Impulse

I'd say Cyma, because I'm a big TM / TM clone fan, thanks to the abundance of aftermarket parts. Cyma are fantastic out the box and cost between £150 for baseline RIFs and £250 for their more premium ones. Even their cheapest baseline models will perform well out of the box. As has been said by others, both would give you plenty of extra cash to spend on spare mags or load bearing gear. Can't really go wrong there.

Looking for some pointers on this. I'm going to my first 24h event in the summer, as long as the rona doesn't come back with a vengeance, and I want to make sure I've got the kit I need. This doesn't mean night vision goggles or optics, because that stuff is really expensive and would be a huge investment going into something that I think I will enjoy, but I have no idea for sure! However, on the flip side I don't want to glow under IR light, especially since I'll likely be my squad's recon guy and marksman, depending on what's needed, so being able to go unnoticed is pretty important. I've got day-time camo sorted in my ghillie, but it's not IRR treated so while it mostly uses natural foliage for camo, the non-natural bits will light up under IR light. So my question to you all is what is a good supplier of IRR-treated BDUs and/or load bearing gear? I've got most of the load bearing gear sorted, because I'm a huge Warrior Assault Systems fan and their stuff is IRR, but I'm always up for looking at new gear there. The big one is BDUs. Would ex-issue stuff be IRR treated? Furthermore, is IRR weapon paint worth the investment? I haven't sprayed my guns yet, but if it's worth getting I'll splash out a little more and get the stuff that will help me camo at night from IR light and NVGs.

My Cyma M14 cost me about £100 from Taiwangun and it shot further than most AEGs on the field. I threw £100ish worth of new barrel and r-hop patch from Umbrella Armory and now it's outranging most bolties, but is still firing at 1J. So for £200 I have an AEG firing with no MED and is shooting further than most of the bolt actions who have a 30m MED to contend with. The downside is that ammo is expensive. WIth this setup I'm finding the lightest BBs I can use are .4s (even .32s go into the stratosphere with hop completely off!), so it's lucky that I typically prefer the sniper / recon style role and don't pull the trigger too often! Therefore, this budget AEG is a good budget AEG for people who may be interested in getting into a sniper role, rather than someone looking for an AEG to run and gun.

Every Cyma I've owned has performed fantastically. I've had two of their M14s, one full size and one SOCOM, and they both performed stupidly well out of the box. Unfortunately I've never had one of their M4s, but I'm interested to see if they're good too. I really like Cyma. EDIT: HOW could I forget my cheapo Cyma spring shotgun which is also amazing for its price. It cost me about £60 with 9 shells and a small molle thing to carry them and it does exactly what a shotgun needs to do. Great fun, metal construction and feels great.

I have some Trident Gear plates and they're great. Really solid and really add some weight to the carrier.

Impressive.

Do you need a pistol? Nah. Only thing you really need is good eye protection and maybe decent boots with ankle support can also make the cut here if you play woodland. HOWEVER, pistols are cool and if you can afford one and want to buy one, I'd say go for it. In terms of what pistol to get? I'd say any TM. Just find a TM pistol you like and buy that one. You don't need to do any upgrades on it to have it firing in almost any weather and to a decent 30 - 40m effective range. Just buy it, pick up and play! I may be biased towards pistols as a bush wookiee (a solid pistol is a must when you have an MED!), but I always think it's best to just go for the best. The difference in price between a TM and a WE is minimal in the grand scheme of things. You'll pay around £100 for a WE and around £150 for a TM.

Nope. Absolutely nothing. Last time I bought anything was around last October. I just want to get out again because I love the RIFs I currently have and am really looking forward to some bush cosplay shenanigans once lockdowns end.

