Leo Greer

I think @RostokMcSpoons ‘s response summed up my feelings pretty nicely. I would be in the ignorant camp for most of these things. Do I know what a Swastika is and why not to wear it? Yeah. Do I know what patterns on shemaghs or keffiyehs mean what? Heck no. Young players are stupid, not always malicious. We’ll change more of their behavior by being friends than we will by alienating/being hostile.

*turns to page 31*

I think it’s incredibly interesting to hear the depth of history in y’all’s stories above and I appreciate the time took to share it. Airsoft be darned, we’re talking history now! But Leo, what about your family? My family history? Oh boy… hang on tight… On my dad’s side: My grandfather was a cop who came from a genuine dysfunctional hillbilly family that crawled out of the mud somewhere in the 50s. He was the only one of his family to escape the hillbilly life, and is remembered for his work as a cop, private investigator, and for saving several children from a burning vehicle. He also had a medical grade thing for coupons, and took at least five toothpicks from every restaurant he ever went to. My father and I cleaned out his desk after his passing and found multiple gallon ziplocks full of them. My grandmother is a “southern belle” who traces her family back to the Latimers of medieval England, in particular William Latimer, who served under Henry III and then later Thomas Latimer who arrived in Virginia in 1701. Due to her failing eyesight, she has developed a tendency to insinuate that various (extremely white) persons must be part Native American… On my mother’s side: My Grandmother’s family came from Palermo, Sicily in 1919, dirt poor immigrants, with the name Palazzolo. In fact, if you look up the name Palazzolo, chance are I’m closely related to anyone who comes up, as the name is pretty rare. My great-great grandfather was Giuseppe Palazzolo, better known as Joe. He cooked like no other, and had a large “doll” that sang in Italian and creeped the heck out of us kids. He also served in the US Navy during WWII—I’ll have to ask around a bit more for some details. My grandfather’s family was nothing extraordinary, except that he somehow passed some African American genes down, despite being whiter than anything. He was also descended from Oliver Wendell Holmes. Who is famous for his poetry, philosophy, and his time as a Supreme Court Justice (chief American legal bigwigs). He made law, not war…

I work as a roofer. Long sleeves, cotton jeans, 100+ degree heat… if I’m lucky I’m not in the attic (make that 170 degrees)… … I feel your pain brother. I might need those underwear. I love how they say “eye catching waistband designs”, like you’re gonna be showing off your sheath and bawhlux to everyone who’s walking by.

It’s impossible to overestimate the value of cheap.

It’s possible that you take a PDW lower from a different manufacturer and make it work… but that requires both luck and skill. Airsoft is absolutely horrible where tolerances and standards are concerned. I’m currently adapting a 20 year old Classic Army M4A1 upper to fit a Tokyo Marui lower. I feel your pain.

All thanks to one dang genius Japanese guy…

I should’ve mentioned this in my first post; on socks, check for the % that’s actually wool, which is much more telling than price or branding. My father has decided that he’s truly a sock snob, and as such will only wear Smartwool socks that cost around 20 beans per pair. I’m not that rich, so mine cost me eight. Take a guess whose have the higher wool content.

