Impulse

Completely agree on that. Once you have all of the kit, the maintenance costs aren't that bad. Hell, even set up costs aren't that bad. Have you seen how much runners will spend on trainers, or hikers will spend on boots and backpacks and sometimes camping gear?

I typically play every two weeks, but I try and get out to other skirmish days and events where possible. If I could, I'd probably play every weekend

We'll be there on Sunday

I get this, but at the same time I sometimes pair with newbie snipers as well so that I can give them some pointers and ideas on how to play the role. If we don't teach the noobs, they won't learn. That said, even if we teach the noobs that doesn't necessarily mean that they will learn either 😂

Guess I'll find out myself as a few of us are planning on going to Driver Wood this weekend. I see their DMR rules are 1.88J and a 25m MED so the MWS is going to be set up for that for sure!

These guys do milsim events to add to your list https://www.defiantevents.co.uk

I think this is the best and easiest way to do it. I frequently just pair up with a friend as a sniper team and we can do some real damage with some basic communication and teamwork. Also this. I tried a milsim and I barely shot at all. Once during the night where we were essentially set up as the fall guys (only team without night vision put to defend an objective against way more than us all with night vision) and then were set up the next day on what felt like a very scripted vehicle ambush. So scripted to the point where we had to do a loop and pass by again because taskforce managed to bungle the vehicle ambush that hard and needed a 2nd chance at it. Didn't really enjoy myself for the event, so I don't really do milsim. Don't really want to pay a bunch of money to be uncomfortable in a field getting shot by nightvision gang all night without any response because I can't afford to drop a couple thousand on fancy NVGs. I much prefer a good filmsim game over a milsim and would much rather spend my money on such. Gunman Namsoft is a great example; go out, make the lives of the GIs difficult by doing my sneaky sniper thing while yelling taunts at them. Play as much or as little as I want to through the day and then head back to the safe zone to eat something and get a good night's sleep before doing the same the next day.

I can't in good faith recommend Worthing Airsoft at the moment and Southdown Airsoft can't run through the winter due to the local wildlife, so I'm more than willing to give Driver Wood a try. Honestly, seeing that they're experimenting with longer games at Driver Wood only encourages me to try it more as I like longer games. What I've heard about Driver Wood is: - Marshalls that don't really care and don't enforce rules - Rampant cheating - An example of someone using metal BBs and shattering someone's eyepro and blinding him - Long pauses between games - Imbalanced teams to help regulars Honestly, I'm critical enough to not believe it all and the truth is usually in the middle of the positive and negative viewpoints. I reckon there is some cheating as you'll always have non-hit takers anywhere you go unfortunately, but especially after going to Southdown despite hearing similar negatives and having most of them being pure fiction I reckon there's definitely some tribalism affecting what I've heard about other sites.

