/stacking tolerance problem though where maybe the TM M9A1 has slightly thinner plastic in the area of the rail and my old SureFire X300 is maybe a hair looser/wider than some other lights in terms of mounting. Since the Omnivore grips the light that means of course the whole weight of pistol and mag is being held by the interface between the light and the pistols' accessory rail. I presume at some point while running around I maybe bumped the butt of the gun and it just ripped the light mount right through the plastic rail on the frame. Couldn't remove it in game, will be breaking out the allen keys to take off the rail clamps on the light and seeing what I can do (if anything) about replacing the frame on the M9. Initial google results don't look good so all fingers in crossed mode for the moment. You never find these things out until you actually use them though, so luckily it was only a sidearm problem that happened half way through a short Friday night game and I still had 2 nicely working AEGs with lights and my BFG.

When you promised her a full M16 but it was just really cold that day (swear).

I've made a final ergo modification to the A4 stock: I realised that the cheek pad off my SVD sits quite squarely on the A4 rails when decoupled from the SVD mounting bracket. So I ordered a second CYMA SVD pad, removed the coupler and made a small mounting plate from plywood and high density foam that sits at the bottom of the sliding stock with the lock rails dividing the two parts. Used two of the existing screw holes to then clamp the two pieces together. Works well and forms a very comfy cheek weld for the LPVO. On the downside you do lose the ability to fully collapse the stock, but I'm not particularly bothered; it's set at position two where I like it.

What do you think the cubes are for 🤪

Got a bit of a quandary and wanted to get some extra opinions on this. It's an important one because not only is it an incredibly rare piece, but it also holds sentimental value for its owner. I've recently been given a friend's pre-ban Tanaka Kar98k G33/40 to work on (the short, mountain trooper version; it's lovely!), as it's very inconsistent and while I'm not a "tech" as such, I have a reputation of knowing a lot about these Tanaka rifles and their clones since I've worked on several of my own, so he has given it to me to look at. The cause of the inconsistency is very easy to identify, but not easy to solve. The old Tanaka rifles had awfully short nozzles that didn't go into the hop unit properly, meaning it didn't push the BB into the right place and you can even hear it rattling around if you load it and then shake it around a bit. This picture shows what I mean (taken from the m700 owners facebook group): The nozzle is definitely too short in his kar98k. I removed the bolt from my PPS Kar98k, which is a clone of the Tanaka, and the comparison is obvious. Insert joke of "you vs the guy she tells you not to worry about". First pic is the Tanaka, second pic is the PPS The issue I'm having is I can't just replace the nozzle easily. His Tanaka is a pre-ban, so the inside of it is threaded so that he can fit small restrictors to limit the power. This is how the really old pre-ban Tanaka Kar98k rifles did their power adjustments. The PPS bolt has a grub screw on the inside, accessible with a thin screwdriver through the nozzle, that regulates the power that is super easy to adjust; you can see it in my picture through the intake rubber because I was using it 1.1J in very warm weather last time I used it, so I had to have it almost all the way out. If I simply removed the Tanaka nozzle for a standard, but longer nozzle like I would on an m700 (they adjust power differently), then he'd have no way to regulate the power outside of using different gases, which isn't good enough and he'd struggle to keep it below 1.1J during the warmer months even on 144a due to these rifles having fairly long inner barrels and gas guns joule creeping to hell. Plus it's not possible to fine tune there and you will come up against situations where green gas might be 1.3J, but 144a is only 0.8J. This is how the power adjustment is done on his pre-ban Tanaka Kar98k (he has three different inserts of different sizes): So, at the end of all this I have come up with two potential solutions: 1. Replace the entire bolt, or at least the front end, with a PPS Kar98k bolt, as it is a clone. This will have an extended nozzle and an easy to adjust grub screw to regulate the power; all the owner would need would be a long, thin screwdriver, but those are incredibly cheap to pick up and he may even already have one. The downside of this is that nowhere even has a PPS Kar98k bolt listed on their shop, outside of Tiger111hk and they're out of stock and who knows when they'd be back in stock. Furthermore, from what I can test with my bolt, it doesn't quite fit in properly so I think I'd probably have to get a fresh bolt and then modify it somehow to fit. I am not 100% sure yet whether it's the nozzle width or the dead of the bolt that doesn't fit, and honestly I don't really have the tools for this. I have sent airsoftworld an email asking if they can directly order a bolt from PPS, as they stock the Kar98k itself (out of stock) and will still experiment because I'm not 100% sure if my bolt is stock, but if it doesn't fit I'd just keep it as a spare for mine. 2. Get someone to CNC machine a custom nozzle for the Tanaka bolt. Obviously this is going to require some pretty precise machining, especially since it would need to have the threaded inside for the restrictor valves. The upside of this is that I can get the ideal nozzle made, with the same restrictor valves to regulate power. The downside of this is that I have no idea how much this custom work would cost, nor do I know anyone who could do it. So... what are your thoughts on all this? I'm thinking that it's probably going to have to be a CNC job for a custom nozzle, as the PPS bolt option seems like it's actually more trouble than it's worth. Does anyone know or can recommend a good person or company I could contact for a custom job like this?

