Impulse

I get the feeling you're the kind of person who would argue that "well, you don't really need an airsoft gun to play airsoft" because at the end of the day you can run around with a rubber knife trying to sneak up on and knife kill everyone. Nobody is saying "you need a ghillie to hide", we're saying it makes it easier and at least in my... 17(ish) years of playing as a ghillie in airsoft, I have a lot of first-hand experience of that being the case.

Why is filmsim or milsim any different? I do Vietnam filmsim games every year at Gunman and I'm not seeing why a ghillie at a skirmish is any different to my time-appropriate scrim-net-covered-in-ferns-and-stuff approach at Vietnam games. At the end of the day, it all comes down to slinging plastic balls at each other with toy guns and trying to remain undetected. I'd argue that milsim has more concerns with concealment than ghillie suits alone because people own thermal imaging equipment and tend to bring them to milsims. Nobody would be foolish enough to do so at a skirmish though, because imagine if your multi-thousand pound piece of equipment gets shot out by a rental spraying full auto at you 😂

Could've fooled me...

Forgive me if it's been asked, because it undoubtedly has been asked somewhere in these 272 pages, but does anyone have ideas for a hop setup for heavy BBs? My retro CQBR is wonderful hopping .32s, but my mk12 is really struggling to lift .4s at 1.64J and just about manages it at 1.88J DMR limits, but I want to run .43s at 1.64J because Warhead do good BBs at good prices so I want to swap to using them, but they only do .32s or .43s, no .4s. For what I was thinking, I was considering a sixG nub (because I have actually yet to try one...) and something like a relatively soft Unicorn or ML MR bucking, maybe a 60 degree. At the moment I have tried the Jaeger Precision titan nub, which was really inconsistent, and a number of omega nubs (regular, 50 degree and 80 degree), all with a variety of ML MR buckings.

