Impulse

It's one of ak2m4's ones. It's out of stock at the moment, but it's really nice: https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/external-parts/suppressors/xt-suppressor-long-155mm Yeah. It's the Gunsmith Bros XCarry 5.1 slide. I didn't like a lot of the metal slides because they just looked a bit too... much? I like my simple guns, so all the metal slides with holes all over them and weird geometric patterns... no thank you

I don't usually like getting metal slides for my TM pistols because I love how efficient the plastic slides are... but my hi-capa slide snapped at the front when the front sight was ripped out by some very determined brambles that I was wading through (the bottom part of the Worthing Airsoft site is basically unplayable at the moment...) So my hi-capa now has a metal slide. Surprisingly snappy still on green gas at room temperature thanks to the lightweight blowback unit and probably feels the best to shoot due to the fact it's still snappy but the metal slide has some weight to it; might get a bigger recoil spring, but we'll see. Will be running it on propane anyway, so here's hoping it'll be fine in the winter too.

2nd game day of not being able to play and I'm definitely feeling it. The weather was lovely yesterday at Worthing Airsoft; the sun was out, the temperature was warm but not too warm, and there was barely any wind. Add to that the first game had objectives that I would've loved to mess about with and I was annoyed I couldn't play, however I'm out until October and I have a firm date for my heart procedure, so in the long run things will be good; it just sucks to miss the summer season of airsoft. I still went down as usual to chat and have a look around during the safety brief and lunch hour when no games were going on to try and work out how to approach the site now since it's so bushy and MEDs are hard to negotiate during the summer months; hell I reckon even this winter might be difficult with how many new branches are growing outwards. There was also a new bunker built near the other new bunker and a bunch of sandbags set up between them making a trench line. It's a really nice little base area, however there are issues. My friend who was playing said that the teams weren't well balanced and the yellow team got pushed all the way back to their spawn. The issue here is that with the two bunkers, the farther one had an objective on it and the closer one is pretty damn close to the yellow team's spawn point, so there was a lot of frustration as people couldn't get out of their spawn. Funnily enough, this irked me even more simply because I found a way to counteract that position for precisely that situation; there's a position I found with a totally clear line of sight to the forward bunker (relative to the spawn point) that is easy to get into and can be reached without being spotted at all. The distance is also 62m from the position to the bunker itself, so it's a perfect position for a bolt action or DMR; I found I could easily post shots through the windows with my VSR when I took it out at lunch time last game day to see how easy it was to hit, but also if I am noticed getting into that spot, I'm confident at 62m most people's 1.1J guns just won't be hitting out to that distance with accuracy, so I can probably hit them before they can hit me. Though that said having looked at the spot from the bunker while my friend moved into it during the lunch hour I would be really surprised if somebody noticed; I was looking directly at the location and I couldn't see him! My friend eventually came back before lunch and called it a day there, as he was saying that hit taking was also pretty laughable. Again, I can't verify that as I wasn't playing, but I trust him. So, what did I do with the day? Well, I did pack 8 guns as there was space in the car and no that isn't a typo. I brought my Tanaka m700, KJW m700, G&P m14, mk12 MWS, VSR and hi-capa, as well as two new gats I bought from people here, a JG skorpion and a DE m870 breacher, all to test on the range as they were either new purchases or they were guns I had upgraded and worked on over the last two weeks. Good thing is that almost everything worked well, so I spent some time setting the hop and getting a feeling for how they shot. The VSR was the big one, as I wanted to make sure it could shoot at 1.1J so I can take it to the night game we have at Worthing at the end of October, so I confirmed I could get that set up and then changed it back to 2.3J. 155psi for 2.3J on a .48, 80psi for 1.1J on a .32, both using co2. The hi-capa I need a new slide for, as the front sight came out during my last game day a month ago and I think it weakened the front when it was pulled out by whatever pulled it out, as when I put a new front sight on it the front of the slide snapped and pinged off when I test shot it. Recovered the new front sight and will get a metal slide when my paycheck comes in this week. That said, apart from the hi-capa that needs a new slide, every single one of my guns is now set up and done. I've packed most of my collection away as I simply don't have the room for them all to be out (I live in a room in a shared house and it's quite a full room by this point...), but before I did so I made sure they were all performing where I want them to; the last ones were the ones I'm keeping out and are my general go-to guns. I also discovered that my very large Visionking 3.5-25x56mm scope only likes being on my m700s, as the mounts don't go onto any of my other guns and keep it straight, and I don't want to spend £80 or so picking up some real-steel scope mounts because 34mm tubes aren't exactly common in airsoft. I'll just keep that as my m700 scope and put other scopes on other things. Now that's all done I think I'll just be practicing some long distance shots on the range during game days, so this is likely my last game day report for a while unless something spicy happens. I will now live vicariously through your posts until I'm back on the field in probably about 8 weeks time!

