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At this point I think I may be considered a broken record, but... you should be able to find plenty of sites without personal opinions on https://playairsoft.uk. Just type in “outdoor” into the search box and off you go. I’m currently working on a proper search page with filtering, where you’ll be able to filter by “site type” among other attributes. Hopefully that will help folks who are looking for something a bit more specific than a typical Sunday skirmish at their local pewpew site (have nothing against those!). If a local site isn’t on there, I’d love for you to submit any details on it you may have, so I could add it to the list.

@TheFull9 R.I.F.T. seem to have about four (?) sites in total, and they are on my list to verify and add. Currently, I’m working through improving region pages for faster loading and better viewing, as well as having a dedicated search/filtering page for more sophisticated browsing. I do encourage anyone who knows of any sites that aren’t on PlayAirsoft to submit them, even if you don’t know all of the details. Don’t be afraid of submitting just a name and web address, if this is all you know about it. I’ll get to it and try to verify all the details anyway. The hardest part is to provide meaningful descriptions for each site. Most of them have a little blurb about what they offer, but nothing specific about the site features, which would be of most help to players who don’t yet know a given site. I will be going on a little tour and visit some sites that aren’t too far from me for the sake of gathering intel, but it’ll be a slow process. Anything you may know about your favourite site that isn’t mentioned, file a report through the website and I’ll take a look at it.

As per the titles I’m wondering what sort of events do you guys know of that would make a good choice for an “airsoft calendar” each year? I know there’s NAF, but I keep hearing there are more events that people look forward to happening on a semi-regular basis. Anything that’s still scheduled for 2021/2022?

Really good. I enjoyed it. Probably the best NAF so far for me. We played a lot, socialised a lot and even met with @Shamal on Saturday. Night game was proper havoc, but that’s always the case unless most people have NVGs etc. Sunday quiz was typical “let’s drag this for as long as possible” but we’ve had a few laughs. Bravo lost so I’m not happy but hey, we’ll do better next year. For the first time I was apt physically to sustain a whole day of combat, so I’m happy. Running up and down the hill all day from dead zone was not a problem as opposed to previous years. Overall: we’re going again in 2022. This time maybe with some PlayAirsoft merch 😉

@Shamal Yeah man, the whole two-man fireteam of DSEC is coming over, and we’ll be driving down from up north over night to get as early as the gates will open tomorrow. I’ll drop into your private messages once we’re set so we can get in touch and meet at the site.

That's precisely why I asked how do we reconcile players who are honourable with those who don’t give a shit or are malevolent by nature? I do agree that porting rules from video games directly does not work, however there are ways to optimise gameplay for LARPing. You will always get idiots who want to spoil the fun for others but being a proper arse, and since this is a given, the simpler the games the better. Having proper medics can be super fun though, especially when you’re a medic yourself, but I’d say that if players want to experience something more than shooting/being shot, then regular open-day skirmishes aren’t advisable. You get what you pay for, so to speak. Are there any methods you guys know that work in engaging the players more in gameplay while keeping cunts at bay?

I’m yet to experience a large scale battle similar to how Rush game mode worked in Battlefield 3. Back in the day I thought it was a perfect template for Airsoft skirmishes It adds variety, adds dynamism and prevents from camping, because as long as there’s multiple respawn points you’re never sure where the attack will come from. In addition, I always enjoyed game types such as VIP extraction, where speed and tactics are the key. The trouble is, most airsoft event organisers don’t take cues from game designers who spent thousands of hours perfecting game modes for causal players. Instead, they invent bullshit like “three-way warfare” where you have no idea wtf is going on until the day ends and someone somehow calculates points and declares a winning team. Apart from that, causal players and kids want just to shoot someone with BBs, which is not uncommon, and quite expectable. So how the heck do you reconcile the two worlds? I don’t think organisers aren’t capable of designing cool games, but most of the time they are way too detached or cocksure to admit they failed or could improve. Ego is the enemy.

