Dogsbody100

What a terrible position to be in! Such hardship out there. And it’s not like, he’s say maybe a scammer or anything is it? Poor bloke

Now that is very weird! I got down to Airsoft Plantation yesterday and have now dropped by here to mention it, wasn't sure where to post it and boom, there's this thread! Nice when that happens! Like a lot of you probably are, I was more than ready to get back to the sport and seeing that their website was accepting bookings again I reckoned it was time I gave AP a go. I saw a very comprehensive and well written site review by asomodai I think which was very positive about AP so this place was always on the list to try. It's also less than ten minutes from my house which is even better. After a what I must say was a little bit of faff in terms of actually contacting John or Steve (to be fair I'm guessing they're busy guys) I got booked in and turned up to the event. The safe zone was out of use for obvious reasons meaning everyone was relocated to the car park and worked out of their cars. This was just fine with many bringing chairs and tables (or just repurposing/nicking the site's ones!) In the end it was actually quite workable though if it rained it may have been a bit more interesting! You could still visit the shop and the amenities with ease. Brief was very comprehensive, everything covered and clearly they have a good attitude towards safety and this virus business, they weren't just giving out spiel, they really came across like they gave a shit, nice to see. I will say though I found the chrono rule of spot checking was a little odd, the player has to chrono his or her own gun with their own chrono, AP then randomly check you with their chrono at a later juncture, this is fine in principle and it's up to them but I did think that having all those different chronos in use instead of just one could lead to errors possibly, it's kind of the same as MOT'ing your own car with your own test kit, leaves room for error? Also theres a chance one could slip through the net with a hot gun, at least if you chrono everyone with one known good chrono then its all levelled out and you really cut the chances down of getting hit with a hot weapon. As a rental player that side was academic to me obvioulsy, granted many here have long graduated past the stage of renting but some of us UKARA-less pikeys (aka me) are of course still in need of this, so too were many of the groups who bought mates along for a try out and needed kit too. While we're here it's well worth mentioning the decent quality of kit they run, as with a lot of sites they use the CM16 Raider which has a pretty decent rep in the airsoft world as I understand it. Indeed it seems to be very popular on AFUK too. This was my first hands on encounter with it and I have to say after all that hype to live up to it did brilliantly. The one I was issued with was naturally not new but was accurate, reliable and user friendly, AP clearly maintain them well. Based on its following and how well it did on the day it will be the first gun I buy once that UKARA number comes back for sure. Also serves as confirmation that the advice here on AFUK is generally solid. The battery did conk out just after lunch but this was no problem - I simply asked a marshall and within seconds I had a replacement gun back in my hands ready to roll which by luck was also brand new! They just sorted it out in short order which was another plus for AP. Having a new gun was nice but seeing how well looked after it's predecessor was there was no noticeable difference in performance. I didn't have any non hit takers that I noticed, whenever I saw a BB connect with a target the hand went straight up with all the honesty and sportsmanship you'd hope for. One guy was however particularly vocal about his opponents not taking hits, again I don't know if that was true as I couldn't see but ironically he had a lot of trouble taking his own, that said later on after a little discussion between him and someone else they both took the hit, fist bumped and moved on - well played lads. The games were varied and fun, a couple of new ones were tried out which were good ideas but needed tweaking, that is of course the idea of a trial though and both ideas got good feedback. Didn't try the food van but it looked and smelt bloody good, even attracting a guy on a golf buggy with his black lab dog stood casually on the passenger seat with weirdly good balance, for a breakfast roll which would have been enough for two. Maybe next time... All in all a great day out, well planned, attentive and switched on marshalls, solid hire kit, above average facilities and a fun site to play with lots of variation and space, I've started the UKARA visit process and this will be a regular site after that too. That said I did get close-ranged with a Mk 23 in the right arse cheek and now have what looks like ursula major semi tattoo'd in red dots on there - could call it a souvenir maybe?

@Rogerborg I do concede and agree that the example I gave is somewhat different to the one posted, where it links is the ‘test case’ side of it. So far, there may not be any cases (that I know of) where someone was stopped by the authorities on the way to a skirmish in possession of a defenceless RIF but as emilianoska has said I don’t like the thought or possibility that I’ll be the first. In the modern world we can see that the police rightly react swiftly to such issues, just ask Kai. I accept that may seem extreme, especially when applied to the common sense driven environment of airsoft, there is though always that nagging chance.... None of this is to say that I have anything against an airsofter who would do it a different way again, the likelihood of issues is thin at best. In emilianoska’s case, the consequences for them could arguably be worse than mine, and that old adage of ‘if in doubt leave it out’ is the only way of guaranteeing the avoidance of the many grey areas of the VCRA. 😁

I have to say I find myself coming down on the side of emilianoska here, granted you can find ways of manoeuvring regarding this however erring on the side of caution has in my experience been the best way to avoiding any unpleasantness. The VCRA seems to have been put together somewhat hastily and this shows up in cases like this. As a former FAC holder my view is to look upon airsoft with the same level of ‘anality’ that one does when dealing with real steel, helps to avoid slip ups etc. A case in point - I have an an old glock which isn’t two tone (a RIF) but have never been through the UKARA process, it didn’t exist then. I still won’t take it to a site for games even if I know the rules apply to purchasing and not possession and I would probably be ok. Call it paranoia, call it whatever I just prefer to tread on the safe side when guns/weapons are involved and always plan for the worst but hope for the best. Certainly when selling to people you don’t know it adds yet another layer of smoke and mirrors to things and I can well understand why one would take the stance emilianoska has.

But where do the batteries go? 🤔