Never buy gen 1 😂

This was my immediate reaction. I use gas guns and my most used main gun is a gas bolt action that I have to tweak that at the start of every game day since weather conditions affect the power. If I go to a game day and it's 18 celcius, then turn up to the NAF and it's 25 celcius, my gun will obviously be over the limit if I don't tweak it. It's also why I usually aim for about 2 - 2.1J at the morning chrono rather than 2.2 - 2.3J, because it gives me a bit of room as a buffer against temperature increases through the day.

I'll echo the praises for RIFT's weekenders. I went to Shift Your RIFTs this year for the first time and was super impressed by it. It was well run with plenty of staff to make sure things went smoothly and there wasn't too much cheating; I encountered a single person across the entire weekend who wasn't taking his hits. I haven't been to the epic weekender that they have coming up, but me and my friends may be heading there as we have no interest in the NAF now and it is probably a good alternative. Outside of that, I go to AI500 regularly, but that's more of a social thing. The airsoft is usually generally poor, though I'd argue it's a bit better than the NAF, but the sites they secure are usually really great. I also go to Gunman's filmsim weekends, specifically Vietnam for myself but they also do Cold War, 90s and even Star Wars events! They're well run and a good laugh, run by a good team of people, though they have a few kit requirements to make sure everyone looks the part. Can't turn up to a Vietnam game in multicam with a hi-capa running m4 mags, but at the same time the kit doesn't need to be totally 100% accurate, no matter what the stitch-counters may say. An m4 with plastic grips and a carry handle, paired with a simple pair of black pyjamas and a chicom is a perfectly adequate VC kit, for example (captured weapon)

The remaining guns that need testing and tweaking while I'm not allowed to play. Most are simple tests and tweaking, nothing major since I finally got the MWS hopping the ammo I want to put through it last Sunday. It's mostly just setting the hop for the weights I want to use, but a few other minor tweaks needed. From left to right: TM MWS w/ Modelworks mk12 kit - Need to make sure it's shooting straight. Scope I had on it was wonky because of the mounts on Sunday Tanaka m700 w/ real Remington stock - Installed a new hop rubber and nub as it was a bit crap before. Need to set the hop now with the new setup JG BAR-10 - Just need to find what psi to set for 1.1J so I can use it at night games / no MED games; disgustingly quiet since it's internally suppressed and half of that outer barrel is just alternating large/small foam baffles. Already know it shoots phenomenally at 155psi, which gives about 2.3J on .48s, and I can go as low as 80psi, so sure I can get it to 1.1J as well G&P m14 DMR - Ironically not a DMR. Wasn't hopping well, but power, noise and snappiness was all amazing, so installed a new MR hop rubber. Need to set the hop up now. KJW m700 - Usually has a suppressor on it! Finally got around to finishing this one with the threaded shorter outer barrel, as well as the AA hop unit, nub and flamingo rubber. Need to set it up, both power and hop up. I think I have a type... 🤣