Continuing on from the How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? thread, there is definitely a debate going around about ghillies and leaf suits. With how easy they are now to get and the prevalence of certain big Youtubers, we definitely see a lot more of them now than we did in the past. Also, it used to be just snipers that used them, but now I think I've seen every "type" of airsoft gun in the hands of a ghillie (even LMGs!). While airsoft is a great game because everyone can play however they want, there has been discussion around ghillies and their use in airsoft. From what I can see, the issues that come from it are: Gameplay I'm not going to sugarcoat it, but a large number of ghillies ruins the game for other people. People get disheartened very quickly in airsoft when they leave spawn, head towards the objective and get picked off by some invisible foe. Then they respawn, go elsewhere and the same happens, then the same happens again, and again, and again. Not all ghillies are created equally in this regard and the gameplay can be fine, but it can also get really bad. I've seen a far greater tendency for ghillies to spawn camp, maybe because they can get away with it easier, or maybe because of certain airsoft content creators who get these people into ghillie sniping who do it a lot and present it as legitimate gameplay strategy. Hit taking It can be difficult to feel BB impacts, especially at range, through a heavily crafted ghillie suit. Speaking from experience it's usually pretty obvious when you've been hit unless you're running (though that happens without the ghillie as well), but some people use this excuse to try and get away with just not calling their hits and blatantly cheating. Availability You can buy a Sprinter Custom Ghillie setup and not have to put in any effort yourself. About £725 and you get a full ghillie including trousers and a rifle wrap that is hard-wearing and works wonders, even under IR light (it doesn't glow under nightvision. One of my friends has one and he has never crafted onto it and it works really well. With a little effort, you can cut the costs down a lot, getting something like a Webtex Concealment Vest and cable-tying pre-dyed materials like the KMCS crafting materials or the Novritsch stuff onto it. It's not hard, all it takes is a bit of time. This ease of acquisition increases the number of ghillies out there, as people no longer have to put in the effort they used to, shredding hessian sacks, dyeing the material in a bucket and then sewing it into BDUs or onto a concealment vest. Setups A ghillie suit, especially a well-crafted one, is typically a net positive. They're far lighter than they used to be, they're a lot more breathable and they're far easier to get a hold of. Yes, someone with crap fieldcraft will still be easily spotted and I do so enjoy hunting crappy ghillie players; standing in the open atop a hill with nothing behind you, or simply moving a lot will still get you spotted; it's not an invisibility cloak! However, you'd be seen in regular BDUs as well doing the same, but the difference is if you sit against a tree or a bush in BDUs you are more likely to be seen than someone doing the same in a ghillie. Back in the day, a ghillie tended to mean a bolt action rifle (when I say back in the day, my frame of reference is about 14 - 16 years ago), but nowadays that ghillie might have a totally silent MTW with 7 high caps, a wankergun trigger setup and some ungodly ROF full auto so you can no longer just overwhelm with numbers like you used to as they will just hose everyone down and still possibly go completely undetected I've probably missed a beat, but this is from my perspective as a long time ghillie sniper. I've been doing it since about 2007, so I would like to think I have a lot of experience being the bush (or the grass). There may be things I've missed from the other side of it. As I said earlier, there has to be some concessions now as the combination of these four things above can lead to really crappy gameplay that is just not fun for the majority of players. Furthermore, being a victim of this style of play will make some people quit, but is more likely to make more players start to bleed into this style of gameplay, further increasing the issues. Not everyone wants to wear a ghillie though, and will continue to be a victim of this gameplay because airsoft isn't purely about skirmish. Some players enjoy impression kit, putting together a loadout that perfectly mirrors a real-world unit or time period. Some players enjoy the general dress-up aspect of the hobby and will wear camo that may not work well, but it looks great with their kit. Some players enjoy playing speedy and don't want a ghillie suit snagging on stuff and dragging half the forest floor with them. Some people just... don't like ghillies. All of these are valid playstyles and shouldn't feel oppressed because someone has spent £725 on a full SCG suit and wrap, then also spent £1000 on some swanky MTW setup. It's not quite to the same level, but it's getting closer to the "NVG/thermal vs no NVG/thermal during night games" debate (though I definitely still think that NVGs/thermals are more pay-to-win than ghillies) Anyway, I've rambled enough about problems, because we Brits love to complain about stuff; it's like a national past-time. So, what about solutions? I've got these ones off the top of my head, but there are definitely more possible solutions out there Restrict ghillies to BASRs or DMRs This is the solution that I think works best. If you know that a ghillie is going to have a 30m MED and be very limited on rate of fire, you know that you can overwhelm them with numbers. Also, a lot of people don't like playing with BASRs, and some sites have really, really unfavourable DMR rules (Gunman for example has a 1.48J DMR limit with a 30m MED), so this will also lower the number of players who will go with a ghillie. Yes, there are some intricacies that could be exploited with this. For example, someone can carry a lightweight VSR on a sling and then some sort of HPA mp5k, so it might be a case of also ruling that it has to be a pistol secondary. A full auto GBB like an AAP-01 is very audible and the consistency is crap unless you HPA it (still audible though), a full auto AEP is just as audible as an AEG and a NBB mk23 is quiet, but absolutely sucks for fast shooting, so there are plenty of trade-offs with pistol options. Some sites limit it to just BASRs (like Imperium in Kent), but I think letting DMRs have ghillies as well is fair as you still have that MED to deal with and plenty of real-world snipers use semi-auto platforms, so immersion airsofters like me will still like to have the option to run something like an SR-25 at DMR power and play just like a sniper. I think there's a balancing act here with ruling against fringe cases, but also not over-complicating things as plenty of airsofters either don't like to think, or just aren't very good at it 😂 Limit ghillies You could have limited spaces available to book on a game day for ghillies. Sold separately and no walk-ons. I think this would be really difficult to implement and enforce, but it would put a hard limit on the amount of ghillies in a game. Most milsims will have this because they limit ghillies to only snipers and their paired spotter and have a hard cap on the number of snipers at an event, but I think for skirmish games this would be a mess. Ban all ghillies I mean... it'd solve the problem, right? I personally don't think this is the way forward though as there are plenty of players who legitimately love playing the ghillie sniper role and do so without issue.

Playing Vietnam airsoft really forces you to have good fieldcraft. Ambushing GIs in all black, which doesn't blend in well in a woodland at all, requires good fieldcraft for sure. Saying that, I'm putting a bit more olive into my VC kit... EDIT: I've made another thread to continue the ghillie discussion, so we don't take over this thread

Obligatory "oMg nOvrITsCH gNUs ARe sHiT!" Anyway, now that's over, the SSG10 is basically a cost-effective VSR that will perform decently well out of the box. Sure, there are a bunch of upgrades you can do, but they aren't too necessary if you don't want to. TDC is a good shout, as I don't know what the hop unit in the SSG10 is like, but the standard VSR one is crap and the Action Army one is a pain in thearse to adjust. TDC is a good shout and isn't too pricey, maybe a hop rubber to go with it as that's also not too pricey. Also, yes, they're super lightweight. It's probably the best thing about the VSR platform (besides the copious amount of aftermarket parts available)

