Impulse

Just a normal skirmish day at Worthing this weekend and after last week's fiasco at the 'Nam game where everything conspired to stop me playing, This time the weather in the morning was lovely, slightly cloudy but warm and sunny otherwise and since I was wearing a fairly lightweight kit it was absolutely perfect. I was trialing a few things as well, starting to run a chest rig in addition to my belt kit, since running gas pistol and gas rifle magazines on a belt kit was adding too much weight and causing it to flop around all over the place. I was also going to run a backpack for gas and BBs, but the BBs I had with me were in a bottle and rattling all over the place, so I decided to not run the backpack today as my BB bags were padding the bottom of my mag pouches to make the m700 magazines fit better. The other thing I was experimenting with was running my mk23 again and... I both love and hate that gun. I love how quiet it is, but I hate that goddamn trigger pull. Jury is still out on whether I'll keep running it as I might go back to my HK45, but it at least earned not being put back into my box of pistols and instead gets to stay out with my HK45, p226 and AAP-01. Still running around without the ghillie, just a £25 uncrafted cobra hood from Russia to help break up the head and shoulders silhouette. Went out with the m700, which chronoed at around 2.15J, so nicely within the limit but with the 30m MED as I've been running that the past game day or so. First game we were doing an attack and defend on one of the bases that I know well and I went with two other snipers along one side, sneaking slowly along one side to start opening up the defense. Honestly, the attack went so well that our contributions were honestly not that great. We took out two or three on the way up, but our team did really well pushing the middle and the other side, so we took up positions and awaited the counter attack. My friend took up a position that he showed me last game day (and it's utter filth, I used it last game day) and he eventually ran out of ammo there were that many targets for him. I covered him from another position a little further back and we managed to hold the base for the rest of the game. We then switched ends, so we started in and around the base and the other team had to attack. I set up on the same side as we pushed beforehand, with my friend going to harass the middle. I eventually had to fall back to a spot I know, since the other team pushed up well (though it took a bit of time), after a ghillie on their team walked into the base and knife killed everyone. I wasn't there to comment on how visible his armband was, but either it was mostly hidden or the people in there were just blind and knowing airsofters I'm more inclined to go with the latter. However, the position I was in, while it covered one of the structures outside the base, rendering it unusable by the enemy team without getting plinked by me, my position also offered a tiny window to shoot to the back of the base and that's where I started to rack up hit after hit. From where they were, they had no idea where the shots were coming from, as I've looked at the spot from their position before and the gas m700 is so quiet, even though that doesn't make too much difference as the shot is about a 70m shot so they wouldn't hear it anyway. I lost count of how many people I got, but I think I went through two and a half m700 magazines taking people out on the back of the base and also in the other structure I had vision on. With my uncrafted cobra hood and my rifle wrapped, nobody could see me from their side while I was lying prone, and I've played long enough to know when and how to move to avoid being seen. It was a good game, but I think in the end they did manage to hold it, so that was one game a piece. After that we played a 3 base domination, but... well, they started our team at the bottom of the site with two of the bases at the top so we had the large hill to climb to get to two of the bases. Regardless, me and my friend headed up on the flank, keeping to the border of the site and taking a position where we could start ambushing players near one of the bases at the top of the site. It went well until they pushed around on a flank (which was out of bounds, naughty naughty!) and I got hit while trying to relocate. I told them they were out of bounds and they moved in bounds, but they didn't know my friend was there so I just bled out and headed back to respawn. I decided to run, both down the hill back to respawn and up the hill back to the front to try and get back in a somewhat timely manner, but they eventually found my friend as he didn't have a pistol and couldn't engage up close. Oh well! I still pushed back up, getting back into a position where I could start engaging targets that my team mates were fighting. It was a lot of back and forward and each time I got hit (two more times!) I ran down and up the hill once again to make sure I got back in the fight as soon as possible. Highlight of the game was posting a shot through a tiny gap in the foliage to get a satisfying whack onto a guy's helmet that could be heard for miles around from about 60m away and the most annoying part was when one of their team just walked up on our flank and shot us all while a group of six of our team just... watched him do it. Remember what I said earlier about airsofters and being blind? Yeah... Anyway, in the end I think the other team won that one, two bases to one, which is largely what I expected with the spawns where they were. While I was happy to run back and forth (even though I'm currently 145kg, which is anywhere between 40 - 50kg too heavy), a lot of airsofters aren't and we just never got a decent presence at the top of the site since only about ten (of a team of 40) of us made the effort. Every time I went back to respawn I saw lots and lots of people milling about the bottom of the site not doing much, but such is life at a skirmish day ? I decided not to go out after lunch. They did a game they like to call Omaha, which has one team starting at the top of the hill and the other team has to push through them through a relatively narrow gap. You'd think with us being at the bottom of the site for the last game they would've started us on defense at the top first, right? Right...? Nope, our team was consigned to the bottom of the hill once more and I decided that pushing up a narrow part of the site with a bolt action rifle with an MED wasn't worth it, plus the forecast was heavy rain in the afternoon and the clouds were starting to look a bit angry. I think I made the right decision, as I had surprised myself with my ability to run all 145kg of me plus kit up and down that hill before lunch but I was feeling a bit tired after that. Also, the heavens did indeed open up and even on the range I was fogging, since it was still warm but it turned super humid with the rainfall. Instead I decided to make sure the SR-25 is still shooting well, setting the scope and making sure the hop rubber was good and oh my goodness was it good. Chronoed it in the morning just in case I wanted to use it and it was pretty much right on 1J and once I had set the scope (since there was no wind today) and the hop up, it was reliably hitting the 60m target. Also, for an AEG it's pretty quiet so I am very impressed with that gun. Had a chat with my friend and we're going to start pairing up more, with one running a bolt action and one running a 1J rifle so we can operate as a proper sniper/spotter pair. Today was okay, but two bolt actions isn't a great setup. Next game day I'm going to be the spotter, since I have a better gun for it and I have the rangefinder so it'll be the SR-25 next time. The only bad parts of the day were the cheaters, since there was quite a bit of non-hit taking, and an annoying rule that they've started to run with at Worthing. Most of the games today were semi-auto only, which I get for filmsim / milsim games where you have dedicated roles and support gunners who are allowed full auto, but at a skirmish day I really don't. I think it's come into effect because too many people whinge about over-shooting, including one of the marshalls when he plays, so they've started making the games all semi-only. It doesn't really affect me, since the guns I run tend to be semi-only anyway because of muh immersion (SR-25 shouldn't have full auto!) and the fact that GBBRs don't tend to like full-auto much, but if you like running a support gun you're a bit stuck at the moment. I really hope it doesn't persist, but it has cropped up in the last two game days so the cynic in me is doubtful. Only time will tell, but I've just had a curry and I'm happily unpacking after what was a good day for the mostpart. Roll on the next!