No actual playing for me today because medication, but I still headed down to Worthing Airsoft for the game day. Headed out while everyone was in the safety brief and had a long think about how to approach the site. I like my bolt actions and DMRs but with how overgrown the site gets every year, and the fact that it only gets worse every year as no maintenance is done, it's an incredibly difficult site to play at with an MED, so just being able to walk around and have a think when there aren't any BBs flying about is incredibly useful. At lunch time me and my friend went into the gameplay area as well to try and figure some things out, getting a new spot that draws a nasty line onto one of the bases from a concealed spot, and then working out a way to counter the new bunker, as what had happened in the morning during a rolling assault game had 3 people hold it for 40 minutes. We found a spot that is easy to get to and has about 70m of clear line of sight to the bunker, and we took a few shots to see how easy it would be to post through the window and both of us were able to slot shots through the window very easily. I spent the rest of the day sorting the MWS. Was having issues with it not liking heavy ammo, and as a DMR I wanted to use .43s in it. New setup works really well (flamingo rubber + titan nub), but the scope is off-centre, which sucked. Also setup the VSR to use co2 inside the stock instead of a line and tank and was very pleased with how well it shot; it was so good that I'm considering using the co2 adapter for the MTW 308 when I get that build done. I heard from my friend that the teams weren't very well balanced, and heard quite a few complaints about hit-taking, overshooting (probably related), players getting upset over stuff and spawn camping, as well as one of the ghillies constantly going out of bounds (surprise surprise...) and climbing up trees despite "there is no climbing up trees or on top of bases" being a line in the morning brief. Can't speak to the veracity of it all, but I trust the people who told me their stories, so it sounded like a bit of a rough one today.

Yeahhhhh, rookie error. If I think I'm hitting someone but I'm actually dropping short, or if I am hitting them and they're blatantly not taking hits, I just... stay quiet and shoot them some more. If it's blatant non-hit taking that I can clearly see, those shots may move up from the torso to the head; you get 3 chances with me! Also, you can definitely get decent range with 0.65J. I know my TM mp7 AEP can do about 45m with a degree of accuracy (the shots hit about as hard as gentle caress at that range though) and that's 0.6J on .25s. It's all in the hop! I've heard about those STG44s from a friend who did a lot of WW2 airsoft. He was not the biggest fan of some of the Axis players showing up with those on full auto because as you said, they're DMRs out of the box. Your experience with them though mirrors what I love about the hobby; some people like speedyboi slick efficient "I want to win" loadouts with lightweight guns, highcap magazines and quick-to-access molle pouches, others like us like a bit of impracticality to use the things that we like

Yeah, I bought into it because the devs actually seem quite engaged with the community and acknowledge when things aren't working as they should and are pretty on it when it comes to getting the community to help them test bug fixes. All in all, I am optimistic

Aliexpress. I'll never buy earmors or baofang radios outside of Aliexpress now because it's so much cheaper https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005576530912.html And I'll take a look at that. I'd like to be able to run these with comms, but in the meantime I'll probably get a separate earpiece as I just can't get along with headsets with the boonie

Probably my last game day for a while because I'm probably going onto anticoagulants on Tuesday which means no airsoft until the procedure is done and the recovery is over. Unfortunately it went out with a bit of a whimper though. I took my G&P m14 and KJW m40a5 along with the intent of using the m14 with the m40a5 as a backup in case it wasn't shooting great. Suffice to say, it wasn't shooting great. The power is exactly where I want it and it's incredibly quiet for an AEG, but I think it needs a new hop rubber as the BBs just weren't really hopping very well, so the range was a bit poor. So why didn't I go back to the safe zone and grab my m40a5? Because I had no motivation to, basically. Worthing Airsoft at the moment is a pointless site to use anything with an MED at as there are only a few, very limited spots where you can actually use it. Furthermore, some of the spots that were fine now have twiggy bits in the way, which is wonderful for sending your shots off course, which isn't as much of a problem for semi or full auto guns as you can usually punch through, but single shot bolt actions? Not so much. Anyway, not much to really say. First game was a king of the hill style game over the Tower base; I took a flanking route and discovered the bottom of the site is currently unplayable. It took the entire game for me to fight my way through the foliage. When we flipped sides, I went to my normal spot and that's where I realised the m14 just wasn't firing well. The scope mount was slightly off so all my shots looked like they were going to the left, and the hop up wasn't working well so I was struggling to hit 50m. Combine that with the aforementioned twiggy bits and I had quite a few frustrating moments where I caught someone completely unawares only for my shots to either fall short or hit a twig and go to Narnia, giving them the opportunity to seek cover and get out of my line of sight. Anyway, now I have a few months of no gameplay, so I'm going to spend these game days on the range making sure my guns that need a bit of tweaking are sufficiently tweaked and also might put some DOPE cards together for my main bolt actions (KJW m40a5 and m700) and my DMRs (MWS and the MTW when I get it). It'd be nice to know reliably where to aim to hit targets out to 85m and beyond with a measure of accuracy. I did plink a little with the m40a5 today on the range and it was performing flawlessly as usual; hitting the 75m with pretty much every shot and even reaching to the 85m, but with less accuracy for sure; it's amazing how much difference that extra 10m makes.