Yeah, one of the owners pulled three of us regular ghillies aside and asked our opinion on it and cited Imperium as an example of a site that does bolt action only. Nobody really runs DMRs at Worthing because the rules aren't that great and the site doesn't lend itself well to them with how many twiggy bits are everywhere; only a handful of us are stupid enough to DMR

Today was more of a testing day, but it turned out to be fantastic. Was at Worthing Airsoft for the first game of the year where I... actually felt like the weather was nice. Sun was out and it was about 15 celcius for most of the day, which was absolute bliss. Camo paint on my face again to avoid wearing too much and sweating and fogging up my glasses and it worked well as I didn't get all sweaty at all. The only downside was that it was pretty damn breezy with average wind speeds in the late 20s of mph, so every shot I took was curving pretty nastily. Ah well, it's all good practice. I took a small armoury to the site today with both of my MWSs, my HPA VSR and my KJW m700 as a "if nothing works, I have this" option. The plan was to use my AAP-01 (which hasn't been shot in about a year) and the HPA VSR, as I felt like sniping and I needed to make sure it was shooting well now that it has a 303mm inner barrel with the rest of the 510mm bull barrel filled with foam like a massive 200mm internal suppressor. Used some Silverback foam that fitted perfectly and came in two different internal diameters, so it was large, small, large, small etc. to get the best effect. Oh boy did it work well. I played for the morning, which was one massive game with a LOT of objectives all over the site and that went on until lunch. Took a conservative position under a holly bush overlooking the path, the exact same one I took last game day, and the results were similar. I hit a lot of people and singlehandedly held back about 7 or 8 very determined players who kept coming back to the checkpoint to try and get me. Apparently they were getting rather irate at me and were saying "oh I'm hitting him and he's not taking it" as one of my friends was also there (on the other team) and laughing because he knew where I was and knew they wouldn't be hitting from where they were. Shooting into a holly bush is a pain in the arse, but shooting out of a holly bush is a lot easier. Anyway, I eventually got taken out as I was completely surrounded, couldn't relocate and eventually got shot from behind, so I went back to respawn and rejigged my mags. Empties in the belt kit pouch, full ones in the stock pouch for easy access (I'd gone through 2 of my 6 mags in that spot). I returned and everyone was huddling around our base as they suspected the other team were going to attack, so I decided to crawl into a very sneaky spot under a fallen tree as I wasn't about to push out with my bolt action while all the AEGs were playing passive. It worked out super well as I got a whole load of people from that spot too, including one of my friends who walked right past me and I shot him in the ankle with my pistol. It was amusing as I was taking people out while the enemy team were pretty much on top of me, but nobody could hear the VSR. I was pleasantly surprised that nobody heard the two GBB shots I took with the pistol either. The only frustrating part was that the enemy team did eventually take our base and stole our objectives, then didn't take the hits when I shot them in the back as they were running out with them. It's frustrating, but I'm not going to start going on a tirade about cheating because honestly they probably didn't feel it. Running in the same direction as my shots were coming in and a few of them were backpack hits, so while I don't blame them for it, it's still frustrating. Oh well. My friend eventually came up again and shot me in the back (flanked all the way around the site to get me ), so I headed back to respawn again. I'd gone through about 4 of my mags in total, but the game was basically over. Patrolled around a bit more but didn't shoot anyone else. Was a very fun game, but the spawns were a bit too close together as my only criticism. After lunch I set up the two MWSs, the mk12 as a DMR and the retro build CQBR as a regular rifle. The mk12 needs a bit of work as it wasn't too happy, so I'm going to try a unicorn rubber and sixG nub next, but the retro CQBR build was absolutely phenomenal. Very happy with that and not touching it now. Also I finally zeroed the red dot on my AAP; it's going to take some getting used to as I've always shot with iron sights on pistols, but it's ridiculously easy to shoot accurately with a zeroed red dot on a pistol. I finally get what all those guntubers were talking about when it comes to red dots on pistols... Also, I heard that there were some issues with hit taking through the day. There were some ghillies on the other team with HPA m4s who were laughable in their hit taking, one of them got lit up by an LMG in front of a marshall and didn't call it. We've had similar issues in the past, so what this has caused now is that at Worthing Airsoft they're going to change the rules for ghillies; now if you want to use a ghillie, you have to have a bolt action or DMR. Personally, I really like this rule and could talk for days on why I do, but that's for another time. I remember I had a chat with @Hatchet last game day at Worthing about this exact topic, so... there we go. Problem solved Really looking forward to the next few months of airsoft. The weather is getting better, it's lighter for longer, the sun is higher in the sky and the weight is still coming off. 11kg down from the start of the year and I'm really feeling it. Could've easily played all day today as I wasn't at all tired despite still being pretty overweight (about 35kg more to lose), but I had to set up my MWSs, partially because the short retro MWS build is coming with me to the 'Namsoft games coming up in a few months. Roll on next game day already!

