Impulse

Had a great day today, running a very light VSR loadout and no ghillie. Had some issues with the HPA system leaking, but the tank lasted until just before lunch where I took it apart and fixed the issue, then switched to co2 for the afternoon. The line came loose where it screws into the bolt, so I just had to tighten that up. Got so many people with the VSR just holding areas and when I started playing aggressively with the mk23 I got loads of people with that by flanking as there were less numbers due to people wimping out due to rain (which all cleared up before the games started anyway). Also had a lot of success from a stealth perspective, even without the ghillie. Just observing the seven S's of concealment saw a lot of success, as I had people look directly at me multiple times and not know where I was. Scrim net over the head and shoulders, rifle wrapped and staying nice and still made me basically invisible. Paired with both the VSR and mk23 being stupidly silent and I went undetected for most of the day, just posting up and covering a location, then moving if things got too dicey.

Oooooooooooh, I've been in the market for an AK for a while, but wasn't keen on the NGRS. This will definitely tempt me! Also, thanks Google Translate...

Jeeeez, I'm suddenly glad I resisted the temptation to buy some pistols from HK. This is ludicrous!

I'm going to agree here. If someone isn't making it obvious they're hit, I'll just put one into the plate carrier to be sure. Some players will casually walk down a path, hands still down on their gun, in the hopes that everyone will think they're dead and not shoot, then shoot everyone in the back when they get past, and one shot to the chest really isn't a big deal, especially since most people wear a chest rig or plate carrier that absorbs most of the hit. I've never had anyone moan about it to me, and I'm usually slinging .48s at 2.3J. I think a single shot is different to lighting someone up because you think they might be playing dead. However, if they still have their gun shouldered in the game area then they are in no position to moan. To me I'd see them as still in the game until the hand goes up and they call out "hit"

That's some pretty serious teflon player action. I've yet to see someone take two shots to the face from my VSR and not call it, but they're .48s at 2.3J. I've definitely seen people shrug off multiple body shots though, even at that weight and power. And you just need a smaller 2nd gun. I bought a Cyma mp5k and it's not too difficult carrying both it and the VSR, though I'll agree it gets difficult with a larger secondary rifle. I did it with my 416 and it worked, but it was much harder and I'm 6'5 and heavily built, so two guns isn't as big on me.

Was doing some general maintenance to my pistols and came to realise I have more pistols than long guns... And I want more! I still need a handful of parts to upgrade the STTI mk23 (bottom left) and the Bell 1911 (2nd from right) which I'll get first, but there's at least a TM HK45 Tactical, Bell m9 and Bell MEU on the list of pistols I want to add to the collection.

As someone who uses a boltie, the number of times I hear this... It always amazes me when people are shocked that their stock AEG can't reach the same ranges as my painstakingly tuned boltie

You beat me to it. Glocks are undeniably great handguns. They're reliable, have a high magazine capacity, easy to use, they're everything you want in a pistol and if I had to carry a handgun I'd probably go for a Glock 21 as it's got all that Glock goodness and comes in .45 calibre. It's perfect. But I still hate them; give me my impractical m1911 with its outdated single stack magazine. Also, in airsoft... AEGs. Yes, AEGs. I think they're the best weapon platform for airsoft. They're reliable, they'll work in all weather, you can put thousands of BBs through them with no issues and all you need to do is swap batteries if you get low. Also, with how far hop rubbers have come along, they're reaching similar ranges to bolt actions (not quite the same, but comparable enough where you can just aim up or dash forward 10 - 15m to get in range). To top that off, you can run hi-caps allowing you to never run out of ammo, or even use a drum mag if you so desire. Or you can up them to be DMRs and bridge the gap between AEG and bolt action, getting the middle ground "best of both worlds" platform. All in all, they're amazing, they're versatile and they often look really good. But I still hate them. They sound silly, they're loud(er than HPA), and they're so uncivilised.