The question is of course, subjective. Theres often a shit ton of opinions good and bad about any site. The only time you can say a site is absolutely shit is if you have a general consensus across the board that it’s so, opinion is rarely so polarised making it nigh on impossible to gauge. I’ve always thought that you really can’t know what joys await you at a field till you go, many places have been reviewed one way then turn out to be the opposite.

Same here. When the ai500 was announced my thoughts were that the site looked great but I knew ai would fuck it up "It's been played before now it's time to play it properly with vastly reduced numbers, carefully planned cover between buildings and lead by a professional team" Bloody hell that's a not so subtle dig😂😂😂

I ain't carrying you 😂

Definitely switch to heavier bbs if you're playing outdoors, the lightest I'd go is .28g. Leave the. 2s for CQB where IMO they're a better choice Joule creep is definitely a thing, although it affects gas guns (especially nbb) more than AEGs or springers. For AEGs I wouldn't be worried if they're not already close to site limits but for gas guns I'd be wanting to be a little more cautious. Unfortunately the only way to be 100% sure is to try it

I used the sticker with the thickest black line lined right up tight to the left side of the metal bit.

This is why everyone should purchase their own chrono. You want to get it set up so that it's firing under the limit whilst using the heavier ammo you'll be using in game, and then if your site for whatever dark-age reasons still insists on using 0.20s to test, you should be comfortably under the limit with both. For example, my T10 fires at around 2.1J on a 0.45 which is what I game with. There's one site local to me, which I occasionally play at, who still use the outdated "test on a 0.2" method, and as a result the same gun will shoot at around 450fps. Safely under on both, and I know I'm not going to accidentally joule creep over the limit.

Not really; I have seen good and bad sites close over the years. Where this has happened, it is been due to circumstances outside the site managers' control, such as the landlord wanting to develop the site, change its use, or put up the rent. As ruskitseller points out, it would be handy, but probably impossible, to define what we mean by a good site and a crap site; people will have different perceptions of these two terms. For example, I would describe TWA as an utterly fucking crap site run by utter fucking twats, but it seems to attract a reasonable number of regular players who presumably think it is good. For a while, I would gave described it as reasonably good, although its main attraction for me was that it opened on Saturday, which meant that I could play on rehearsal weekends. I would be intrigued to know what site @Tackle is describing, given that I suspect that we have played at many of the same sites.

Hey, I haven’t posted on this thread for a while but had a great day so thought I’d share. Went all on my own to my local site which is Dogtag, as my son had other things to do. I decided to take along the VSR10 I bought us but I’ve never used as he hogs it, along with my CM16. My CM16 decided to break almost instantly so had to use the VSR10 for the whole morning. OMG I has a awesome time, it’s only mildly upgraded so is just under 1j, this meant I didn’t have the 30m limit which is something Dogtag are trialing. The game style using a bolt action rifle is so different to what I’m used to, but I loved it. Using a scope and really planing your shots is a whole another world. The satisfaction of getting that hit, taking it into account the fall of the BB, etc is a buzz. Some moments I missed the fire rate of the CM16 but my pistol kind of made up for it. I might need to rethink my next gun purchase 🤔

😂👌🏼 I’ll break out the warm & with the wind behind me version at some point 😂💪🏼

Not many sites have what's necessary for a mirror selfie.

Majority vote wins.

You're a bad influence Jim, I'm planning a complete revamp of my 'rifle' wall based on your pics.

It’s a closing down sale according to their website. If it’s up for sale as an ongoing business I don’t know. Perhaps you could update if you find out more when you next visit. Hopefully it will carry on as a shooting sports retailer.

Another factor is the players making bookings (pay on the day) but they don't turn up without a word to the host/site owner. Especially when that site has a cap on bookings, the no-shows will cost it money and those losses add up.

Kallax FTW.

Hi mate, I remember UCAP Sandpit shutting down to be built on and I was gutted. But to me its mostly just a matter of business metrics as in - surely only the ones that continue to draw in good crowds and provide consistency (as much as is possible within airsofting) tend to stick around? (Outside of things beyond control e.g the landlords turfing out I suppose) I think there are a lot of decent sites that have stood the test of time (Skirmish Exeter and Warminster Airsoft are some good examples) because people will simply keep on returning, but also there will be other factors such as just bad luck and going on a day where all planning goes to s*** and where you will experience non hit takers etc. and forever brand the site as rubbish. Outside of repeat custom I suppose the rest is very subjective as to what constitutes a "good" site. Cheers

Looks like i need to buy 3 more pistols. 🤔

Thanks for keeping us updated, it's nice to see the problem was solved. Guarder selector and tappet plates are often a good call.