I didn't really play this weekend, as I spent all of Saturday settling my little sister into university as it's her first year. After dragging a heavy suitcase with broken wheels, and carrying a bunch of heavy food shopping through London, I didn't want to take my chances on Sunday with my heart and play airsoft (still waiting on the arrhythmia clinic to talk about treating my atrial fibrillation) but I still went down to Worthing Airsoft to chat and tinker with my MWS on the range, since having a 100m range isn't something I have access to in the middle of Brighton. Anyway, I first helped a guy put together his ZCI hop unit and try and troubleshoot why his new (2nd hand) AEG was acting up. Wasn't the hop up, with a new ZCI rotary unit and a G&G green bucking it was firing very nicely when it fired properly, but it was horribly inconsistent. Eventually we worked out it was either his mag alignment or, more likely, a poorly done gearbox. With my aversion to gearboxes, I wasn't going to help him pry it open and tinker it though! Also my friend's m700 was acting up (again) and I realised his gas router was installed upside down, so after changing that over he just had to tweak the power a little bit to get it under 2.3J. Anyway, once everyone headed out to games and after a bit more of a chat with the staff, I got the MWS out and took it to the range. When I took it to Southdown Airsoft last weekend it was shooting all over the place and was totally unusable, so I swapped out the Maple Leaf autobot rubber for a very old Maple Leaf MR hop rubber that was in my parts box for the past three or more years just to see if it was the type of hop rubber and... it was; I brought all of my VSR hop rubbers and all of my nubs as I was ready to experiment to find the best combination, but the old MR rubber with the Jaeger Precision nub was working really nicely. Even with the really old MR hop rubber it was shooting really nicely at 1J on .32s and was pretty accurate and consistent, so it's now my go-to 1J gun. I forgot to bring my .4s so I couldn't open up the NPAS and experiment at DMR power (1.64J at Worthing Airsoft), plus my friend forgot to bring his dremel so I couldn't modify the fire selector anyway. Will get that done during the week. Anyway, I was originally planning on replacing the old MR hop rubber with a silicone one like I have in my AKM (that performs really nicely too!), but with how it was performing this weekend on the range I'm happy to just keep the old rubber in until I need to swap it out. If it ain't broke don't fix it! Once I finished up there, my friend had come back and grabbed his m249 as there were too many snipers and it was getting boring. Apparently on his team alone there were at least 8 bolt action snipers and about 6 ghillies (not necessarily the same people either), so he wanted something with a bit more punch. At this time of year the site is still very thick, so having so many rifles with an MED was really grinding the game down and had all the snipers vying for the same spots. I next saw him coming back early before lunch and apparently it's because the marshalls were running games on semi-only. This is something that is really grinding my gears about Worthing Airsoft these days and this is coming from me; I pretty much only play on semi-auto and believe that full-auto is a crutch for people who can't aim (a generalisation, but one that is mostly accurate, pun intended), so if I wanted the game to cater to me over everyone else I'd be wholly endorsing semi-only games, but I hate it. Semi-only games have their place, but that place is not woodland skirmish days. Furthermore, it screws people over like my friend who like support guns, since his m249 only fires on auto and even feathering the trigger he was told he couldn't do that because it wasn't semi. Plus someone moaned when he hit them with two BBs from feathering the trigger. It's also a decision made on the day, so what happens if someone brings their support gun for a skirmish game only to be told "sorry, you can't use that because we're playing semi-only today." As I said, I don't mind semi-only games and love playing filmsim and battlesim games where everyone is restricted to semi-only and support guns have to be deployed, but can shoot full auto, however a woodland skirmish day is not filmsim. Apparently the reason for it was that the gameplay was too close, so during lunch I went for a wander down to where the game was being played, as I know there is an area of the site where semi-only is needed, as the Clearing area of the site is basically like playing in a woodland killhouse (used to be clear, now the name is pretty ironic and some call it Coppice). However, the area this game was being played was no thicker than the other areas of the site. There weren't going to be many close range firefights where the game was being played, and some of the foliage needed full-auto to punch through. I think the players and the marshalls are getting a bit too precious about full auto, and they do nothing about people with hair-triggers who spam semi-auto faster than some people have full-auto since it's how a few of the marshalls have their own guns set up. I get no full-auto under 10m, but limiting entire games in a woodland skirmish setting where most engagements are between 20 - 50m to semi-only is ludicrous! I love Worthing Airsoft and I would consider a lot of the staff and regular players as friends, but it's lost what made me fall in love with the site in the first place. Once I've got my driving licence and my own car, I think I'm going to start trying other sites around. Haven't heard amazing things about Dogtag or Driver Wood, but I'll give them a go since I also hadn't heard good things about Southdown Airsoft and I had more fun there last week than I typically have at Worthing Airsoft and it was by no means a perfect day of well-managed skirmish! Yes, part of it was because it was a new site to me and it was way better for sniping than Worthing is, but the fact remains that I enjoyed myself more. The big one I'll probably look to do is the open filmsim weekends at Gunman Battle Lakes in Kent, as that's not too much further than Worthing Airsoft from where I live. Sorry about the rant, but I'm upset

Pretty sure the regular MWS mags will fit, just like the shorter mags should also fit the regular MWS.

The TM mp7 AEP on a 7.4v lipo is actually pretty snappy, but it's the only AEP I will ever own (I have heard good things about the Cyma mosfet edition AEPs too, but never owned one and doubt I ever will). Need to run it on full auto though because at any ranges over about 10m people don't seem to feel it. Mine shoots about 0.6J on a .25, so it's not entirely unexpected, but a burst of full auto usually gets them to notice. And if they moan about "omg full auto stop overshooting" after a burst of 0.6J .25s then you know they're a bit precious

I try to avoid Angry Gun parts like the plague as I have heard there are... issues . I did an m16a4 build with G&P AEG parts, but recently swapped out for MK12 Mod 1 parts (posted it a bit further up) and it has firmly cemented its spot as my go-to non-bolt action rifle. I absolutely love the aesthetic of it!

