SussexMatt

Personally I just let them pick up wear as I use them. However I paint guns (and lots of other stuff) to order. I've been painting models for 30 years now and have specialised in weathering, I do lovely rat look models of people's cars, well clients love them anyway. I have done quite a few RiFs now but as I tell buyers, if you buy a pre weathered gun you need to manage your expectations, weathering if painted on will come.off if not looked after properly. Even the most protected paint job can be chipped an worn and will contrast. If you 2ant a gun weathering then hit me up!! 😉

Giuseppe runs Mr G's upgrades out of Surplus Store in Crawley, great guy, turned around my knackered M4 really quickly, new piston, Gear and spring, sorted the feeding issues and gave it a good clean and service. now at a consistent 340fps and working great, highly recommended.

Great saturday a Driver Wood, new barricades in some areas really meant that engagement was more intense, lots more cover, some intense battles couple of epic holdouts from people on the other team, one lad held a corner on his own and I swear hit almost every member of our team at some point before about 10 of us rushed him and I finally got the kill shot. Many high fives all round as it was a lot of fun. Some shenannigans from some players on the other team when they moved half way across the map before the game had started and ambushed us badly, meant we got boxed in but it was all good fun. hit taking was excellent, smaller group than usual, I think 60 players or so, more regulars hence good discipline and hit taking, couple of rental kids were there and not good at it but they were pretty young and nobody cared, they were pretty funny especially the lad who fell flat on his face in a massive muddy puddle but laughed it off when we all took the piss.

Was there that saturday, some good games played.

Thanks, bookmarked the site! Never done a milsim before and would love to give a proper one a go.

Interesting, hadnt heard of the company running that before, will look out for future things! The site overall looked great, loads of space lots to interact with etc. Maybe I just caught a bad day there.

@DrAlexanderTobacco How was Dogtag? I went the other day and left during the first game. Was full of kids for one. Briefing was terrible, dry firing in the safe zone was rife, I think it was me and about 4 other people with their own kit who actually chronoed their kit and nobody checked on the way into the field. Site looked good but first impression was awful, spoke to a girl who played there regularly, she said it was pretty poor most of the time.

Friday game at Driver Wood. Christ it was hot... Our side smashed the other so badly it was almost not fun after a while, lord alone knows what they were doing but they didn't play any objectives in any of the games, we boxed them into corners of the maps so badly the marshalls pulled us back in every game to try and give them a chance to come back on us but they still failed. Game 1 Domination boxes, we got and held all of them. Was nice to play on new fields at DW, trenches and village were fun to play in but jesus christ its hard to see people if they bunker down in those areas which slows the game a lot. At one point we had them so boxed in and in cover down we were just sort of standing around waiting for them to do something. Game 2 King of the Hill, solid, fast paced game, good hit taking, we won that one comprehensively by just coralling them and being smart in following the flag. Final game was a capture the flag. needed 2 players touching, for every minute they were touching the 2 flags we got a point, we literally had 2 lads on the flags for the entire game. The other tema never made a decent push for them and it was an easy win. Was knackered by the end of the game, 4.5 hours of games with short breaks is tough going when its over 20 degrees out. At one point I flanked 4 players who were intently pumping fire downrange at our lot shot all 4 of them and they didnt take the hits despite it being massively obvious they had been hit several times. I ran off as they randomly shot the bushes around me and then claimed I'd not taken hits... there will always be 'those people' at every site. Marshalls were equipped with DMRs and pistols and let a few of the non hit takers very aware they knew what was going on. An improvement from Driver Wood on that front, they got it wrong with a couple of people who felt hard done by as a result which I get but overall I think Gaz and the marshalls team have worked hard on hit taking at the site. also picked up an old Classic Army MP5 and a couple of mags in the car boot sale which was a lot of fun to run in the last game. sadly the gun I built a couple fo weeks ago has died, I think my youtube education in teching has reached its limit and I need a pro to do the work now!

Realistically most people who don't run a DMR, sniper or a GBB RIF there's not much point other than looks.

