RostokMcSpoons

Went t'shops - Cotswolds/Trek (high-end), Decathlon (rubbish), GO Outdoors (sale) - tried on some boots... Cotswolds had Lowa Renegade GTX. Blimey that's a nice pair of boots, you can feel the quality oozing out of them (Like the River Ouse, but with fewer discarded condoms, and less effluent). And so they should be, for the Kingly (rather than Princely) sum of £215. Lovely though, very comfortable even in a slightly too narrow size. I am very impressed. Salomon Mens Quest 4 GTX. Blimey that's a light pair of boots, you can really feel the weight not being there. Like a helium balloon weighed down with only a small number of miniature lead ingots. Honestly. 655g for a full-height walking boot is silly when my paratrooper boots have a pair of black holes in orbit around them. They also look very 'Special Forces' with a nice green / carbon-fibre grey effect. £170 on special offer there, but I think they can be had for £120 on t'internet. If I was feeling super-flush they'd be bought by now. Decathlon had 20 minutes of my time which I'll never get back. Let us not speak of them. Oh alright, if you insist. A lot of own-brand mid-height walking boots that didn't look like they'd survive for long even if I was walking up and down my carpeted staircase (though to be fair, the barbed wire does tend to catch on things a little, and the acid can be problematic). GO Outdoors in MK are closing down for a refit, so there's 30% off at the moment, but they're actively packing away the boots right now, so there was not much to see on display. I worked my way through stacks of boxes. I saw some Peter Storm boots (which I suspect won't be amazing in practice, but looked alright-ish), and some other cheapo brand which also came in a 'safety boots' version. Nah. They did have their own brand OEX Crusade WP Mid-height boots. They looked like really good quality. I tried them on, they fitted very well (size 10 standard width), felt very supportive around the ankle too. They're £120 on the net, but usually ~£150 in-store. There was no price, and no kindly shop assistant to ask, so I left without getting a 'best price'... they're more than I want to spend, so no problem. So I circle back to my shortlist... but I'm going to be scanning eBay to see if I can get a cheap pair of Lowa or Salomon boots too!

Okey dokey, so a quick search and I find an old model of the German jungle boot,which actually looks exactly like the Wellco classic Vietnam jungle boot, but had a different sole grip layout (smaller chunks, perhaps more suited to gripping on hard surfaces?) And there's a new model which is only slightly more expensive, looks the same, but claims to be waterproof because it doesn't have the drain holes. Both are available in green + black which does look cooler than the all black Wellco's at the preppers shop. So they're definitely an option. This leaves a shortlist looking like this at the moment: Wellco classic jungle boot £28 brand new, available in wide, slippery soles? German jungle boot, £35 grade 1, green and black for extra style points, better soles? Karrimor SF full leather wet weather boot, £50 grade 1 Iturri Desert boot, £35 lightly used eBay, wide fitting, not great ankle support? Iturri Patrol boot, full leather ~£45 used on eBay Also found some used AKU army surplus desert boots for £35 but no one has recommended those, and I've not checked reviews yet. The chunky patrol boots might be too close in style and usage to my paratrooper boots, that might be an unnecessary doubling-up of my inventory, so I think I'm more likely to go desert or jungle. Desert boots might get some extra use walking to the pub ? I think I'll make a trip to Decathlon and Go Outdoors .. if nothing else I'll try on some boots to get a feel for the most likely best size

If you chaps can't tell me there's a clear winner I'll just have to stick with my Swiss army paratrooper boots that are so heavy the Earth is gravitationally attracted to them (rather than vice versa). I am unemployed, and therefore allegedly skint, after all ?

Yeah @Tactical Pith Helmet they are ridiculously cheap for a new pair of boots, I'm watching a YT review of a guy who has bought multiple pairs because he loves them so much. I remain tempted to buy a pair to try them out. They are cheap and it seems they are tough (as.... old....). Hmmm, too many options now ?

Thanks that's incredibly useful info, I'll go look for those Cold Wet Weather boots if you recommend them so highly. They're not too heavy are they? My foot sizing is anoying, I'm about a 9, or 9.5 in length, but a 10.5 or 11 in width Makes buying shoes online... Tricky

Dan, we pewed everyone in that defence round when we didn't get killed at all. Just the law of averages says Cowboy suffered our Plastic Balls Of Humiliation too ?

