Impulse

I have a TM mk23 and an STTI mk23 (basically the same as the ASG) and I do prefer my TM. The trigger pull is already crap, but at least the TM's trigger is a smooth pull, where the clone mk23 trigger isn't and you really notice it when you handle both. However, the TM is £150 new where the clone ones are about £60 or so. My STTI mk23 was a pre-brexit Taiwangun purchase for £35. With all the upgrades I jammed in it, it probably ended up costing me about £100 all in and it's easily hopping .32s out to 50m accurately, 60m it'll reach but it's hit or miss. Would hop heavier, but I don't want to put heavyweight BBs into a pistol. If you can afford the extra £100, get the TM because it's better. However, the clone ones are better value for sure and will end up performing to a similar level after you upgrade them both. Oh, but the clone mags are better. TM mags are crap. Get ASG magazines and replace the feed lips with TM ones or Hadron ones. Stock feed lips tend to make the trigger stick.

Went to Worthing again today, but only played the morning. Only had space for 1 gun, since my other two rifle bags are being used for giving all my m14s to a local tech to do some magic on them as they all have different, but annoying small problems. One doesn't feed, one gearbox is totally locked up and one drops power as soon as any hop is applied. So I decided to bring just my m40a5 and HK45 for a sidearm, as I sorted the m40 last game day and it's one of my most reliable guns, and the HK45 is one of my most reliable pistols, especially in the colder temperatures we're starting to get. Easily passed chrono on both with a little bit of tweaking the bolt on the m40a5 and I'm still using my summer ghillie; there's enough green on the site that it still works, but I'd like to get my winter one done at some point soon. I have all the parts, but I just haven't started yet. I was also testing out my earmor m31s, the ones that are only hearing protection and ambient sound amplification, no radio comms with them. They worked well, suppressing grenade bangs while amplifying the noise of peoples guns and any twig snapping and leaves rustling when people moved, but they didn't amplify voices very well. Well, first game was an attack and defend on the checkpoint and we started from the good side. Got into my usual spot that overlooked the entire thing, but it was ruined by a non-hit taker very early on. My team... was a bit crap and I ended up being by far the furthest forward on my team and the other team pushed up near my position. I shot one with the HK45, a single shot right into the centre of his chest, but all he did was flinch and look around to try and find me. I had to put two more in before he called it, but that was enough shots to give up my position and I had to fall back. Didn't fall back too far, but it meant that we lost our only foothold near the objective. Not a good start to the day and it put me in a bit of a bad mood, but I didn't let it get to me too much. My team never pushed up anywhere near and I ended up being the front line for the entire game, despite having a bolt action with an MED. Second game we flipped sides and the wind started really picking up. I got into a position to cover one side of the checkpoint after I pushed up all the way, but... my team didn't really follow and I had to fall back again. Even in my fallback position I didn't really see many people pushing up past me as I was covering half of the area. Had someone shoot at me, but he wasn't adjusting fort the wind so all his shots were hitting to my left, whereas I adjusted for the wind and hit him out twice, as he got medic'd for the first. The third game was the best of the day by far. There were some jerry cans in the Tower base that the teams had to grab and take back to our respawns, Sounds simple, right? What made it a lot more complex was that the marshalls were all heavily armed and guarding the area with juggernaut rules. They could die to grenades and also if someone got into the Tower itself and hit a bell they all went down for 30 seconds. I decided to use the opportunity to practice my sniper skills and made my own game of it, since I wouldn't be pushing into the area with a bolt action rifle and my heart problems still very present. I decided to make my objective to hit every one of the marshalls at least once while not being detected or hit for the whole game, inspired by a video on the youtube channel that originally got me into ghillie sniping all those years ago. I took it very slow, getting into a position with a view into the Tower base area, though the window in to shoot was rather small so the shots would need to be precise. Furthermore, one of the marshalls is my friend and knew the likely area I would go. Him and another marshall were patrolling the area and looking around for me, but every time I saw them looking over in the area I went completely still. I managed to completely avoid detection the entire game and posted shots onto every marshall present, so mission accomplished for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it and our team ended up winning because my friend's grandson, who has only just started airsofting, managed to get into the base, take a jerry can and run it out before getting hit, but by that point it was far enough out for us to get. Of the three cans, we had two thanks to him, and the other team only managed to get one. I decided to call it there though. I had been fairly active in the morning with all the having to fall back from rapidly approaching enemy players and didn't want to push it with my heart issues still here. 31 week waiting list and I'm "only" 11 weeks in since the referral. Wind was picking up too, so combined with how they're developing the site into what feels more like a CQB site every day sniping was getting incredibly difficult. Next game day I might bring out the SR-25 again, as I'm waiting on the m14s to be sorted and that short m14 will become my go-to AEG once they're done, but for now the SR-25 will fill that void. Would go with the mk12, but it's getting cold for GBBs and with some of the questionable hit taking I don't want to have to be putting 5 shots into someone to get them to take it when I only have 35 in the magazine. We'll see how I feel, but with only one gun bag I have to be choosey with what I bring for now.