I'm a massive advocate for bipods, but on something lightweight like a VSR it isn't worth it. As @Hatchet said, it almost doubles the weight, or at least it feels like it because it massively shifts the weight of the rifle because it's lightweight by itself, so a large lump of metal near the front makes it front heavy and nasty to handle. For heavier stuff like M14s it's worth it because they're heavier, so harder to hold up for long periods of time anyway, and also because they're heavier the bipod doesn't have such a massive impact on the balance of the rifle, but I wouldn't put one on a VSR unless you get the heavier Maple Leaf stock; the regular stock and receiver setup's strength is that it's so light. The sand sock has been used in the military for a long time. It's basically just a sock that is filled with sand and then tied off so it's a good rifle rest. I liked @concretesnail's idea of getting a tear-off pouch and filling it with soft stuff and then using that as a rest, as that's likely going to be fairly lightweight and can be worn on a belt kit or chest rig so you won't feel the weight much anyway, but will give you a steady place to rest your rifle when in a hide position. Glad to hear the lad enjoyed running around with a bolt action, even one that was under-powered and still saddled with an MED; it's a very satisfying way of playing for sure! I would actually focus on the rifle before going for a ghillie though, as he'll learn better camo and concealment fieldcraft if he doesn't get reliant on a ghillie suit. It's amazing what you can do with good camo and concealment skills while wearing regular DPM, or even just flat olive drab! I see a lot of ghillie snipers who have awful fieldcraft and they're incredibly easy to counter-snipe. Having a rifle that performs well is always useful though and I'm sure he'll appreciate it when he's able to reach out to 75m with decent accuracy.

If you're unsure at your local site, I'd just speak with the marshalls and clarify. I can't imagine they'd saddle you with an MED if you're shooting at 1.14J or lower, but they may decide to because they're lazy they don't want to have people running around with 2.3J sniper rifles point-blanking people and then claiming "no, I'm at 1J". Typically "AEG", "DMR" and "Sniper Rifle" are more classifications than actual RIF types. I've never been told at any site or event I've been to (outside of AI500) that I can't use a bolt action rifle at 1.14J or lower and then shoot up close like everyone else. For example, when I play Vietnam filmsim events at Gunman, they have a sniper ban during the summer where DMRs and sniper rifles are banned because the ferns grow high and it's harder to find angles without creeping into your MED. However, they still allow me to use my m700, very much a bolt action rifle with a scope on it, as long as I set it to 1.14J or under, because at that point it's just the same as anyone's AEG, just a lot quieter, typically more accurate and more satisfying to hunt GIs with I've never been to a site or event that has told me I still have to have an MED if I have a bolt action rifle (or a gun that looks and acts like a DMR) at 1.14J or under. At some sites a 1.14J bolt action is far more useful, like Gunman Eversley during the summer due to their sniper ban, and also my local Worthing Airsoft as while they don't have a ban, the site becomes even more woodland CQB during the summer because of how much it bushes up. The only difference was AI500. They didn't let me bring one of my 1.14J bolt actions to the shopping centre one for no other reason apart from they said "no sniper rifles", even though it was under the power limits and actively would've made my life more difficult (CQB with a bolt action is a challenge, but a thrill!). They also had a moan at me at the Citadel one when I brought my m21 because it looks like a sniper rifle, but I said "it's an m14 with a scope. It's just a battle rifle and the power is under 1.14J" and so they didn't stop me from using it. So that's the only example I have of a site/event classing guns based on how the action works / what they look like. Also, it can go the other way (somewhat). I've seen people running arp9s with drum mags as "DMRs" because they're locked to semi-auto and the power is higher, though most events and some regular sites will specify that a DMR has to be a RIF based on a real-world DMR, like an m14, SR-25, mk12 etc. DMR rules are the thing that varies the most from site to site, as they could be 1.48J, 1.64J or 1.88J depending on the site, some sites mandate a stock, some sites require specific RIFs like I said earlier.