We've got the same issue at my local site at the moment, though without the face shots (most of the time) and a bit more shooting within MED. We'll reliably have more than 10 ghillies out of 70 - 80 players, and that's not including myself and my friend as we've ditched the ghillies for now, partially to practice camo and concealment skills but partially to make sure we can't be associated with any of it. Plus, it just feels weird to me when there's that many ghillies and I make the joke that eventually it will be 40 ghillies vs 40 ghillies ?

Should make life easier while reloading my GBBR mags... (made sure to get a spare of each, just in case)

If I didn't already have a TM AKM (the GBBR one), I'd definitely pick myself up a cm048m. Cyma AKs are really nice, though it's great to know which ones are great and which ones aren't so great, thanks @Skara

Thanks. I'm sure @Tactical Pith Helmet will give a better one as he was actually in the games all weekend so he knows how they went. This one was about 60 and was roughly even on numbers. People tend to leave across the weekend for various reasons and this one was no different with the weather beating down on us. I think by the end of Sunday it was about 15 NVA/VC vs 10 US as many had packed up and left by that point. Most of the Eversley Vietnam filmsim events that I've been to get around those numbers, sometimes more. I think the largest I was at had about 75 US and around 55 NVA/VC. No idea about other types of events, but I think they all tend to get decent numbers there.

TM, and it doesn't clear a full magazine on a single fill of gas if I'm shooting it fast, but it does shoot fantastically well while it does. I do have higher standards for my pistols, since I tend to run scoped long guns that aren't practical for close range or moving around, but not being able to squeeze through an entire mag is just a deal breaker for me. That said, other people have better luck with their TM 1911s, but mine just doesn't seem to work well at all

