RostokMcSpoons

My boots have arrived! Very good condition, good size (fairly snug, once I'd put some cushion insoles in them - I hope my feet don't swell tooooo much through the day) Very happy at £38 inc postage off eBay (a one-off sale, though the seller does quite a bit of surplus stuff). Noticeably not as much ankle support as my high-top para boots (well, duh) but a good deal lighter and more comfortable. M'wife keeps on at me to go on some 'power walks' with her... as I can't find my proper jogging trainers anywhere, I think I'll wear these instead, get them moulded to my tootsies in preparation for the next game day.

Ah, I was echoing the 'great film' for Nobody The Covenant... decent, agreed! Sniping in films is almost universally awful, isn't it? I just watched The Mother where J-Lo teaches her kid to shoot, where the target basically fills the sight picture of the scope ... and naturally she still manages to miss - to leave room for improvement

It's a great film though

As I mentioned in the '416 thread, "The Covenant" on Amazon Prime seems to contain VFC HK416 A5's 🤓

Apropos of nothing, but my child-like excitability... I watched Guy Ritchie's "The Covenant" on Amazon last night. Pretty decent film - a slightly low-budget-y "Lone Survivor" meets "The Killing Fields" kinda thang. The thing that got me hitting the pause button a couple of times was the fact that most of the Yank troops were noticeably rocking HK416 A5's through most of the film. Given the recent chat of Mr Ritchgie's disavowal of using real-steel on his sets from now on, the faked gun flashes, and absence of slow-mo brass flying around (maybe they CGI'd the brass, I can't say I noticed any), it got me thinking "he actually really is using my gun" as I don't think there's an obvious A5 GBBR other than the VFC...? Simple pleasures for simple minds...

@Impulse I'll be interested to hear how you get on with running a chest rig + belt, as it's a combo I'm considering, as I too am finding the heavy GBBR mags (and / or bags of BBs in my pouches) are quite a thing to deal with (my belt has a harness but being slightly fat it must still be moving around a lot so I was giving everyone a flash of my bright-red-not-very-tactical boxers on Saturday whenever I was grovelling around for cover!)

Air sniper, read and learn 😮‍💨😄😋

I was talking to a chap at Spec Ops, he was considering a swap deal with someone in Northern Ireland. Luckily he'd not committed because he thought a GBBR might get too much attention from the authorities, might get seized, but I cautioned him there's a scammer over there. I'd never ever do a swap to NI

Yup the only thing that tickled my critical faculties was the fact the 'in stock' figure wasn't changing between sizes, and the large figures for those 'in cart' meaning most of the stuff should've sold out already. Lucky escape though, because my appetite for a bargain could still have carried me to the checkout page!

Yeah fooled me too, but thankfully the fact I'm waiting on a pair of boots already had me considering my options just long enough not to get caught by it. I was even thinking of buying several pairs to resell on eBay once the sale had finished, so I could have ended up on the hook for a lot Thanks for letting us know @Duff Beer

Wow, some absolute storming deals on there, all sorts of boots available, including 'ranger green' high ankle boots. Really tempted to buy a pair of something at those insane prices. And a nice pair of Lowa socks too

Very happy to say the seller has contacted me, the boots have got back to him and he's posting them on to my home address now. Yay! Glad to hear the boots are good Dan Good idea Roger, though hopefully my pre-owned boots will already be broken in

Sorry to hear that. £17 is taking the budget to an extreme 😉 My boots were marked on evri as delivered so I went to the pick up shop. They don't do Hermes or Evri, so feck knows where those boots have actually gone. The eBay system gave me the option of that store so it's broken. What a pain in the ass. They're good boots at a great price, and I'll probably never get them now. Meanwhile my clompy para boots actually were fine through my half day, they just felt heavy once it was all done and I was toiling back to the safe zone with my two guns and heavy backpack

I just wish I'd asked for it be posted to my home, but given my current 'between contracts' status (i.e trying to save cash), and the big fuss I'd made when clearing out the shoe cupboard ("why do you need so many" "what a waste of money, you don't even wear them" etc), then I thought it'd be better for me to go collect them when t'wife is at work

I found an Evri tracking link which suggests they need to use a different courier for my 'large package' "Wibble, yub yub" etc But that (if I read it optimistically and with great faith in their business processes) suggests Evri are just returning it to the Hermes depot before trying again. It's a shambles regardless, can't they cope with sending a pair of boots in a box???

I'm in conversation with a guy who 3D-prints adapters for Odin type speed loaders, about getting a VFC HK416 version made... I asked if the WE M4 adapter might work - does anyone know if they're compatible? I'm thinking "no" because otherwise when there's a VFC mag shortage, it would already have been suggested to use those instead, but I thought I'd check... If is it is a "no", then he says for me to send a magazine to him, and he'll conjure one up in a couple of weeks. Let me know if you're interested in buying one, I might be able to use the expectation of selling more to keep the unit cost down.

Bastard Hermes have fucked up the delivery of my desert boots: it seems my eBay order failed to get delivered to the local convenience store I was going to pick them up from, so they're probably wending their merry way back to the seller by now, and I won't have them in time for Saturday. Arse.