Not going to be a long one today. Went down to Worthing again this weekend with my KJW m40a5, TM MWS (mk12 mod1), TM mk23 and TM p226 (that I was lending my friend's grandson as he is currently thinking about what pistols he likes and wanted a go). Got there, got the gear out, took the m40a5 up to the range to set it up, as last time I used it was last weekend's halloween night game and I was running it at 1J on .32s... Here is where the first issue came up. It was dribbling BBs out the barrel on both 144a and green gas, even with the hop completely off. So, that was out. Went back to grab my MWS and... it wasn't hopping. The power was fine, but the hop just wasn't there. Well... crap. Both guns not working. Well, guess I'm not playing then. I worked on the MWS first, asking one of the techs on site if he had a spare omega nub as I had a feeling that was what was causing the issue. I had a 50 degree silicone omega nub and I had a feeling it wasn't applying enough pressure to hop BBs. Fortunately he had a spare one so I put that in and... it worked. As soon as I had the regular omega nub in it was hopping BBs like a dream and far more consistently than it was with the old MR hop rubber that was in from my old bits box that's been sitting there for years. New silicone MR rubber and a regular nub and it's lifting those .32s nicely at 1J (though it's a bit colder now so I had to open the NPAS a little!). Anyway, I had another gun that needed sorting and I wasn't sure what the issue was so I just decided to go from the ground up. I started with the bolt and... that was the issue. Somehow it had come loose and unwound itself so the hammer spring wasn't under any tension so it was barely hitting the gas release on the magazine. I tightened that up again and got it all sorted and took it up to the range. It was 2.5J so I had to adjust the power a little, but brought it down to around 2.2J and it was shooting incredibly well. I was hitting the 75m every shot and with a bit of hop towards the end of the flight I was hitting the 85m target most times as long as the wind didn't take the shot (which definitely happened a few times). It's amazing while shooting with 12x zoom how much you notice the hop up trajectory and all the tiny movements; even deployed with the bipod, at 12x zoom I could see every little movement but I was able to get some accurate shots and hear the BBs dinking off the metal target. This is why I like setting my guns up while nobody else is on the range as I can't properly set it up if I can't hear the shots and when you have mr brrrrrt and his AEG full autoing the 20m target... Yeah, not happening. Anyway, after lunch I decided to zero the MWS as well, getting the scope, 45 degree mounted RMR and the laser all zeroed. With all that done, there was only an hour left, so I decided not to head out. While I didn't play at all, it was still a pretty successful day since I now have two of my main guns properly set up and shooting incredibly nasty!

There is also more stress on the parts with pre-cocking, so you'll likely need to do maintenance and potentially replace parts more often. It's not a massive thing and it's not like your gears and piston will be exploding every other game, but over time there will be increased wear on the gearbox parts.

Interested to see this too, as I want to buy an mp7 and I'm still trying to work out whether I want the TM or VFC/Umarex one (at this point I'm also toying with the idea of just getting both...)

