Impulse

1J bolties can be very fun, but it makes it even more about stealth and less about marksmanship. You can still get a very decent range with 1.1J, and it's a lot quieter than an AEG.

Personally, I'd have no issues with these power limits, especially the DMR one as I think most DMR limits in the UK are useless, but 500fps and a 20m MED would probably make me play DMR with my m14 instead of keeping it as a "normal" rifle power. Unfortunately, however, I think people would get stroppy if we had these over in the UK, as people already get stroppy about getting hit with our current rules.

If you like the ar15 look, also take a look at the Cyma m4s. While I can't personally vouch for them, I've heard they're pretty great too.

What guns do you like from an aesthetic perspective? You're more likely to use an AEG you like the look of than one you look at with disdain and most people find themselves using AEGs that might not be the best mechanically, but the wielder just loves how they look. For example, me with m14s. They're heavy, cumbersome and shoot no better than an m4, but I love them nonetheless. However, my recommendation would be a Cyma mp5. I've recently picked up an mp5k for £140 and it's a fantastic little piece of kit. Just pick which mp5 you like best and run with it; they're really great and fantastic guns for CQB as they're small.

I know some places use higher power limits than the UK, like I think a lot of places in the US use 1.5J for AEGs and 2.8J for snipers and DMRs, but I think the power limits in the UK are just fine and totally fit for purpose. When I was in Spain it was like a mix; 350fps on .2s for AEGs and 600fps on .2s for bolties, though this was over 10 years ago when there was very little organisation, so things may be different now (official airsoft sites didn't exist back then. We just showed up to abandoned urbanisations, of which there are LOADS on the south coast, and played BB wars)

All of the experienced bush wookiees at my local site are opting for 1J guns instead. The other two are using Wolverine MTWs and I'm putting a Polarstar F2 in my m14 once I've cleared my debts; with hop ups the way they are these days, 2.3J just isn't as worth it as it used to be. Also, not all bush wookiees go for headshots. And not all people who go for headshots are bush wookiees. Dicks come in all shapes and sizes (hurhurhur)

Yeah, not my thing but I prefer the stubby mid caps so I'm probably the last person to be advising on this. If you want high capacity on an mp5k, I'd advise using the high cap double mag (560 BBs, but hard to carry multiple) or just multiple high caps (200 BBs each, but you can easily carry multiple).

My game yesterday was amazing. Very warm and very sweaty, but we played in an area of the site we never play in, allowing me to use a pathway that only a tiny handful of players (mostly marshalls) know about to plink away at the enemy team with my silent HPA VSR setup and have them scratching their heads wondering where the hell they got shot from / how the hell did someone get behind them in a chokepoint-y game. Arms and legs are covered in scratches bcause I had to fight through thorns to use it as it's super overgrown, but worth it. Also, I ditched the ghillie a few months ago due to temperatures / humidity / general sweat and eye-pro fogging, but I went one further and only wore a short sleeved OD t-shirt and BDU trousers while sniping and I still had people almost trip over me and be super surprised after I shoot them. Superior fieldcraft trumps a ghillie suit every day of the week and it's good to get the practice without it. Plus it feels even better when you go unnoticed while knowing you're not wearing the best camo. Maybe I'll try it next in a loud hawaiian shirt... I also ache all over today, which means it was a good day!

