Impulse

I play all year round, but I am 100% more of a summer player. Everyone calls me a fair weather airsofter because I don't like the wet (mostly the wet), and I'm not as keen on the cold. And then when the summer heat comes around the shoe is very much on the other foot and I start ridiculing them for being wimpy over a little bit of warmth as this country very rarely gets to temperatures that I can't play in. Usually has to be accompanied by high humidity. However, I did used to play airsoft in the south of Spain. We'd have to stop game days there at lunch time during the summer because that was simply too warm to play. However, too warm being "hey, it's almost 40 celcius" instead of "it's just over 20 celcius"

You're going to love me or hate me, but let me introduce you to AliExpress. They do earmors at a fraction of the cost, and from what I can tell they're identical to the ones you'd buy locally. Now that you know AliExpress exists, have fun buying loads of cheap tat for airsoft that you don't really need. You're welcome.

I have an MTW 308 and honestly I completely get this. If I hadn't installed a slightly longer inner barrel causing it to no longer fit in the box it came in, I'd probably put it back in its box for now as especially with winter coming to a close I just don't think I'll be using it at all. When it comes to my DMR platform of choice it tends to be my MWS because the MTW does feel soulless. It performs fantastically well and is disgustingly quiet, but it's just not as fun, it's far too easy, and the GBBR performs more than well enough for a DMR! Similar reason why I prefer lighter ghillie setups. Part of it is the immersion (most applications in real life tend to be capes or hoods, not these all over suits), part of it is that with how blind airsofters already are, it's far too easy 😂

My main issue with getting helmets is I am a big person with a big noggin. I need 62cm and a lot of Aliexpress ones tend to be 60 - 61cm and are just too tight!

So your boy has a good head on his shoulders then. Good on him 😄 Though take it from me; him saying that is probably an extremist view in their opinions. Our country's education sector has been absolutely infested with people who think anything right of Lenin is "far right extremism" to the point where I've seen people I know with borderline socialist beliefs being labelled as "far right". I was a trainee teacher once upon a time (managed to fail my placement without failing a single assessment or observed lesson, and also taming the "problem class" that I was told I would never get on-side 🤔), and I have worked at a university since then and have seen this kind of stuff be all too commonplace. Anyway, I'll step down from my soapbox before I really get started 😂

