Impulse

Today managed to be awful. Absolute unadulterated awful. First game was great and I got a lot done (set up my m700 at 2.25J and it was firing amazingly, probably even better than my HPA VSR setup) and I really enjoyed it, however after the second game I called it a day. Called out exactly what the other team were going to do as I knew they would flank around a certain area and so I went and positioned for it, however by the time they got around everything was so wet from the downpour that had ramped up that my glasses had fogged and my scope had fogged so I couldn't see anything through it and therefore my m700 basically became useless. I was just watching the other team do their flank, another example like last game day of being in an amazing position where I could start picking them all off one by one and other factors just making it useless. Got hit as I was trying to get some of the moisture off my scope (it didn't help...) and so then I came back out with just a pistol. Got in behind their flanking push and got two in the back, who called it and started walking off as dead men as they didn't think anyone was around to medic them. They walked about 10m away and as they rounded the bush, I noticed them walk over to one of their team mates who then started medicing them, which is literally cheating once they have walked off from where they got shot. I shot at him as well and they just didn't call it at all, then I got shot by one of their friends who then decided to have a go at me for not taking my hits while his friends were blatantly cheating right in front of me as I had emptied 2 mk23 magazines full of .32s into them with a fairly straight shot and no foliage in the path; was watching the BBs hit them and nothing happening. I called it anyway and went back to respawn, but no idea if they did in the end. Came back out after respawning, got in behind another one of them, gun jammed and as I was fixing it I got friendly fired in the side of the head. I called it there as I was starting to get more than a bit perturbed and being soaked through wasn't helping the matter (torso was dry, but legs and feet were soaking wet). Won't have another skirmish day until a month's time as my local site cancelled their next one on account of it being on New Year's Day and everyone would be hung over (especially one of the site owners... ?), so I'm really bummed out that this one was so damn frustrating. Only good things, outside of the first game, was non-skirmish related stuff. I got a setup for my shorter m700 that allows me to go with either 1.1J or 2.3J depending on gas used, width of gas router and hammer spring adjustment, so that will be my bolt action of choice at both 1.1J and 2.3J games going forwards. I love the gas m700 platform; it's probably my favourite airsoft gun I've ever used and worked on in all 17 years of playing (and as it's just a regular m700 which was very much around in the 70s, GIs beware the farmer in pyjamas with an m700 and a ruger pistol at Vietnam games in 2023 ). Secondly, I got my two AEGs back from the tech I entrusted them to, as I can't do AEG gearboxes because they are techno-wizardry, and they're amazing and I'm so happy I just decided to pay someone to do the work on the everything-apart-from-hop-and-barrel. The m14 is firing at 1.05J consistently on .32s and slinging them out to where I need them to go, while also being lovely and snappy and pretty damn quiet for an AEG; fairly tight grouping even at 60m, so that's a useful, reliable backup gun (and again, GIs beware as it's also period accurate!). The SR-25 had a bit of an issue where the nozzle wasn't going far enough forward so the air seal was being crap and firing at 0.1J - 0.3J, but the guy fixed it there on the spot by filing away some material from the tappet plate (had already spoken to him as there were parts that I had that I needed to put in on the day before we could properly test it). With an m110 spring in it, it was firing at 0.775J incredibly consistently (lowest shot was 0.771J, highest was 0.775J), so I'm going to try an m120 or m130 to get it as close to 1.1J on .4s with the hop set as possible, so if I get it to slightly over 1.14J, I'll wait and see for next month when I get it set up and hop set on it as it will probably need a bit to lift those .4s at 1.1J. Quick change springs are wonderful things and the only reason I'm content to do that part myself! Anyway, I've waffled on enough, but I'm angy and wanted to scream into the aether.

I bought a TM HK45 about a year ago and it came with all the trades. I think they say they remove the trades for legal reasons, but don't really as I've never seen a TM pistol without trades on it.