First thing I will say is that it's not the ghillie suit that makes the sniper hard to deal with, it's the player's fieldcraft. If the ghillie sniper can't do their role pretty much as effectively without the ghillie, then they need to take it off and practice their camo and concealment until they can do their job and have players almost tripping over without using the ghillie (if more people did this, they'd find they'd be waaaaaay more effective with the ghillie. It's like training with weighted clothing in DBZ ). Am I a jerk for thinking so? Maybe, but I also won't fault these players for playing how they want; that's what the hobby is all about, after all. I think the most important thing to say is prey upon their weaknesses. What I've found observing most bush wookiees in a counter sniper role is that they either move way too much or way too little. If they move too much, you see them and then it's just a case of suppressing them and advancing on their position to flush them out. If they move too little, you'll quickly be able to work out where they are and do the same, maybe with the help of smoke grenades or tag rounds. Also, if they're using a spring rifle, there's still usually a decent amount of noise unless they've really tuned it super well (which is rare), and also their bolt pull will be long, so look for that movement too. I would say to use their MED and slow ROF against them by moving and engaging their position with suppressive fire, but I've seen a lot of experienced bush wookiees moving away from bolties and toward 1J HPA setups as they still get the silence, but they get rid of the weaknesses of the bolt action platform. Personally, once I've cleared my debts, I'm shoving a Polarstar F2 into one of my m14s and relegating the VSR to a backup gun. As a bush wookiee myself, I'll say the following for the majority of bush wookiees you'll be up against, in addition to the movement point above (most have already been said, but I figured I'd post up my views anyway): Don't go to where your mate just got hit. The number of times I get multiple people because I hit someone and their friend either moves over to try and medic them immediately, or they move to take the cover their friend previously was. If they got hit behind that cover, it means someone has a line on it. Move. Move. MOVE! Seriously, it's hard to hit shots on running targets and I'll usually just follow the target until they either move out of my line of sight, or they stop. This is harder if there are other players with AEGs around as they'll full auto your path and hit you, but if the sniper is being silly and being the hollywood "lone wolf" then if you keep moving you just won't get hit. BBs are about as consistent as a WE pistol in winter and the shot will go wide if there's a breeze or a leaf in the way, and trying to lead shots is difficult even in the best conditions (not impossible, but it makes the shot a lot harder). Play the objective. Usually, snipers won't be holding the objective directly if it's like a base defense or something, because as a sniper you want to be where the enemy won't think you are. If there is a sniper in the base, then you know where they are and you just suppress them until you get close enough to hit them, which these days isn't much since hop ups are so good now that AEGs are shooting closer and closer to bolties. If the sniper isn't in the base and he hits you, don't go back to where you were attacking that time and instead push the objective from the other side. If the sniper is covering an objective like a flip can, think about where you got hit from and move to flank them instead. It's super hard to shoot someone behind you covertly when you're lying prone with a boltie, so you either have to let the flanking players pass (and probably take out a lot of your team) or you try and shoot them all super fast, which if there's more than one person you probably won't have much success. If you know where the sniper is and they're not smart enough to have relocated, move around the position or fire and move to keep them suppressed as you close the gap. Most hides are awful when it comes to line of sight, because you need a bunch of stuff in the way for concealment. Usually, the sniper will only have one line that they're watching, so approach from their blind spot, or fire and move (quickly) to flush them out. It's hard to repel an attacking fire team with a boltie if they know where you are and are suppressing your position. However, there are a few things that ghillie snipers will do to counter this. Some will carry a small AEG around with them, some will strike the right balance between moving too much or too little, some will run 1J HPA platforms for both silence and no MED. However, nobody is invincible without cheating. When dealing with a sniper, think about their limitations and the limitations of their current position and exploit what weaknesses you can.

I learned that a lot of "foam filled" suppressors will only have foam near the start and the end. Fortunately I've got some pipe insulation to shove into them, but 2 of my supposedly "foam filled" suppressors only have a baffle at the start and one at the end.

Ouch. Not -too- pricey, I hope. I wear my cheapo smartwatch, but it's always under my glove; fortunately my fingerless cover it nicely.

I'll agree there. Unless you're using a boltie or a GBBR / 30rd magazines in your AEG, you generally won't use a pistol. I tend to keep my m4 mags set for 30rds in my recoil, but most of the time I use a boltie, so my pistols get a LOT of use. One of my best moments in airsoft was dropping the 416 and pulling out the p226 mid-reload and shooting at a pair of guys pushing on my position while I was reloading. It was pretty thrilling and an experience you just don't get with hi-caps. If I had a £10 springer or an AEP in that situation, I probably would've been hit and it wouldn't have been nearly as memorable. However, if I used even mid-caps, I probably wouldn't have been put in that situation at all.

Also, if you work on an m14, you're pretty much diving in at hardmode, so then doing any work on other AEGs will be a piece of cake

I won't go into my opinions on DMRs (TL:DR: I think it's pointless. 1.1J is enough. However, I also know some people love DMRs, so play your way first and foremost), but if you're looking at a platform to upgrade to one, I'd just say go with what you like the look of. For example, I love m14s and I have two of them, despite them being an absolute ball-ache to work on, despite me probably being able to get similar results with an AR-15 based rifle and their easy V2 gearboxes. If you like the rifle, you're more likely to use it, even if it's not the most optimal, and that comes down to personal preference. I love my US weapons, for example, but one of the guys I get a lift with to my local airsoft site loves Russian kit which I think it mostly hideous outside of a simple AKM or AK47 If you plan on doing any milsim, filmsim or period airsoft, I'd advise going with something that is a DMR in the real-steel shooting world, as some a lot of these events will require it and even in a skirmish setting, some sites will be miffed / not let you use an ARP9 with a drum mag that is locked to semi at 1.6J (and I don't blame them. Not entirely).