Played at Worthing Airsoft's annual Halloween night game last night and had a lot of fun. Night vision equipment is banned at Worthing's night games, so you didn't have the milsim brigade turning up with night vision equipment worth more than some people's entire airsoft collections and allowing a level playing field. The forecast for the night was absolutely awful, with a yellow warning for rain and thunderstorms through the evening. It was fine when we got there, but it quickly started to absolutely tip it down. Despite this, we had a good turnout with 36 players; it was almost fully booked with its 40 spaces! We arrived earlier than everyone else, getting there at about 4pm so that me and my friend could set up our rifles and then have a wander into the gameplay area to still try and work out how to attack the Tower base from the crappy respawn side that I still haven't seen anyone win from during the day (there's a bit of a spoiler for you for the games to come ) I originally wanted to bring the SR-25, however with a relatively exposed mosfet I didn't want to risk it with the torrential downpours that were forecast, so I opted to go with my KJW m40a5, set to 1.05J on a .32, and my STTI mk23 as a sidearm. Maximum sneak for playing around in the dark! However, this was where I had my first issue. While my m40a5 was doing decently on a .32 (overhopping a little bit, but nothing too egregious), my mk23 was clipping the end of the suppressor meaning I had to run it without it. What was a nice quiet sidearm became a very snappy, noisy pistol! Oh, I also put a red dot sight on my m40a5, so it looked like some sort of Call of Duty abomination gun build, but no way was I using a magnified optic without an illuminated crosshair for this game. I did toy with the idea of bringing out my illuminated scope, however I don't like 40mm scopes at the best of times, so I decided against it; I really need to buy those budget-but-pricey Visionking and Vector Optics scopes that I have my eye on... Anyway, as it got dark we headed back to the safe zone. We decided to pack all of our kit away preemptively as the weather was still relatively clear, but we knew what was going to come later. We both made sure that our kit was packed in such a way where what we were using for the games was also very easy to pack away; for me it was the rifle and belt kit both going into the rifle bag and my pistol going in its case. We then hung about and chatted with everyone else and... the rain started, and oh boy did it start. It was absolutely pouring, but there was some cover that we could stand beneath. I was suddenly glad I brought my waterproof! However, we were blessed by mother nature, as by 7pm when we were heading out to play, the rain had eased off massively. It was still raining a little, but it was absolutely fine! First game had 4 small disk-shaped light markers around the Tower base area (they're small, not the type to really illuminate anything). One was in Tower itself, one in the church, one in the stables and I believe one was a cross, a small criss-cross barricade structure just outside of the Tower base. We started from the bad side in the first game and had to turn the lights off, while the other team had to keep them on. I decided to take advantage of the fact that nobody would want to use the lower part of the site and headed down into Clearing so that I could come up on the corner and get some shots in the flank. Worthing Airsoft has some thick tree canopy, so it was very dark and I was just shooting at silhouettes and torch lights. However, what I learned is that my friend and another of the regulars had done the same as me but over the other side of the site and were taking everyone out from behind. The streak had been broken as we absolutely dominated this game from the bad side, however I wasn't too surprised as night games, especially with how dark it gets at Worthing Airsoft, are a very different beast and a lot of what makes the other side strong was negated by the lack of sight lines due to the dark. We swapped ends afterwards, with our team now spawning on the good side and needing to keep the lights turned on. I decided to stand away from the rest of my team as people were shining torches all over the place so I put some distance between myself and them and kept my eyes closed. I was trying to operate on natural night vision, and having torches shone in your face every few seconds wasn't a great way to maintain natural night vision. I waited until game was called on and people started heading off before I headed towards the fence line on the edge of the site. I knew I could get into a good position to once again get some shots into the flank of the enemy team as they came in to try and turn the lights off, but I had to be careful not to silhouette myself against the open field on the other side of the fence. This led to me crawling along the ground, stopping every time a light came anywhere near me. There were multiple times I had a torch shone directly at me, but keeping still I managed to go undetected and get into position. We managed to hold them back well and managed to win this game too, as they only managed to turn off the lights in the stables at the end of the game. Next game had a marshall in the top of Tower handing out objectives that we had to take back to our respawn. I decided to take the same route as I did the game before, heading for the fence line and crawling along the ground to set up a good ambush position with my m40a5. However, this game was pretty uneventful for me as our team managed to pin the enemy team back so nobody even crossed my ambush position, which was well in-front of the objective, so the enemy team never got close! We stopped for some food at 9pm and the heavens opened up again, so we all stood beneath the cover. Some people called it there, not wishing to play in the cold and the wet, but it wasn't a huge number. I think we lost about 10 players, bringing us down to 26 for the last two games which were the sands of pain. It was exactly the same game as last game day, with the box in the same place and everything. I had a bit of an annoying encounter and was the only time I got hit all evening, though I'm not counting it as a hit and will stick with the "I didn't get hit at all" line. I saw a guy moving up, lined up my red dot with his silhouette, pulled the trigger and got that satisfying thwack as my .32 made contact with plate carrier. However, he then just turned his light on, lit me up and shot me in the head then continued on. I wasn't about to argue it, but that was really annoying as I had spent time getting into position undetected only to have someone blatantly cheat in front of me and lace me up. There's a lot less certainty on whether you're hitting people during a night game as you can't hear your BBs, but when the shot is about 10m and you hear a very noticeable thwack of the BB impacting with fabric... yeah, I was annoyed. Anyway, I headed back to respawn and went down low again, heading for the bottom of the site and popping up near the enemy respawn. Not wanting to be a dirty spawn camper, I crawled up a bit as if I was on their team, getting to the checkpoint on the path where I set up my ambush position, waiting for players to pass me before shooting them in the back. It worked flawlessly and people had no idea where they were getting shot from, since the m40a5 is such a quiet gun. We swapped sides again for the final game and I, once again, used the bottom of the site to pop up near-ish their spawn again. However, once again, I didn't want to be a dirty spawn camper, so I moved up and got into a position to ambush people from behind a decent ways away from the enemy spawn. While my ambush position wasn't that far from where I'd set up an ambush if I was coming at it from our spawn's side, the important thing was the positioning, as the enemy team never had any clue where I was shooting them from and were very confused as to why they were getting shot in the back! Anyway, all in all it was a very fun day evening. Didn't get the most kills, as I was running a bolt action at night, but I had a great time seeing just how much sneaky antics I could get away with (a lot!). Got home last night, unpacked absolutely everything, partially disassembled my m40a5 and put the gun wrap, my waterproof jacket and belt kit out to dry so that it wouldn't stew in its muddy sogginess in my bags. Now today I will do a full clean on both the m40a5 and mk23 as they probably need it after all that.