I've never had any real issues with Evike and I sometimes use them for weird, niche parts for my weird, niche guns (looking at you, KJW m700...). That is not to say I don't have any issues, but the issues I do have don't tend to be too bad. The UPS experience does sound similar to what I've had. Have to fill in lots of paperwork for things that by law don't require any paperwork and then get extorted for money in admin fees, VAT and import duty. What helps to cut down the cost if you're patient enough is to order from Evike Europe, and if they don't have the part on their website you can request an item from the US website to go onto the Europe website, though that generally takes a few months. Will still take the same length of time to arrive, as they ship a lot of stuff from their US warehouse anyway, but the shipping is cheaper and if you order over €150 the shipping is free (still get stung on taxes and fees when it comes into the UK though). I'm at least part of the reason there's a bunch of m700 parts on their Europe website because I requested them in advance of me needing them

These are also good. I have a few for my (many) mp9 mags: https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/8fields-tactical-double-magazine-pouch-smg-5-smg-7 Outside of that I have a pair of Viper triple pouches on a front panel for my plate carrier.

I use them in everything that uses a VSR hop rubber and they work fantastically. I've got autobot buckings in my pistols and bolt actions and MR buckings in my GBBRs and all of them are great. However, I will echo @Fatboy40 above saying don't get the AEG ones. I tried the silicone super macarons and they were awful. Shots going all over the place! I might try the AEG silicone MR buckings just to try them, because the VSR ones are good, but the AEG silicone super macarons were a pile of wank so I wouldn't be surprised if the AEG MR ones were crap too.

Another weekend, another dissertation to write about how the game went. I went to Worthing as usual and bumped into @Hatchet there this week, which was nice! I decided to bring my HPA VSR, even though it's not perfect at the moment since I am waiting on a 300mm inner barrel and a bunch of foam to arrive so that I can internally suppress it further. At the moment, it's a 430mm widebore in a 470mm bull barrel, so 40mm is foam, but with a 300mm inner barrel it'll be 170mm of foam and should make it nice and quiet. It was still a little bit chilly for the m700 and I was picking up my AEG m14, so I decided the VSR was the best to bring. Set it up, got it shooting 2.28J and hopping .45s nicely, so I was good to go. Picked up the m14 and decided I'd zero the LPVO and set the hop after lunch as the morning was going to be a big, multi-objective game until lunch and that's my preferred way of playing. Sidearm choice today was my HK45, as it was definitely warm enough for GBB pistols and I way prefer them to mk23s, so I was keen to use it. After the safety brief I got a bit annoyed though. The marshalls made a point to split me and my friend up (again) and also split another regular from his two friends. This is the 2nd week in a row they've picked me and my friend out and made a point to separate us onto different teams, so I wasn't that impressed heading out for the first game. We got the far spawn, so a long walk out at first, and I had no idea what the objectives were so I decided to just follow and support my team as best I could. The start of the game had the rentals all around the Tower area and neither team could spawn until their team's rentals recovered an ammo box and brought it back to the spawn. An interesting idea in theory, as I'm always interested in seeing people try new things, but it didn't really work and after 15 mins they just released both teams. I took a conservative position, crawling under a holly bush and setting up a position overlooking the checkpoint on the path. Didn't take long for the yellows to push up to it and I got a lot of kills from that spot without getting detected at all. I kept waiting to make sure I got a good shot off, lulling the other team into a false sense of security at times by making them think I had moved, before taking another one of them out. It was good fun and this allowed my team to push up and take the checkpoint after I picked off enough players to dissuade the remnants from peeking or people from reinforcing. At this time I saw our team (blues) had found an objective (a dummy on a stretcher) that we needed to get to the stables building in the Tower area; they had pushed it out onto the path, but got hit in the process and had to drop the stretcher, so it was now heavily contested. So with checkpoint under our control I got myself out from under the holly bush and pushed into the heavily wooded area to the left of the path to come up on the corner of it to try and establish some forward control. I linked up with a friend who had also pushed up there with his AEG and we basically played sniper and spotter for a while, him picking off targets on the flank and me holding a line on the chapel, quite a popular spot to fight from. Blues kept pushing and managed to get the stretcher into the stables building, so now we had to hold it for 20 mins. I crawled further up as I saw blues pushing well into the Tower area, finding my way to a spot next to a tree that overlooked the path, but from the other side of the Tower area, so I took position there and started to cut off reinforcements, forcing them to take harder routes into the area. It worked really well, much to one marshall's amusement as he watched me get into position and take care of business. However, blues were doing a bit too well and our guys who had now taken the chapel were asked to give it up, and another marshall dropped a green smoke next to me. Green smoke counts as toxic, but fortunately the wind carried it the other way, however with its proximity it was only a matter of time before it expanded to where I was, so I quickly uprooted and fell back to the corner spot I was in before. We managed to hold for the 20 mins and shortly after that the game was over. Something that really worked well for me was I used camo paint for my face along with my ghillie instead of a balaclava or lower face mask today and it worked really, really well. Lower face masks make my glasses fog up (as it routes breath up into my glasses) and I can't get away from that as I have prescription inserts and can't use contact lenses. My balaclava, especially on warm days, makes me sweat buckets which also fogs up my glasses, but camo paint keeps a nice air flow and it worked really, really well. £4 and it'll last me a while, so I think I'm going to continue using camo paint. Big success! I had a LOT of fun in this game and the VSR was performing flawlessly as it tends to (I also took the advice of @Badgerlicious and ran my gunbilical cord around my left side instead of my right and it worked really, really well, stopping it getting caught as much and never getting caught on my own kit (my line loves catching on my pistol suppressor!)). However, I had a massive criticism of how the game was run. It didn't affect me because I didn't get hit once, but the respawns were on clocks. This meant that you had a 5 minute window to respawn followed by 5 mins of not being able to respawn. What I heard from the friend I was split from, as well as another friend who was on the other team, is that they would spawn in, go out and try to play aggressive, get hit and then have to wait 5 mins again because it worked out that they would get back to spawn after about 5 mins, so they'd get back just in time for respawns to be closed. They said they spent 40 mins just sitting in spawn and it was incredibly frustrating. They played less than they were waiting in respawn. For a large, multi-objective game I don't think the clock spawns worked very well and made people very frustrated. A lot went home at lunch time because of it. I didn't play the afternoon as I wanted to set up my m14 and then hang out with one of my friends who wasn't playing today; plus the sun was out and it was (almost) warm, so it was a nice day to just chill out. The m14 was performing stupidly well on the range, which was nice, and the LPVO was basically already zeroed. Don't know how the afternoon games went, but I really enjoyed my day. I think the fact that the sun was out and it wasn't freezing cold or wet definitely helped, though it was a bit breezy at times for sniping, but even that wasn't too bad. All in all it was a really fun morning of airsoft and I'm looking forward to the next months as it hopefully gets a bit warmer. I do better in warm weather, as I used to airsoft in Spain, and my guns do better in warm weather because I like my gas guns, so I'm glad to be this side of winter.