Just came back from a weekend of Gunman 'Namsoft up at Eversley Alpha and it reminded me why I do airsoft and why I love this hobby so much. Got a lift up with the usual pair I go airsofting with, one of whom is a pretty avid camper so it was as comfortable as it really could be camping in the woods and ended up having a great time. Met up with a bunch of people, old and new faces alike, and we ended up camping next to our resident @Tactical Pith Helmet and his family. However, it was a good time in a strange way because I didn't actually play much. I had rampant anxiety on the Friday night as Friday was a sweaty day due to the heat, having a wander around the site to get the lay of the land etc, and my mind was constantly like "hey, your heart could start doing its weird stuff again" even though I'm pretty damn confident I solved that problem. This meant I didn't get a wink of sleep and thus I couldn't play on the Saturday as I was absolutely drained as soon as I got out there, then on the Sunday I realised that being 20kg heavier (again, this was caused by my heart thing earlier in the year) and wearing pretty heavy, thick, all black kit in this weekend's weather was a recipe for disaster. I just... couldn't play, no matter how much I wanted to. It was truly disappointing! "So how was it a good time?" I hear you ask. Well, the social side was fantastic. I absolutely loved chatting with everyone, talking k98s with TPH and just seeing airsoft how it should be played, and I'm not talking about the filmsim roleplay parts; there wasn't rampant cheating, or people throwing their toys out the pram (too much) or people yelling about getting overshot. It was just a good weekend of BB wars and I was all for it. Also Josh, the organiser and owner of Gunman, is a joy to be around. That man has boundless energy and always loves for his games to just be a good time. I'm not the biggest roleplayer, for example, but that's never been a problem. As long as my kit looks good and my weapons are period-accurate, I'm never made to feel unwelcome just because I don't yell "GO HOME GI" at the top of my lungs (though it was very amusing for the otherwise silent forest to be punctuated by such yells that I could hear across the entire site while I was trying to sneak up on people). Fun parts where I actually played were fun though. I left my guns in our regen and took a radio that I tucked into my trousers, heading to a US-held area. I told them I needed to pass through the village and they searched me, but they didn't find the radio so I headed on through and... proceeded to relay their numbers and positions to my fellow freedom fighters. Then on the Sunday I managed to stalk through the bushes and take out four Americans with just a pistol by shooting and then moving. However, my 1911... in the words of Darth Vader, "you have failed me for the last time..." It just wasn't performing great, even though it was perfect weather for gas pistols. I've tried to make it good, but this was the last chance I was giving it, so moving forward I will run the AAP (it's converted to a Ruger .22) and the mac11 as a backup secondary (since the mac10 was used and they look the same, just slightly smaller) The really good things that came out of the weekend were: Social Josh being Josh Reinforcement that my heart thing is solved because it didn't happen on any night and every day was full of stuff that would've normally set it off, just my mind was telling me "oh but it could" all through Friday night Top quality airsoft for the 2 hours I played Learned that I need to revisit my kit for Nam games to make it a bit more practical Gave me a kick up the backside to lose weight and get fitter I'll let Mr. TPH give you a more accurate rundown of how the games went, but even from the perspective of me, a person who had basically everything conspire to stop me from playing, the weekend was fantastic and I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Well, also election season is coming up in the not too distant future.

Ah, that makes sense. I was picturing the tacticool milsim plaid and jeans look which something tells me wouldn't fit ?

Oh, so that's what you mean by low effort... That makes me feel better about my stuff then ?

Another game that we didn't know about, but I don't think we could do two full weekends in a row (because money) and the Gunman ones take priority for us. 15 a side sounds like a blast though and glad that it was a great weekend. Here's hoping this coming weekend is good as well (even if I feel a little called out by your moan about loadouts ?)