There's a lot to unpack here, so let me just drop my two cents on the matter. I'm a little sick and tired of modern day social media culture, so bear with me. So, as we all know, Kicking Mustang's videos are clickbait. Do I have a problem with this? Of course I do. I hate clickbait and I generally dislike the content of his videos, as it paints the hobby in a bad light and we really don't need to give politicians any reason to stamp on our hobby; "banning firearms" is an easy vote winner because people don't know anything about airsoft or actual firearms in general, so it's an easy sell. Let's not forget all the instances in America of people wanting to ban all fully-semi-automatic assault weapons! However, can I see why he does it? I can. I worked as a journalist for a time and we were all essentially instructed to write the most clickbait articles and it's a major reason why I didn't continue in that career. The world has a problem at the moment in that everything is so tribal, so partisan, and the way the media works these days rewards fear-mongering, clickbait hate content. Positivity and hope doesn't sell, it doesn't get you clicks which in turn means it doesn't make you any money. Usually I'd say "don't hate the player, hate the game" and I believe there is an element of that. I can't hate Kicking Mustang for posting clickbait content. However, I won't be saying that in its entirety as his actions could have wider implications for our hobby. Usually, clickbait content can't be weaponised as easily by politicians looking to gain votes. Kicking Mustang's content could be easily weaponised by a politician looking to gain support from the public and in Parliament; if I, someone with no experience being a politician, could do it, you can bet that an actual politician could. Now onto the second part of the situation. Firstly, he has always kept his politics separate from his airsoft persona. Also, I've been online long enough to know not to believe everything I read. Do I think some of the tweets made by Kicking Mustang on his other account are wrong? Yes. Even if you're against things like Islamic extremism or the BLM riots (openly Marxist organisation) that had cities burning for months amidst their mostly peaceful protests, you shouldn't make inflammatory statements, or racial slurs to put your points across as I observed in some of his tweets. However, and this is a big however, I do believe that the tweets could have been taken out of context and weaponised against him. Do I think this earns him a pass? No. If he is actually a racist (and I mean that not by today's standards where you're a racist xenophobe sexist if you're traditionally conservative), then I believe he's an abhorrent individual. Though, what I will say is I've seen this happen before. I've seen it happen to so many people before where content is taken waaaaaaay out of context to suit a particular narrative or agenda. This is another reason I left journalism, as we were essentially encouraged to sensationalise everything. It's super easy to take quotes and spin a story in a particular way, as nuance is lost in print and language is easy to manipulate. For a recent, larger, real-world example, and some of you might disagree with me here so please try to be civil, we have the situation with Gina Carano and LucasFilm. She made a post referencing 1930s Germany and the Twitter mob who hated her and have been trying to get her fired for years caught onto this, calling her out for being anti-semetic under the #FireGinaCarano hashtag, which did actually get her fired. Was she actually anti-semetic? No. Not at all. The tweet was taken out of context and weaponised against her. The Kicking Mustang hate groups are definitely psychotic enough to do this. I've seen their rabid fanaticism that just makes them look like some sort of "Kicking Mustang is Satan" cult. I can definitely believe they have taken stuff out of context. In conclusion / TL:DR, Kicking Mustang is a dick who makes clickbait content that is potentially harmful to the hobby. It also turns out that Kicking Mustang is at least a bit of a racist too, though to what extent I will reserve judgement on as I firmly don't believe everything I see on the internet and definitely think there is some exaggeration in how it has been framed, but to his credit he has always kept his political leanings separate from his airsoft persona. These people going after a completely unrelated political commentary Twitter account he has is only going to further harm the hobby. Now, politicians don't have to say "we're cracking down on firearms!" as they can now spin it like "we're cracking down on alt-right militia training groups AND their firearms!" which is an absurd statement. This is why I pine for the "good old days" of airsoft like some sort of old person, and I'm not even 30 yet. Back when I first started in 2006ish, I never saw any drama or had any major problems with the hobby. We were just a bunch of guys who met up at our local airsoft site every other Sunday and played toy gun fights in the woods. People didn't run hot guns, there were never any issues with headshots and we all just had a good time.

🤔 I'm not clicking that link. Feels kinda sketchy.

That video explains it way better than I can, but it's also the definition of a replica changing, which is the real kicker when taken in conjunction with what they want to ban. From the official bill itself: From what I gather, they're designating any RIF as a prohibited device, as that would be designed to resemble a real gun that shoots over 500fps or 5.7 joules. So no more buying or selling airsoft guns in Canada, which will kill the sport. Furthermore, police can basically seize any "prohibited device" if you can't produce a licence to own it, but the licence doesn't exist so you can't have one. So they're banning the buying and selling of RIFs and allowing police to seize ones you already possess if they feel like it, with nothing you can do to stop them. I'll edit the OP to include this part, as it's pretty central to the bill. Again, hopefully it doesn't pass

Let's hope they do NOT pass this bill... It'd be another country to join Australia in banning airsoft https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/cntrng-crm/frrms/c21-en.aspx#s05 And from the bill itself, how they're redefining "replica" firearms: Basically, any replica designed to resemble a firearm that shoots over 500fps or 5.7 joules will be prohibited. Pretty sure a real m4 shoots over 5.7 joules...