Similar results and I'm using a 50 degree MR hop and an omega nub in the stock hop unit. I'd say 60m is easy to get accurately at 1.88J on a .4 with mine, and I can fairly reliably hit 75m without having to angle the gun. It's not as consistently good as my HPA DMR, but it's more fun! I get the same thing though where the odd BB just seems to have a will of its own, but it's not TOO often. At 1.1J on a .32 I would say 50m accurately, 60m consistently.

Another game day at Worthing and it was a mix for me, a lot of good mixed in with some bad. I took my spring VSR, which is set to be right on the limit at 1.14J on a .32 (I think the lowest shot at chrono was 1.12J and the highest was 1.14J). This meant I had no MED and could blast people up close, which is definitely an advantage at Worthing with how many coppices there are all over the site; lots of twiggy bits to get in the way of long shots! I also brought my SR-25 too as my friend wanted to have a go with it, so that was in the bag too. Got through chrono, set up my kit, realised I need another solution for carrying my rubber knife and headed to the safety brief. They didn't do the spiel about bolt actions and DMRs having a 30m MED, so I couldn't do the meme response to "bolties and DMRs, what's your MED?" "0m!". However, this is where the first bad happened; all of the regulars apart from myself, my friend, @Badgerlicious and his friend were on the same team. About 8 - 10 people who all knew how to work together, while there were low numbers at about 26 total on each side, vs 4 of us who knew how to work together. But it doesn't end there! Clearly the four of us were too powerful, so the marshall pointed at us and said "I can't allow you 4 on the same team" and so he split us up. @Badgerlicious and his friend were moved onto the other team while me and my friend remained on the same team. So now it was 2 regulars vs 10 - 12 regulars. As I said, clearly we're just too good at airsoft and the rest of the regulars aren't 😎 Anyway, first game underway and from an objectives point of view, it was a really great game. There were a whole load of objective items scattered around the site and both teams had to get as many as possible. We also didn't have a base to start with and had to choose our base. We took the Tower area as ours, which is a good, easy to defend area, while I think the enemy team took the outpost base or Dell End down the hill as the game started. With a good push from us blues going on in the upper area, me and my friend went down to the bottom of the site as there was one of the marshalls playing the role of a banker who was there to give out objectives to players. However, he was also armed with a minigun and didn't like people loitering or camping the area around him, which meant that neither team could dominate the area and farm all his objectives. In theory. In practice, none of the other blues came down to the bottom of the site, so it was a pair of ghillie snipers trying to hold off the tide of yellows and I must say my friend did a really good job of that. He did such a good job that my position became useless as nobody got to me, so I didn't do much that game. Found out afterwards that our team basically lost everything, including our base so I don't think we had any objectives at the end. The game was insanely one-sided, as we said it would be, and so the marshalls grabbed 6 regulars from yellow team and swapped them with some blue players to even it up. Next two games were a 3 flip can base around the Tower area and the swap over of the regulars caused the games to flip in the other direction. From both sides our team dominated the area. First game I set up in my favourite spot overlooking the path and sod's law came into effect. The one day I bring a 1.1J replica and I get a whole load of yellows just standing in the middle of the path about 70m away from my position, in full view. If I had a 2.3J bolt action, I'd have had a field day, but alas I had to wait for them to get a bit closer and even then I found a use for running a DMR instead of a 1.1J for those 50 - 60m engagements. Yes, you can tune a 1.1J gun to hit out to 50 - 60m fairly accurately, but there were a lot of people not taking the hits I was dishing out at that distance and I'm going to assume that they just weren't feeling them as they weren't really reacting to the hits at all. I could see the BBs impacting through my scope, but with a bolt action I only have one shot, and one shot at 1.1J when you're pushing towards that 60m range just wasn't being felt. I don't blame them for it, but it has tempted me to try running a DMR next game day since it's still a bit chilly for my gas bolt actions (will run those as soon as it hits about 15 celcius). We swapped sides and I played super aggressively in the next one, crawling up into a very forward position where nobody really spotted me in my ghillie. I was constantly worried as my VSR was "old school" ghillied, simply wrapped in scrim net with no other camo attached to it, but I was putting the fact I had no MED to good