I really liked them. Didn't work amazingly over a bowman headset, but the bowman headset didn't work well with my boonie and would've given me a headache as it made it too tight. For £30 I was very happy with the noise cancellation and the very strong ambient sound amplification. The sound amplification was actually too good and all I could hear when I was moving through foliage was the foliage itself brushing past me and any and all creaking in my gear setup. Once I was deployed in a hide though, they were amazing and I heard absolutely everything. £30 well spent for sure.

Just arrived in time for tomorrow's game day; pair of Earmor m20 in ear protection. Testing them in my room they seem to work well, but I need a game day to see how they really fare. Can't wear a full headset with my ghillie setup as it's a boonie + cape, so hoping these are at least decent. Will wear them also under my bowman headset that I use for comms (as that goes under my boonie nicely)

On the cheaper end, I have a set of Earmor m31s (not m32s, m32 are the radio comms and I have some of those too) and they're decent enough and can be bought on Aliexpress for £30 + tax. There are definitely better out there, so look around with your budget as your budget is significantly higher, but these work for me and they amplify small ambient noises like footsteps and leaf rustling, while cutting down on pyro boom boom noises. My next experiment I'm waiting on are a set of Earmor m20s, which are in-ear protection as my ghillie setup uses a boonie and headsets like the m31/m32s don't work well with boonies, especially not since my boonie is my ghillie headpiece and I don't want to cover my ghillie camo with earpro. I can't comment on them though because they probably won't arrive until either late this week (ideal as I'm playing on Sunday) or early next week (more likely because Sod's Law)

All I need now to complete my loadout are some delicious crayons to snack on for the authentic experience

Don't go for power upgrades if you want more range. Power upgrades are the really expensive bit and if you're keeping it spring (which is advisable because HPA is an entirely new kettle of fish) then cocking it at 2.3J is always going to be difficult, especially for a 12 year old. There are certain things you can do to mitigate it, such as using a 13mm spring like the Rapax 2J spring, getting a good quality teflon cylinder and getting as close to perfection as you can when it comes to air seal to allow you to run a lighter spring, but at the end of the day your son will need to be able to pull that spring back to tension. Power will affect range, but not by too much; the biggest impact power will have is making it easier to hop heavier BBs, but until you're looking at going the 2.3J route you can hop .32s perfectly easily on the stock power by simply focusing on upgrading the hop up. There's also no point trying to go for like... 1.4J or something because you'll be saddled with an MED for unnoticeable gains. In my experimentation, I only found a noticeable increase in effective range once I started pushing past 1.8J; obviously these are just my experiences and other people are welcome to scream at me that I'm wrong, but I have high standards for what "effective range" is and I've been doing this for a while; I'll never mince words or over-estimate ranges. Hop up is where you get the lion's share of your range and accuracy anyway and it's way cheaper than doing power upgrades, so I'd definitely start there. The Action Army hop chamber is great and the stock VSR one is a bit wank, so that's a key part to swap out. Then that can be paired with a Flamingo bucking or Maple Leaf autobot bucking, plus something like a Maple Leaf omega nub and that'll be most of the impact. If you want, while you're in there you could put something like a Laylax 6.03 barrel in there, as the tighter bore will help push the power up a little bit. Tightbore barrels don't tend to affect accuracy, as much as people may say they do, but they do affect power because there's less space around the BB for air to escape. I recommend the Laylax ones because I've had one in one of my VSR builds for... uhhhh... longer than your son has been alive and it's still working perfectly 🤣. For the hop chamber, bucking of your choice, concave nub of your choosing and a tightbore barrel you're probably only looking at about £120ish and the difference will be a whole lot more noticeable than dropping £300+ upgrading the power (because doing a good build you can easily spend that on power upgrades alone). With the stock power in a TM VSR (about 0.8J ish?), you can probably hit 50m fairly consistently just by focusing on hop up and barrel upgrades. Plus, no MED so you can shoot people point blank and watch them get salty about it which is always amusing. Also, lighter springs tend to be quieter than heavy ones as there isn't quite such a forceful thud. When he's older I'd definitely look at the power upgrades and putting something like a WASP piston in the cylinder to help make it even quieter, but for now I'd just focus on the hop up instead. Especially since those damn TM cylinders are a real pain to get apart (I just bought a Laylax teflon cylinder instead when I did mine because I'm not drilling the stock cylinder!)

