PureSilver

A 2015 Infiltration Airsoft game in the Drakelow Tunnel Complex. This sort of captures the experience of playing in a dark, dank WWII industrial complex/1980s nuclear bunker, but the camera doesn't (and couldn't) capture the later atmosphere when players and smoke grenades stirred up so much dust you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. I have no doubt that a couple of games there without a gas mask would give you all the 19th century diseases.

For the benefit of anyone else that's wondering what's going on, joule creep is a phenomenon where guns are more efficient with heavier ammo; they'll do 350FPS with 0.20g (1.14J), but 335FPS with 0.25g (1.30J), 330FPS with 0.30g (1.52J) etc. Essentially the energy level gets higher and higher with heavier ammo. Some sadistic oxygen thieves bellends knobgoblins people abuse this by passing chrono with 0.20g and then actually shooting 0.30-0.45g BBs with a correspondingly huge increase in power. Deliberately or not this phenomenon is especially prevalent in over-volumed guns like short-barrel BASRs, GBBRs and specifically tuned remote-line gas guns (HPA, Tippmanns etc.). Pretty much exactly these. In more than a decade of play I've literally never seen a marshal doing spot chronographing (even though it's been mentioned repeatedly) so it's good to see that at least someone does it. However, it's absolute bullshit than they don't tell you they'll be chronographing with random BB weights, especially after you've previously passed chrono. If they want people to pass chronograph at 0.20g, 0.25g, 0.28g, 0.30g, 0.36g, 0.40g and 0.45g and so on, that needs to be both specified and tested for at the original chrono. Chrono will probably take five times as long if you're going to be testing each gun with seven BB weights rather than one but if that's what they want that's what they'll have to do. This is very much true; HPA guns with significant joule creep are running inefficiently and should be tuned more carefully. The whole point of electronic FCU control of solenoids is fine-tuning - with some experimentation it should be possible to tune the gun to shoot less than 1.1J (or whatever the limit is) with every BB in the 0.20-0.30g range. Very much the sensible approach.

GBBs are not actually that complicated and this sort of problem is not uncommon. Sorry if this seems patronising (I don't know your experience level) but here are some things I think you should investigate before returning the gun. Is it cold where you live? Try shooting the gun indoors, where it's a bit warmer, to see if higher vapour pressure improves performance. Does the gas canister you're filling from have any actual liquid left in it? If you swirl it around you should hear and feel the liquid sloshing around inside. If there's no liquid in the canister to transfer to the magazine the gun won't shoot more than a handful of shots before venting. Is the magazine filling correctly? If the magazine is completely empty (push the outlet valve with your finger to completely empty it), you should hear the magazine filling with liquid, and then an audible change in tone or cessation of noise when it's full. If you're not sure, try weighing the magazine both empty and full - you should be seeing a difference of at least 5-10g, I should think. The problems I suspect you actually have: Are the gun's seals dried out? I strongly suspect that your problem lies in the rubber seals in the gun's blowback unit, located in the rear of the slide. If the gun has been sitting on the shelf for a long time, it's possible that those seals have dried out and shrunk, allowing gas to blow by. This cripples efficiency; the rather anaemic blowback you're getting could be a sign of that. You can check this by removing the nozzle to access the seals, and solve it by generously oiling them with silicone oil and letting them soak it up for a couple of hours. Is the gun clean and correctly lubricated? Often guns come very dry from the factory; the slide rails in particular usually need lubricant for the gun to run smoothly. Excessive friction can cause the slide to hang up, which increases the time before the valve knocker is reset, which ruins efficiency. Ideally you should lubricate the rails with a non-petroleum-based grease - I like Froglube. Check to see how smooth the slide feels if you rack it by hand; if it feels resistant or gritty, clean the rails with a paper towel (preferably also with isopropyl alcohol, or warm soapy water) and lubricate them. These last two points are regular maintenance items on any GBB and it is very common for out-of-the-box guns to have these issues. TMs tend to be much more reliable and higher-performance out of the box, especially in cold weather. Bear in mind that the HK45 does not have a metal slide or outer barrel and it will be almost impossible to get them. WE do a P99, but not a PPQ.

