Chock

Echo 1 M134 Minigun, so I could indulge in all those Jesse Venture Predator quotes such as: 'Bunch of slack jawed faggots around here, this stuff'll make you a goddam sexual tyrannosaurus... just like me!'

Since the pic was taken by a US Army photographer and is presumably an official US Army release, it would seem likely that he's US Army rather than Marines or some other branch of the military. The patch on his shoulder may possibly be an 85th Infantry (US Army) identity. It looks a lot like the Ram's head device on the 85th's coat or arms, and that would kind of make sense in the context of that picture, since the 85th's Ram's head device is supposed to indicate that they are mountain troop specialists. Although since it is a soldier on active service, it could equally be a 'beer can insignia' or a 'morale patch' of some kind. With regard to the caption on the image however, that may possibly be misleading, either deliberately for security purposes, or simply through nomenclature confusion: US Army soldiers can be referred to as 'special forces soldiers' even when not serving in a special forces unit. This is because the special forces shoulder tab is awarded to any soldier who completes either the Special Forces Qualification course, or the Special Forces Officer Course. Any soldier who completes either course, is entitled to wear the Special Forces tab on their uniform throughout their career, even when not serving in a special forces unit, thus he could be referred to as a 'special forces soldier' even when not actually actively serving with a special forces unit at that time. Anyone in the US Army will know that such personnel are known as 'long tabbers', owing to the fact that the special forces shoulder tab is longer than most other tabs, but also in reference to the fact that such soldiers probably have quite a long service time under their belt.

Hi and welcome to the forums. I'm also from Manchester (Stockport), so I will no doubt see you at some point at a skirmish. With regard to First and Only, as I'm sure you noticed, they have a lot of sites around the NW, and if you are in Manchester or the surrounding area, it means there's a lot of scope, but some of their sites sort of stretch the notion that they are in Manchester, for example, their Manchester Woodland site is actually out past Bolton up in the Hills next to Delph Reservoir, and two of their other sites are in Swinton. The only one that I would say genuinely is near the centre of what I would regard as Manchester, is their indoor CQB site at Middleton. Of course if you have a car, then it's not a big deal. The site in Middleton incidentally, has midweek evening skirmishes, so is convenient for fitting in a bit of fun after work. I went to the First and Only Manchester Woodland Site on the Sunday after Christmas (think it was December 27th), when it was snowing and pretty cold, but even though it was right in the hangover period right after Christmas, and a cold day, I estimate that there were 50-60 people there, many of whom were regulars (many F&O patches on uniforms were in evidence). That gives you an indication of the loyalty of F&O's regular attendees, which is always a good sign. The organisation of the event was top notch, very professional (you can usually tell that from the safety briefing at the start of the day). They took particular care to ensure that any sniper rifles and DMRs running air tanks were competition locked to site power limits (which is another sign of a professionally run site). New players who were renting gear were well looked after, which is always nice to see, and it was obvious that care was being taken to ensure they felt included, and they were given very thorough briefings on how to get the best out of their hired G36 assault rifles. There was a shop on site, set up in a tent, where you could buy everything from weapons to protective clothing, dinner was included, free tea and coffee was available, toilet facilities were good. It's also worth noting that the staff were ready to help people who had any issues with their gear, for example, one of my M4 rifles had the rear stock come loose, and they helped me to sort it out, even though I actually ended up using my other M4 anyway. Battles were good too, quite varied and always with an eye on keep the action going. That woodland site is very muddy in places and a large amount of fallen trees mean that it can be quite arduous to get from one place to another (which is good, especially in terms of available cover). But because of that, it is worth being aware that if you spend all day at a woodland site at this time of year, to make sure you wrap up warm and dry, and unless you are fit and healthy, you will probably end up knackered by the end of the day, so it's a great way to keep fit. The shower you have when you get home will probably feel like the best shower you have ever had lol. Your other option for skirmish sites in and around Manchester, is Trojan Airsoft, who have an indoor CQB its in a six storey mill in Stockport town centre, literally spitting distance from the Bus Station and about a three minute walk from the railway station, so if you are without transport, that one is dead easy to get to and from, and they too have midweek evening skirmishes, which I often go to. Much of that takes place in very low light conditions, with battles ranging across all six storeys of the mill. CQB like that is not everyone's cup of tea of course, since if often ends up with grenade and pistol battles around the stairways, as opposed to fights at woodland sites, where there's more sniper and assault rifle action. Because of that, Trojan also have a woodland site out near Macclesfield, which is okay (not as good as the F&O one, but still pretty good), but it is kind of hard to find and, like quite a few woodland skirmish sites, not easy to get to if you don't have a car. Trojan's mill site has a pretty decent shop (although it was in fact broken into earlier this week, so stock might be a bit ropey at the moment), their woodland site usually sells ammo and a few bits and pieces too, although unlike at F&O, you'd be well advised to take what you need.