Was an interesting day at Worthing Airsoft today, and I saw @Hatchet today which was a welcome surprise, and I know @Reef was there too, but I apologise as I didn't see you about! Fortunately it was a dry one, but it was very overcast and very humid so I sweated an absolute tonne, but I did play the whole day. Originally I was going to play half the day with my KJW m40a5 and then set up my Tanaka AICS ready for AI500 in a few weeks (as those are the two guns I'm taking), but my friends' guns were both acting up so instead I went out with my m40 as planned, and let my friend play with my Tanaka AICS, so he basically made sure it was shooting well and hopping properly (it was and he got lots of kills with it!) Also decided to not go with my cape + boonie + leafy rifle wrap ghillie setup today, as I've put lower scope mounts to bring the scope more in-line with the barrel. It definitely helps with the long distance shooting, but with a leafy rifle wrap it'd probably get in the way and piss me off. Instead I used my cobra hood, put a suppressor cover on the DTSS style suppressor on my m40, then simply wrapped scrim net around my rifle and secured it with black elastic bands (I now have a bunch of hair ties for this, but didn't have them for today). Worked like a charm and there was no point in the day where I feel like I wouldn't have been spotted if I was more ghillie'd up, but it allowed me to be a lot more mobile. Well, mobility was hindered by a foot injury earlier in the week, but I did quite like the lighter setup and will be using it at AI500 for sure as it all worked really well. The games were enjoyable. I missed the warm up game, as I was helping my friend try and troubleshoot his guns in the morning, so after the safety brief I had to finish sorting my mags and gear. However, I got out for the big game where there were multiple objectives. One was a box that was hung up in the open that we had to hold a button down on, and the other was a stretcher with a dummy on it that we had to find and bring to different bases across the site. The spawns weren't great, and it led to me doing a bit of spawncamping at one point unknowingly, as one of the bases we had to get the stretcher to was right next to the enemy spawn apparently, so while I was covering one side of the base along with Mr. @Hatchet (we made a pretty great team to be fair and completely shut that side down), we were unknowingly shooting pretty much into their spawn at times. We totally dominated that game and it did feel like the yellow team gave up after that base that was too close to their spawn. I played a lot more active than I usually do and it paid off as I got a LOT of good shots. After lunch they rebalanced the teams and we played a balloon game where each team had a load of balloons that we had to take to bases to score them. The further the base from our spawn, the more points each balloon would be worth. The energy that the blue team had in the morning was completely gone though and we got rolled, with me and my friend sniping along one side feeling like we were the front line for most of the game. I did also shoot the same guy four times behind a barricade and he kept getting medic'd, despite only having one medic life; at least he called the hits, but... yeah, waaaaaay too many medic lives. Reported that to the marshalls. Also the marshalls made someone take their ghillie off today because they weren't taking hits as they "couldn't feel it". Marshall watched them get laced up and not call it, so they sent them back to the car park to take the ghillie off. Marshalls were generally on it today and were on top of all the shifty behaviour that happened to my knowledge, so big props to the marshall team today for dealing with stuff there and then. While I would say there was more shifty behaviour today than normal, the marshalls were on top of it all. Last two games were three base domination games. Didn't get too many good shots in these games, as Worthing is really, really, really difficult for sniping now. If you stand, there's overhanging branches and coppices that block your shots, and if you go prone the brambles are too high and you won't have good lines of sight. Crouching is basically the way to go, but even then some of the brambles are still too high, not to mention the bottom of the site being literally unplayable if you have an MED; well, you can use your pistol, but if I go to the bottom part of the site, I may as well leave the bolt action at the top, so I didn't even bother going down to the bottom of the site in any of the games. I got a few with the pistol on people who pretty much walked up to me and didn't spot me, got a few at silly long range posting it through a gap in the coppices towards one of the bases, and in the second game when we swapped ends, I got a few on some players trying to be sneaky, so that was nice.

I have so many thoughts on this (@Tackle above mentioned some of them), but in short you have done nothing wrong and the school has wildly overreacted and it's awful that they're doing this; I'd love to say you shouldn't need to protect yourself and your son from the SS (phrasing done intentionally), but honestly... better safe than sorry with those corrupt bureaucrats. I was interested in all the same things at his age and my parents taught me to shoot with air rifles when I was 9; I had my own air rifle and the ammo both stored in my room because I was taught well and my parents trusted me to not do anything stupid. I was then in army cadets and I loved all the shooting and fieldcraft stuff there, then I started airsoft at about the same time. I was never reported to Prevent for being radicalised. Surely the first step would be to ascertain whether there actually is grounds for a report by talking to the parents about it and getting some context and/or seeing if the parents themselves are loonies (which it very much doesn't sound like you are!). It feels like in a five step process they've just decided to skip out steps 2, 3 and 4 and go straight to 5.

You'll be fine 95% of the time. Sometimes they do semi-only games, but it's a rarity, and if you only have full auto I'm sure they'd be fine with it as long as you feathered the trigger. Below 10m they want semi-auto only too

My main advice for Worthing Airsoft would be don't use something with an MED on your first game day there as it can be a challenge and/or a limiting factor in where you can play. It's not as bad as it could be, because spring hasn't properly sprung yet and the bushes are not all bushed up so the top part of the site is still viable with a bolt action or DMR with an MED, but it can still be a difficult site to play with an MED as the twiggy bits are still very prevalent. In a few months it'll be woodland CQB when all the leaves come back, and the bottom part of the site is literally unplayable with an MED, even during winter. Never been to Invicta's woodland site myself, but it's on my list to visit once I have my driving licence and a car.