Ready for tonight's night game. Say what you will, but this is what peak performance looks like 🤣

They both also work with the other GBBs I like using is definitely part of it. The Warrior Assault Systems one is amazing for my HK45 and decent for the p226 and the Amomax is great with everything (but not quite as nice as the WAS one). Both still work with a suppressor, which is my main thing because I like putting suppressors on everything. But in all honesty, I just don't really like the CTM as much. I prefer the retention releases on the other two (WAS one is best in my opinion as it's the same push as a mk23 DTD holster) and the CTM is a sort of lever mechanism. It also takes more molle strips than the other two as I have mine mounted on a Blackhawk mount. Also need to have it done up very tight on that mount, which makes the retention lever to release it a little sticky. People probably have better setups than me, but I'm just not a fan. I'd probably be more of a fan if I had my AAP in some sort of body kit that gave it a stock and made it more of an SMG, but it isn't. I either run it as an older fashioned Ruger .22 for Vietnam games, or a modern Ruger .22 sneakyboi pistol for modern kits; I use the same lower but just swap the uppers.

Another weekend, another game day at Worthing Airsoft and it was a bit of good and a bit of bad, all things considered. We turned up and I had not one, not two, but three m14s with me! All of them were different in almost every way. My TM m14 is full length and HPA, my Cyma m14 was a socom with an EBR outer barrel (so I can run a suppressor and still have a front iron sight) and the G&P was a relic in the DMR stock. Anyway, I knew I needed to test them all and at least one would work, surely... Surely, right? Well, fortunately the first one I took up did. The TM m14 was set to 80psi, passed chrono at 1.11 - 1.13J, but it's still doing the weird jamming thing, but not as much and not as bad. It is still a bit weird when I take the mag out and clear it, but it doesn't jam itself open to the point where I need an unjamming rod to fix it, and when the mag is in and it runs out of BBs it's generally fine. Was hopping the .32s out to a lovely distance, so that was good. Then I took the two AEG m14s up to get them through chrono as well, then I could decide which one to use. I picked up the Cyma, put the hop on and... the power took an absolute nosedive from 0.9J to 0.2J. I picked up the G&P m14, put the hop on and... same thing. Dropped from 1J to 0.3J. Fortunately, one of the local techs that I trust was around, so I spoke to him and have now given him both to have a look at. It's probably just tired o-rings or something, since the G&P is a relic and still has stock internals, and the Cyma was only available from a European warehouse so it's likely been sitting around for a while. I don't do AEG gearboxes though, so off they went to the tech. Now I need to buy another rifle bag, as that only left me with my smaller rifle bag (still fits the m14s in, but I can only bring 1 gun at the moment and no way am I turning up without a backup). First issue I noticed was at the brief. There were a lot of regulars and they almost all went on the yellow team, so me and my friend made a point to go on blue. A few regulars also went on blue, but it wasn't a very even split. Sure, we had some experienced players on our team, but not site regulars, so while they know how to play, there were a lot who didn't know where anything was. We also lost the rental lottery, with yellow getting the hard-pushing aggressive rentals and we got the passive hide behind barricades out of the fight rentals Anyway, I had the HPA m14 mostly behaving, so I took that out along with my new £60 ghillie cape that I put together. It worked an absolute treat! First game we had 3 flip cans in the Tower / village area, one in the tower itself, one in front of the church structure and one in front of the stables. However, they started with 5 on each team already in a building, but here was the issue. Other team put 5 regulars in, our team had 5 rentals in and they got annihilated as soon as game was on, giving the other team a very firm foothold in the village. Moreover, we were on the rubbish side, so pushing in was an absolute pain. I managed to crawl up and take a position that I like and it happened to have an angle on the stable building where a bunch of the regulars were and I completely shut them down... Until I got shot in the back by someone on my team while I was clearly firing at the enemy. Ugh! Anyway, I went back to respawn and came back, but this time I pushed up even further, taking another spot that had vision on the back of the stables, but also had line of sight down a long path and to a few other barricades and caused some havoc from there, shutting down the back of the stables again, but also screwing with their reinforcements coming in. Game eventually ended and we lost 2 cans to 1. I have yet to see a team win from that side! Anyway, we swapped ends and it was largely uneventful for me. I managed to push to a position to cover the church can (which was enemy controlled and no way I was going to get up there to flip it) as well as the stables flip can which was controlled by us. Just sat there, plinked a few people trying to push for the stables can and the game ended with 2 cans to 1 in our favour this time. I have yet to see a team, even with the teams not amazingly balanced, win from the other side! Next game was the sands of pain. The box was set