Another Aliexpress success. Bought it for Vietnam games to carry my long m700 magazines, because they're far better quality magazines and far more consistent than the stubby KJW mags, and they fit perfectly. They go deeper, but thought I'd leave them there to show the space and how they fit in. Very happy with this as it'll allow me to take a lot of weight off my belt kit as these mags are heavy (because gas gun)

Yeah, I have a TM p226e2 and my mags don't look like yours. The TM ones don't have pins in the bottom, they have a screw in the baseplate (far better design, why did they go back to pins in their newer pistols?!), and the TM ones say "made in Japan" on one side. I don't know if the e2 mags work in the older p226, but I do know the mags you have aren't TM ones

Weekend #5 in a row and while there was a scare for a bit of rain this morning, the weather held out for a lovely sunny day of airsoft. It did rain ever so slightly just before the safety brief, but it was barely noticeable and abated pretty fast. I decided to run my Cyma SR-25 today, though it was only chronoing at 1.73J; I would've liked it to be over 1.8J as the limit is 1.88J, but I wanted to see how it ran anyway. I could hit 75m fairly easily with a bit of angling, but I know when I'm over 1.8J I don't really need to angle it at all, so while it wasn't shooting exactly as I wanted, it was shooting well enough and it was accurate. First game was a long game where one of the marshalls was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and roamed the site. We had to bring stacks of cash to him to swap it for totally-not-flour that we had to carry back to our base in a specific briefcase. I managed to get into a barricade and tuck in close, with good line of sight forward and onto two flanking paths that I knew the enemy team was going to try and use. One thing I will say though is that Worthing Airsoft is worse this year than last year when it comes to being overgrown. There are very few places where using something with an MED is viable, but fortunately my barricade was one such place. Pretty much singlehandedly managed to hold that part of the site for the entire game and only got shot in the last minute when a bunch of yellows rushed up and one saw me, so I had to take him out. Earlier in the game I had yellows taking cover on the other side of the barricade and shooting over me while my friend was further back and shooting over my head to take them out. Good times. After lunch I swapped to my KJW m40a5, as we played a few simple games. 3 base domination where all the bases were around awful positions for 30m MEDs, so I ended up lying down watching a path where I didn't shoot anyone, apart from the yellows trying to come out of what is essentially a woodland killhouse at this time of year that I wasn't going into myself. Had a good line on it to my side with my pistol and took a lot of yellows out there without them working out where I am, despite the 1911 very much being a GBB and making GBB noises when I shot it; it's amazing what you can get away with if you're careful. Eventually got taken out, again near the end of the game, by someone I had previously taken out and he had respawned and come back from the other side, where I thought I would've had some teammates but apparently all the blues were... elsewhere? He was able to just waltz up pretty close without anyone shooting at him anyway. Then after that we played a king of the hill game at the Tower base; whoever had the most players inside the tower at the end of the game wins. We started on the easier side and I went to one of my usual spots watching the path, since there are very few other places I can go with an MED and this position is pretty strong