I don’t have many rounds through it; it’s solely for this pistol, and the pistol isn’t finished. From what limited handling it’s had it seems perfectly OK; for what I paid that’s excellent.

Fake as fake can be!

Inspired by the Springfield V12s, I present the Detonics... V6? This is eventually going to be mocked up (with further inspiration from Marui’s Vorpal Bunny) with smoothed grips, a front rail, and a battleship grey paintjob. It is an ARMY R45 with an ACM Shield RMS, a Nova trigger, and Shooters Design 150% recoil springs. Not pictured yet are the Army extended magazine release and modified grips, which have been filled with putty in readiness for relief cuts and sanded smooth. Milling the slide and the adaptor plate allowed me to sink the optic 3.5mm into the slide. This actually lower-third-cowitnesses with the factory sights, somehow. Custom milled and drilled slide and barrel ports. The ARMY’s outer barrel is stainless steel and broke one of my milling bits. Lesson learned about using them to drill holes... Total cost so far: ~£120

That's a good question. I was told it was fully booked, and the booking website offers 60 (!) tickets for day games and 40 for night games. I'm not a good judge of numbers, but I think about 50? About 25 per side felt about right, I think, which works out to 25 players per floor except during defensive one-life-for-defenders games where the numbers are whittled down quickly. The safe zone was the only area that felt crowded, really - I spent quite a while guarding an objective and didn't see another player for a solid 5 minutes. I wouldn't have minded the loss of 5 players per side but I think much more than that and it would have started to feel a bit lonely! I didn't see anyone standing in stairwells, and only once in the day did we have a stacking problem (of about 10 players being asked to storm a heavily contested room with a lot of barricaded enemies), in the middle of the site at the end of a game. Maybe they've moved stuff around inside to reduce pinch points - it was impossible to pin the spawns and very difficult to pin the staircases (and quite easy to dislodge people trying to do so).

The central corridors are actually blocked off halfway to prevent long fields of fire stagnating play, so it's room-to-room or within the larger rooms. There are some more open spaces, especially in the two large rooms in the North corner of Bravo and the three along the Northern face of Charlie. Each is about the size of the smallest shops at The Mall, but broken up by internal barriers. Don't be fooled by the plant rooms - at least one (probably both) are absolutely full of HVAC equipment and ducting and you'd need to be Flat Stanley to get under it. The sheer number of doors, windows and holes knocked in walls means flanking defenders is usually possible, and even the most determined can be dislodged with grenades. If you played Echelon it's similar to the second and third floors of that. Thanks!

If I was going to push power limits on a KTW Winchester I'd be looking at Volante Airsoft's green gas conversion. It should allow a significant boost in power without putting extra stress on the gun.

