Impulse

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.

This. The number of people I've seen with "my AEG can shoot 70m" then I watch them fail to hit a target accurately at 50m... If you can get accurate 50m, you'll be set

I mean... I'd also be tempted 😂

I would love a GBBR SR-25 from TM, but I doubt it'll ever happen and that's an m4-adjacent gun I think the next "new" GBBR we'll get from TM will be a 416 and it'll basically be a reskinned MWS.

I still think even .3s is a bit excessive for a support gun, considering what you're aiming to do with a support gun is lay down a bunch of BBs You won't get very heavy tracer ammo though because I don't believe it exists, due to what materials are needed to make heavy BBs as heavy as they are and what materials are needed to make tracers all glowy are very different materials.

> VFC m249 > Heavier ammo (than .32) 🤨

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