anyway. Managed to take out a bunch of players down the path, but the yellows kept on coming in behind us and even when I called it out, the players near me were just like "no, those guys are blues and they're dead." I then got shot as I was telling them that no, there were yellows who shot those blues coming in from behind Anyway, had some drama when we swapped it around the other side. Trying to attack it with a bolt action from that side is hilariously difficult, but also I had a run in with the same ghillie player who is constantly causing issues. I can't remember the last time I bumped into him in game where he wasn't either breaking rules or being a general dick across the last year. Going out of bounds, shooting within his MED, spawncamping and headshots are constant with him. Basically, in this game I poked out from behind a barricade to look into the super dense area, full body on show and as I spot him lying down right in front of me and he shoots me in the neck from pretty much point blank with a mk23 that I'm pretty sure he uses heavy ammo in; the distance was maybe 1m? After the game he said it was unintentional, but I simply told him I didn't believe him, since my entire body was on show and he would've had to angle his pistol up to hit me in the neck, plus he had shot me earlier in the day as well with my whole body on show and it was another headshot. I will give people the benefit of the doubt, but when it's every time I start to wonder. The game before this one my friend said he was spawncamping us as well, which I was entirely unsurprised to hear as he does it fairly often, and apparently there were some people who had some nasty bleeders today who got shot by someone with a quiet gun, and I know it wasn't me as the only headshot I did today was a rental on the full face mask (that he didn't take) as that was all that was poking out; every other hit I dished out was a body shot today and hit calling was generally really good, I must say; outside of that one rental, everyone took their hits I found. I'm usually pretty diplomatic and chilled about most things and I've only ever complained about one player before, and surprise surprise it was another ghillie player who now doesn't play at Worthing as I think he got banned after he shot a marshall who was playing that game day in the face at about 10m with his bolt action. Anyway, I spoke to one of the site owners about it and they said they'd keep an eye on him, so that's all I can do. I'm not going to go on a rant on "why are so many ghillie players utter cockwombles?", but it's players like that that make me, someone who has played ghillie since about 2008, really start thinking that I wouldn't be that put off if they were banned across the entire country tomorrow. I love playing in my ghillie, but it seems like decent ghillie players tend to be an exception and not a rule and I start to think if the hobby would be better as a whole without them. We never had these issues back in 2008, not even when I played in Spain; I'd actually say that Spain was better despite there being no sites, no marshalls, no chrono etc, as it was self-governing; if you were a dick or a cheater, you didn't get invited to play. Simple. I finally have a weekend coming up where I won't be playing. I have a lot of guns that need a little tweaking (power on the SR-25, hop up on my mk12 MWS, setting up my G&P m14 that I collected today etc.), but I'm saving those for when I'm on blood thinners and can't play, as hopefully the procedure is coming up soon. However, with just how overgrown Worthing Airsoft is now I think I may ditch the ghillie for now and use a 1.1J gun instead. I think I'll go with my m14 scout or my short MWS for next game day.