Format shamelessly stolen from @Asomodai. EXTREMELY LENGTHY REVIEW. Site Name: Invicta Battlefield Black Site Contact Details: [email protected] Website Address: https://www.invictabattlefield.co.uk/cqb-site Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Invictabattlefield Site Address: Hampstead Lane, ME18 6AD Hello all! I can't find a review of Invicta Battlefield's Black Site on AFUK, which is understandable as it's a relatively new site (only open since 08/12/21). @blobface and I played the Sunday game on 29/05/22. The Site: Black Site is a medium-size CQB site spread over three floors of a derelict building formerly occupied by ICI. It's literally 30 feet from Yalding train station. Providing a size comparison to other CQB sites isn't that easy, but I roughly estimate it at about two-fifths of the size of The Mall. The site itself has four floors - Alpha (the safe zone), Bravo, Charlie and Delta (not currently in play). Side Elevation The site is semi-auto only, with an energy limit of 350FPS (1.14J), and a maximum BB weight of 0.25g (313FPS equivalent). You may only carry a maximum of 300rds on your person. No sniper rifles, DMRs, grenade launchers, drum magazines, smoke grenades, or green lasers are permitted. Pyro use is limited to BFGs up to 9mm PAK/.380R, EG67s and Mk. Vs. I'd recommend bringing or buying a few grenades; dead players are not permitted to collect thrown grenades until the end of the game. The play area of the site is in fair condition - no rubbish, but there's a lot of dust and occasional dripping patches on ceilings. You must bring a torch; almost all of the building is in near-total darkness, with windows boarded up and interior lighting non-functional outside of stairwells and the safe zone. Good: Location: This is a readily accessible site for those travelling by train: the site's front door is quite literally 50' from Yalding station's exit. This is pretty convenient for London-based players, at a bit over an hour on the train from Charing Cross with one change. The site has a very large gravel car park available for those travelling by car. Site Layout: At present three floors - Alpha, which is the safe zone, and Bravo and Charlie, which are in play - are open. Both Bravo and Charlie are an interesting collection of medium-sized offices, corridors, and industrial spaces. Holes have been cut in some of the interior walls for access; some of these are pretty small so a hat or helmet is recommended. Larger spaces are broken up by barriers and furniture to provide hard cover. The entire play area is in almost complete darkness. I didn't see anyone with NV, and given how everyone's using a torch it may not be that advantageous, but if that's your bag every game here is a night game. Floor Plans Engagement distances are typically short - mostly 5-15m, depending on angles and your appetite for storming a room and eating a lot of BBs at bad-breath range. The respawn points are at the base of the stairwells, which is my only major complaint: descending and then ascending two flights of stairs every couple of minutes doesn't feel like much of a reward for pushing up. Since the stairwells themselves thankfully aren't in play I'd be happier with a respawn point on each floor and a minimum respawn group size or time. Marshalling: Really really good, possibly the best I've ever seen. There were loads of them, they were friendly and helpful, and they intervened frequently, e.g. to tell players that they had actually been killed by a grenade or BB. Safety: A good comprehensive brief with no unfunny jokes, and stringent chronographing of all guns with the site's BBs and marker zip ties. The chronograph is done with 0.20g BBs; it might be better to see it done with 0.25g, since that's the maximum weight and joule creep only goes one way. The BB weight limit initially felt a bit arbitrary, but having played the site the engagement distances are so short there would be no advantage to heavier rounds anyway. There was no attempt to enforce the (obviously unenforceable, all BBs look the same outside the bottle) weight limit and there was some muttering from particularly bruised players about whether or not everyone was sticking to it. Game Modes: The game modes were very simple - find the lighting pucks, switch them to your team's colour and defend them, find the lighting pucks in your team's colour and return them to base, etc. They weren't anything massively innovative - except for the light-up pucks, which are absolutely brilliant - but bluntly they didn't need to be; they worked well and players understood and played the objective. Playerbase: A pretty broad mix of players - a lot of multicam, a lot of more casual set-ups, some younger rentals - but no speedsofters. Players were pretty well-behaved, with nobody (that I saw) losing their cool, cheat calling, or bitching despite several players - including me - copping bleeding welts from the close range. There were a couple of groups of players who were aggressively pushing up and running to and from the safe zone, which always sets a good tone, and even though the day was apparently fully booked there were only a few times people pointlessly stacked up - probably a testament to how close the respawns were. There were a few situations where I felt hits weren't being called, and overkill was repeatedly mentioned by the marshals, but it was pretty minor overall. Turnaround Time: Fairly rapid, aided by the fact that the safe zone is readily accessible. You won't come back and find half your team chatting in the safe zone, either. Average: Value: £25.00 for an evening game (£35.00 including rental equipment) and £35.00 for a day game (£50.00 including rental equipment) is pretty reasonable for a non-woodsball site. It's almost exactly what the late, lamented Echelon Airsoft charged. Game Options: The site has evening games (17:30-22:30) on Wednesdays and day games (08:00-16:30) on Sundays. Site Shop: The site shop seemed to have what you'll need on the day: BBs, propellant, pyro, drinks and snacks. There looked to be a very limited selection of RIFs. Hot food can be pre-booked; some pretty alluring burgers were on offer. Unfortunately owing to very spotty mobile data coverage the entire site is cash only. UKARA Membership: Invicta are UKARA-registered and able to provide you with a UKARA-registered defence. Safe Zone: It's clean, well lit and right inside the front door. It opens straight into the ground floor; there's no massive hike to the safe zone between rounds. There's plenty of horizontal surfaces, but it was a bit tight inside with the site fully booked. It's really thoughtful to provide the floor plans (above) for people trying to figure out how to navigate the maze-like site; I wish more sites did this. Unfortunately (see below) there's no plug sockets and the bathroom situation is a bit dodgy. Bad: The major problems with the site aren't really anything to do with the way the site is run, but to do with how the building has been disconnected from the public utilities. Facilities: The disconnection from mains electricity means the site has very few or no working plug sockets - none readily available in the safe zone. It may be that the shop can charge batteries for you, but you'll be better off planning on being totally self-reliant. There are actual, plumbed-in toilets (ladies and gents), which seemed reasonably clean, but because the site has been disconnected from the water main - there's no sinks to wash your hands, just hand wipes. The urinals don't flush. If you want to use a toilet, you have to refill the cistern afterwards from big orange buckets of water. The toilets are definitely vastly, vastly better than a portaloo, but it is a bit off-putting that it is a physical impossibility for anyone in the safe zone to have properly washed their hands... Conclusion: Black Site is a great day's play. The site is fun with lots of repeat value (I think it would take several game days just to start remembering where the doors lead and which of the windows still have glass in them), Invicta run it very well, and the players make the most of both. When Invicta do such a great job running the site it feels churlish to complain about the facilities - presumably mostly beyond Invicta's control - but they are the only major downside. I'd wholeheartedly recommend Black Site to anyone that wants to play CQB in the dark and we'll certainly be back. Bullpup Watch: Tragically I think it was just my AUG. Other Site Reviews CAMO CQB Skirmish Arena (Essex) Echelon Airsoft (Kent)