Yeah, the low FPS with no real way of bringing it up significantly hurts their viability; you really need to use .2s in them which are horrendously inconsistent (the lightest BBs I use are .25s in my Cyma spring tri-shot which has no hop up). Also, as @remus says, they're incredibly slow to shoot, compared to a GBB that generally will have a snappy response unless it's got a metal slide and it's winter and you're running lower powered gas in them (that's a lot of conditions). I run TM GBBs with their plastic slides and they're snappy all year round, I just use green gas in the winter and 144a in the summer and they're perfect. Also, there are NBB pistols like the mk23 that are also incredibly reliable all year round. They're also snappier, quieter and they shoot harder than AEPs. If you want something reliable as a secondary, a NBB gas pistol, short spring shotty or some sort of small SMG that is still an AEG like a P90 or mp5k are your best bets. I don't think AEPs will ever eclipse those options.

No, simply put. There's a whole bunch of reasons why, but I think their awful performance by comparison is probably the biggest one.

Have you heard the word of the Mk23? The one true sidearm? Mine works in all weather and has never given me issues, plus you can upgrade them to shoot better than most people's AEGs and they're silent. The TM one is a bit pricey (but worth it because it'll perform well out of the box and you don't need to modify the suppressor), but if you are on a budget, the ASG one retails for around £60 or something, then you can spend the rest on an extra mag and a new hop rubber + hadron H-arm. £100 pistol that will shoot stupidly well. Also, if you're able to carry something slightly bigger, I'm going to echo what @Rogerborg said; mp5k is a great secondary. I'm partial to running either my mp5k or my super awesome amazing stockless spring shotty as secondaries. Both are totally stock Cyma, both are super reliable and both perform as well as I'd expect. The spring shotty cost me around £60 all in (with 9 total shells and a small molle attachment to hold 5 of them) from TG before they had their shipping woes, but it only goes to 30 - 40m, which is plenty for the ranges you use a shotgun for. It's also one of the most fun RIFs I own and everyone always loves it when I bring out the shotty, even though it's absolutely not the optimal gun for woodland airsoft! The mp5k cost me around £140 from Patrolbase and it reaches out to 40 - 50m; I currently have it mounted on a cheapo single point bungee sling that I can quickly clip/unclip it from and carry a few stubby mid-caps in pistol mag pouches. Both of these are in addition to carrying my primary (so usually my 416 with the shotgun and my VSR with the mp5k) as well as a sidearm on my belt. Carrying 3 guns isn't that hard if two of them are small. And before anyone comes in here and says "my spring shotty and mp5k shoots to 100m easy" both of those ranges I gave above are effective range, hitting a man-sized target 9/10 times without having to angle the gun like a mortar and measured in actual, metric system metres, not airsoft metres!

Go VSR. I'm not biased at all in my opinions on the matter. Totally impartial. *hides both VSRs* Seriously though, VSRs have a silly amount of aftermarket parts that are really good. You can take a large number of different approaches to upgrading and there are a lot of combinations that work really well. There are other platforms that are really nice too, but I can't comment on them as I haven't built any of them; next boltie project I'll do will either be a TM L96 or a KJ m700, but they're low on the priority list! In terms of what type of VSR to go for, both clones and TM have their benefits. I've found there are tiny inconsistencies between clone VSRs and the TM one, but they're generally not a problem. I think the most I had to do was loosen one of the screws that holds the stock to the receiver so the Action Army magazines I like to use would click into place. I also have a Maple Leaf receiver that doesn't like my JG stock and sticks out a little bit, but I just kept the stock receiver in my build because it's fine. Oh, also, if you're looking to HPA it in the future and want to go the route of having a CO2 adapter in the stock, the TM stock requires a little modification (sanding down the interior) as it's pretty thick. However, unless you know you want to go into the world of the boltie, you'd do better with a JG or Cyma. Why? Because all you really need to do with them is slap a Maple Leaf hop rubber and nub into them and you'll have a boltie that will perform decently enough; swapping out the hop unit for the Action Army one and swapping the stock barrel for a tightbore are advisable, but not necessary. Other than that you can just run them stock until you decide where you want to go or until the stock parts give up, as the JG starts at around 1.8J (at least mine did) and the Cyma is supposed to be around 2.2J, which is perfect. It's the power upgrades that really cost a lot, so if you can avoid doing them to start with, the better. However, the stock internals will eventually give out, but it will give you the time to get some trigger time with it and decide if you want to dive in fully, or if you want to keep it as a side thing that you don't want to spend too much on (because building the "perfect" boltie isn't cheap... Trust me)