Two blown ACLs, hip replacement last year, laser eye surgery last year too. Lifetime of hip and knee issues (yomping, deadlifting, martial arts) just keep on going, hip replacement was a goddamn revelation though. Didn't think I'd ever be back to running and was super nervous about weight training, running about in the woods all sorts, now don't give it a second thought. With regard to eyes I had shitty eyesight and now have 20/20 after surgery, much more aware of eye injury etc, have some decent Annette shooting glasses and got a set of Wiley X, the arnettes have taken a few hits in the last few weeks and not even had a scratch.

I had the worst of luck and the best community experience since getting back into airsoft this weekend. So, let’s get the worst out of the way. I’ve been trying to get the backup gun I bought on here a few weeks back working properly and have had it either delivering very low FPS or just not feeding, this weekend after playing about with the hop it was firing a little better FPS but only 268 tops, but the bloody thing just WILL NOT feed. Ah well, not to worry, back to the faithful Tippmann AEG, get to chrono and nothing. Dead as a bloody doornail. After much arseing about one of the Marshalls gets the soldering iron fired up and we try to repair the knackered connector, after burnt fingers and much swearing the soldering is done, then we notice the connector is actually broken as well. Brilliant. Thought we had the backup gun running and I had a pistol just in case, one pistol mag fills, the other at that very moment spits its dummy out and leaks like I’ve never seen one leak before! Unreal. So now I’m down to a single pistol mag and an unreliable gun. Things then get worse, unreliable becomes bloody useless and does sweet FA in terms of firing BBS. Basically my weekend was done within 5 mins of game one. I thought I’d just do what I could with the pistol once I’d stashed the M4 away. Back at the safe zone I have one of the guys who was over from Northern Ireland to play come over for a chat (Crowsniper), asked me about where spawns are etc as he’d not played here before. He asks me why I’m in the safe zone, and I explained the utter shit show that was my morning. The absolute legend then beckons me over to his table and says he’s got me covered. Pulls out a very very pimp looking Krytac Kriss Vector that he’s just finished building and tells me to go and have some fun. This thing was insane, rate of fire and range were both absolutely unreal, he’d done a massive overhaul and upgraded and it REALLY showed, it was like playing a different game to my usual weekends. Had an awesome game, the Krytac turned the game around for my side on a couple of occasions providing some great covering fire and firing further than one of the snipers we were with. Was very impressed that a guy who’d never met me before was happy to entrust an expensive and very cool bit of kit to me after a 5 min chat. Top lad, shout out to James AKA Crowsniper for being a great example of what the airsoft community should be and is (sometimes). Oh and now I have 2 non working guns to get sorted…….

@Impulse Hadnt realised the Boneyard was also a Sussex site, might head over and have a look at some point.

I'll stick with Driver as its super local, literally 10 mins away so its hard to beat for me, no time to get there, £15 for a morning running about in the woods = all good for now. If it gets too frustrating I'll look further afield. Really want to give Worthing a go. I hear good things.

TBF I'm only just back into things with Airsoft so Driver Wood is my only current experience point. Absolutely this, the physical site is brilliant, its the issues around marshalls and some of the attendees. Though there were a LOT of really nice, really decent players there every time I've been. its an odd thing, they talk a lot about it being a site where rules are stuck to and the briefing time they lay it on thick, have even equipped the marshalls with sidearms to shoot people who dont take hits now, that said I didnt see a marshall doing that. Now, there is another side to this, Gareth who runs has said on their Facebook page that if you're not marked up at the end of the day you've not played hard enough (I'm paraphrasing) and has suggested its a site where people play harder than other sites. As you said I'm kind of fine with that actually BUT it needs to be coupled with hit taking being the king thing that makes that sort of aggressive play work.