My mp5k or spring shotty always comes with me as a backup gun, regardless of what else I'm bringing. Always a good idea to have a backup! And you're totally right. Outside of gearbox related shenanigans, airsoft guns are really easy to work on. And even then, V2 gearboxes aren't that complicated once you open them up and have a look. I'll give someone a pass though if they don't want to crack open their V7 gearbox, as I've endured that pain myself and wouldn't wish it on anyone (unless it's a tech I'm paying to open it up for me, then I do wish it on them because that's what I'm paying them to do!)

Yep. I'll always advocate for doing basic maintenance, tune-ups and simple upgrades yourself. It allows you to notice when something is wrong with your gun and immediately have ideas on what's wrong and how to fix it.

I think I'll also echo this, but also as a recent HPA convert. I stopped playing about 6 - 7 years ago after I left university, but got back into the hobby 2 years ago. HPA wasn't really a thing back in the early 2010s, but now it's everywhere. However, I have also learned to love it myself. I converted my VSR to HPA and never looked back. The effortless bolt pull, the silence of having no moving parts in the firing mechanism and the silly levels of consistency are all priceless and I just don't find myself using my spring VSR ever. I don't think I'll ever fit the bill of a stereotypical HPA full auto idiot (they exist in the AEG variety too!) though, since it's hard to get silly ROF out of a boltie I'll also add another thing I learned recently: I don't like milsim. Gave it a shot two weeks ago and had fun, but I don't think I'd repeat the experience. It's total pay-to-win at night time, because the guy who spends thousands of £s on NVGs will just win against the guy who can't afford to do the same. Yes, people will say "but you can see the illuminator" and that's how I did hit someone while being otherwise blind, or "pop smoke to screw with it", but seeing a red dot in the darkness is very different to seeing everything plainly and smoke doesn't solve the issue as then nobody can see anyone and firing blindly can be dangerous. Also, I don't really like the whole idea of being told exactly what to do. I'd much rather be given an objective of "we need intel on X, and if you see Y they are a target of opportunity" then be left to my own devices on how to accomplish it, rather than being given strict orders on "we need you to go and do A". Also, I didn't really get an opportunity to use my boltie at all (which made me sad ), as most squad-based tasks were ill-suited to it, so I basically played the whole event with my secondary (stock cyma mp5k) and sidearm (upgraded TM mk23). And the most recent thing: I've learned that carrying a small, lightweight AEG at the same time as the VSR is a game changer. I may go back to just the VSR and mk23 for some games, as I just like pistols and like excuses to use mine, but carrying a small mp5k alongside the VSR has been super easy and super useful; having full auto for tight situations and allowing me to push aggressively when my team is inevitably all hiding behind a barricade, shooting at enemies far out of their range as airsofters are wont to do has been really nice. The mp5k + spare mags are really lightweight and I just unclip it from the sling and put it to one side when I get into a position where I'm lying prone with the VSR. You learn something new every day

I love the hicap heroes who burn through thousands of BBs per game. Their shooting provides a wonderful soundscreen for me to move about. Nobody's going to notice the light rustle of foliage or the gentle crunch of a slow footstep when John Rambo over yonder is spamming his AEG at everything.

I had a decent day, even though I couldn't use the VSR as the battery connectors needed fixing (they're fixed now and reinforced with a bunch of electrical tape!). We played a long game across the whole morning and I got a good number of kills from my hide next to one of the objectives, even after it got completely overrun and I repositioned to start shooting the enemy in the back. However, I think my days using the ghillie are numbered; if it was much warmer, I'd have dropped it as I was pretty damn warm wearing it today! However, I found that I'm really not used to using 1J guns, as I would get into a hide with my m14 and lament at the shots I could've made with the VSR that I just couldn't with the m14. I don't think I had anyone within my usual 30m MED once through the whole day, which made the fact I had no MED (as the m14 is 1J) a moot point. Next skirmish day I'm looking forward to using the VSR again. It's a much lighter-weight loadout than the m14 as the VSR is lighter and I don't need a chest rig as everything fits on the belt.

Hey everyone, So this has happened three times now and I'm not exactly heavy handed on it. The battery connectors just keep coming loose. First they were re-soldered onto the mini JSTs, second time I got the mini JSTs swapped for Deans connectors and now it's happened for a third time! Was wondering if anyone had any experience with this and if there's any way to strengthen the connection of the wiring to the plug. I absolutely love the Wolverine Bolt for everything apart from the damn battery connectors that keep coming loose!