What? The P226 is not a particularly difficult gun to work on. This falls under the usual die-cast Guarder MBK problem: their fit is usually pretty poor, and the guns require a lot of hand fitting to work, or sometimes even to be assembled at all. In particular sanding of the frame rails so the slide will fit over them is apparently often required. The other thing that pushed the Guarder kits out of favour is that you used to be able to get fully-CNC'd P226 kits from Pro-Win that were only a moderate price premium over the Guarders but obviously vastly higher quality. I have had two of those and still have one; here's an old photo from before a custom 3D-printed mount adapter that reduces the upward cant of the classic SureFire: I had non-railed frames, with my first gun being built on a P226R and my second on an E2. My first was largely TM and the second has all the Guarder upgrades. From what I can see your biggest problem is that Guarder don't seem to make a new version of the non-railed frame, and have delisted most of the versions they used to make (P226-17, P226-18, P226-25), leaving only the unmarked version, P226-16. FireSupport have the tan version (P226-17(TAN)) and outer barrel in one (P226-09(BK)) and two-piece (P226-39(BK)) configurations in stock if that's of interest. Rainbow8 have the black non-railed frame (P226-18(BK)) and slide available separately in aluminium (P226-47(BK)) and steel (P226-46(BK) and P226-48(BK)), and P226-09(BK) and P226-39(BK). The pitfalls will be in the fitting of the slide to the frame and the outer barrel to the slide, the rest is pretty simple to be quite honest. The fitting is liable to be time-consuming, though, and you will need fine sandpaper, a glass or otherwise very flat surface you can do wet sanding on, maybe even lapping compound and stuff if you want the fit to be really smooth. Fitting the outer barrel may take a long time if it needs a lot of material removed, since steel is much more resilient than cast aluminium. I had this problem fitting a VFC steel outer to an Inokatsu steel slide and it was aggravating. Note that: If you want to put RS grips on it (I have wraparound rubber Hogues with finger grooves and highly recommend them) you'll need a RS spring seat. In theory I suppose you could take a lot of material off the TM one instead, but it would be brittle and the weight is likely a lead alloy, which would be very easy to ingest if you were doing something that created a lot of dust, e.g. grinding or filing it heavily. Guarder make nylon replacement grips (P226-37(BK)) if you only want the classic look. If you buy a kit made for the E2 and want to use old-style grips you'll also need bushings to push into the frame for the grip screws to grip. Both the frames linked above are for the P226R and don't need bushings. While you're buying Guarder parts I STRONGLY recommend buying their steel takedown lever (P226-29), I have broken at least two of the stock Marui ones. The E2 magazines are much better-looking than the P226R ones. Both magazines are cross-compatible. I wouldn't worry about the outer barrel eroding the slide too much, unless you're planning on shooting the gun with CO2 a lot, in which case you'll want recoil buffers and a stiff spring anyway.