up in the open on a table and both teams had to get to it and press down their coloured button. I was going to take a position to cover it, but basically our entire team went in that direction and me being a sneakybeaky ghillie boi today, I didn't want any of that, so I took a flank with my friend. We pushed down into a thick part of the site and my friend heard two of the regulars on the other team. He took one out, then ran out of ammo on his pp2k and got taken out by the other. I took a wide angle and... got a bit annoyed. The player he hit walked off without calling dead man, so me thinking he was either cheating or being mediced, I shot him in the back and got taken out by the same guy who took my friend out. He then told me to "watch my full auto"... on a gun that is locked to semi-auto and can't spam the trigger because the Hydra engine doesn't seem to like it and throws a tantrum at me if I do. That sweetened the sourness of the encounter a little as I always enjoy a bit of salt, especially since I knew who it was (and his gun is incredibly spammy and has a very fast full auto that he runs .36s through). Anyway, I went back to respawn and the guy who hit me got taken out when he tried to make a play, but I had a devious plan. We would go all the way around the bottom of the site and come up behind the enemy team, making sure not to spawn-camp, but shooting them in the back after they pushed down a path a bit further from their base. Unfortunately the game wasn't long enough and we couldn't get to our intended positions as the flank was long and for the last part we had to move slowly and carefully to avoid being seen. No idea what the time on the clocks were, but we swapped it around and again I intended to cover the box but everyone went that way so I went the other way. It worked out phenomenally as I pushed around to the side and lay down by a tree as I saw the bushes in the Clearing moving, so I knew someone was coming that way (ironically named now. It used to be clear, now it's a woodland killhouse). Turns out a ghillie on the other team was pushing through, but I didn't have a great shot on him. I knew he would push out because nobody on our team was watching, but he stayed for a bit. Eventually he pushed out and I got him with the mk23 and I found out at lunch time that he was literally having a piss when I saw his head moving about when he wasn't pushing out, which I found mildly hilarious 😂. Fortunately, didn't see anything indecent! Anyway, after I took him out, I heard more voices from that way, so after telling some young'uns on my team who had pushed up to where I was, I crawled through a ditch to get under a holly bush and I got spotted by another regular. Fortunately there was a tiny defilade, so I managed to get low enough and crawl behind this tiny tree to the point where they couldn't hit me. I waited for a bit, then I saw my team making a big push just in front of me, so I took the opportunity to slowly raise up and shoot between the V shape in the bottom of the tree to hit the guy who was still there (the regular who had spotted me had moved on). With that taken care of, I managed to crawl a bit further and get properly under the holly bush with a line of sight down the path. I hit so many people playing around that path, including getting a few shots underneath the holly bush on the other side of the path and hitting peoples ankles. There were a good 7 or 8 people looking for me, but none of them could find me and I kept taking them out with the silent HPA m14, which had no MED, and mk23 pistol. Ah, it's moments like this that make sniping so much fun! I decided to call it at lunch time. Don't want to push it with my heart issues still around and decided to do some testing with the HPA m14 on the range. First I tested it at 1.88J, putting it to 120psi and getting a nice 1.84 - 1.87J with every shot. I also upped the weight to .4s and set the hop and... it was sooooooooooooo good. I was aiming at the head of the 75m target and hitting just below it on where the torso would be (it's a man-sized target), and as it wasn't very windy today I was hitting that almost every shot. I was genuinely impressed; I didn't expect it to perform that well! I then put it to 1.64J (Worthing Airsoft's DMR power limit), getting 1.61 - 1.63J at about 105psi and... the difference was noticeable. I could hit the 75m target, but I was struggling a lot more. Aiming at the head of the target I was generally hitting the bottom of the tree, hearing the distinctive sound of impacting on wood compared to impacting on the metal of the target. Managed to get a few on target, but had to aim above it and arc them down. Considering on 1.1J I was hitting the 60m target with pretty much every shot, taking a 30m MED for 1.64J just isn't worth it at all. 1.88J is a different story, so that HPA m14 is going to be a Driver Wood gun as they use 1.88J as their DMR limit, but 1.64J was just lacklustre. I was super impressed with the 1.88J performance though, and the weird jamming on empty issue, while it was still present, was less of an issue with the higher psi. I think next game day I'll bring the m40a5 with the SR-25 as a backup. With autumn well and truly here, the leaves are starting to fall and sight lines are opening up slowly. Yes, I think the staff are actively trying to dissuade snipers with how they're building up the site (one of the site owners was on one today about ghillie snipers), but heading into winter my m40a5 is going to start coming into its own.