Thanks @Colin Allen - as the new boots will do double-duty once the promised CQB site opens, dry grip is important ... I am leaning towards getting the Iturris over the Wellco's (though the price for new boots I can return easily if the sizing is wrong is very tempting) Just for shits'n'giggles I went to Sports Direct to see what they had. Subsequent research reveals they actually own the Karrimor brand now, and they do have some nice looking and very reasonably priced (£45-60) walking boots. YT reviews say they won't last very long in hard use but are comfortable... they have to be an option just because I can try them on. And the hard use will be one day every two weeks! However, some of the online reviews are damning. Damn.

Well we know what each other look like, make sure to say hello next time, if I don't get to you first! Glad you had a good day, hopefully it'll be even better next time ?

Haha I want that first pic framed I (first on the left) look only slightly fat in that pic Camo is obvs very slimming My right boot hadn't suffered its Slow Unscheduled Disassembly at that point. Ah. Perhaps camo can't cover all my chocolate/cake/crisps/beer-related sins... (That rucksack full of ammo, gas, tools, and spare shit really weighed a ton) Pistolero!

Dan, your son's gun was curving off to the left too, I reckon you bought lop-sided ammo, you need to rotate them all slightly in the mags ?

Blimey, they're cheap! Now I don't want to go looking at the proverbial equine's molars, but with a spike protecting sole and those chunky anti clog grips, I'm thinking they might tend towards the heavier end of the spectrum. I do already have a pair of very sturdy paratrooper boots, but which are so damned heavy I'll only wear them again when it's wet and I want the water proofing. I'm really in the market for some lightweight desert boots with some ankle support. How do these (quite literally) weigh up against them? Edit: I've found some reviews of these boots, and the good news is they're very light, but the slightly less good news is that they may take some breaking in before they're comfortable. I found some lightly used Itarri desert boots in my size on eBay for around the same price ... I may go for those just because they're what I was expecting to buy.

Thanks for those recommendations, both boots I hadn't thought of! I know from old threads that the Viper Multicams get a recommendation for the same £70-80 price (which as much as I can do, given my current jobless status), but in the first instance I think I'll go along to the obvious shops to try on some boots... Decathlon, Go Outdoors, and Sports Direct, because I have annoyingly wide, flat feet. Trying 'em on before purchase is a good idea tbh!

(* But in a good way, not wasting money on mortgages etc)

A sunny day at Special Ops ... Pleased to see @Dan Robinson and his son, and met a few of the other regulars, but missed a meet-up with Cowboy, were you there? A change to the usual warm up game in that it became a single-life defend game. Which really didn't work because I fired one shot to test my hop, waited 10 minutes, and then got shot from behind. Rather the opposite of a warm-up ?. The switched game didn't go much better for me, I didn't get a kill! Probably a round of zombies is still a good idea. Anyway, for me the morning was a story of my beloved VFC HK416 not living up to its potential. Accuracy and range was pretty good at the outset, and the gun made a few new fans when I let them try it, but the hop setting seemed to slip very easily and quickly. As I've tried to take the hop apart recently, maybe I've made that slippage worse... so rather than spending too much time and ammo shooting at distant trees to adjust and check the hop, I decided to go to my DE 906. It racked up a goodly number of kills through the day. Good old thing did not let me down ? But during the day I managed to break the sliding cover in one of my Lonex mags (fixable, I'm sure), from trying to force the mag in when there must have been an errant BB in the well. And I lost my clone Leatherman tool (but it was found and I got back). To thank the God Of Lost Things and restore balance to the universe, I managed to find an expensive looking grenade in a pouch, and handed that in. Weird shit that happened today: someone had some money stolen from a rucksack. Not cool. Carlos got close to losing his temper about non hit-taking, not seen him that angry for a long time. Gave the young kids a lecture that it's not CoD, where you can take multiple hits before dying. I didn't have a problem personally, so just found it amusing ☺️ And possibly the same thief that nicked the money also decided to nick the badge off the front of my (cheap, old) BMW. Or the glue gave up the ghost and it fell off on the way home ? My old Karrimor walking boots decided to fall apart, I ended up with one held together by Gorilla glue, zip ties and duct tape! Did the job temporarily, but they are beyond saving. I need some cheap, new (ish) lightweight boots

Just tried my Turnigy 11.1v 1200 mAH 25C 0.1 RPS slower than the Titan ?. Sorry if the empirical results don't quite match the spec sheets, and your expectations, but there ya go. Airsoft is indeed a funny old game

Yeah my correctly sized screwdrivers have stupidly thin handles. I tried using with pliers for more leverage, but it's not the same. So I used a slightly wrong bit in a t-handle, and it chewed up the heads. Should have gone shopping, would have saved me time and/or money in the longer run ?