In fairness I think the FNX45 is one of the plasticy-est feeling modern TMs. It'd been a while since I handled a stock TM, and after handling it back-to-back with the VFC the Marui just felt like something out of a Christmas cracker. The performance is probably better but if I was prioritising function over form I'd be using an AEG... I have no experience with that product but I've bought a bunch of parts from Volante and have been pretty impressed overall.

I've got a complete New Generation frame (for the G17) and they're the best on the market, barring possibly the GHK G17 which is receiving a lot of stick online for its apocalyptically bad trigger. It is indeed glass-filled nylon. The only stainless part I can think of in the complete frame is the front chassis block. Guarder stainless steel is actually stainless steel, which is why those slides are expensive. Everyone has experience with Guarder, they make just about everything. Their build quality is dependent on the product but the high-end stuff is comparable to VT.

I find it insane that any insurer is crazy enough to offer cover to airsoft events that don't use a mandatory chronograph. Broken eyepro levels of hot gun is just crazy. Tell me more about these fights and fires, sounds thrilling.

You are both more than welcome, it is always a pleasure to be able to give a genuinely favourable review, especially since people generally only leave ones if they’ve had a truly terrible experience. There was at least one player the second time we played with an HPA-tapped drum in a pistol. I didn’t examine it closely, but I think it was a TAPP-modified WE drum, probably on a Hi-Capa or Glock. I personally have a violent dislike of such things but he seemed to be using it responsibly. ETA: Their site does go into more detail, in fact their Rules page is usefully comprehensive. The weapon magazines section reads "Box and drum mags are not allowed (unless on an HPA pistol)."