Made sure me and my friend got some, but there's 14 left on Fire Support if you guys want to get some mags! I picked up 5, so now I have 6 total and it's usable! Will be my backup rifle for Vietnam games in case my m700s are having issues (or might use it at the same time as my m700 if I can work out the sling configuration I want. Big guy, so 2 rifles isn't too bad of an issue) https://www.fire-support.co.uk/product/tokyo-marui-gbb-akm-magazine-35-rnd?fbclid=IwAR3lEerj1Vb11Q0hMVV4-5M2tAjVvZiV_fDw4C9nUaN8spJVKGqK-v5ZmuU

I've used double m4 mag pouches on chest rigs to great effect, however now I run them in a utility pouch on my belt kit (sneaky sniper crawling around, so no chest rig/plate carrier) Failing that, something like these would work: https://www.military1st.co.uk/fy-ph-m024-mc-flyye-ev-universal-double-magazine-pouch-molle-multicam.html https://www.military1st.co.uk/191040-001-condor-double-m14-kangaroo-mag-pouch-olive-drab.html https://www.airsoftzone.co.uk/double-m14-magazine-pouch-holds-4-mags-od-green-condor.html https://www.uktactical.com/product/warrior-single-quick-mag-olive-drab-9409 I love my 7.62 gats, but hate finding pouches for them

I see Cyma AK, I like Cyma AK. Plus, everyone (even me) has an M4 or M4-adjacent gun. I'd go with the Cyma cm040. Cyma AKs have always been brilliant and it will be an absolute workhorse of a gun with minimal tweaks (literally I'd just swap out the hop rubber and nub and keep the rest stock).

Absolute comedy of errors today. Still managed to have fun, but holy crap was it annoying. I literally forgot my shirt. Not joking, I totally forgot to bring my MARPAT combat shirt so I had to play the whole day (as a ghillie sniper with a ghillie cape) in a black fleece instead. Good thing I practice like this during the summer, so I knew my camo and concealment fundamental skills are good and I knew what I could do and get away with having the entire front of my torso just not camo'd up at all! First game started, I was really hyped to play as injury and gun issues have stifled my last few game days and we were playing a part of the site we never play, which I feel we need to play more because it's great. I spend 20 minutes fighting through thick, overgrown foliage (lots of stamping down on thorns to clear a path) getting into a stupid sneaky position with my HPA VSR, which I decided to run today because it was 5 degrees celcius so not the best weather for gas guns. Got into the position, could see the whole enemy team from a lovely elevated but still well concealed hide on the flank. Lined up my first shot, pulled the trigger aaaaaaaand... click. Solenoid activated and no air came out. Checked my tank and it was empty, so I have a leak somewhere. Tested my hicapa back in the safe zone and one of the mags feed lips decided they didn't want to be there any more and sheared off, snapping and flying off somewhere. The spring and follower thankfully remained in the magazine, but need new feed lips for one of my hicapa mags now. Ugh! Went back to the safe zone and sighted in my m700 that I also brought as a backup. I brought my 2J m700 build since the sight lines are longer at Worthing through the winter and as it was 2J on 144a in 11 degrees celcius, so I figured with more powerful gas it'd be fine at 5 celcius. Went to chrono it with the ASG ultraair I have (which is a little bit stronger than standard green gas, let alone 144a) and it was coming up between 0.9J at the lowest and 1.16J at the highest. Not what I wanted, but at least it was working, conveniently without any MED, and it was sailing the .48s out there so I went out to use that after lunch and had a LOT of fun. On a timed attack and defend game I was the only one who went around on one flank and kept about 10 people occupied by myself (and started picking them all off as they couldn't pinpoint or hit me). Was a lot of impact and I ran out of ammo (3x 28rd mags goes fast fighting 10 people, though I can usually make them last!) Got back to the safe zone afterwards, packing stuff away aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand... the AEP lipo in my mp7 tears the end off when I take it out, totally breaking the battery. I go to tape it up so I can battery bin it tomorrow (my local Lidl has a battery bin) and it starts sparking and burning through the tape. The site tech basically pulls the metal contacts off the wires inside so it no longer does that and I tape it all up for the battery bin tomorrow. I can't think of much more that could've realistically gone wrong, but I still managed to get out there and have a bit of fun. Christmas game next game day, so I'm thinking of wearing some festive reindeer antlers and taking a bolt action rifle; usually reindeer are the hunted, so I'm going to turn that around and have the reindeer become the hunter ?

Also Cyma AK74su is a good chunk cheaper for Cyber Monday on Patrol Base: https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/cyma-cm-045a-aks-74u?pv=2696 We all know Cyma AKs are good and this one is real wood.