I've been having lots of issues with mine recently. Upgraded the hammer set, auto sear and fire pin lock to the cowcow stainless steel stuff and now my AAP jams every so often. It feels like the hammer doesn't cock back fully and I have to remove the magazine, push the blowback unit forward, then put the magazine back in and manually cock it. If I push it forward with the magazine still in, it fires and I have to manually cock it back again. Also upgraded the blowback unit to be the cowcow lightweight one, but I know it's not the upper because the upper works with my stock lower, and my stock upper also doesn't work on the cowcow parts upgraded lower. I hate it 🤬

I went out to Gunman Eversley Alpha this weekend for a weekend of shooting GIs in the 'Nam. We set off on the Friday to get there nice and early and set up our camp compound. The guy who drives us all up there and introduced us to 'Namsoft loves his glamping, so we are always very well stocked. A bit of a squeeze this time as his grandson was with us as well, so we were four people instead of three and therefore needed a 2nd tent as we couldn't all fit in the one. We managed to get everything packed in and got there 2nd out of everyone. Another pair was there when we arrived and were setting up, but were setting up away from where we usually like to camp, so we claimed our corner and set up the tents, gazebo, literal kitchen etc. I was a little worried, as my heart was playing up a lot a few weeks ago, but it had been quiet since the Tuesday before last, so I made the decision to go along. Also, the guy driving couldn't play due to tendonitis in his hips (but he still wanted to go as he loves his camping and wanted to see the familiar faces), so we were down to three during the gameplay. He did get out there though as a civilian to help Josh with some objective placements and stuff. Friday night I found it difficult getting to sleep due to anxiety around my heart, but eventually got to sleep without any issues. Anyway, first day was... slow. I headed out with my new PPS Kar98 set up for 1J on .32s and we were put with the main squads to go and put up some observation posts. It's not usually how we play, as our little group does our best work when we're a bit more independent and just focus on making the lives of the GIs hell, but we went along with it to avoid conflict and also help show our new addition around and get him used to the 'Nam. He's only 12 and only started playing airsoft recently, so it was a very different experience for him from normal skirmish and we wanted to make sure he didn't get overwhelmed. Our first little sortie went... pretty poorly. I think part of this was that Josh said it would be game on in 5 mins after the brief, but it probably took closer to 20 - 25 mins for the NVA/VC team to get out to our respawn and go through our objectives and how we wanted to do them. We didn't get too far outside of our base before we got attacked by two separate groups of Americans (well, one was the Aussies, one was the Americans). My friend tried to sneak into one of the many thick bushes just ahead of us, but as he did so a third American team popped around the corner and him also being armed with a Kar98 was not the best weapon to engage a whole squad, so he dived for cover but got hit. He managed to crawl over to me (as you can crawl to a teammate in these filmsim events), so I medic'd him back in. We took a couple of the Americans down, but there were way too many of them and the firepower was overwhelming. I managed to take a few out with the Kar98 and as it's fairly silent they couldn't pinpoint my location. One guy definitely ignored the hit I put on him, but outside of that I put non-hit taking down to them being fairly long distance shots while they were moving and I think we've all been there; a single shot at long distance so the impact isn't massive is easy to not feel when you're moving about. The rest of the group tried to move on the flank and my friend eventually got hit again by the m60 on the hill that had been medic'd back in as well. I held down in the bushes until my friend's bleedout, as the dogtags I hated from last year's game made a return and I didn't want to abandon his to be collected by the US for a free point. I think that the US thought it was just him there and were trying to mop up the other squad to our left before coming to collect the dogtag, as I managed to scoot out of there and link up with the other squad higher up in the valley without much trouble. We kept going around until we got to the first observation point and set up to defend it as we had to hold them for 15 mins to score. We held our ground, but eventually got attacked by one US unit who managed to sneak through the ferns onto a flank. We managed to repel them though and eventually got reinforcements to push them back and around to the other side of the valley. I got left behind somewhat, but linked up with a few others and we also pushed up, however only four of us (me, my friend, my other friend's grandson and another VC guy) went to the next observation post. However, it was fairly quiet around the mortar pit, so we placed it down and dug into the bushes. No US forces came across us, so it was an easy 15 minute hold to set it up. We then lost the other VC guy (no idea where he went!) so the three of us pushed to the fort as it was a central location and we thought we could do some damage from there. It was fairly quiet, but one of the special forces teams did walk right by us while we hid in the bushes; one of them even looked directly at us and my friend's grandson was standing up! Either he didn't want to get shot as we all had guns trained on them, or they actually didn't see us because their whole team walked past us. In hindsight, we should've shot them all as they passed, but we let them pass instead to stay undetected. We then discussed our next plan of action and when I left the bushes to go do that... they didn't follow, so I was left by myself. Apparently they had gone to the gate of the fort and held there, while I went around