PureSilver

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)

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.

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.

Shame. Odin is a one-man band developing awesome, innovative products. He quit airsoft product development for about five years after people took his brilliant design and immediately cloned it so cheapskates could save themselves £20. I have absolutely no doubt that this sort of thing contributes to the generally stagnant nature of airsoft technology. Really? I wouldn't have thought iWholesales would sell fakes, but I've been wrong before. They're certainly priced like the real thing.

I mean £565 plus £100-160 equals £665-725, and £500 is 75% of £665 and 69% of £725. 70-75% of RRP for a gun with less than one bottle of BBs through it isn't even all that high, although I would probably expect to receive more like 65-70% simply based on how much returns diminish after £400. I think you might also be forgetting to factor in the high cost of quality accessories which are usually included with NGRS packages. Taking this Delta as an example: Gun ~£550 Grip ~£20 Magazines ~£25ea. ODIN M12 Sidewinder ~£50 (assuming it's genuine, and I'm not sure there are tan fakes) IMAX B6 ~£35 Four batteries ~£50 That's £880, of which the £500 asking price is 57%. If he split the magazines, speedloader and charger off as separate items he'd be asking the equivalent of £341 for the gun and the batteries, which I would describe as "acutely reasonable".

Waiting on a regulator and other CO2 components, but hopefully I’ll start to have answers early next year. I’ll update the thread when I do. They’re not really intended to be a sniper’s scope, but I’ve found G&P’s ACOGs to have very superior glass compared to other airsoft-grade sights. I’ve had a couple of clone Leupold 3.5-10x40 Mk.IVs and compared to those my old G&P 4x32 really was extremely nice. 4x is really all you’ll need in airsoft (you'll miss faffing with adjustable magnification and focus a lot less than you think you will), you don't get the fish-eye that seems endemic to airsoft-grade adjustable-magnification scopes, and the sight is extremely compact and basically indestructible. They're heavy and the eye relief is unforgiving, but they’re really good optically. I replaced my G&P with a real TA01NSN, and while the Trijicon is a lot nicer and has things the G&P didn't (like tritium illumination) the G&P was excellent and entirely adequate for airsoft. G&P make a few different models; I had GP-035 - pretty much the most basic one. £85 for the sight, plus £7.50 for a polycarbonate lens and £7.50 for a killflash to put the lens in gives you an extremely rugged and high-quality BB-proofed optic for £100 - not bad. If I recall correctly a VisionKing shortdot is about £60 plus the mount and a lens protector, so there's probably only £20ish in it. If you want to see how the ACOG looks on the shortest possible SRS, let me know - I can get a picture of mine.

I have a PDI in my Fast Hop G-Spec with the FOW nub and drop-in R-hop patch. I’ve barely had a chance to try it but it does all fit together.

IIRC for some reason the Hephaestus (really expensive) was based on the S&T (cheap and really nasty) Tavor bodyshell rather than the Ares (really nice), even though the two were functionally identical since S&T are basically the bargain-basement offshoot of Ares. I always thought it was weird that it was that way around - maybe Ares refused to sell them just the furniture and they didn't feel like paying for a $400 gun just to throw three quarters of it away.

Sniper rifles are a bad, bad choice for beginners. Sniping can be rewarding to certain types of player, but for most (especially beginners) it's uncomfortable, boring, bloody expensive, and a lot of effort. Sniper rifles are built, not bought, and a good one is a minimum of £350 plus tens of hours of tuning. Crap clone sniper rifles (e.g. WELLs, JGs, Warriors, UTGs) in particular can be virtually unusable out of the box; even good ones (Tokyo Marui) will be about as effective as a mid-range AEG but with a ROF measured in rounds per minute, not rounds per second. Forget the sniper rifle. Pistols aren't bad but they aren't necessary. A good pistol is £125-150 plus another £40-50 for two spare magazines, another £25-50 for a holster, and another £10-25 for a double magazine pouch. If you add that (£190-250) to your primary weapon you could buy a gun that's really good, as opposed to 'just good enough for a beginner'. Unless you'll be playing a lot of CQB (and even then, it's not ideal) I wouldn't get a pistol yet; you have more important things to buy. What you want is versatility; a weapon that will work reliably and effectively in CQB, field play, milsims, speedball, hot, cold, rain, snow - everything. For that you want something light, compact, and with a reasonable rate of fire - an SMG or compact assault rifle are your best bets by far. Common suggestions for new players are G&G Combat Machine ARs (£125-175) and CYMA cm.04x-series AKs (similar). If you want an MP5 ICS, G&G, SRC and VFC make good ones, although personally if you want something a bit different I'd be looking for a MagPul PDR, RealSword Type 97B or an AUG or P90 of some description. This is extremely dubious at best. Buying Secondhand: Just as with buying from a retailer, the seller, not the buyer, is the one who's liable to be prosecuted. Any seller with any brains will ask to see proof of your defence. Modifying an IF to a RIF: This is a criminal offence - s.36(1)(b ), Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 - just like importing, manufacturing or selling a RIF. The only advantage here is that it will be you committing the offence, not the seller, so at least you're not endangering anybody else. TBH if you have records of going to a local club repeatedly you probably do meet the standards for a defence; can you not ask them to provide you with a site membership eligible for UKARA registration? It would save you a lot of trouble and possibly a considerable amount of money.