*walks off whistling*

I think it's more of an issue with footfall in bricks and mortar stores, people generally having less expendable income etc. Plus I'm sure in the case of A2 at least, business rates are probably horrific being in Reading!

Got mine, in good nick, lens needs a clean but nothing a bit of break free won't shift. Bargain of the year so far.

Very cold but enjoyable game. My sons first experience! He loved it even though he got very cold and wet.

A very cold and frosty morning with the temperature reading -6 degrees saw the Lad and I heading off to Airsoft Plantation. On arrival, we were greeted by one of the staff who informed us that we must be mad; we tended to agree with him. Fortunately, another 100 players were equally mad. The first game of the day involved us attacking the village to kill three high value targets. As the attackers, we had infinite 30m buddy regens, while the defenders had two lives, the first to be taken in or touching a building and the other away from a building; the HVTs had just one life in a building. We both attacked down the right hand side, the lad pushing through scrubland and woods while I went further right. After a good fight, all three HVTs were eliminated. After a quick break to mag up and have a very necessary hot drink, the game was turned around. We took up position on the left by a hut, now dubbed "The Fishing Hut" by the lad as it is next to the pond. The enemy attacked from all directions, including sweeping around and attacking from our rear. The enemy eliminated the HVTs in a time that was two minutes faster than ours. Following another hot drink, we played a new game called "Two Ways To Win". Each team had three crates, which they needed to get to a location in the enemy's base; we had to get ours into a UAZ jeep in the DEA base, while the enemy had to get theirs into a Land Rover in the village. The first team to complete that mission would win the game. However, there was another way to win, which was by setting off a bomb which was located at the enemy's base; our target was in the plane, while the enemy's target was in the Town Hall. If the two players carrying a crate were hit, they had to drop it where they were hit. This was a sprawling fight; the lad set off with part of our team which was attacking the enemy's base while I formed part of our defensive group. The lad's group got within about 15m of the plane and the UAZ but were hampered by small roving enemy patrols which prevented them reaching the targets; they they lost one of the crates. Our defence held the enemy away from both targets; they never got further than the suburbs of the village, losing all three crates, which we prevented them recovering. It was a really fun game, which ended in a draw. Lunch then followed, which was our usual meal of very cold pizza, again accompanied by hot drinks, although the day was very gradually warming up. After lunch, we played a domination game. Each side was divided into three groups. One of these was a Black Ops group; ours had to capture the UAZ, while the other team's one had to capture the plane, which is about 10m from the UAZ; this got very messy. The Lad was with this group. Another group occupied the domination point at the Bus, while my group started at the Border, which was also a domination point. The first thing we saw was our valiant Black Ops group charging past us to attack the UAZ. Inspired by this, we forget about defending the Border and set off to capture a domination point in the village. This was quickly taken and defended throughout the game. I have no idea what happened to the Bus group; the Lad thinks that they just stayed and partied on the Bus, while fighting off the enemy's Black Ops team. When the game ended, we held the Border, the Village, the Bus and the UAZ. Huzzah! A victory! Following this, the next game involved the other team getting fuel to various vehicles in the Mortar Pits; their attack was quite weak, making it easy for us to defend. I started out by the berm on the left, picking off targets near the Comms Truck, with the Lad doing the same from atop the bunker. After being hit, I moved to the other side of the Mortar Pits, before returning to the berm right at the end of the game, which we won very handily. The Lad maintained his position for the entire game, except for an excursion to the eight wheeler and back, which he thoroughly enjoyed. The enemy failed to achieve their objective. The final game involved us attacking into the village to capture eight bombs and return them to our start point at the Border. We had infinite buddy regens after a 30m fall back, while the defenders had three lives in the village. The Lad cleared out the Fishing Hut, pushed right around the right of the village and took up a prone position near the last hut. While waiting for an opportunity to shoot the two enemy in it, two other players regened on it and walked to within 3m of him; they died again when he offered them the chance to surrender rather than being shot, which they gladly accepted. After fighting through the village, I recovered one of the bombs and took it to the Border just before the game ended. It was the seventh; the eighth did not make it back in time. It was an excellent day of airsoft, with well designed games played in a great spirit; exactly what airsoft should be. Weapons used: Me: Hurricane kit/G&P SR47 Dboys AKMS Double Eagle stubby shotgun The Lad: JG G3 LCT AKMS

I've been out of the sport for so long, glad to see it's still doing as well as ever, need to get back to some games

It's amazing how some people don't understand how sources work. If a source asks for anonymity, you give them anonymity. It's journalism ethics 101 and there are legal protections around it. Also, someone in TAD posted a meme that made me literally laugh out loud. At work. In the office. People looked and thought I was weird, so now I'm sharing it with you

Nice lot of stuff, better off doing an airsoft car boot If you know a local site . Also if you “know the value of it all but I’m happy to take less” , then just put that figure up as a starting point and take it from there 👍🏼