Format shamelessly stolen from @Asomodai. EXTREMELY LENGTHY REVIEW. THIS SITE IS NOW PERMANENTLY CLOSED. Site Name: Echelon Airsoft Contact Details: [email protected] Website Address: https://echelonairsoft.co.uk/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/echelonairsoftuk Site Address: 19-20 Thamesgate Shopping Centre, DA11 0AU Hello all! Having now been to Echelon Airsoft's site twice, I figured it was time for this relatively new site (only open since 05/08/21) to have a review on AFUK. I'd heard mixed to negative things about the site in advance, mostly complaints about a lack of player enthusiasm in pushing up. @blobface and I played the Wednesday evening games on 18/08/21 and 29/09/21. The Site: Echelon is a medium-sized indoor CQB site, based in a defunct Debenhams in the presumably also defunct Thamesgate Shopping Centre, literally 30 feet from Gravesend train station. This is exceptionally convenient for London-based players and likely for others too; the station is 20 minutes from St. Pancras approximately twice an hour with off-peak day returns £19.30. There are a number of car parks (Gravesend station, Thamesgate Multistorey and Parrock Street) available for those travelling by car. Providing a size comparison to other CQB sites isn't that easy, but I roughly estimate it at about a third of the size of The Mall. Echelon currently offer multiple games a week; Wednesday evening games, from 18:55-22:00 (safe zone opens at 18:00). These are lights on, but the lights can be turned off if all the players agree. Thursday evening games, also from 18:55-22:00 (safe zone opens at 18:00). These are night games with the lights turned off - expect to encounter some players (though not the majority) with NV. Saturday day games, from 11:00-17:00 (safe zone opens at 10:00). Sunday day games, from 09:30-15:00 (safe zone opens at 08:30). Private games. You'll have to ask about booking those. Pistol and shotgun games. These run less frequently. The site is semi-auto only, with an energy limit of 350FPS (1.14J). It's not specified if that's actually in Joules if you're not using 0.20g BBs, but you should assume that it is; the maximum BB weight is 0.32g. No sniper rifles, DMRs, or box or drum magazines are permitted, except for drum magazines on pistols. Pyro use is limited to BFGs and Mk. Vs, and banned altogether on the ground floor because it trips the alarms of an adjacent bank. The site's in pretty good condition - clean, no rubbish or trip or hanging hazards - barring a few holes knocked in interior walls to improve gameplay. You'll probably want to bring a torch and maybe a tracer unit - there's no natural light and a few dark spaces even in the day games. Good: Location: You're not going to find a more convenient site for London players, or really anyone that can readily access a train. The site's front door is quite literally 30' from Gravesend station's exit. Game Options: The option to play an evening game after work is a much under-appreciated option for players who don't want to sacrifice half their precious weekend. Bluntly, given how much more strenuous CQB is than woodsball you may well find four hours to be just right - my friends and I were definitely tired out by the end of the evening. Night games are rarer than you'd think; regular night games indoors are almost unheard of - these are an excellent opportunity to flex your £2,000 NV, or ruin NV players' investment with a 500,000lm torch you got off AliExpress for £20. Site Layout: At present three floors of the site are largely open - the ground shop floor and warehouse second floor, which are more open with obstacles and cover breaking up the spaces, and the office third floor, which is a tight maze of small rooms and corridors. The floors were played concurrently the first time I played (half the players downstairs, half upstairs) and consecutively the second time; I imagine this depends on the number of players on the day. I don't know if Echelon plan to utilise the first floor in the future, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do, as in the six weeks between our two games smaller areas of the ground floor had already been opened up. Engagement distances are typical of CQB, ranging from bad-breath range on the third floor to up to 10-15m depending on angles elsewhere. There are obstacles to use as cover, the rooms can be accessed in multiple ways, there are little tunnels for sneaking around and the site has been carefully configured to avoid choke points (or at least I didn't experience any the second day) which means minimal time wasted stacked up on doorways. The respawn points are well placed - you won't spend more than a couple of minutes walking there and back. While the weekend games are apparently rammed the weekday ones are pleasantly lightly attended: I'd estimate maybe 30 players our second day, which was Goldilocks levels of just right. The site could easily accommodate 50-60 players if the two zones are played concurrently. Safe Zone: Hosted in the old café, it's right inside the front door. Clean, well lit and opens straight into the ground floor - no hike to the safe zone like you had in the The Mall. Reasonably large (comfortable capacity about 50 players, I should think) with plug sockets, lots of chairs and plenty of horizontal surfaces. Actual