You can use PlayAirsoft to find sites near Leeds, there’s an interactive map of UK sites as well as search function. There’s quite a few sites around NW/Yorkshire and All Arms might not even be the closest (although it’s fun from my personal experience). If you happen to find a site that isn’t listed, use the form in the site to suggest a new location.

I’m trying to stay as objective as possible, so I’ll add context here for reference. I’ve only dealt with FPS when it comes to checking for compliance with airsoft organisers and site limits, however what I’ve noticed is that every RIF that I’ve ever owned (and it’s most likely an industry standard) had its energy output measured and declared solely in Joules, which makes it for a super handy reference. For example, my CO² ASG CZ P-09 came from factory with 1.3J of energy output. You can probably tell at a glance whether it was or it was not hot for most sites. I will experiment with Joules at PlayAirsoft and see how it fares in real life. If you happen to see any info being incorrect for a given site, I have added a “report” link. This should help with correcting any outstanding issues.

It’s what worked for the dude, he had to fool himself into flossing, doesn’t mean you do too. I suppose his motivation was to have clean and healthy teeth. Call it whatever you like, motivation, encouragement, willpower, to me they are all meaningless unless you do something about it. The truth is, we all rely subconsciously on feedback loops; positive as well as negative. If you make a commitment and you show up to do something positive for your body, and you continue to do it, eventually your body starts to reciprocate and you notice positive effects, which enables a positive feedback loop. All you gotta do is start somewhere, but as you said, you can’t rely on fleeting moments of inspiration or “feeling good”. Go and do something now!

I’m working through a problem with which method of measuring weapon limits on PlayAirsoft. Some sites use FPS, some Joules, some both, and it’s a mess. I’m wondering what is the preference of the community? What do you find most informative for your purposes? If you have any comments as to the practicality of each method, please do chime in below.

Numbers show there’s less than 2000 players signed up so far (normally there’s close to 4000), so it looks like it may be a bit less hectic while at the same time more strategic, since it’ll be less likely to engage in random firefights in the bushes.

From years of getting after it: motivation is overrated. Just show up, every day, even if for 5 minutes. It’s all about building a habit. Five minutes is enough to get you going and you’re more likely to stick around for longer. I remember an anecdote from a dude, who wanted to take care of his teeth by flossing, but couldn’t find motivation. He decided to tend to a single tooth each evening. By the time he finished with that single tooth, he said to himself that he might as well do them all while he’s here. And that's the trick: fool your brain into showing up. Motivation comes normally from external factors. Showing up means you don’t give a damn about external factors, you go after it no matter the weather. Even if it means doing 10 pushups each morning.

I feel you. Ever since I had a knee injury last year I could barely walk, let alone run or run in full tac gear. Since March I started a new recovery programme and now I'm almost ready for getting back to my fav activity. For strengthening body and mind (and losing weight), basics work well for me: intermittent fasting, full-body workouts, running, rucking, dry drills.

Well, that's a lot of Airsoft game organisers for you. If we wanna raise standards across the board, we need to keep them accountable and keep feeding back to them constructively. I would suggest watching some footage from NAF2019, as it was a very good one (IMO). It's hard to keep 3-4k of players in check across such a large site, but somehow I never had the impression of the organisers NGAF, in fact some of the marshals were so awesome they LARPed properly as commanders and made the whole experience all the more awesome. The food is usually decent at the site, camping area is kept in check and tidy, the vibe is real solid. If you prefer proper games, maybe one of the other weekend warrior events would be a better fit for you? NAF is 100% casual from my own experience.

You're not wrong. Plenty of kids who think they can take as much heat as in CoD on "Recruit". Makes it less palatable, hence this year I wanna focus entirely on getting objectives done instead of picking random firefights in the bushes. Easier said than done!

@Cannonfodder It'd be awesome to have a bit more variety, so if you know of any other "weekend warrior" events with camping during the last bank holiday weekend, I'd love to hear about it. I heard about something similar based in the North of England a few years back, but I can't remember anything else about it sadly.