TM you'll save money in the long run. You can buy a TM GBB at around £150 and leave it completely stock and it will perform well out of the box for many many years. For most people, this is the best way forward in my opinion as most people barely use their pistols past shooting each other on the way out to games, shooting them on the range and shooting at puddles / metal things while waiting for the game to start. High cap magazines holding between 200 (mp5 mags) and 600 (AK mags) really means that pistols are largely unnecessary from a pure gameplay perspective, however pistols are some of my favourite guns, so I'm not going to start saying that pure gameplay is all that matters (leave that to the speedsofters). I will never recommend WE pistols, purely because I've witnessed so many just give up in the winter, and it amused me watching people try to use their pistols last game day when it was chilly (it's okay, karma got me in the end because my gas sniper had issues too because it's a finicky build) If you do want to upgrade, I know that the AAP-01 is phenomenal for upgrading but they tend to explode out of the box after a bit of use; the hammer and sears tend to give up and need replacing, but that said mine is still going strong but I never use full-auto (Rugers don't full auto and I use mine for Vietnam games!). For pure upgradeability the AAP-01, Glock, Hi-Capa and the mk23 are the most upgradeable pistols in my opinion. It's a bit silly what you can get for those, however that can also take you down quite the rabbit hole of costs. I think all in my AAP-01 build is going to come to almost £500, but that is also including external parts to convert it to a Ruger. That's a lot more than £100, even though the pistol itself is only £90 (or £65 for the tan one on Patrolbase today for Cyber Monday!) However, on the point of upgrading pistols, I only think it's worth it if you find yourself using it a lot or if it isn't performing at all well out of the box / is broken. I've done all of mine because I'm frequently negotiating a 30m MED with my rifle, but probably wouldn't if I wasn't using it as much as I do (sometimes more than my rifle!) Sorry, I tend to ramble when it comes to pistols because I like them

Yeah, can shoot that faster than I fire my 1.1J semi-auto sniper builds and his point about movement of pulling the bolt is false; I use HPA and gas snipers and you can pull the bolt with wrist movement alone so it's really not very pronounced anyway. If you can't pull a gas or HPA bolt without people spotting the movement... get better at doing it.

As much as I like him (especially for a 'Tuber), House Gamers just did a video that demonstrates everything I hate about straight pull: Could shoot that way faster than a DMR

Quite the contrary, I find the WAS universal holster has never even risked dropping mags from any of my HK style pistols. I use it all the time with the HK45 and it works really well, and I also use it for my hi-capa and AAP with no issues either. Outside of that, the amomax universal holster is pretty good too

Take everything I say with a pinch of salt; AEGs aren't really my thing and I prefer gas guns. 1. I've never used a MOSFET in any AEG I've owned, so I wouldn't say they're necessary. They're nice for sure, and I'll be shoving a WARFET into my m14 and considering some sort of MOSFET for the SR-25 as well, but they aren't a necessity. 2. For me it wouldn't be a deal breaker. Can always get one later on if needed. 3. Yes. Good aftermarket part support is needed. You don't need to get something with a V2/V3 gearbox, though they have the most parts availability. It's why I love the TM/Cyma m14s and hate the G&G ones; you can get loads of parts for a TM / Cyma v7 gearbox, but G&G do weird proprietary things. 4. I used to be all about getting expensive that just works well out of the box (TM guns, especially their NGRS stuff), but now I'm very much a Cyma shill instead. You can get a steel/wood Cyma AK for under £200 and it'll work well enough out of the box, maybe just swap out the hop rubber and nub at first. Then you can save up for some sort of nasty internals over time and the stock ones will generally stand up to general use. Upgrades are far better if you (or a reliable tech if you're like me and gearboxes are literal kryptonite) do them yourself; "out of the box" upgrades are usually kinda crap and cost more than you'd pay to get them done yourself. 5. AKs are fairly easy to upgrade. V3 gearboxes are the 2nd most common after V2s

I use HPA and gas bolt actions and one of the reasons is specifically because the bolt pull is effortless, but I agree with your statement here. I like the effortless pull because it allows me to do it incredibly slowly and deliberately, thus staying hidden more effectively, but converting to straight pull and then using it to essentially rapid fire it is just called being a twat.

My friend shoved a Wolverine Hydra Gen2 into his Real Sword SVD because the stock internals shattered and Real Sword never sent him his replacement (they told him they would, but we both reckon they're out of business or something as he has pestered them for over 2 years) The only downsides are that it uses AEG hop rubbers and not VSR rubbers and it requires a bit of tweaking to get it just right (need a shorter inner barrel for a 1.1J build), but it's probably the best semi-auto SVD build I've seen.

