Rogerborg

Genuine "wut?". Do you mean some sort of loicence to import them? Given the shitshow of trying to do individual imports at the moment, is there some commercial track for getting RIFs past the fun sponges at Border Farce?

I'm surprised that airsoft remains so cheap. My two regular sites are £26.50 outdoors and just £25 for a full day of indoors. Neither do "free" food, but I'm fine with not having the price of a tepid hot dog costed in. The Depot 2.0 is now up to £36 a day, which is when I start to question the value for a site still under development. Although I'd be amazed if their income comes close to paying the rates on the building - I'd assume they're doing some sort of "sports charity" wheeze again. As just noted elsewhere, I reckon the real rate of inflation is running at well above the headline 4.9% CPI, given the hundreds of billions of new fiat that we've shaken from the magic money tree. That necessarily reduces the value of what's in our pockets. It's amazing that prices haven't risen further and faster. On that, if you're waiting for RIF and consumable prices to come down before buying, I wouldn't. Money printing and now sharp rises in fuel and energy are only going to drive prices higher. True, not when comparing site vs site. However, when comparing playing versus watching Netlix, it's a real consideration. At 50 to 70 mile round trips to the nearest sites now, I can't ignore the costs of fuel any more. Of course, this is all in the context of a hobby where we think £100 for a toy is bargain-basement. I'm sure many of us could find a season's play just by thinning our collections a bit. I've got RIFs in baskets at two retailers, but in both cases I've hovered over the buy button and thought "Wouldn't you rather spend that money on playing instead?"

Narp. GBP has been creeping up slightly against the Euro for the last year, but it's a small wibbles and wobbles either way. I'd assume it's just the long awaited price hikes coming down the chain. Most countries printed billions++ of $CURRENCIES over the past couple of years. This necessarily devalues the purchasing power of fiat, and everything is going up sharply. Food, energy, housing, transport, I reckon the headline 4.9% CPI is very optimistic.

Looks like he's already here and has played twice. I'd have no doubt that he really is a regular airsoft player. The issue is proving that to whatever fun sponge is warming the desk at Border Force when his Predator enters the UK.

I will never cease to be astonished at the enthusiasm for airsofters to hand our hard-earned over to some complete rando for a non-binding intention to possibly perhaps supply us with something not entirely unrelated to what we paid for at some indeterminate time in the range of next-week-to-forever.

He has been, he was convicted of fraudulently stealing money ostensibly going to Help For Heroes. As to why he hasn't been done over and over and over again since then...

Your local sites might have their own rules, I'd check with them what they think a "DMR" is, and whether they know that the Mk 12 is an actual thing. Precocking, meh, 100 milliseconds might make a difference, but so might Eddies in the space-time continuum. I reckon the default option is a CYMA CM.098 AR10/SR25 toy. I'd be looking for reasons not to start from there.

Hello, and I'm afraid the honest answer is going to be "We don't know" because this exact same question gets asked over and over, but the people who ask it never provide an answer once they've succeeded or failed. Even if they did, it will come down to the Border Force agent who actually handles your RIF. I have asked Border Force how many UKARA checks they perform, and they said that they do not hold that information as each agent handles their own cases, without a central record. What I will say is: JUST COS is not a defence. It is a scheme created by one retailer in order to give the appearance of a defence. Some other retailers now accept it, but they must be aware that cosplay is not one of the listed defences. The closest valid defence is theatrical purposes, but that's not what the (alleged) insurance covers. Of course, you may get lucky, and Border Force may not know that. UKASA, like UKARA, requires you to be a member of an airsoft site. Since most sites use the UKARA rules (at least 3 games, at least 2 months / 8 weeks) before they will offer you membership, I cannot see how UKASA helps you out here. Now, they may not actually really check site membership, but it will cost you £30 to find out. We do not know if Border Force are familiar with UKASA, but in any case the defence is that intend to use the RIF for airsoft activities, which is shown by site membership, not whether that membership is then recorded elsewhere, e.g. UKARA or UKASA. Military Vehicle Trust is the only scheme that I'm aware of that doesn't require evidence of activities, and which actually provides some evidence of a defence, i.e. historic reenactment. However, whether Border Force accept that for a modern imitation like the G&G Predator is again unknown. They shouldn't, because the defence you'd be claiming clearly doesn't apply to that replica. And you don't actually have that defence, which might become an issue if the police come knocking at your door wanting to know why you tried to import a realistic imitation firearm, and you suddenly change your story. Any of them might work though, it really will come down to how lucky you are. If you're really lucky, Border Force might even accept the evidence that you have played airsoft - and ideally receipts for future booking - as sufficient evidence. It would be a huge gamble though, given that it could end up with the RIF being destroyed and/or you being investigated. I would suggest that the safest option is to turn the Predator into a non-realistic imitation, by painting at least half of it (e.g. stock and handguard) in a bright colour. Airsoft retailers in the EU do send painted guns into the UK, and historically this was never a problem. Although again, Border Force may change their mind at any time. Since the VCRA does not mention durability, you could consider using paint that can be removed relatively easily, like Plasti-Dip. If you do this, I would label it clearly and honestly inside the packaging as a "non realistic imitation firearm" and "1.1J airsoft non-firearm" (or whatever energy level you want to claim for it). You could even disassemble it in order to make it clear to any inspection that it's not a real firearm. I'm sorry that we don't have answers to this, I realise it must be very frustrating that the process is so unclear and risky.