Had a surprisingly good day today at Worthing. I set my m700 up for 2.3J today, as I wanted to give it a go dealing with the MED and essentially handicapping myself at this time of year since Worthing Airsoft is pretty dense with foliage. This was by design and I tend to do this kind of stuff to make sure I'm not getting complacent, much in the same way that I don't wear the ghillie during the summer; plus I enjoy doing it. The extra challenge is fun! Nevertheless, I went in with the expectation that I might get hammered, but it couldn't have been further from the truth. It forced me to really consider exactly what I was going to do, where I was going to position etc, since with a lot of sight lines being cut off by dense foliage it was very easy to get up close if I screwed up. The weather was nearly perfect too, with the sun out all day only spoiled by a bit of a breeze blowing across the site, but we're in the season where I thrive; anything up to 30 celcius is absolutely comfortable for me, and I'll play up to about 40 celcius before I start thinking about calling it quits. Love my warm weather (it's my Spanish side, I swear...) So, with that in my mind, the morning went pretty well. First two games were at the top of the site where there are some sight lines if you know where to go, and I paired up with one of the other snipers I get along with well; he was also running a gun with no MED, but his scout is being weird and only chronoed at 1.3J today. However, we definitely made our presence known and I found myself playing a bit more aggressive than usual, which is weird since I had an MED today where I usually don't. Worked out well and I got quite a few people in the first game, and then the second where we switched ends. However, the third game took us all to the bottom of the site, and to say it's overgrown down there would be a hell of an understatement. It was the true Worthing woodland CQB experience and I ended up just slinging the rifle on my back and going with the pistol. I paired up with another guy that I usually partner up with this time who was running his AKM, so we did a bit of sniper/spotter work, which was really refreshing and I seriously enjoyed doing it. Working in pairs is definitely more fun than working alone for sure! We executed a massive flank, moving through the area of the site that never gets played (and it's ironically called Paradise) to get behind them, assuming the enemy team would push up and take a base that would've cut us off (we ran quickly and ducked into a pathway that only the regulars really know about). However, the enemy team didn't do this, so when we got to where we needed to be, our team was pushing from that side which ruined the plan we had as our plan relied on them completely not expecting someone to come from that direction. Oh well! After lunch we played at the top of the site again and... I found myself on the front lines with my bolt action again. It's definitely harder to play aggressively when there's so much foliage, but I think the way I play works well, since it's all about low and slow and you can really get into positions the enemy don't expect. It was a good game, though we got pushed almost into our spawn we somehow managed to win (3 base domination and I guess the other team just... didn't go to the middle base, too busy trying to trap us in our spawn ). After that we switched ends and 3 o'clock syndrome started to kick in. I hit a guy square in the face since he was lying under a bush, watched him recoil from the hit and then come out with his rifle raised after his friend shot me. Then as the game was ending I had someone full-auto me in the face from about 5m away, so that was nice too. Decided to call it there since I needed to get the m700 set back for 1.1J for next week's Nam game, as Eversley Alpha has a ban on DMR and sniper power at this time of year since the ferns are pretty out of control. Also, just checked and even without the ghillie suit and playing more aggressive today, I still managed to dodge the camera. No photos of me again ?

I run this for either my HPA tank or a bottle of gas, depending on the gun I'm using. The diameter mismatch really isn't a problem and it has held my gas bottles just fine. Height is far more important. https://www.military1st.co.uk/8040-1-brandit-bottle-holder-i-olive.html

MWS build is officially complete. Fitted it and maaaaaaaaaan it's a lot nicer than the stock pistol grip. Plus the NPAS should help me keep it from getting a bit too spicy. Might actually get a longer inner barrel for it now, since it's an m16a4 and beforehand if I put a longer barrel in it would creep to be hot (currently has an m4 length one that stops half way through the outer).

I've hidden from people while wearing a ghillie suit made of tinsel (red, green and gold shiny stuff!), but never worn that setup, so I cannot refute your claims.

Ready for some Gunman 'Namsoft in June. Love a weekend of shooting at GIs with their own guns, but this time I actually have mags for the AKM, so that's coming too

Practice, practice, practice! Only way to get better is to shoot more. Shooting at static targets is useful for getting to know how your rifle shoots, time to impact at different distances etc. Once you are very familiar with how your rifle shoots, you need to practice leading shots in game. It takes some practice because airsoft is incredibly inconsistent, but you'll eventually get a feel for how your rifle shoots in different conditions and be able to judge shots on moving targets easier. All this said, it's definitely easier if you have a scope with a good reticle with mildots. I was running a scope with mildots over the weekend and it made adjusting for wind so much easier as I knew "for this shot, I need to aim two mildots to the left (of which there was quite a breeze on Sunday!)

Slow start for me today. Took the spring VSR and the Tanaka m700 and I can say that the Tanaka m700 hates low power. I put the small gas router in it and was getting 0.04J (the Bbs were pretty much rolling out of the barrel) and the middle one was only between 0.3 and 0.4J, but the normal sized one was 1.5J which was too much, since Worthing Airsoft is getting to be woodland CQB again so a 30m MED is way too much of a liability right now. Furthermore, the spring VSR was chronoing at 1.17J without a suppressor on and I didn't bring one, so I had to drop the BB weight a little to get it under 1.14J. With a suppressor it chronos reliably at 1.11J, losing 0.06J as it goes through the suppressor, but all of this took a while this morning and I missed the first two games. Onto the day itself then, but it was pretty good. The weather was amazing, though it was a bit breezy, so shots were swinging wide for everyone. Running the spring VSR at 1.1J with no MED was a bit of a laugh, but there were definitely still moments where I was like "ah, I wish I had 2.3J right now...". I might experiment playing with that 30m MED and a reliable pistol or SMG secondary (I'll need it) in future at the site, but next game day I need to make sure the KJW m700 is still set up for 1.1J, since I have some 'Namsoft the week after the next game day in June and I'm pretty sure Gunman has a sniper ban at Eversley at the moment because the ferns are grown up, so everything has to be 1.14J or under. Also ran the belt kit today for my Vietnam stuff and it's so good. Who needs modern tacticool molle setups anyway?