First milsim event on the books and I'm going to ache tomorrow. Did something stupid like 24k steps through the event (kept my smart watch on under my gloves as I was curious) and only got 3h sleep! Was it enjoyable? You bet. Will I do it again? Probably not, but you never know. I think the happy middleground of filmsim / battle sim is where my preference will lie, as milsim just seems a bit too... uptight? Serious? Pay-to-win? (just keep reading, you'll know why I say this) I get why people are drawn to it, but to me it's just not my cup of tea; I play airsoft to have fun with friends and play BB wars and maybe do a bit of silly RP and follow a story through a longer event, I'm not looking for that strict military feeling. High point? Our squad using site knowledge to sneak behind the entire enemy team using a really out of the way route to start engaging them from behind, though a premature endex hampered our impact as it took a while for the squad to get into position. It's such an out of the way route that one of the others in our squad was a regular on site and he didn't know about it. Runner up was dressing up in civvie gear and shouting insults at a very on-edge Taskforce after they got a journalist blown up by an IED. Low point? No NODs in a sea of lots and lots of NODs (on both teams). Our squad did one firefight in the darkness because we were assigned to defend an objective and got absolutely rolled over by double our number where almost all of them had Gen2+ NODs, while our squad had none. I got one of them with the mp5k before getting hit myself as I just shot at the red light in the darkness, but the fight was over in less than 10 seconds.

I've been tempted myself to toy around with some of the Specna Arms stuff as it looks really solid as an upgrade platform. Your list of parts seems good to me. I like as high torque as possible when it comes to motors, because I want it to pull that spring back no issues and I wouldn't be firing on full auto anyway. I'd consider DMR power more with 1.88J and 25m MED, though I'd still want to trial it and compare. My local is 1.64J and 30m MED which is what makes it useless to me as I've tested extensively between 1.6J and 1.1J without seeing much benefits, but since I plan on HPAing the m14 anyway, if I move to a site with more lenient DMR rules I can just up the psi on the regulator and dial in the hop for some heavier BBs. I also swear by my bipod, so I'll always advocate for one on any more "sniper-y" type rifle, as supporting even a lightweight rifle for prolonged periods of time without moving a muscle gets really, really tiring! I think bipods basically come down to how you plan on using the rifle; if you're going to use it as more of a sniper, dressing like a bush and being all sneaky, I think bipods are fantastic as it lets you get into a hide, deploy and then be totally immobile for long periods of time without having Schwarzenegger arms. However, if you're going to run around supporting your team in that more marksman type role, I think bipods are a waste of time as you need to be mobile to keep up with your team mates and probably won't need to support the rifle for such long periods of time. And I've also started carting around an mp5k alongside my VSR and mk23 to give me a bit more mobile firepower for when I need to push (because most airsofters are terrible at pushing. and sometimes it's up to the bush to show them how to do it...). Fantastic choice to carry alongside a rifle with an MED.

Consistency, effective range and a snappy trigger is what you want to be chasing. A DMR is there to reach out a bit further than the standard AEGs on the field and make the shots that the AEGs are finding hard to make. Basically, you want to be designing it the same way you'd build a BASR, just instead of the higher power and slow ROF, you're taking the middle ground between the AEGs and the BASRs with semi-auto fire rate, but also trading in an MED. From my experience, the Cyma m14 is a great platform to start from, but they're not an easy one to work on as the gearbox is horrendous to take apart, barrels have to be specifically designed for it because it's cut differently and AEG hop rubbers need cutting down because the hop up unit is unique and takes shorter rubbers (not VSR rubbers! They're AEG rubbers, but with about a centimetre or two cut from the end. However, they make for some pretty swanky looking DMR builds once completed because the rifle has that classic rifle style. I've built one of mine to look more sniper-y. It's a shame your budget is only around £250 - 300 though, as my advice would be HPA for a DMR, but it costs a pretty penny. It's where I'm going for my m14 after experiencing the silent consistency of my HPA BASR, and if you're not spamming the trigger (which you shouldn't be with a DMR anyway), you can get away with a small bottle in a stock pouch to avoid having lines everywhere. However, I will also give my honest thoughts and perhaps play devil's advocate: Seriously consider what you'll get from that extra 0.5J and consider what you're trading off. I personally don't see the point in DMR power these days. With how advanced hop ups have become and how much they affect our range and accuracy, the extra 0.5J isn't worth the MED for me. The extra 5m, maybe 10m if you're lucky, isn't worth a 30m MED, but if your local site has a 15 or 20m MED for DMRs I could see the viability more. I think designing a "DMR" style rifle around 1.1J is way better as you lose very little effective range, but you gain the flexibility of being able to shoot point blank if someone gets up close.