From here: http://www.bbguns365.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=59&products_id=512 Which means it is a two tone, but I have it on good authority from Sitting Duck on this forum that the blue is sprayed rather than moulded material, and under the blue it is a wood colour, so it's just a case of removing that and it'll be a RIF, although apparently it was a bit of an arse ache to remove the blue according to SD. It appears that site had three for sale yesterday at that price, and I bought one, so if you fancy one, then that presumably means they have two left, and that is definitely the cheapest place to get hold of one, they are around 150 quid everywhere else.

Naah, it was a new one. 99 quid.

Coming in at 10 quid under your budget maximum, this is a good deal, since it will get you pretty much everything you need, and you will not need a UKARA registration to buy it: http://airsoftzone.co.uk/airsoft-zone-deals/starter-pack-deal-with-cm16-m4-carbine-with-crane-stock-bright-green-aeg-gng As you can see, you get: 1x CM16 M4 Carbine with Crane Stock (Bright Green) AEG G&G (an excellent choice for starting out, and one which will serve well for years as a back up gun if you end up buying something fancier, it even looks okay in the two tone paint job, and even if you don't like the colour, a £1.50 can of matt black primer spray paint would soon sort that out. The weapon comes with a 450 round high capacity mag, so you can get by with that alone and won't need to buy spare mags) 1x Mesh Mask Black ASG (full face protection, which you definitely want, unless you like getting teeth shot out) 1x 8.4V 1600mAh NiMh Crane Stock Battery (mini Tamiya) VP and 1x Battery Charger for 8.4V & 9.6V NiMh Batteries VP (decent battery and a charger for it, which is ok too) 1x Blaster 0.20g BBs Bottle of 3000 ASG (decent BBs, which will not screw up your gun) Other deals are available too if you fancy a slightly different-looking weapon: http://airsoftzone.co.uk/airsoft-zone-deals

As others have noted, for certain models of guns they are okay. Particularly their Kalashnikovs, which are very decent, especially for the price. Their CM048 is a very nice model, and you'll be hard pressed to find any other AK which is as accurate or as reliable straight out of the box. CYMA's M14 is also an excellent airsoft weapon, much overlooked by people. CYMA's M4s are allegedly not as good, although I do know a couple of players who've got them and swear by them, but since I hear more opinions saying they are not so good, I'd say steer clear of them, particularly when there are other M4s available for the same money which are better, most notably G&G, although ironically, when it comes to G&G, everyone recommends their M4s but says to steer clear of the AKs, so they are kind of a mirror image of CYMA. So yeah, the CYMA AK is a good choice.

For a bit of Russkie/Eastern Bloc novelty value, and since it was cheap, I just bought one of those slightly weird metal Jing Gong A47 RPK/SVD hybrids (personally, I think it looks quite a bit like a Romanian PSL, which would kind of make sense, since that is basically a sniper/DMR version of the RPK, so it is effectively a heavy-barreled AK variant with a Dragunov stock, although I'm not sure I've ever seen a PSL with a bipod on it). Still not sure whether it is ugly or cool, or even if I actually like the way it looks, but whichever is true, it has the potential to be a bit of fun in woodland with a decent sight on it, since the barrel is long enough for well aimed accuracy, but it has a very high cyclic rate on full auto and it could potentially have a high capacity drum mag fitted to it. I think I'll just have to make sure it's cranking less than 350 fps, so there'll be no arguments about whether I can use it, since it could be thought of as a sniper, a DMR, a bog standard AEG, or a support weapon lol.

Painting is a crapload easier and cheaper. Anything fancy and super-detailed would be lost on a sniper rifle, since you need camo that works at long range, so just a couple of colours to break up any obvious silhouette will be more than adequate, espesially since it will likely be covered in bits of hessian and wotnot too. If you do want something a little different however, which looks good and can be easily sprayed, try getting some OD and some light green or tan. Spray it with one colour and then use a fern leaf held just above the surface as a stencil mask and spray past it. It gives a very nice foliage effect, which is also very visually disruptive.

Yup, just been talking about this, and my ex missus said something interesting: 'I didn't even know there was a shop there'. Which is a good point, because the entrance to Trojan is basically concealed around a corner from the entrance gate to the mill site, so there is little chance that Joe Bloggs would know there was a retail site there at all without having entered the shop itself at some point. Thus I suspect it pretty much has to be someone who's been there, and if I had to guess, I'd go for it being a disgruntled ex-employee either having done it, or having mentioned it to someone, who has then done it. Ben (Trojan's boss) is a really sound bloke, but as is often the case with people who are decent, that does not mean they are a soft touch, and I certainly would not like to be on the wrong side of him. I'm willing to bet that he could pull in a few 'favours' lol. It's worth noting too, that there are quite a few Police guys who go to Trojan to skirmish, so they're going to be on the lookout too. Not a betting man myself, but I'd put money on the perpetrators being caught.