I remember that. I waited until I saw some in stock for a reasonable price on fire support and bought 5 immediately (my friend bought 5 as well, so between us we bought like... half their stock from that wave of mags). I probably will hold off on the saiga though. I don't do much CQB, so it wouldn't be used that much and it's probably going to end up being about £650 here (could even be £700) looking at the Japanese price, with mags at between £50 - £60 each. That's a lot to spend on a gun I might use a few times.

Shame TM will screw it up and there won't be any mags in stock for years (like the AKM). But I will say I do really like the look of this. I think I'd want a drum mag though.

Only HPA guns I have are a bolt action sniper rifle and a semi-auto m21 build (so... another sniper rifle). Not all HPA users are spammy wankers, and not all spammy wankers are HPA users.

Some sites do, at least for part of the year because it gets hard to use them and observe their MEDs. I'm not talking about CQB sites either, I know that Gunman do it at Eversley Alpha for the summer months and that's a woodland site, since the ferns grow quite high. It's entirely possible to use a 2.3J sniper rifle and be effective during the summer, but they ban them because too many people are crap at doing so. Doesn't matter to me, I run my bolt actions at 1.1J for the mostpart, because my local site doesn't have long sight lines, even during the winter. I'll run them at 2.3J if I'm going to an event away from my home site and I reckon I'll get use out of the extra power, like at AI500 last month.

However, one thing I've observed (though again it's all 2nd hand info as I haven't been myself) is that Americans have a better attitude towards milsim; maybe it's got something to do with how prevalent real guns are in America so they get the idea that it's BB wars with toy guns better than we do over here. Milsim in the UK tends to have its head so far up its own arse that a lot of them forget we're still playing soldier running around the woods playing BB wars. From what I've seen in America, milsim is still milsim, but they seem to still hold onto that "we're just giant children" aspect a bit better and it seems more fun. Plenty of opportunities for trigger time at things like Milsim West, where the milsim I attended here, which was entry level, had me shooting a whole 1 time across the entire 24 hour game, and it was a scripted vehicle ambush where we as OpFor were essentially set up to fail.

I can only give my opinion on each of these points, so... For me, I prefer stainless steel barrels to brass barrels as stainless steel barrels won't corrode and to me they seem to require cleaning a little less often. Had one brass barrel corrode pretty bad, while I still use the same stainless steel barrel in my first VSR build for the past... 14 years? It's pretty much that simple. Reason for ZCI is their prices are great for what you get; £25 for a stainless steel tightbore is pretty nice. Trial and error for me. I've found that I might get a higher maximum range with the MR hop, but the macaron gives me way better consistency and better effective range. For me, effective range trumps maximum range every single time. Nubs, probably, but I wouldn't want to try to replicate an autobot or macaron contact patch by hand, though I'm crap at that kind of thing. Also, hop rubbers are pretty damn cheap. They're usually less than £10 and the nub is less than £5, so it's not exactly breaking the bank. I think it's "all of the above". I know my local site has a 25rps limit, because if you put a 1 second burst into someone that's still 25 BBs hitting them, potentially in the face. It's not nice getting absolutely hosed by someone with a wankergun build and an itchy trigger finger. I've got some pretty snappy builds, but none of them are over 20rps on full auto (and I never use full auto anyway). Also, if you're going that snappy, semi-auto might as well be full-auto. Insert the "that's not full auto, this is" video here. Also also, full-auto on something that isn't a support gun is just a crutch for people who can't aim. The crutch gets bigger the higher the ROF. Change my mind

Pretty much this. It's why I never run anything at DMR power since I find that usually what you gain in a good DMR build over a good 1.1J build is minimal, but you lose that engagement within your MED and are locked to semi (though the latter isn't much of an issue for me since I prefer semi anyway). Yep, this is also another factor for DMRs. Most bigger events will require that your DMR be weapon appropriate (so some sort of long barreled 7.62 or a mk12 or VSS or something), so you're going to run into voluming issues since you definitely want to be using heavier BBs in a DMR. HPA can solve this issue, but that comes with a bunch of its own issues (mostly an airline and strapping a bomb to yourself, along with very high setup costs). Short barreled AEGs are actually more efficient with heavy ammo, but can't be used at larger events as DMRs