Had another session at Driver Wood on Saturday. Had fun but the experience was marred a little by a few people. Chav lad and his mates rocking up with 2 tones that were brand new in the box, one took the packaging off in front of me and then gobbed off about how experienced he was to his mates who were taking rentals. They spent the entire game not taking hits, mag dumping on people and going into areas they weren't allowed to (coming right up to the spawn and camping and diving out of the roped area to avoid getting shot was their fave) at lunch they were bragging to each other about not taking hits. Marshall tried but had a lot on his plate due to the 2 snipers shooting people from about 5m away, someone with HPA running much heavier BBs than stated at Chrono (clearly), someone who defo had a DMR they were running on full auto as well as the dude hip firing his LMG randomly despite getting told he can only suppress from the bipod being mounted. Lots of people shot with the BBs penetrating skin and instances of kids getting badly overshot Lots of grumbles above I'll admit, the lack of hit taking and the amount of very heavy fire meant that one team was permanently crippled while the other controlled the map. At the end of the day I still very much enjoyed it and just took it for what it was, felt for a couple of dads whose kids were not having a great time, came across one guy with 2 kids waiting the game out in the spawn rather than go out and get shot again which is a bit sad. Driver Wood is a great site, Gareth who runs it is a good guy and they have a really nice team there. the amount of stuff from armoured cars through to helicopters, boats, cars etc on the site make it a really good immersive experience and worth a visit. I think they know the issues with marshalls and speaking to people as they are currently hiring team members so I'd imagine it'll get sorted in the longer term.

Good first game out for a few years today at Driver Wood. Nice to have a chat to a few people and not feel like too much of a loner after turning up on my tod. Didn't expect to see quite so much camo and as many guys who have spent a fortune on kit. I was rocking a hoodie and my old helikon greyman jeans. Much prefer having mags in pockets to some slightly walty chest rig, that said I could have done with somewhere to carry some fluids. Was gutted my newest acquisition didnt feed in the chrono (bastard worked fine when I got home) but the Tippmann performed solidly all day despite the charging handle catch falling off after about 30s of being out of the bag (fortunately it does nothing on the Tippmann AEGs) Game ran all morning, 09.00-12.00 long slog but a massive game, 35 acres and we had 180 players in the game today. Did alright got some very clean hits in, didnt die much, TBH I was being quite cautious and hanging back supporting. Cant believe how knackered I was after, drenched in sweat, checked my fitness tracker, burned 2500 cals over the morning, went home for a second sleep. Glass of wine and a movie this evening then. 👍

I've heard from a few others that Worthing is good. Saw there is a skirmish day on the 8th, might get myself booked in.

You do you! Not one for me but as long as you enjoy using it then go for your life buddy.

Very nice new storage bag purchased and a very ghetto M4 as part of the package. Super pleased with both.

Thanks, pretty much what I thought then, no real issues with masking other than the quality of the finish, I've got a knackered old AK in the shed I'll try some stuff out on before hitting the M4 with anything.

I'm pretty experienced at painting stuff (miniatures, RC cars, military models etc) and have already painted my mate's AAP 01 for him. The AAP was easy, the separate components of his were easy to remove and paint properly, stock, rail, barrel extender / handguard and the pistol itself obvs. I'm now looking at my M4 and wanting to get that painted up as well. I'm not really that up on taking apart a modern RIF, I can take apart a simple pistol and could do a springer back in the day but I'm pretty concerned about taking apart an AEG and buggering it up. With a view to that are there any real issues in painting one as is and masking stuff off as appropriate? Was interested to see Luke (negative airsoft) mixing varnish in with his airbrush paints to create a really hard wearing surface but one that will age and weather over time, not something I've done before but will be giving a go.

Cheers fellas! @LeekSausage I'm going to be heading out for games after the Easter hols mate, would be good to meet up with another newbie!

Well, I think I'll acquire an AAP, from playing around with a friend's one I really like it and they seem to have a good range and ROF. Will give the shotty and an AAP a go at a local walk on after Easter and see how I go, should be a laugh if nothing else. Can do that without sinking money into an AEG when I'm just starting back into the sport. Would rather keep some cash back and put it into something decent in a couple of months.