Wow that's a cool thing Dan. I guess all the batteries need to be exactly the same for it to work safely?

Congratulations on your choice, I hope it's as good as for you as it's been for me ? I run a Titan 3000mAH 11.1v Li-Ion nunchuck in mine, but as has been pointed out, the Falcon unit drains batteries even when not in use, so it rather spoils the main advantage of a Li-Ion, that "it can stay in the gun because you can't kill it". You can kill it, and I did, twice ? As these are more expensive than standard Li-Pos, I'll leave it you to decide whether it's worth it. Just make sure you always disconnect the battery at the end of the day whatever you choose. Warhead and Geoff's are highly recommended for your BBs. 0.25s will definitely be fine with the stock hop setup. You will probably be ok at 0.28 too, but see if you can borrow a few to test, when you can shoot out past 40m, to make sure they are being lifted properly. A Maple Leaf Macaron 50 Deg plus Omega nub will lift 0.32s, but that is for the future! The Sky charger recommended by @Rogerborg is similar to mine (I went for the T100 so I could charge 2 batteries at a time), it's done me very well. So a thumbs up on that too

The BBs drop out of most guns, don't worry about that, they're the ones released into the feed tube and held in by the pressure of the BBs still in the mag underneath. Take the mag out, they fall. No worries! There's a nice red dot on Amazon, a lot of us have used these at some point, they're good value... https://amzn.eu/d/bLte0wA It might need a little riser to go under it, so it's not blocked by the front sight on the gun... Something like this perhaps (just chose a cheap one, he might prefer a different look) https://amzn.eu/d/0mpNPYq

My hop rubber arrived so I did the standard maintenance.. cleaned and re-lubed the bolt etc. Cleaned the inside of the barrel. And then tried to replace the rubber. Bugger. The three screws holding the hop unit in place are thread-locked in place. I know that because one went 'crack' and undid, and I can see the red goop on the thread. But the other two wouldn't shift. I applied heat from a windproof lighter, but it's obviously not got it hot enough, I've now managed to cheese the Phillips heads into oblivion. Any easy ways to get them out or am I going to need to drill them out and get a new hop unit?

Yeahhhhhh. Bulldog don't have a great reputation. In fact it's probably got the worst reputation. Even for the BBs, they tend to be the quickest way to jam up a gun ? Well, good luck, maybe you got a good un. Buy some better BBs from your site or the shop at the earliest chance, but in the meantime tell your son not to keep pulling the trigger if the gun stops shooting for any reason. Hopefully, if it does, it'll just be two or three BBs stuck in the barrel and you can gently push them back out with the unjamming rod that should be in the box. 0.20g BB will be fine to start with. If you get a Double Eagle or a Cyma then stepping up to 0.25s would be ideal for those.

I am going to be immensely disappointed if there isn't a cowboy hat involved ?

The US flag is halfway along the lower path between the entrance to the game area / Noth Korea flag, and the Love Shack. It got used as a respawn point quite a lot in the last event, so you'll need to know it ? The car park got mentioned.. it's not been bad even with ~60 people, but you should aim to get there by 8:30. Safety briefing usually starts at 9:30

Nothing spectacular but a very useful little bundle from Action Hobbies' boneyard... Two sets of camo knee pads. Lower face mask. Pistol lanyard. MTP baseball cap. Bolle glasses. Green snood with mouth protection. Green balaclava. All for a tenner. I only really wanted the kneepads to replace my current ones bought from Screwfix, as the straps are showing the strain, but the other bits could be useful, especially if I take friends along. The Bolle glasses won't get used in-game but are ideal for casual use when doing DIY etc And I bought a pair of MTP combat trousers as my current ones are very faded.

Yeah very true point about the explanation of the game area. Congrats if you know what a Lithuanian flag looks like ? If you manage to find me I'll explain the map to you, there are actual map boards