use. Most of my shots into the Tower area from such a forward position were about 20m tops. As our team then pushed up and took control of the area, I shifted to the other side of the tree I was on and started shooting at the reinforcements coming down the path and along the fence line. Got a lot of hits in this game. We then broke for lunch. After lunch, my other friend and his grandson came out for the afternoon games and I felt a bit victimised here. My friend and his grandson put on blue armbands as we like to play together as it's good practice for when we go to Vietnam games, especially since a lot of blue players had gone home, but then the marshalls split us up AGAIN. They never put this much effort into splitting up any other groups than the ones that we make and I was getting a bit pissed off with it. Anyway, we then played a 3 base domination across the whole site, though the spawns were a bit close together and very close to one of the bases. This meant we weren't allowed to attack around one side, as it would take us to their spawn very quickly, which ruined my plan. My plan was to sneak around their spawn, head up to the fence line and take the base that was up there in the final moments of the game, but I had to change my tactic as I couldn't go that way. I took the long way around the site, sticking to the boundary and avoiding any engagements as I did not want anyone to know I was there. Spent the entire game sneaking past yellow players, not firing a single shot to get into position and right as I was getting into position, another ghillie on our team came up as well. Great, now two of us can do this tactic. All we'll need to do is clear the skeleton crew at that base, since nobody on our team got anywhere near attacking it and-... wait, what's the other ghillie doing? Like a bull in a china shop he starts shooting people left and right with his pistol. This meant that when we got up to that base, instead of there being 2 defenders that I could've easily taken out by myself, one being my friend with my SR-25 who knew I was going to be trying something like that and stuck to the base like glue towards the end, there were now about 8 players defending the base and more coming up behind us. Thanks, other ghillie, you ruined my entire gameplan and made all of my efforts to go undetected go to waste (yes I'm salty about it because it was incredibly frustrating!). Moreover, the other ghillie got himself shot by making a rush into the base area before we had even managed to take anyone out. Suffice to say I couldn't push that base in the last minute of the game and we lost in the end, two bases to one. Didn't play the last game of the day because I was pretty tired from the last game and I think I tore a muscle in my right hand when I was crawling through a particularly nasty spot of brambles. That still hurts today and it feels like a torn or at least strained muscle; the route I took to make sure I was undetected was not a nice easy one. Lots of hills and battling through brambles and crawling over stinging nettles which also still hurt this morning! Also, my friends were packing up too, so I headed back with them. Showed my friend who was on the other team the route I was going to use to take him out in the church structure without exposing myself to his position and we had a chat about the different style of play running a long gun gives. He enjoyed it and said he got a lot of kills at the Sandbag Bunker base (which was the base that was very close to both our spawns), so I'm happy about that. He's probably going to go with a Cyma m14 for himself, which as someone who owns two of them I will obviously say it's a good choice! Then on the walk back my friend's grandson shot me in the finger point blank, right on the side where it's really painful too, as they were all shooting each other on the walk back as airsofters do and he wasn't looking where he shot and it really hurt. Being 12 won't save him from taking a shot to the back of the head next game day as his debt must be paid! Also it didn't rain all day, despite the forecast saying that we were going to have a wet afternoon. The rain started very light as we were packing away and really started after we left, so it was good that we packed up a little bit early. I think next game day I will run a DMR, even though I think the rules at Worthing are craptastic for them. Just need to pester the co-owner of the site to either up the power to 1.88J or drop the MED to 20m and keep the 1.64J. We've made some progress on that front, but I don't think he's ready to change anything yet because he hates DMRs as he had bad experiences with people spamming the trigger. All in all, it was a pretty good day. Still waiting for the weather to warm up so I can use my favourite guns, but it wasn't too chilly and the games were generally good. There was no laughably bad hit-taking as the non-hit-taking that I experienced seemed to be more of an honest error where they weren't feeling the shots. Every hit I got where the person had a visible reaction to it, they took it.