I'll weigh in and say that I think Cyma are amazing for AKs and M14s. I've heard bad things about their M4s, but have no direct experience myself. I own a Cyma m14 right now and it's my secondary RIF for if I don't feel like using a boltie and it fires amazingly; all I did was shove a new barrel and hop rubber in it and it's outranging most bolties on my local field, even though it's still only 1J. When I was still in Spain, I had an m14 SOCOM and it performed fantastically out of the box (as I never did anything to it) and I never had any tech issues across all 6 years I played in Spain. I'm thoroughly impressed with Cyma. Both m14s I've had from them have been top quality and punched way above their £150 weight.

Since digging up my Bell 1911, I have the urge to get a left-handed holster and run around with dual wield 1911s. The issue I'd run into is the Bell needs red or black gas, while the TM needs green, so I'd need mag differentiation to avoid exploding the TM's polymer slide. The TM is the one with the suppressor. Honestly, the externals on the Bell are way nicer. The trades are 100% accurate, whereas on the TM it says "Tokyo Marui made in Japan" instead of "United States property", and the full metal construction is really solid. Looking forward to giving it some new, mostly Maple Leaf and Nineball internals when I can spend again.

Being the foodie that I am with an essentially bottomless appetite, it can only be described as self-flagellation. Strict diet suuuuuucks, but I'm over 40kg down from this time last year; got another 25kg to go.

GBBs can always benefit from a quick once over before a game day. Personally, I'll also be giving my barrels a good clean just in case anything like dust has found its way inside. I'm the other way. I was fitting a rubber knife to my belt kit yesterday and when I put the belt on to see how the draw was, it almost fell down xD I will, however, also agree with this. Make sure to check how your kit fits and make adjustments where necessary.

It's okay, not everyone can have superb taste, but at least you're open to admitting your flaws... IMI holster plus a molle mount is great, I use one for my p226 and it's never let me down. Warrior Assault Systems for the pistol mag pouches, because they're just plain fantastic. The Warrior holster can still press the mag release if it's pressed on at a certain angle, which probably won't happen unless you find yourself crawling around a lot. The IMI ones won't because they're hard. If you ever want to mount a flashlight to it, go with Kydex Customs. Those holsters are fantastic and can mount onto certain flashlight models.

There is definitely a case for keeping a bolt action at 1J, but it's a different style and it shouldn't be forced upon the entire community. Relies even heavier on the fieldcraft aspect of sniping as opposed to the long range shots. Shouldn't be a requirement, but I'm saying there is a niche for it and I've done it before; had a lot of fun and a lot of success, as 1J allows you to take those shots within 30m >:D (though I run HPA so it's effortless for me to change the power at the start of a game day)

Are we talking real or airsoft here, because my mk23...

My cadet experience was a little bit different. Some people would classify me as a good cadet, some would classify me as an absolute delinquent, depending on how much weight you put behind the dress-up aspect vs the "in the field" aspect. I got away with my appearances being "good enough" (boots polished, but not a mirror. Flat collar and ironed kit, but I didn't have pronounced trouser creases. No hospital corners, but bed was neatly made etc.), because I was one of the most adept when it came to the practical side of things such as rifle marksmanship and fieldcraft, even better than pretty much all of the older, more senior cadets. I understood why they made us do it, but I also was far more interested in the practical stuff. I remember when I was on a cadet exchange to Australia, the adult who was with us, who wasn't part of my cadet unit, pulled me aside and berated me about my "good enough" gear, saying it could be better and I told him it's better to be effective in the field than in the wardrobe. After we went on our 3 day field exercise he didn't berate me about my gear once xD Also, I got into airsoft at pretty much the same time as I got into cadets, so by my 2nd year when I had made friends with the more senior cadets and the staff, I was showing up to overnight exercises with some of my own kit; was so glad to swap out that PLCE webbing for my WAS chest rig What cadets did show me was that the military was not for me as a full time endeavour; I think the life would grate against me if I had to do it all the time. Loved cadets, but I know I couldn't do that full time, especially not if I can't get away with my kit being "good enough"!

@Lozart is a reptilian trying to distract us from the lizard people who run the world.

Now THAT is an mp5! (spoiler alert: that's the model I want to get xD)