I was about 350lbs when I got back into airsoft. I'm now, through lockdowns, about 250lbs and I did it all through diet. With my other active hobby hopefully opening back up next Monday, I'm doubling down on the diet I've gotten lax over during the summer to try and hit my goal for the end of the year (about 200lbs). Let's all drop those excess pounds and up our game! In terms of diet, I did it through keto, then simple calorie restriction. This time I plan on doing both, paired with getting back to martial arts with it reopening. However, keto isn't for everyone, so find what works for you and stick to it. As has been said, upping exercise will really help supplement healthy diet choices, so maybe consider investing in a bicycle and avoid public transport if you're in a city like I am (public transport is disgusting anyway...) In terms of starting airsoft, rent first, or buy some sort of two-tone cheapo sportline thing for £100 (can pick up a plastic bodied Cyma AK for £100); argument for the latter is that will give you a backup gun or something for spare parts later down the road after you buy a proper, non-two tone once you have your UKARA. You'll spend almost as much on rentals if you enjoy the hobby (3x before UKARA), so it's not a terrible idea, but it should be weighed heavily as you might go to your first game and hate it, which would be a lot cheaper to just rent. And if you do like it and decide to jump in, don't feel pressured to buy all the things. A simple cheap AEG (some of the cheaper brands have really upped their game over the last few years) and some army surplus kit will work wonders and cost very little.

Also, the Maple Leaf MR hop is supposed to mimic an r-hop patch, but it's a £10 rubber. Pair it with an omega nub and it's basically the same thing. I've converted totally away from r-hop patches myself and swear by all my Maple Leaf setups.

I guess I'm lucky. It's rare that anyone uses tags at my local site, because they're silly expensive. However, when I went to my first (and probably only) milsim event last month, people were launching tags more than I was firing my bolt action rifle. Seriously, the number of tags that went off were horrendous. That said, I have seen them at one skirmish game day from a bunch of milsim manchildren where they got annoyed with me because they kept firing tags into a location that I had long since relocated away from, they just hadn't seen me relocate and assumed I was there and not calling the hit. You'd have thought they'd give up after 2, but I think they fired 5 tags into that position before the game ended. To me, it's unfathomable how much some people spend on airsoft, and that's coming from me and my real steel load bearing gear, expensive HPA boltie setup and multitude of upgraded TM pistols. Adding another to this list though, I'm going to say GBBRs. They're inconsistent, can throw a tantrum in the cold, but I love them all the same. I just love the kick and the realism, even if I'm limited to 35 BB magazines vs hi-cap heroes at a skirmish day Also, any original 1911 GBB. The magazines are tiny, so a full fill is equivalent to like... half or less of another GBB magazine. However... I love my 1911! And why not make it a third. M14s. M14s are horrible to work on, they're really heavy and super front-heavy, and they're just another AEG now that their hop up isn't wizardry relative to other platforms any more. However, once I HPA mine it will be my main gun alongside the VSR because I love it and I love how it looks. There's just something about the m14 that I love (and people seem to love. I get a lot of people asking about my m14 and complimenting me on it whenever it comes out to play)

Plate carriers don't look good on larger individuals, because the plates are designed to be small, but large enough to cover all the vital organs, and if you're overweight there'll be spillage up, down and side to side. They also don't feel good, as the weight will sit weird if you're carrying a few spare tyres. If you're tall and in shape, plate carriers are fine, but being overweight really emphasises all the issues plate carriers have and they're super uncomfortable, as well as looking pretty awful. I mostly run a belt kit with harness to keep it in place, as I do the snipey-snipe so I want to go prone a lot and crawl on my stomach, which is uncomfortable with a chest rig and super uncomfortable to the point of impracticality with a plate carrier, once again compounded when I was overweight. If you want something on the body, I'm going to also advocate the Warrior Assault Systems 901 chest rig. It's a fantastic piece of kit and you can buy a back panel for it for if you need the extra molle space on your back. They also last for years; I'm still using my one I bought when I was about 15. 15 years on and it's still going strong! it's always fit me too, from my fittest (17 years old and around 100kg of muscle, captain of the school swim team, number 8 on the school rugby team), to my heaviest (literally no exercise and 160kg of flab), now back on the road to my fittest, my Warrior Assault Systems gear has all always fit me really well. I'm 6'5", like you, and I also have a sturdy Dutch build, but Warrior Assault Systems stuff has always fit me. It's pricey, but worth the investment in my opinion.

Oh, no, 2200 is my BMR, so that's how much I'd burn if I lay in bed and slept all day. I aim for 2000 as a large deficit, but I should be having around 3000 normally. Higher with exercise. I meant 2200 is high for the average person, not a 6'5" dude with a sturdy Dutch build