plumbed toilets, clean (and seemingly repeatedly cleaned during the day) with soap and paper towels. Safety: Solid without being over the top; the usual rules apply. The safety brief was brief, concise, covered all the salient points and was given in the safe zone where people can actually hear everything. No "humour" barring an off-colour "Allahu Akhbar" suggestion during a later bomb-objective game. All guns are chronographed at the beginning of the day and no loaded guns or dry-firing are permitted in the safe zone. I didn't see marshals doing random spot checks or checking regulators (there are more than the usual number of HPA guns), but I have no doubt if concerns were raised they'd be willing to do so, because... Marshalling: Impeccable. The marshalls were polite, patrolled the site, and including player marshals were available in abundance. They monitored the team balance and didn't hesitate to rebalance if things were uneven. There is a three-strikes rule but zero tolerance for bullshittery: the marshals told us that by the end of our second day 67 players had been banned over the life of the site, which averages out to about two per game day. I'm sure the bans are weeding out the crap players; I think a considerable number of players were banned on our first day and one on our second. Other players might find this alarming - I find it reassuring. This leads directly to... Playerbase: On our second day the players were uniformly excellent - perhaps the best I've ever played with. Aggressive in pushing up, called their hits, minimal overshooting and very, very little bitching even when players had copped a couple of bleeding welts. I didn't have a single negative interaction in the entire day. This was an improvement over the first day, where the players were generally good but marred by a couple of Teflon terminators. This is not a milsim site and you're not going to encounter much in the way of multiglam geardos (night game possibly excepted), but you will encounter a few speedsofters, although of the nice kind rather than the knee-slide overshooting SpeedQB kind (of which I think at least five got banned during our first day and won't be missed). Turnaround Time: You'll get 5-10 minutes in the safe zone between games to reload, no more, and certainly no finding half your team standing around chatting while the rest of you are getting absolutely mullered in-game. Average: Value: £25.00 for an evening game (£50.00 including rental equipment) and £35.00 for a day game (£60.00 including rental equipment) will seem steep to players used to paying £25.00 for woodsball and a free lunch. However, it would be deeply unfair not to stress the excellent value this represents compared to other urban or CQB sites, especially given that London players won't need to wake up at the crack of dawn or return in the dead of night to attend. The prices are comparable to the other (now-defunct) London sites, which were much smaller and in much worse condition. Site Shop: Limited to what you'll need on the day; BBs, propellant, pyro, cold drinks and snacks, and complimentary battery charging. No hot food, no guns that I could see. Card payments are accepted without issue, even for low-value transactions. While they don't seem to have any guns to sell you... UKARA Membership: Echelon are UKARA-registered and able to provide you with a UKARA-registered defence. Game Modes: These aren't hugely innovative (almost all find object, bring it to place, keep it there) but frankly they work well. There's not really any need to create complex objectives for players to misunderstand, and not really the room for them anyway. What you get is a simple, coherent team objective which leads to you all getting to shoot a lot of people; what more could you ask for? Bad: I really struggled to think of a downside that personally affected me (and was the site's fault, unlike my temperamental AUG) but I am aware of a couple of teething issues that you should probably be aware of. Cancellation Communication: I saw on Facebook that a few weeks ago some players had turned up to find the site not open for business; the game had been cancelled owing to a lack of bookings. You should definitely book if you intend to play to help the site gauge whether it's worth running the game day, and so they can communicate to you if the game day is not going to happen. Shop Issue: I also saw on Facebook that either on the first game day, or within the first couple of game days, there had been a major spat between the third party engaged to run the shop and the site management. That lead to the shop packing up halfway through the day and taking its rental equipment home with them. I expect this won't be repeated but it does speak to a certain lack of organisation. Conclusion: I think the second day might have been one of the best day's (well, evening's) airsoft I've ever played. As more of the site opens up and any remaining bad eggs are weeded out I expect the site and play to improve even further. I'd wholeheartedly recommend Echelon to anyone that wants to play some close-quarters CQB and I'll certainly be back. Bullpup Watch: My AUG, I think that was about it sadly. On the first day there was an AEG AUG too. Other Site Reviews CAMO CQB Skirmish Arena (Essex) Invicta Battlefield Black Site (Kent)