Another weekend at... not Worthing 😮 So this weekend a few of us decided to try a new site, since Worthing is only every two weeks and one guy hasn't been able to play for a bit due to family and football commitments and he wanted to get out and play BB wars. I snagged a lift with him since he lives near to where I am and we headed to Southdown Airsoft, near Petworth in West Sussex, along with two others from Worthing. I packed the MWS, as I planned on using that after doing a bit of setup, however I also packed the m40a5 and the mp9 just in case it didn't work as intended... and how prescient that was. Chronoed the m40a5 and mp9 first as I knew what to set them up with and it was nice and easy to get them sorted in case I needed them. Then I took the MWS to the range and... it was flinging BBs all over the place. I could get the power where I wanted it, experimenting up to 1.7J on .32s at the highest, though I imagine I can bump it up to 1.88J with .4s if I ever go to a site to run a DMR at, and I had no issue getting it comfortably to 1.1J on .32s without issue. However, it was flinging BBs left, right, centre, up, down, side to side. It was horrifically inaccurate, so I put it back in the bag and will swap the hop rubber out. I don't think it's ever really liked autobot rubbers, so I'll stick in an MR hop. Was running the Jaeger Precision nub, but I'll take it to Worthing with spare nubs and rubbers next weekend and properly sort it out as I really want to run it now that I've converted it to a mk12. They separated us into two teams, splitting the snipers down the middle too and I overheard a marshall being concerned that the other team had all their regular snipers who are well-known at the site with well-tuned rifles and our team had two of us who had never been to the site before and another kid. However, we dunked on them so it was all fine Anyway, with the m40a5 in hand and the mp9 in its holster, we headed out to the first game. The first game was good fun. There was a box with a scanner and people on each team were given cards they had to scan. So you had to run up to the box and scan your card to score a point, then once you've achieved that you handed your card back to the marshalls so you could only score once. I actually quite liked this, as it meant that a lot of people on your team had to push rather than the same 2 or 3 people playing aggressive and trying to get all the points by themselves. There were some very good pushes on both sides. My main criticism here were two things; the gameplay area needed some barricades (and with my criticisms of Worthing at this time of year you know it's gotta be bad if I'm saying that). It was way too open and that allowed people like me to set up and deny the other team any progress, assuming people are taking their hits. That was my 2nd criticism; there was some laughable non-hit taking. Most people were fine, but a not-small amount of players were hilariously bad at taking their hits on the way into the objective, getting laced up sometimes and not calling it. Marshalls sometimes called it out, but not always and I feel more could've been done. I just started aiming for more noticeable areas, like flabby bits sticking out the side of plate carriers. A .45 at 2J is going to be felt there! I got so many hits here that I had to reload and keep ammo out with me, which I never usually have to as I only shoot when I'm confident I'm going to hit the shot but there were just so many targets. I even hit the same guy (one of their regular snipers) 4 times as he kept going back to the same spot that I had a perfect line to. I was just thinking to myself "go literally anywhere else!" but he kept coming back and getting hit by me. Second game didn't work. It was a standard team deathmatch, but without any other objectives it turned into a bit of a campfest. I pushed up to a spot that overlooked a massive valley to watch a flank and denied a large area with my m40a5, but one of the guys I was with said he pushed so far up without finding anyone to shoot at that he was almost at their spawn. If I was running the game, I would've put an objective in the central tower structure of the area we were playing in for this game to force both teams to push up, as it slowed right down and wasn't a great game. That's all though, as we left at lunch. I'm only playing half days until my heart is fixed and my friend's mosfet got wet in the absolute torrential downpour that started during the second game, so we decided to head off early. Did I have fun? Yeah, I did actually. The site is great and the first game we played was super engaging. It's just a shame the weather was so bad and was absolutely tipping it down fairly early into the games as a lot of people (myself and one of the Worthing guys included) headed home at lunch because it was just unworkable. It was some of the heaviest rain I've ever been in, but the thunder storm was atmospheric as all hell. Don't think I'll be heading back any time soon though as it's a bit far from us and I think they have to close for the winter due to local wildlife or something. Was a good day though and I thoroughly enjoyed myself

Open dust covers 🤢 Seriously though, love them. Especially the longboi! Not enough people run long MWS builds

In AEGs it's way too complicated for a simple yes or no. Cylinder to barrel ratio is what affects AEGs, but honestly it's pretty minor. In gas guns, barrel length affects how it performs because of joule creep, so when using heavy BBs, a longer barrel gun will typically shoot harder than a shorter barreled gun, though this isn't necessarily a good thing as it can bring guns over the limit. As someone who likes both gas guns and long-barreled rifles, it's something I'm constantly struggling with