My thoughts exactly. If I was getting an SVD, it's going to be semi-auto! I find myself curious why it has to be straight pull though. The best sniper platforms in airsoft are not straight pull (I like my VSRs and gas m700s, but people also like the SRS, Steyr Scout and Tac-41)

I only have two gripes with the TM HK45, though it is my favourite GBB pistol I currently own in terms of aesthetic, ergonomics and just how quiet it is for a GBB. One issue is that the mags are the pin design (like most pistols) rather than the screw design like Hi-Capa, p226 or 1911 mags which makes them awful to work on if they spring a leak. The other issue is that either mine was a bit of a lemon, or the hop unit doesn't like engaging all the way, with the hop arm catching on the adjustment wheel about 2/3 of the way. This meant that I couldn't hop .32s which is what I tend to use in all of my other 1.1J builds, be they rifle or pistol, plus I think the H-plate was applying hop slightly unevenly, just looking at the deformation in the rubber when inspecting through the barrel with hop applied. So imagine how happy I was to find out that the guys at Hadron had come out with an outer barrel assembly for the TM HK45 with TDC and a H-arm to go with it. Forgot to take pictures before installing it, but I'm pleased so far. The deformation in the rubber now is far more even and I am sure I can apply enough hop for .32s now with the 50 degree ML autobot in there, though if not I'll slap a 60 degree in because I prefer them for air seal and have a spare anyway. Will test next game day (that's 4th Dec for me), as I want to be able to run .32s for the most part or .28s if I go to an event that limits ammo weight. Don't care about heavier because it's generally my shooting-within-MED or moving-around-the-site gun so I'll typically be shooting fairly close with it but want it to be able to hit the 50m just in case I need to engage quickly while moving around the woodland.

I think part of it is just purely financial. Christmas is always tight for a lot of people, and for reasons-totally-unrelated-to-lockdowns-we-swear a lot of people are currently suffering financially and therefore simply can't afford to play.

We only had 30 players today max. Very low numbers at the moment!

Oooooooooh I'm so happyyyyyyyy. The foliage has finally receded at Worthing Airsoft and the sight lines are back to being long. There's enough foliage for cover and concealment, but it's no longer the woodland CQB of the summer months. I didn't manage to play nearly as much as I wanted to because it's amazing what difference 5 degree celcius makes. The 1.1J m700 just wasn't having it today; if it's much higher than 1.1J, it sends .48s into the sky, but if it's too much lower it doesn't get enough traction to hop the BB effectively, and in today's 10 degree celcius temperatures it was around 0.7J, which wasn't enough. Spent the rest of the day tweaking the 2J m700 (which I was very very very happy with), but next weekend I'm bringing the HPA VSR back out as my mags for the m700 were absolutely freezing cold all day. With the sight lines opened up, it's time to bring out all the 2.3J builds! Also, haven't used the mp7 in about 9 months and it still floats BBs out to 45m. It may be an AEP, it may only be about 0.6J, it may be totally stock, but TM hop up never disappoints! Having a full auto electric SMG in a holster as a secondary during the winter months is so useful.

That's my plan. Putting them through both m700s tomorrow and will swap over if I like them for all weights.

With Geoffs BBs seemingly increasing in price on a weekly basis, I felt it was time for a change

See, for me it's the other way around. I would never touch an SR-25 with a v2 gearbox because I want that long cylinder from the v2.5 for the setup I want to do with it (being either a 1.1J or DMR power).

They're actually one of my preferred retailers. Always been really good with me and they've ordered stuff in for me in the past from Europe (they order from https://www.airsoftzone.com/ semi-regularly). Super helpful for me because KJW m700 parts, magazines and after-market upgrade parts can be hell to find in the UK, but airsoftzone orders them in regularly. Can't recommend them enough. Always done well by me and thus they're one of my favourite retailers now.

I just bought one of these because they're £10 off at the moment, bringing it to a paltry £20 investment https://www.patrolbase.co.uk/8fields-tactical-hybrid-chest-rig?pv=17024 8fields are usually good. One of my favourite holsters is 8fields and my favourite drop-leg panel is 8fields. Got a bunch of their pistol mag pouches too and they're pretty great.

This isn't just local to Rift. I see a horde of bolt actions at Worthing Airsoft too, even during the summer where the site is basically woodland CQB with how bushy it gets; I've specifically got multiple 1.1J BASR and semi-auto sniper builds for the summer months because a 30m MED makes about 80% of the site unplayable and I've been playing sniper for over a decade now because I love the satisfaction. Personally, I blame certain Youtube content creators for the massive influx... I've also ended up being the front line before because not wanting to push isn't just for snipers and low-crawling forward might be slow, but at least it's moving in the right direction. Better late than never!