The truth is that if they were truly serviceable weapons for skirmishing, we'd all be using those instead of spending considerably more on other stuff. You might get away with the Bulldog M4 in CQB for a while, but it is unlikely to be tough enough to withstand regular use and probably not hugely accurate at anything other than CQB ranges. The chances are it will conk out mid skirmish, and then you'd be screwed, and you can guarantee that when it does conk out, it will be at the worst possible moment, it's just inevitable. As others have suggested, just hiring some weaponry and saving up for something decent when the UKARA comes through would be the sensible thing to do. You can get an okay M4 for about a ton, and a pistol, whilst nice, is not essential, but decent ones can be found for fifty quid or so, a lot less if you used a springer, and frankly, a springer would be better than an unreliable gas pistol. Especially at this time of year, when the cold weather makes almost all gas pistols pretty much unusable.

Welcome aboard. Take a look on this forum for many stickied threads concerning starter gear and other useful info

Damn. That's my local site. Shop had just been remodeled too with a different counter and such. Will keep an eye out for local sales of stuff since it is near me. Also shared it with my friends list on Facebook, most of whom are in Stockport, so plenty of eyes on the lookout in the town where the robbery took place.

If you want to know how to do something in Photoshop, you can ask me if you like. I am the main trainer at an Adobe Authorised Training Centre, where it is my job to teach people how to use all Adobe programs, including Photoshop obviously. I have all three certifications for Photoshop: ACI (Adobe Certified Instructor), ACE (Adobe Certified Expert) and ACA (Adobe Certified Associate), so there isn't much I could not help you with.

CYMA would be the better choice.

Most of it is common sense. You should never be afraid to take a gun apart to have a nosey at how it all goes together and see how it works. Airsoft guns are pretty basic machines. So long as you go slow, don't force anything and make a note of where things go, the very worst that can happen is that you'll end up with a pile of bits and have to ask on here how the hell it all goes back together lol. Not good for our egos to have to do that, but not the end of the world. Beware the carpet monster though, it loves to eat little springs and screws, so only do that when you have two guns.

Frankly, I'd be inclined to get a new gearbox altogether, since they can be had for less than 40 quid off ebay and even less if you go to somewhere like ehobbyasia (assuming they have em in stock). That way you'd be sure everything was good to go. You know the gears are a bit iffy on your present set up, and have a bit of a Heath Robinson repair already, which means that sticking a new motor alone into the thing might not solve the problem and probably wouldn't be that much cheaper than just replacing the entire gearbox anyway.

Welcome aboard. Not a complete newbie if you have your UKARA I guess.

If you've got a decent length unjamming/cleaning rod (i.e. for your rifle it will ideally need to be about 450mm long), which most airsoft guns come with, then you could simply get a few bits and pieces together, such as white spirit to make sure the inside of your barrel is shiny, and silicone oil to lube stuff up without your rubber and plastic parts falling to bits, but if you want a cheap way to get all that together with all the necessary stuff, then this isn't a bad bet for a tenner and comes with all you need (apart from a cleaning rod): http://www.patrolbase.co.uk/airsoft/we-airsoft-maintenance-kit.htm#.VLQX6HtJVhM Avoid cleaning kits for air rifles or real firearms, they are fancy and cool looking, but the phosphor bronze brushes are too harsh for an alloy or brass barrel and the calibre is unlikely to be correct either, since they are intended to remove lead deposits from rifling and unburned propellant. Real firearm cleaning rods also tend to be comprised of brass or steel sections as opposed to being one piece plastic like airsoft ones are, so the joins between segments will scratch an airsoft brass or alloy barrel, your plastic cleaning/unjamming rod is the tool you want for that, with typically a bit of cotton pushed through the loop and some white spirit or similar on the thing to remove gunk, then a clean bit of cotton to remove any residue, since an airsoft barrel should be clinically clean. If your rifle did not come with one, then cleaning rods of sufficient length are cheap to buy (usually less than a fiver). Be sure to take your hop rubber out before ramming a rod down the thing, as the rod could easily damage the hop up, and you also don't want to be getting any silicone oil or other chemicals on the hop either. Don't put craploads of cotton through the rod loop either and force it into your barrel, a tiny bit of cotton is enough to clean it, but make sure it is a long enough piece to stay through the loop or it'll come off and get stuck lol. Note that even if your gun is new, the chances are the barrel could do with a good clean, as they tend to have sh*te on the inside from the manufacturing process, and they can also tarnish if they've been on a warehouse shelf for a while, which does not help with fps or trajectory. You could go mental and really smooth out the inside of your barrel with a lapping kit. Not cheap, but they will certainly clean the bugger good style and then improve consistency between shots owing to how smooth the thing will be, which is fairly important for sniping. You can find lapping kits here: http://www.air-lab.co.uk/products.html Although frankly, if you're gonna go to the trouble and expense of polishing a barrel with a lapping kit, you'd probably be better off doing it to a fancy after market one. Like that suit you made by the way, looks like it would be ideal for being the co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon as well as for sniping. Just be thankful you don't have to piss on the ground in front of your rifle like real snipers do before taking a shot, you'd never find your flies lol