If you don't need GBB, ASG or STTI mk23 with upgrades. A new hop rubber, barrel and hadron h-plate aren't that hard to install, but will make that pistol shoot amazingly well. If you want GBB, I'll throw my hat in the ring for anything TM. The fact that they're plastic is part of the reason they're so good, as the lightweight slide will cycle even in winter, when most metal slide pistols will struggle. Just don't open them up and try to upgrade them, TM pistols are fantastic out of the box because of some weird voodoo pixie magic they put in there to make it shoot stupidly well.

I'm not into impression stuff, however BHD definitely did influence my choice of RIFs because there are some really cool scenes. Why do you think I run not one, but two m14s as well as not one, but two 1911s? One of the least practical AEGs (because the m14 is so damn front-heavy and working on the gearbox is torture) and one of the least practical GBB pistols (because the 1911 magazines are so tiny and therefore can't take that much gas). Not all at the same time, of course (Honestly, its a combination of that BHD scene plus the all ghillied up mission in CoD4 where you use a suppressed m21) I will echo what has already been said here. I've seen a lot of gear-gatekeeping. People making these arguments about "no, you're loadout is wrong because that rig is actually from 2 years earlier" are often really annoying to me, because I see airsoft as a great hobby because we can all play it our own way. I dress up like a bush and sneak around with a silent HPA rifle and silent mk23 sidearm, making silent shots and not really affecting the game in massively direct ways; it's hide and seek with BB guns to me. Others grab their AEG and go super high speed, gunfighting over objectives and clearing buildings. Others set up their support gun and hose entire areas with thousands of BBs. We all have our own ways of playing, which extends to our choice of dress up. I'm also a fan of real-steel shooting gear, but I'll never berate someone for buying cheapo gear because it's what they like. Airsoft loadouts are very personal and nobody can really tell you that you're doing it wrong if that's the way you like to play. One of my m14s is super heavy, as I put a bipod and a rail handguard on it, with people saying "oh you can't do that because it'll make it way too heavy and impractical!" yet those same people will come up to me on a game day when I bring it out and say "wow, that looks really cool! What is it? How did you do it?" What I'll also add to the discussion is that I took a long break from airsoft from around 2010 until around 2018 and was shocked by some of the aspects of loadout building. People used to do impression kits all the time, but when I came back it was like "oh, that could be construed as stolen valor because you've got that patch". I get it, stolen valor is awful, but someone looking to make a relatively authentic SAS impression loadout because they played CoD4 and thought it was cool is not the same as someone putting on the uniforms and bragging about how they were in the regiment when they really weren't. I did an SAS inspired kit about 13 years ago because I played a lot of CoD4 and thought it was cool, but I never pretended to even be in the forces; it was all part of the dress up, like a costume. TL:DR - You do you. Make the loadout you like and you think looks cool. A lot of airsofters (I'd hazard to say the vast majority of airsofters) are lovely people and will likely think what you've done is cool and ask questions about it. Nobody will care if it's not 100% genuine authentic Delta with all the gear being surplus that was actually in Mogadishu and actually worn by that specific soldier. As long as it captures the look, people will notice and probably compliment you on it. Us airsofters love to talk shop about loadouts

This. I pretty much only run my HPA rifle these days, but my Cyma mp5k is always in my rifle bag. It's so useful having a reliable AEG to fall back on just in case things aren't working properly.