Your Mate Dave was allowed to play without full-seal eye protection? You should add that to the "Meh" section, or maybe add a "Seriously Completely Pants-On-Head Retarded" section to put it in. You don't have to attend Absolute Airsoft to lose an eye (although it helps).

> Run by the same bloke as SAS > Someone had their eye shot out in the safe zone > No chronograph This deal is getting worse all the time!

I dunno about that. Several of the people convicted of planning acts of terrorism have been members of these little clubs, e.g. Jack Renshaw and numerous other members of National Action, and five members of the British branch of Atomwaffen. Letting oxygen thieves gang up seems to be proving a problem globally. I think my favourite is the reaction of the neighbours of Darren Osborne (perpetrator of the 2017 Finsbury Mosque vehicle attack). A neighbour who wished to remain anonymous opined that "He’s always been a complete cunt but this is really surprising."

VFC have just announced an MG4. There is obviously the gorgeous, albeit very elderly, Inokatsu FN MAG and M240. You can still easily get the significantly less expensive "Echo1" M240. I'd kill for a GBB Mini-14. If GHK's quality control and manufacturing departments could get their f***ing act together that'd be great too.

Without a doubt it has to be Erebor. It was a purpose-built (with what had to have been hundreds of thousands of pounds behind it) FIBUA site. It was in a huge warehouse with adjustable day-night cycles, the (multi-storey!) buildings were all individually lit with light switches and stuff, there was a modicum of furniture, the safe zone was brand-spanking new and the marshalling was top-notch. Not to mention it was reachable by Underground... Closure was an incalculable loss for London airsofters in particular and airsoft in general. 😢 Man, I loathed this site. I only played it once and that was more than enough to make it repetitive. I found it so confined that we were barely able to get out of our spawns before getting absolutely annihilated, and the 0.5:1 scale meant I smashed my head on just about every lintel in the site.

That's partially inaccurate. There is no minimum age limit to have a defence - if an 8-year-old played airsoft three times in two months at a site for which public liability insurance is held, he'd have the same defence as anyone else. The only differences are (a) he'd be too young to register that defence with UKARA, (b) because he's too young to buy any airsoft gun. As @Rogerborg says: There is nothing illegal about OP's father (over 18... I hope) purchasing an IF and gifting it to OP, OP playing (or having already played) his three games in two months to have a defence, and finally OP manufacturing a RIF by stripping the bright paint off his IF. As to whether or not this "person who doesn't have a defence purchasing a RIF to immediately gift to someone who does" is legitimate... I think there's an argument to be made that it could be. PatrolBase need to be able to show that they made the gun available for the purposes of airsoft, and if they know OP has a defence and but-for being a minor would be able to purchase a RIF himself, I think they could say that they made it available for that purpose. Whether or not they will do that - and I strongly suspect they won't - is up to them.

And all you had to do to save the cash was undercut the actual inventor and stifle innovation. Bargain! Those clones are the reason that we never got factory-supported magazine adaptors and it took 5 years and counting for new models to come to market. If they'll continue to prioritise the cheapest possible product at the expense of innovation and quality, airsofters really have no-one but themselves to blame when they get sold shitty, obsolete products that don't work properly out of the box or break shortly thereafter. It's not a coincidence that in 1995 a mobile phone looked like this and in 2020 looks like this, but a 2020 M4 AEG gearbox looks exactly the same as a 1995 one. It's not a coincidence that local airsoft retailers are going out of business (especially in the States) because people would rather save a paltry amount of money than support any actual customer service. It's not a coincidence that Magpul withdrew from their partnership with PTS in disgust and as a result we can't get PDR-Cs or FPGs any more. There is a direct link between people forcing manufacturers into a race to the bargain basement and manufacturers not having any incentive to make innovative products. The "I would never pay £x for x, so they haven’t lost a sale by me purchasing a rip-off" argument sucked when it applied to pirating music, films and videogames and it sucks here. People buying it is the reason it’s produced. The entitlement of "I want it, but I don’t want to pay for it" is frustrating. It apparently cost TM $1m in 2008 dollars to develop the NGRS system; how are they supposed to recoup the first significant investment in AEG design since they invented the AEG if consumers set an arbitrary limit of "no more than twice the cost of a bargain basement clone of your old gun"? It’s especially irritating with straight clones like the M12 because the clone literally doesn’t do even one single thing better than the original, except be cheap and poorly made. Even CYMA have improved over TM in important ways like having metal receivers. I fully support and will buy things that obviously borrow heavily from an existing design if it’s improved - I’ll happily buy an VFC, because even though it’s mostly a TM clone they’ve massively improved it by making it steel and wood rather than plastic and plastic. This is all far from unique to the Sidewinder, it’s just especially annoying because it’s not the property of some huge faceless corporation. It’s literally one guy who designed an amazing product, put in a truly astonishing amount of his own money and time developing it, getting it manufactured, dealing it to distributors etc., and all so it could get ripped off and sold for profit by massive companies inside six months. At this stage it’s hard to tell if we deserve innovation. Anyway, apologies for dragging the thread off topic.