@Fatboy40 It's a good sanity check, I agree, although the idea in my head is focused around a "recommendation" system. For example, if a site meets certain criteria deemed important by the community (gathered from surveys, etc), it gets a "PlayAirsoft Recommendation" badge on their page and in search results. That's all. No comments, no reviews, no star-based ratings. At least not for now. An example of criteria could be (it's just an example, not saying this is what's important to most players): has on-site shop provides free lunch options has online booking has guns/gear rental has toilets If it scores 5 out of 5 it gets a badge, that's all. The aim is to increase competition for players between neighbouring sites by incentivising site owners to get better at what they offer.

After weeks of hard work, I’m proud to say PlayAirsoft has now a search feature, along with a blog, and over a hundred of sites across UK. I’ve added a bunch of sites going as far as Orkney Islands. As far as sustainability of the site goes, I’ll be looking at something more low key, such as affiliate links etc. I don’t like the idea of plastering ads all over the place just to keep the lights on, so my aim is to get a bit more creative. I want to make sure you guys will actually benefit from it too.

@Shamal we’re running under Darkwater Security (DSEC) but it’s just the two of us. We’ll be also sticking with Bravo again. I normally set aside a bit of a budget for NAF each year, but I get ya, it’s hard to resist the temptation! Looking forward to playing with you, would be awesome to bunch up and for once do some objectives for the team! 😅

Sorry for the delay; the site is now on PlayAirsoft as well: https://playairsoft.uk/sites/greater-london/echelon-airsoft/

I think it's a bit of everything. I have a KWA-made recoil system which has been excellent, but I love TM's approach to authenticity, in a form of bolt catch/release action, as well as cycling, which looks and sounds awesome. Most of the sound signature of any given rifle is produced by the cycling action of the bolt and to me, that makes all the difference. Add in TM's legendary quality and support to the package and you have a weapon that is out-of-the-box ready for a skirmish. That said, I was never a fan of MP5 (sue me ), however MP7 is a different talking point for an SMG. I might get one someday.

Hey guys, I don't know if you've got the whiff of the news (neither ZeroOne or GroundZero are any good at it), but NAF2021 is going ahead as per the initial plan. They reopened the booking 2-3 weeks back. I wrote a bit about it here: https://playairsoft.uk/blog/national-airsoft-festival-2021-is-going-ahead The event will still take place between 26th–30th of August and by the time I signed up (circa last week) there was already over 3,000 players registered. Is anyone here going to attend this year? I personally cannot wait for proper camping with awesome food and live, open fires everywhere across the campsite. They say it's 20% Airsoft and 80% social there, and that's been the case for me and my buddy ever since 2017. PS. I launched a blog on PlayAirsoft where I'll be posting regularly with updates about bigger UK events throughout the years, as well as news, guides, and reviews related to Airsoft.

If the seller is being unreasonable you can always take steps to address this. Learn what you can do here: Consumer rights - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). As for FRV Tailoring themselves, last time I ordered was about 2 years ago, and they served me promptly. I'm not sure what's going on but their communication used to be on point. I guess their customer service must have take a covid-induced hit recently. I assume you've tried emailing and calling, as well as approaching them on social media? Poor communication is not an excuse for them to be ghosting people, even if they are in the process of shifting to new facilities.

I got a bag/box full of KWA parts from the USA for my PTS CM4, as I'm converting it from a 10.5" to 14.5" configuration. I'm also an idiot because I broke my upper receiver while trying to unscrew barrel nut ring. PTS is using a shit ton of Loctite on everything; you've been warned! outer barrel inner barrel Centurion Arms CMR 14.5" M-LOK handguard KWA PTR upper receiver some minor spares and bits, just in case Might post pics soon! PS. After Brexit, if you order from the USA, any individual items that do not go above ₤135.00 will not be subject to either VAT or import duty. It's now much cheaper to import airsoft stuff from the US than it is to order from China!