I do love my lightweight and affordable ghillie builds. This is a summer ghillie, just in time for winter to come around . It's super lightweight, super breathable, nothing on my front to snag on and drag half the forest floor with me while I'm low crawling along the ground. Also has elastic loops on the base, so I can stick a bunch of natural vegetation in it too. I have a 2nd webtex concealment vest and more than enough material to make a 2nd, so all in it'll be £120 for two ghillies, so £60 per ghillie and I'll have a summer one and a winter one. Used a lot of the green materials (not all), but still got the vast majority of the khaki and brown stuff, so a winter variant will be easy to do. Build is: Webtex concealment vest Novritsch raffia (in total about 1 bag used, but mostly greens from two bags) Novritsch camo material (less than half a bag used)

There's 3 I use, but I'll list them in order of preference. All allow me to run a suppressor, but only the last allows me to run a flashlight (not too bothered about flashlights as I play woodland) Warrior Assault Systems universal holster - £50 https://www.uktactical.com/product/warrior-universal-pistol-holster-olive-drab-10557 Amomax universal holster - £17 https://www.bullseyecountrysport.co.uk/amomax-per-fit-universal-holster-black-g-series-m9-taurus-cz-sig-beretta-am-uh-40927-p.asp CTM AAP-01 holster - £30 https://www.skirmshop.co.uk/aap01-high-speed-holster-black.html The latter two can be mounted on a belt using one of these: https://www.bullseyecountrysport.co.uk/amomax-roto-holster--magazine-pouch-belt-paddle-35118-p.asp https://www.bullseyecountrysport.co.uk/amomax-airsoft-holster--magazine-pouch-belt-clip-adapter-am-bc-35123-p.asp If you're looking to run it on a regular belt, the Warrior Assault Systems one won't work for you as that is molle mounted. I run it on a molle belt. The other two can be mounted on a regular belt just fine though.

I still prefer the original metal style mags...

You can swap out the lower for £20 (CTM makes it) and you basically have a Ruger Mark IV https://ruger.com/products/markIV/overview.html

Mine has the TNT kit in it and it's ridiculous. Can sail .32s out to between 50 - 60m with some accuracy, which is really useful for me when I run a bolt action; give me a bit of a punch when on the move or if I'm detected.

I usually like quiet guns, but something about the mp9 and how loud it is tickles me. Last time I used mine, the marshall said that it was weird because it sounded like it should be hot, but it was 0.8J. Plus whenever I flick it to full auto it turns heads 😂

It's just one of those days today. Went to Worthing Airsoft with the plan of playing most of if not the entire day and ended up only playing the first game (both halves) and with a borrowed gun as well. M14 I brought with me wasn't feeding and I forgot to bring the adapter that lets me fill my MWS mags, so that was out too. Bugger. Fortunately, my friend let me borrow his m700, which chronoed at 1J so I had no MED. I only played the first game (well, both times as we switched ends) and got some cracking shots with it. Best ones were definitely one where I shot someone and he thought he got hit from behind as it skimmed the top of his shoulder just right. He put his hand up and looked behind him in a very confused manner, meanwhile I was under the holly bush about 30m in front of him giggling to myself. Second was I saw one of the ghillies on the other team (there were LOADS of ghillies today. I think we hit double digits out of about 80 players) and he was crossing over a path. He was out of my effective range, but I didn't want to let him get set up, so I aimed up and arced a BB onto him, soliciting a rather dejected hand raise and a walk away. Must've been about a 75 - 80m shot, so I'm proud of that with a 1J gun! After this game, I went back to the safe zone, bought a speed loader and got some loctite from the site tech to glue the attachment thing onto the end so that I could fill my MWS mags. The plan was to lower the power back from 1.8J that I was running at Driver Wood as a DMR and bring it back down to 1.1J so I would have no MED. Took a bit of time fiddling with the NPAS and the hop up and it was shooting okay, but it was a bit inconsistent for my tastes. I'm going to experiment with another hop rubber and maybe nub, as the rubber that's in there is a really old MR hop rubber that has been sitting in my parts box for literally about 3 years or so, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a bit rubbish. On the plus side, took the 1911 out with the maple leaf hop unit, rubber, i-key and nineball barrel setup and it was performing really nicely. Cycled through a whole mag without issue, slide locked back on empty and everything, and it was hitting the 45m target very consistently with me shooting fast. Definitely a success there. Anyway, that's me. Didn't play much so not much to tell, but I did hear that there was some really bad non-hit takers out there but I didn't see much. There were a few in the games where I played where it was hilariously bad, recoiling from shots to the facemask and just ducking down into cover and trying to find me, but for the mostpart I didn't have any issues outside of one or two examples like I just outlined. Also I got a letter yesterday with a bit more information being uncovered regarding my heart problem, so progress being made there as well. I will be back to being able to play properly at some point, but for now I have to continue taking it slow