MWS mostly done. Will eventually replace the repro CTR stock with a real-steel Magpul one and will probably get a Visionking scope for it to replace the Strike Systems one on it at the moment. Might get a 45 degree mount for a red dot for close shooting, but we'll see. Also, with the suppressor off and the stock all the way in, it fits in the smaller rifle pouch of my larger gun bag, so I can take both it and one of my (many) bolt actions in one bag now

I've run a game with a belt kit with a single 2x 5.56 mag pouch on it with two midcaps and a utility pouch with an Odin speedloader and I never had any ammo issues, and it was super lightweight. Can recommend! Would never do that with my MWS though because heavy, but when I run a gas sniper rifle, I do that on a belt kit as I only take 2 spare m700 mags. It's a bit heavy even with only two, but it's manageable! Got myself a split chest rig (so I can unclip the front and push it aside when crawling on my belly and have nothing on my front digging into my torso and dragging mags through the dirt) for if I am running my MWS or AKM or if I'm going to a larger event like AI500 or the NAF and need the ammo, but for most skirmish or filmsim games I find that a belt kit is adequate for running anything that isn't my MWS or AKM

I storage charge mine after every game day I use them, however I don't reliably use my batteries since most of the time I run gas guns. If I run an AEG, it's entirely possible I won't run one for months or I may run one literally the next game day, so I just got into the habit of storage charging just in case.

Wait, people take more than like... 300 BBs out with them into games? [this post was brought to you by GBBR Gang]