I think You Are Paying for all the Capital Letters they have Loquaciously Used in their Real Steel Detailed Description. Points for effort, although I really hope that when they say "Real Steel" that they don't mean that's actually a cannibalised M1903, even if they started with a de-activated JROTC unit. I wonder idly if it actually works in any meaningful fashion as an airsoft gun, or whether it's really just a de-ac that you can hang on the wall and exclaim "Hands off, that's lethal barrelled, that is, you need a loicence to get one." They don't mention magazines, and as we know there's no guarantee that putting a bunch of random parts together will produce anything useful.

The thing is, just between us girls [looks around] businesses that have switched from dedicated servers to internal cloud / on-demand services are now fretting over the costs, and constantly exhorting and inveigling their own staff to use less resources. Smaller binaries, they cry, less CPU, less bandwith, our docker images are out of hand, heavy users are being monitored. Cloudy may or may not be cheaper than having dedicated cable-monkeys and hardware, but it can all be costed now, and the bean-counters want to haggle over every nibble.

Did you know that in a modern city, you're never more than 15' away from a rat, or a fraudster?

Don't forget the Warbelt for Warlike Warriors of War though.

Random aside, but the Chief Inspector of Constabulary has just noted that "online crime is now by far the most prevalent type of crime, and by means of the internet fraud has exploded; in volume, it eclipses everything" [page 40] "yet fraud indefensibly continues to be treated as a low priority" [page 49] and "police response continues to be a complete pile of wank" [slightly paraphrased]. https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/wp-content/uploads/state-of-policing-2021-single-page-format.pdf

Can you imagine what sort of amazing shooting range they must have in the basement at Border Force by now?

BASIC? With line numbers? Luxury! I code in JSFuck, on punchcards, and I have to get up before I go to bed the night before to start feeding them in.

I can't see how this was one of them though. Of course there's always the argument that when permission is refused, it triggers the condition that the evidence is likely to be destroyed or removed before a warrant can be obtained. Rather circular though. It certainly can, but how often does it happen? Can you provide some examples of where UK police have performed unannounced forced entry, without waiting to see if anyone opens the door, even with a warrant? I'm not actually advocating the "come back when you have a warrant" strategy, if you're convinced that no evidence of any criminality will be apparent once you invite the vampire copper in. However, how confident are you that you know every possible offence that you might be committing? Just for example, if you have a knife or sword with a curved blade over 50cm, that's now an offence to even possess in private.

Even BSD, sicko?

Yup https://defence-blog.com/ukraine-has-received-55-at105-saxon-armoured-personnel-carrier/ reckons "51 thousand dollars, taking into account all fees and transportation costs". Looks like we mugged them off, if so.

Before you explain it to me, first explain it to ducky.

I can't see anything specific for the CMF-16s. They do seem to have a lot of controls to get in the way of disassembly. It went together, it'll come apart. Any chance of a video showing the problem? You can often find a solution to a problem while explaining it.

Background nerdism: the Pinzgauer is presumably more competent than the 75 AT105 Saxons that we gave to Ukraine in 2014, which according to General Sir Richard Dannatt are "quite useless, semi-armoured lorries that should be nowhere near anyone's front line". Oof. They're using some of them as ambulances, at least when the Russians aren't capturing them.

Can't think why airsoft players were ripe for a tweaking.

PatrolBase reckons 309fps, Bespoke says 300-350, but know, airsoft, you get what you get.

I skipped the part about using a blob of Blue-Tac to secure a slightly over-sized spring on the hop unit as too-much-information, but every little bodge helps.

If you stick with airsoft, you'll soon build up a collection of small random screws which were apparently surplus to factory requirements. Alternatively, eBay or Amazon can provide boxes of small assorted screws, or you can stamp on some kids' toys and see what you end up with. Yes, ideally there should be something pushing the hop unit back against the gearbox. You've also going to start eyeing up things around the house as likely sources of parts, like biro or battery-box springs. You could also use a rubber o-ring over the barrel, or in extremis wrap a rubber band around it and see if that gives you the right amount of shimming.