the back and had to Metal Gear Solid my way through another three whole US teams; one of 5, one of 10(!) and one of 4, as with the Kar98 there was no way in hell I could engage. Well, I could, but I'd probably just give the US troops a free point as they'd likely take me out with BB spam into the bushes and take my dogtag. Managed to sneak by all three teams undetected, despite wearing all black and sticking out like a sore thumb; who needs a ghillie to stay hidden, eh? I finally made it back to our base and called it a day there. It was about 2:30pm, so another 1hr 30 mins left of Saturday's game, but I was exhausted after having to sneak my way across half the site. The results of the Saturday was 58 points to the NVA/VC against the 42 points to the US/ARVN, so a win for the NVA on the first day put us in a good place. Saturday night I also managed to sleep decently well, though I did wake up in the middle of the night and was short of breath, but when I put my little heart rate monitor on it was reading very normal so it was purely anxiety around it acting up and not actually acting up. Didn't play on the Sunday. My friend had a chest infection and a really bad back so he couldn't move much and my other friend still had tendonitis in his hips as that doesn't just go away over night. His grandson was too tired to play and I really wasn't feeling it, so we instead had breakfast and then took a couple of hours to dismantle the compound. NVA/VC handled business on Sunday and won handily, culminating in a battle that pushed the Americans out of their base and had the NVA/VC closing in on them on all sides. The NVA managed to set up their anti-tank weapons, which was their main objective, and Josh said to us it was probably better that we didn't play as it could've been very oppressive for the US/ARVN players if our group of 4 was also out there causing mayhem. So, what was good? Everyone there was playing in the spirit of the game. Lots of banter and bad acting on both sides! Also, a new rule where if the US/ARVN harassed a civilian and that civilian doesn't have any contraband like intel, a radio or a hidden weapon, then the civilian got a token to give to NVA command. 5 of these tokens was a point for the NVA/VC, so it adds something to disincentivise the US forces from interrogating every civilian player as before there were no negative consequences for them stopping and searching every civilian they found at gunpoint. Also, as usual, peoples kit was great. I'm no stitch counter, so I'm generally fine with inaccurate kit, but everyone at least looked the part which made for some great cinema. It was also good to see @Tactical Pith Helmet (and Mrs. TPH!) again; what a lovely chap that guy is! However, I didn't enjoy it as much as usual. So, why didn't I? Well, the Saturday was incredibly slow for us and we were folded into squads. I felt like I was playing PAVN in black, not VC, and I didn't enjoy that; it definitely felt more on the milsim side of filmsim and I don't enjoy that; I like a bit of silly BB wars in the woods in fancy dress. Also, the dogtag mechanic singlehandedly kills my enjoyment. My usual tactics would just be free points for the US forces, as it's a high risk harassment campaign all weekend that sees me getting shot and every time I get hit there's either nobody or only 1 other person around to stop them getting my dogtag; it's very easy to get overwhelmed, especially with a 1J bolt action. I don't want to be the reason the NVA/VC side loses because my tactics don't tend to score points; it's more indirect scoring as I try to make the US troops fearful and wary of moving about as they could get jumped by a crazy villager with a rifle at any moment! The dogtags very much hamper those efforts, but at least this time it was only one dogtag. Last year it was one dogtag per life which absolutely crippled my way of playing, but one dogtag was enough to dissuade me from my usual harassment tactics. Thirdly, it was the sniper ban. Gunman do a sniper ban during the summer as the ferns grow quite high, but me being a veteran of the sniper hell that is summertime Worthing Airsoft was constantly finding locations where I had great line of sight and wished I had my 2.3J m700 with me. Yes, there are locations that are close in, but that's what my upgraded pistols are for and compared to Worthing Airsoft, Eversley Alpha is incredibly viable for sniping with a 30m MED. I probably won't make the next one in September, as I've got a hospital appointment in a few weeks with cardiology, so I'm likely getting my heart sorted soon (probably in August with the timing of this appointment). This means I'll be on blood thinners in September (as I have to be for a few months afterwards) which will mean no airsoft for me for those months, which will include September if I'm correct about the timings. Got a year to think about how I want to go ahead with Vietnam games in the future, and one potential avenue that we're exploring as a group is putting together an ARVN kit and then asking Josh where he wants us, as we'd have sets for both teams. US/ARVN have been getting hammered for the past 3 years, so it might be time to try and redress the balance by playing a bit of imperialist gameplay. Give the NVA/VC team a real sniper threat to worry about

I'm the same, but I was a child back in the day when PCS bolts were commonplace and my parents weren't about to drop that on a gun for me At least the KJW m700s have adjustable bolts, though it's not as easy as the PCS bolts were, as instead of a simple grub screw in the bolt, you have to take the bolt apart and adjust a screw inside, or buy some intake rubbers that limit the gas intake with eash shot. However, even KJW m700s are fairly hard to get hold of these days, but Golden Eagle just brought an m700 out that looks like it's another Tanaka clone and some very affordable magazines to go with it. In a real wood stock to boot, so I might end up buying one purely as an experiment to see how compatible it is and if the magazines will work in my Tanaka and KJW rifles as well.