Just got back from a great day at Worthing Airsoft (for the most part). It was very, very warm, but after last game day I decided to go with the long sleeves and I'm very happy with the decision as I have got home and my arms are not in agony from the various lacerations from all the thorns and the horrible burning from all the stinging nettles (seriously, the foliage at Worthing is more dangerous than the enemy players, I swear...). Took my KJW m40a5 as usual, but decided to run my KWA mp9 in a thigh holster, as I want to replace it with a TM mp7 so I wanted to make sure it worked well as a setup, as well as my TM bodyguard in a shoulder holster. Didn't fire the bodyguard pistol once, but the other two got a whole lot of use. Everything chronoed fine, with the m40a5 being around 1.8 - 1.9J, which I was fine with since with the temperatures probably increasing in the day the power would likely increase a bit, so having a solid 0.4J of wiggle room means I wouldn't end up being hot. KWA mp9 came up 0.8J, so that was fine as well. Hopping .32s out delightfully! Anyway, first game was the sands of pain. Basically, box with timers on it that you have to go up to and push your button down to start accumulating time. Can't press it with a foot, have to go up and put your hand on the button. Box can't be moved and it's always placed in a nasty location where you're going to get shot a whole lot. The site hasn't had any changes from last time and I am yet to see a team win from one of the sides. We started on that side and made a decent push up, but both us and the other team were unable to get much time on the clock. I teamed up with some of the more experienced players, calling out movement and taking some long-distance shots for them as we tried to push up, but spawning from that side was very difficult to push up with as there are a LOT of strong positions on the other side with the way the new constructions are. However, second game we switched ends and... it wasn't even close. I went to the same position that I know has been made disgusting because of the new builds and held a flank by myself, with my friend a little behind me in another spot watching our flank (and also having perfect sight onto the sands of pain box, so none of the enemy team could get any time on it). The main issue was that I only have three magazines for the m40a5, so that's about 84 shots in total and I had gone through a magazine in the first game. 48 shots and I'm pretty sure I got about 40 kills with them, as enemy players constantly approached the new checkpoint that I have perfect line of sight to and I kept picking them off. Furthermore, the rest of our team managed to push up decently well and we got a whole load of time on the clock. I think we got almost 3 minutes total, which all of it was in the second game (which is a LOT when you have to be pressing a button in the open to count up) and the other team got under a minute which was pretty much all in the first game when we were on the other side. The highlight of the day was that there were some milsimmers present today and some of them were getting a bit salty with me constantly picking them off; the issue with getting salty at me when I'm not breaking any rules is that I find those buttons and just constantly press them because it gives me great joy, so every time they came along my flank I'd give them a .45 (BB, not the calibre!) to the plate carrier or arm. By the end of the game I was basically out of ammo on the rifle; I think I had 2 shots left. I will once again reiterate my point that they need to do some more work at the Tower base, as it's really imbalanced from one side. Third game was a three base domination and I found out that some, but not all, of the ghillies on the other team (all of the ghillies were on yellow; only me in my uncrafted viper hood and my friend in his ghillie were on blue) were being cheeky and they were spawn-camping all day, creeping around the edge of the site and setting up just outside our spawn; I just didn't know because I hadn't had to go back to respawn yet! This game I decided that I wasn't having that and basically played rearguard all game. I spotted one trying to cross into some nettles that were just outside our spawn and I showed him why I have the opinion that mk23s are crappy sidearms for snipers. His position was way stronger than mine, and if the positions were reversed, I would've hit him where I was shooting from easily when we traded a few shots with the bolt actions, but fortunately the shots he took went wide and I decided that instead of this unfavourable situation for me, I would give him an unfavourable situation, dropping my bolt action and pulling out the mp9 before rushing him down. He was a little salty, saying the tree he was behind was crap, but it was way stronger than my spot; his issue was that the mk23 is crap at fast shooting and I just rushed him down with the mp9, keeping his head down with a few shots and moving around to shoot him from the side. I reset my position and spotted a 2nd ghillie who had crept into the nettles and I sent some shots his way. There was a bit of teflon here, since I watched the shots go in and watched him recoil from some of them, but he went to ground and kept trying to creep up next to our spawn. Sent some more shots into him as he crested the nettles, causing him to go to ground again. I then told a few of my team mates that there was a sniper in the nettles and two started moving around to clear him and a 12 year old with the worst sounding AEG I've ever heard came up to where I was. Told him where I had seen the bush wookiee and... he spotted him and took him out. He did get traded, but he took the full ghillie'd full-upgraded VSR bush wookiee with his m4 that sounded like it was constantly running out of battery, respawned in and came back to me congratulating him on the shot. Turns out it was his first time airsofting, so I'm glad he got him I did then friendly fire someone, but it wasn't my fault. Saw them peeking out in our direction from behind some cover, so I colour challenged him. He didn't respond, peeked out again and I shot him on the face mask, then he came out was showed his arm band. I was just like "why didn't you respond when I colour challenged you?!" since if I colour challenge someone and they don't respond, I'm assuming they're hostile 😂 I called it at lunch time though. It wasn't because it was too hot; I generally enjoy warm weather airsoft, but I do quite literally have heart disease so I didn't want to push it. I'm being somewhat melodramatic with that, but last week I finally managed to get the symptoms for my palpitations captured when it acted up on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and they've confirmed it's atrial fibrillation, which is a heart disease (but it's not the worst). Hopefully will be able to get an ablation done and get back to living my life properly, playing all day at airsoft and doing the exercise I enjoy doing during the week and losing the weight I want to lose, because I can't at the moment Spent the rest of the day tweaking my Tanaka m700, but that's really a wall-hanger. It's incredibly rare and the stock is a real wood Remington 700 stock converted for the Tanaka m700 receiver, plus it's not as consistent as my KJW ones and doesn't like the intake rubbers I use to control the power, so it's not practical to use. However, I also learned something that might cause me to revisit HPAing my m14, as someone else was having the same issue and the tech on-site had a good look at his and found out what was causing the issue in his. I'm about to try the fix on my engine too and if it works I might consider keeping that HPA'd and just run is as a shorter m14 build for a more recce role (and also CQB because I love taking long guns to CQB and I don't mind the line as much in CQB since I run my plate carrier, which works better with a line and tank, and I'm not crawling through bushes and getting caught on literally everything) Looking forward to next week. Trying a new site with a few of the Worthing lads and everything worked well today so I'll be running the m40a5, mp9 and bodyguard pistol there too

BLS and Longbow. Also ASG Blasters are okay at those weights too.

I always have flip up irons as well as a scope where possible, but that's mostly because if the heavens open up (which let's face it, we're in the UK and that isn't uncommon) I can just remove the scope and flip up the irons to aim instead, since trying to use a scope in the pouring rain is a real pain. At CQB distances I'm at a point where I typically don't need to properly aim and just point and shoot, though sometimes I'll tilt my rifle to get a better view down the barrel. At those distances, hop doesn't matter, and for anything longer I just use the LPVO.

Easily. I run .32s, though with my weird hop arm that's as much as it'll do. With a better hop arm or nub like the bavtac one, you'll easily lift .3s. I've got a Jaeger Precision hop arm in my bits box now, so I'll likely fit that at some point if my gun starts performing poorly. At the moment though, if it ain't broke, I'm not fixing it! In terms of range, I can reliably hit the 60m target at my local field and I trust the range at my local field because I've confirmed the ranges with my rangefinder! It's a lovely gun for sure

Or they'll agree that it looks like shite and would still love to chat about it 🤣