You see there are levels of ignorance which I think you have to make some allowance for. I am one of the ignorant. I have never heard of a Keffiyeh. I had no idea whatsoever that the patterns had any symbolism behind them, I just thought they were purely decorative (or in the case of more militaristic ones, sort-of camo) I've been educated today (thank you), but if someone sees a shemagh / Keffiyeh for sale and buys it because they like the pattern... well I certainly couldn't hold them to account for it, because it's something (to borrow a much-mocked phrase) that's "an unknown unknown" to both them and me. Back to the main topic, I've got some personal experience in the Z patch thing. I'm not sure how to, or even whether I should share, but as I'm typing I feel I might as well keep going, see what you guys think... There's a young chap who goes regularly to Spec Ops who has worn a Z patch on several occasions. The first time I saw it my blood boiled. I naturally assumed he was just being a twat, or utterly ignorant. My initial desire was to run up to him, rip it off his arm, verbally abuse him for , and generally put either, or both, of us at risk of getting thrown off the site. Instead I decided to mentally count to 10, and approach it with an opening gambit of "that's a bold thing to wear that today, I can't say I like it". He explained he's Russian, his family back in Russia support the war (presumably brainwashed by Putin etc), and his uncle is actually fighting. He made a comment about the BBC as 'Main Stream Media', fake news about the Russians etc, from which I reached the conclusion that he's in a Pro-Putin environment where they're all soaking up the propaganda. And as he's got at least one family member in the army, it'd be pretty difficult for him to go against that without alienating himself from his close relatives. I kind of put him on my "RL ignore list", but as it turned out he's a nice guy, plays airsoft the right way, didn't push the Z agenda at anyone (though I think he'd defend it when questioned, as he did to me). He became too friendly to ignore, and I've turned a blind eye to his patch, and not talked politics since. He greets me by name, gave me a slice of birthday cake (which some others had turned down - not sure if they were ostracizing him for the patch, worried the cake would have Novichok in it, or just concerned their waist-line would end up like mine... but turning down cake is not something I can do easily). I really don't know if I've dropped my moral compass by not forcefully pointing out that the error of his ways, or being the good person who sees past flaws and make allowance for circumstances. The only thing I can say for sure is I was mightily pleased when he turned up to the last skirmish without the patch, indeed he was wearing British gear I think. Maybe Carlos had had a word with him. So yeah. Slava Ukraini

That's magic @Cannonfodder they'll be much appreciated 😃

You sir are the Devil's Spawn, and no mistake P.S. did you find any of those SIG mags? 😊 I remain a constant admirer of the L85 Though it did lose quite a bit (where it gained quite a bit) when it transitioned from the original XL65 prototype (Somewhat ironic it's the Ares Research Services as my source for the pic) I quite admire that, mostly because I'd have no idea of the donor gun without your hint. Total conversion > Bits stuck on

Wait, you'd do something unspeakable to a Lee Enfield no4 too??? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo 😥

I mean, c'mon. Surely not going to stick the Ugg boot on a FAL, surely not?!? (The red dot is bad enough) Of course it's not quite as vom-inducing as the Bullpup FAL prototype I've posted before... But that had the excuse of being a test-bed, rather than someone thinking it's a good idea to spoil the beloved FAL Edit: In a homage to the "What have they done to my boy" meme someone posted for that bullpup abomination, I commented... And it got a reply. He really actually wants to do that to it.

Wow, some amazing stuff here already! In spite of being fascinated by WW2 when I was a kid (Sven Hassel being my favourite author for quite a while, Commando comic being avidly read...) I never really questioned any of my family about the war. A massive wasted opportunity. I do remember my granddad on my mother's side telling me a tiny bit about his war service and so I've only got this as first-hand history: He was in the artillery as a gun-layer on a 25 pounder He bought home the gunsight off a captured 88mm Flak gun, He showed it to me once when I was very young. Mint condition in its velvet lined case, I remember being very impressed with whole thing, especially the reticle when looking through it. He told me he was one of the very first of the artillerymen to advance over the Rhine, but because he'd got a terrible case of the trots, he had to go across with a cork up his bum My dad told me one great uncle was one of the very first POW's, as he got shot down in a Blenheim bomber doing a leaflet drop over one of the Low Countries, right at the start of the war. Poor bugger must have spent 6 years wishing he'd at least been dropping bombs on the enemy. I do vaguely recall being told my one of relatives flew as wingman to "Johnnie" Johnson, famed Spitfire ace, but never found out any more about that.

The bolt not closing fully is quite a big issue in my opinion, I wouldn't buy one till they sort that out. And I'm with the guy in the video, that FDE finish isn't very premium, I'd rather be looking for a black version. Still, I'll keep an eye on it... Edit: watching the video posted by @hitmanNo2, the fde doesn't actually look too bad, maybe the bolt gap is a cosmetic issue I could get used to. But the full auto performance is very poor. My VFC does a much better job of getting through a mag dump.

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