I'm using it in my build at the moment and it works very well with a ML MR hop rubber, but was awful with an autobot rubber.

The netting doesn't show; it's like when you put a killflash on a scope. And yes, I don't want to paint it since the MWS is really nicely done and cerakoted, so I don't want to ruin anything there!

Can't beat a classic; will probably run this combo this weekend, especially since one of my m14s needs converting to deans connectors before I can use it. I've found myself moving away from gucci rifle wraps and adopting a more realistic approach to camo. Elastic bands for natural veg on the day and making sure nothing interferes with the operating parts of the weapon (my expensive wrap has a tendency to obscure the scope picture, leading to me having to manually move parts out of the way). I could paint it, but I don't want to because I love how it looks and don't want to potentially ruin the aesthetic of the mk12. Literally some donor scrim net I got for free held on by cable ties and elastic bands that I will pair with either a £25 uncrafted cobra hood, or my £60 ghillie cape. Don't need to spend out masses to be a bush!

New pistol courtesy of @TheFull9 because 1911s are my kryptonite. Cycles beautifully and in my room easily gets through an entire mag on a single fill. I have swapped out the hop unit and barrel assembly for the setup that was in my other 1911 that hates cycling (ML hop unit with a nineball barrel and ML 50 degree autobot rubber and ML I-key) and will give it a run this weekend. If it runs well, I'll be running it more often because very few people run 1911s and they're incredibly beautiful pistols! Some things never change. My first loadout was an m14 and 1911 because I watched Black Hawk Down as a teenager and thought that one scene was amazing. Still running m14s (I own 2 and want to get a 3rd) and will still run 1911s

I don't think Charlie ever left the safe zone though? He might've and I just didn't see it / didn't remember it, but I do remember he would always chase after pyro barking his little head off 😂 But yeah, I would never take my dog (if I owned one. Not much of an animal person) into the gameplay area for all the reasons stated by others already. Dog won't know what's going on and doesn't consent to being shot by BB guns and could have a violent reaction to being shot at.

It's a tad over the budget you've listed, but if you've got the flexibility I heartily recommend this one: https://www.uktactical.com/product/warrior-recon-plate-carrier-base-holds-sapi-plates-18860#?variant=212 I have one and it's the only plate carrier I need. Got three different front panels set up for it; one for 5.56, one for .308 and one for SMGs. Also put weighted training plates in mine and it feels incredibly authentic!

Every time I do it, I immediately think "oh why the hell did I do this I know better..." literally as I'm snapping it shut. And yeah, allen key pushing it back into place is an easy fix for it.

I have done this more times than I wish to admit...