No doubt after some more Tesco-style creative accounting to placate the shareholders, your £2.50 windfall will show up on Tesco's books as profits having increased by approximately 250 million pounds or so.

Welcome aboard

True enough.

Sounds a fair price to me.

If you're like most people who get into airsoft, you'll probably end up trying a few different things before settling on something you are happy with. What works for one person, someone else might hate, and it often takes a bit of experimentation to find out what suits you best. Some of that ends up being down to your style, i.e. you might like running about all over the place, or you might like sneaking about, possibly both, you might like shotguns, or full auto machine guns, pistols or whatever. That's why it's not a bad idea to rent stuff first. You'll get to see what everyone else who goes regularly is using and how useful (or not useful) their choices are when it actually comes to a fight. You can quiz people about their choices, and you'll find out what kind of player you are in terms of the way you play goes, and then be able to make a more informed choice without having spent money on something which you end up not wanting to use, or cannot get along with for one reason or another. That goes for clothing, boots, webbing/tactical vests, helmets etc, just as much as it does for weaponry. For example, obviously you need eye protection, and if you hire it, the chances are it will be a full face mask. This is because, since airsoft sites have to ensure anyone under the age of eighteen wears full face protection, it's just easier for their rental gear to be a full face mask. However, full face masks can be a bit of a pain in the arse in practice, because they are often bulky and can end up preventing you from getting a rifle up into your cheek to use the sights properly, but there are things you can do about that. Some people will go with simply wearing shooting glasses and nothing else (risky, since it offers minimal protection), some people will go with perspex goggles (which can fog up but offer good visibility when they are not fogged up), some with mesh goggles (which don't fog up but are not quite as good in the visibility they offer), some will combine that with a lower face mask of either plastic or mesh, and some might use a shemagh or other type of scarf on their lower face. There are pros and cons to all of those things, for example, if you had an M16 with an optical sight mounted on the carry handle, you'd probably be able to get that up to your eye even with a bulky mask on, but you might have a different rifle which doesn't make that quite so easy, so you might forego lower face protection in favour of practicality, but then you are risking getting a tooth shot out (that happens sometimes with people who don't wear lower face protection and is why under eighteen players have to do so). The more you can find out about what you like and don't like before spending a lot of money on gear, by just renting some stuff for a skirmish or two, the happier you'll be with what you ultimately end up deciding upon, and almost certainly better off money wise as well, in avoiding buying something you later find out you don't like that much. You'll make the odd mistake with things you buy, everyone does, but if you rent stuff first and get a bit more clued up about things, you'll certainly make smarter buying choices in general. However, some things are going to be obvious from the get go if you are inclined to want to gather some gear right now, and in fact, you might have some or all of this stuff anyway, which is just as well, because none of this stuff will be part of a hire package: Some decent boots from an army surplus place will serve you well and won't cost much, and you definitely need good ankle support when running and diving about all over the place. Some combat pants will also serve you well, since they have pockets which are designed to be big enough to fit spare magazines in, but they are not the warmest attire known to man, so some long johns or cycling leggings underneath them will not only keep you warmer, but also stop hits to your legs stinging so much. A baseball cap (which everyone has anyway) will protect your forehead from BB hits whilst you decide if you want to have a helmet or something more specialised (trust me, hits to the forehead hurt and will bleed, so cover it up, because hits to the head are very common). Some thin gloves will offer some hand protection from hits, but will still let you operate your weapon properly (hits to the hands and arms are very common too, so again, wearing long sleeved stuff and gloves will minimise that stinging, which it does, especially in cold weather). A decent scarf, such as an Arabic keffiyah (shemagh) is a good buy if you don't have one, since it will protect your neck from hits, if you do buy one, get an olive drab one, the more typical white ones stick out like a sore thumb in woodland terrain. Hits to the neck hurt and can draw blood, which is why you see so many players wearing those scarves. A small water bottle is a good thing to take with you too, since you will get thirsty running about shooting people.

Which is a variant of the 1911