I have a 510mm in my mk12 build. Needs an NPAS to keep it under 1.14J, though I have also semi-locked it and run it as a DMR if I like the site's DMR rules (tends to be if it's 1.88J limit). During the summer I still need the NPAS to keep it under 1.88J though as I think it goes to about 2.4J with the NPAS fully open on a warm summer's day on a .4

bEcaUSe HPA iS tHe dEViL reeEEeEeEEeeEEEeEEEeeeEe I was also going to write more about what I've seen here, but... there's no point as I don't think I'd get any logical answers, so I'll just sit here with my popcorn instead 😂

He was originally a youtuber who made sniper videos (not ghillie sniper videos, more "run in with a pistol" sniper videos), but then founded his own company when he released his first sniper rifle (the SSG24), which was meant to be a bolt action rifle you could just buy, take out of the box and play straight away without upgrading. I don't like his RIFs, but I have to respect the entrepreneurship; Novritsch stuff is everywhere now! Also, his ghillie stuff is actually pretty good and I use some of his stuff for my suits (not the leaves though, they fall apart!) And it's definitely a marketing event. Money has definitely changed hands between Patrol Base and Novritsch for sure. I don't think I'd avoid this because Novritsch is going to be there, I think I'd avoid it because Novritsch's fans are going to be there 😂

I'm stealing this for every time someone asks me why I don't like HPA (though I do love HPA stocks on guns because of the lack of this item!)

Yeah, but 250mm won't go all the way through on the regular M4A1. TM don't put barrels longer than 250mm in their GBBRs because Japanese laws and joule creep. Not sure how long you'd need to go all the way through the outer barrel on a M4A1 carbine as I don't have one to measure. In the CQBR the 250mm goes almost to the end of the outer barrel.

Pretty much my answer as well. GBBRs are fun, but they're... frustrating when it's chilly

Ok, so this is shipping a lot sooner than expected. It looks like these will ship late May/early June and are already up for pre-order. Also it looks like it'll be compatible with A&K SR-25 magazines, which means that Cyma SR-25 mags should also fit (good for me as I have 5). Also looks like you can have the outer barrel either 14.5" or 16" as it has a screw on extension at 1.5". Interestingly, out of the box it looks like the HPA line connects by the stock. Seems to be built like the Billet series, not the Forged series. Starting to pop up for pre-order here too. Price seems to be around the £800 mark https://www.highpressureairsoft.co.uk/wolverine-mtw-308 https://shop.super5ives.com/shop/item/133460/wolverine-airsoft-mtw-308-tactical-14-dmr.html

When I played in Spain I found them to be very similar to how we played over here in the UK. As a caveat, this was in 2008 - 2010ish, which was a time when airsoft was incredibly niche to the point that there were no "sites", it was just a bunch of us on a forum who showed up to an abandoned urbanisation to play BB wars. No marshalls, no briefing, and often no chrono were the main differences, though I'm pretty sure it's not like that any more. However there were very few instances of cheating as the community was self-regulating; if you were known to be a cheater or a dickhead, nobody would invite you to play. The main changes to get used to were simply language-based ("muerto" instead of "hit", for example). Apart from the language, the gameplay was basically identical to the UK. One hit and you're out, bolt action snipers and DMRs had MEDs etc. It was just a good few years behind the UK in terms of development, but the underlying culture was the same.