Way too far for me, but I wish you luck with it. Defiant Events did one in the south a few months ago and everyone who went loved it, so hopefully you'll find similar success! Personally, I'd make it gas snipers only so you don't get a bunch of people showing up with tac41s and VSRs, but I'm probably biased in that regard... *looks at 2x Tanaka m700s + 2x KJW m700s + PPS kar98k*

Haha, that's exactly what I did. Picked up a few of the ex-police x300s myself

I'm in Brighton, right on the south coast. To my knowledge, the only sites near me are Worthing Airsoft (40ish mins), Driver Wood (40ish mins), Dogtag (40ish mins), Southdown Airsoft (1hr 15mins), Battle Lakes (1hr 15 mins). Invicta is about 1hr 30 mins and Imperium is about 2hrs. Gunman Eversley is also about 2hrs I think, because the M25 is always a bastard, so while Google maps says 1hr 40mins, I can say from experience going there for Vietnam games it's closer to 2hrs. If there are other sites, I'd love to know about it! I'm starting to learn to drive (literally just had my 2nd lesson), so once I've got that done and I've got my own car, I'll be looking to explore a bit. And yes. I went to Dogtag... also about a year ago and I wasn't impressed the day I went. There was a regular who was blatantly cheating by going out of bounds to sneak around and shoot people in the back (we literally caught him doing it on camera, emerging from out of bounds to shoot people in the back) and this same person also didn't take his hit from me when I shot him in the back with a mk23 (he wasn't the only questionable hit taker either). The games were... fine, and we got the better end of it in my opinion as we used the paintball fields instead of the airsoft fields; the airsoft fields there looked really small and very contained. I much prefer wide open sites like Driver Wood and Gunman Eversley Alpha than the small, multiple arena type fields like Dogtag (and Southdown. They have a lovely wide open site... that they then split into small arenas!)

This makes sense to me, though I haven't been in about a year due to no driving license (working on that now!), but I still think it's one of the better sites within an hour by car from where I live. It's very commercial and I don't like that you're not allowed supposed to bring outside food because obviously they want to incentivise you to buy their food (I stash a bunch of snacks in my kit and eat them while I'm camping in a bush in game because screw that noise...), but the site itself is pretty nice, has good avenues for me as a bolt action / DMR enjoyer, and at least last time I went, I didn't have any major gripes other than your standard fare of one or two people being questionable with hit taking, but you get that most places I feel! For me, the draw is that it is much larger overall and isn't woodland CQB like Worthing is becoming with each passing year, since it's really overgrown at Worthing and isn't really being cut back; even in the winter the sight lines suck now, and I'm dreading what this summer will look like, and as I said, I like my bolt actions and DMRs. I'd be interested to see what you think of Dogtag when you get down there. Of the three sites within an hour by car from me (Worthing, Driver Wood and Dogtag), Dogtag is the only one where I don't think I'll ever go there again outside of once in a blue moon if I feel like changing things up a bit! I'd rather go to Driver Wood, Worthing, or spend a bit of extra time driving to Battle Lakes, or maybe even Invicta woodland or Imperium for their ground war (though that's almost a 2 hour car trip, so wouldn't want to do it for just a skirmish day).

Nothing too exciting, but I was trying to work out how to use my fancy Magpul MS4 sling with my Tanaka AICS (as I want to use a good quality sling on it!). One option was paracord to then loop the sling into, but then I saw these: TM L96 QD sling adapters. Ordered a set from HK and they fit wonderfully, meaning I can now just quickly swap my MS4 sling from my M40A5 over to my AICS in a matter of seconds (as the M40 stock has QD mounts as well)

I don't like players who throw tantrums over getting hit by BBs while playing BB wars, this is true. However, not all players I don't like throw tantrums over BB wars. And I said I only shoot the tantrum ones, but it seems that I, like @Colin Allen above me, assumed you had at least basic reading comprehension, so I apologise for my wild assumption. If I don't like a player but they're otherwise cordial, they get the same treatment as everyone else. Even non-hit takers get a peaceful walk back to spawn from me (when they actually decide to take one!) Hell, a lot of people who are good friends with each other that I know will shoot each other in the legs or the back or some other not-head-not-nuts body part while heading out to games because it's BB wars and we're a bunch of overgrown children running around the woods shooting each other with toy guns at the end of the day. It's never vindictive or some horrible full auto hose down, it's usually with their pistols that they otherwise never use in game. I use my pistols a lot because MED and overgrown woodland areas at the sites I go to, but I swear a lot of my not-sniper-not-DMR friends only use their pistols to shoot puddles and each other on the way out to games 😂 Maybe consider a visit to the proctologist for that stick; it seems to be pretty firmly wedged in there.