Just got home from a day of airsofting at Driver Wood (first time at the site) and I've definitely got a bit of a write up for my experience. Day started early with my alarm going off at 6:30am, but I was ready to go get stuck in. I planned on using the MWS set up as a DMR to make the most of their 1.88J with 25m MED DMR rules, since Worthing Airsoft's DMR rules are just not worth bothering with. Had to dial the hop all the way on to lift the .4s, but on green gas it was sailing them out nicely at about 1.8 - 1.85J, so once I got the gun chronoed and saw how it was performing I was set. I joked with my friend as we headed out, saying "ah, we're a DMR and a bolt action sniper, so I'm sure we won't be the front line." This joke is important for our story here... First game was a three base domination and was a good game to get started. As I had no idea where anything was, I took myself into a central position with my friend who was running his VSR and we got entrenched in some bushes and started picking people off. It didn't take long before we were the front line, with the rest of our team all dead and not pushing back up. He eventually got taken out, leaving me by myself as I was slotting people on the flank just one after the other (seriously, I loved running a DMR as it allowed me to engage multiple enemies one after the other). I eventually got taken out too when a player on the other team was basically on top of me trying to work out where I was, despite me using an MWS with its clack-clack GBBR mechanism. He said he would never have found me if I was running something quiet. We headed back to respawn and then found that our team was basically being spawn-camped. This was a sign of things to come and something I was wary of going into the day after what I heard at the brief. Second game we had to escort a pair of VIPs to various spots across the site, having to hold it for 5 minutes. I'll be honest with you, we got absolutely folded again, barely getting out of our spawn. I managed to hold one of the flanks with another guy, just doing Viet Cong tactics hitting them and then disappearing into the foliage all game; Namsoft taught me well! I also lost count of how many grenades they threw in our direction, both a combination of green smokes (count as toxic, so can't be in it without a gas mask) and bangs. They must've spent a small fortune trying to uproot us, but every time they threw grenades, we simply weren't there. I was surprised to hear we managed to do a whole 1 of the objectives, which was 1 more than I thought with how the game was going. We swapped sides and it was much the same; I took a central position and my friend got into a really good spot for sniping, but while we managed to totally lock down part of the site, the other team was running rampant elsewhere. Then we got teamkilled by a mortar that wiped out about 7 or 8 of us and we totally lost control of that too. That was probably the most frustrating part of the day as it was the one part of the site where it felt like we had traction and then we got mass teamkilled. Third game involved a bunch of oversized playing cards. Numbers were 5 points, pictures were 10 points, ace was 15 points and the joker was -20 points for the enemy team. No prizes for guessing how it went. We actually got a decent start, but then with only a few of us defending the base the other team eventually rolled in and stole all of the cards. I was the last man standing having to cover behind me with the pistol as well as the front with the MWS and it was just a bit too much for me alone. Regardless after I got hit I stood there waiting for a medic, knowing full-well that nobody was around to do so. It did exactly what I wanted it to, as I had 4 of them distracted by me and slowing them down in their endeavours as they watched me with paranoia. However, my team didn't come back in and all of our cards got stolen. I went back to spawn and... we were basically spawn-camped. Again. I still managed to break off and take out a bunch of them from a flank they weren't watching much, but by this point most of our team had given up. I'm not the type and I don't mind being on the losing team, but I could see why morale was low; we had spent all day getting kicked around the site. Anyway, I did have fun and do enjoy a bit of an uphill battle, especially considering I was against so many regulars while I've never been to the site so I don't know any of the strong positions or even where half of the objectives were. The MWS performed exactly as I wanted it to, but outside of 1.88J I will continue to run it at 1.14J elsewhere; I noticed a little more effective range with 1.88J, but it was borderline. So, my overall thoughts: Good: + The site itself is lovely. It's huge and they clearly put a lot of effort into making it a very fun site to play at. + DMR rules are great. 1.88J with a 25m MED is where I'll use one and I thoroughly enjoyed doing so + Games were well put together and worked well with the site + Early start. Briefing at 9am and it's not a massively long one, so we were out to play nice and early. + Very nice safe zone and actual toilets! Shame airsofters are a disgusting lot and the male toilets were rather splashed from bad aim Bad: - Horrendous team imbalance confirmed my suspicions I had going into it. Even heard one of the marshalls speaking to a regular who was on our team saying "you know all the regulars go on green and we always do that side as green" after they split us down the middle - That team imbalance was never addressed. At lunch time, despite orange team getting hammered and basically pushed back to spawn every game the marshalls did nothing to balance it. When there were more greens than oranges, it was more newbies and kids who were moved onto orange rather than a group of regulars. - Hit taking was laughably bad. I had many shots that I watched to completion through my scope, with people recoiling from the hits and then just continuing on. And I know these are being felt as they're .4s at 1.88J that they're recoiling from - It's very businesslike. Whereas Worthing, Southdown and Gunman all feel like a community, Driver Wood very much feels like a business first and I feel it lacked the character of other sites. I felt very detached. Meh: ~ I don't think I've ever been at a skirmish weekend with that much pyro being hurled at me. Green smokes and bangs were raining down like someone on green won the lottery ~ People were proving my point when I say "full auto is a crutch for people who can't aim" with the amount of high ROF full auto spray that was being peppered everywhere ~ Gun sock. My gun literally can't fire if the mag is out, but gun sock needed. I kinda understand this one since they have such a wide customer base and people are dumb ~ They never checked if my DMR was semi-locked. I could've rocked up with a Section 5 firearm and nobody would've known. Fortunately, I'm not a jackass and had already modified my fire selector to only shoot on semi (such an easy mod on the MWS...) - "Outside food is not allowed" combined with "don't worry, we have relatively expensive food on sale". I didn't eat anything on principle! - Going back to the safe zone after every game. Those safe zone breaks need to be shorter! I did enjoy myself and will likely go back again, but there are definitely issues and I can see that a lot of what I heard about Driver Wood was well-founded. Good thing is that the site is good and the games are good, so I can largely make my own fun, but there are a lot of very easily solvable issues that do impact it.