The conversation becomes even more interesting when we start counting crimes like rape. Australia is No. 2 in the world! Sweden is on the top ten! I was in Italy recently, and the rate of robbery, (not counting burglary or thievery) is absolutely massive, especially in certain cities. Naples has an unemployment rate of over 30% right now. You could call me a culture tourist—I genuinely enjoy seeing other people’s ways of life and perspectives on things. 😁 I actually do have a passport—I’m almost to a dozen countries—so I spend quite a bit of time immersed in other cultures. Nah, not strange that you don’t enjoy real guns. I’m way more of an airsoft nut than I am a real-steel nut. Fair enough—Cold War is a bad example. The point I was trying to make is that us and our police shouldn’t be using knives in hopes that the criminals will use knives as well. Putting yourself at the mercy of a bad guy in hopes he backs up and does the same for you is just stupid. Knives are cheaper, yes, but at least in the USA, a basic rifle or handgun is so cheap pretty much anyone can afford one. A basic rifle can be purchased for less than $100 new, and a basic handgun can be around $100 as well. Private sales can be any price, of course. Two words: threat bubble. Knives have an extremely small threat bubble. It’s also much harder to kill or even hurt someone with a knife than a gun, assuming that is the intent. Imagine any robber trying a bank without a gun… (most are caught, but that doesn’t mean they don’t try) In recent times, there was a knifing at a local school. The perpetrator only injured one victim, despite intent to hurt more. Why? Because a knife is a thousand times less effective of a weapon than a gun. I repeat; firearms are an equalizer. My 80 year old grandmother can shoot someone dead just as well as a highly trained cop, or a a gang boss. Who’s going to win in the knife fight? (Hmm, maybe not quite as well, but you get the picture 😂) My grandfather was a cop for 25 years. He was in gunfights, shot multiple times, was called in for mass shootings, shot criminals, crashed his motorcycle in the middle of a car chase, and was known to the end of his life as “that old guy who always carries three pistols”. Most people are not, and will never have to be my grandfather, encountering threats to his life and the lives of others on a common basis. But as the saying goes: “He who packeth heat be a fool all the days but one.” I found an interesting report from the American FBI that states that in 2019 armed American citizens killed 386 felons during the perpetration of their crimes vs. 340 from the police. This does not include any self-defense shootings, or shootings that weren’t fatal. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/expanded-homicide I first found this page from various media outlets, but I dug up the original report for sale of veracity—if anyone sees anything misleading about the way these numbers are presented, you should let everyone know! In short, it’s not “an exception” for citizens to make use of their firearms in lawful manners. Heck, this report didn’t include anything that was for self-defense, only the stopping of felons (murder, rape, arson, etc). I don’t know the faces behind the avatars, but I’m assuming it’s mostly men on here. In almost all cases, women aren’t capable of overpowering men by physical strength. If you take away weapons, you reduce the fight down to pure physical strength and skill. Who wins in those cases? Note the extremely high rape numbers for Australia… Better yet, ask yourself what you’d like your mother, wife, sister, or daughter to carry in potentially dangerous situations.

I had an interesting one pop up—a guy shows to my local field wearing full Russion kit and kaboodle. He then starts claiming to have been in the first wave that invaded Ukraine. Speaks Russian, and makes a very convincing claim that he actually was in the first wave. I have no clue on God’s green earth how he would’ve gotten all the way to Texas from Russia… …but the field owner sure did kick him off whether he was pretending or not.

I’m not upset in the slightest. I was simply attempting to lighten the mood—these discussions can make people angry, sometimes understandably, and when everyone’s angry, the discussion becomes pointless. We can have a good discussion with point and counterpoint, or we can have folks getting mad at each other and getting nowhere. Tackle mentioned the American firearm situation first. Skullchewer has the right idea. He’s clearly the smartest one here.

If you’re able to cut an o-type shaft, you can make yourself a medium motor out of any long type. Cut the motor down the same way.

That’s like saying nations would never develop any new weapons if their enemies didn’t. Example: Cold War. Guns are easy to use—a death threat in the palm of your hand. If a criminal has access to a handgun, why on earth would he not use it? (Noise of the gunshot is one reason I came up with, but that’s dependent on scenario)

I don’t think any of y’all Brits need to be getting angry over a discussion about American legislature for any reason… if anything I should be the angry one. 😂 …no point to having this discussion if it’s just going to make people go nuts…

Why is that? *unsure whether he should immediately start dissing South Africa or not…*

Stricter guns laws don’t necessarily make places less or more safe. They make me and my family less safe by removing our ability to defend ourselves if the worst should happen. I.e. they remove power from law abiding citizens. Those with malicious intent will, of course, ignore gun control laws. Imagine, for a moment, if we enacted nuclear war gun laws. No guns for citizens, ever. At all. What happens? Criminals still have guns. How on earth does disarming your law abiding citizens help with criminals? Maybe, over enough time, you’d be able to catch every criminal and find every hidden gun. But how many years is that? How many years of criminals knowing that a gun gives them power over any citizen who turned theirs in? Even assuming citizens retain the right to carry things like mace, switchblades, etc, etc. In America, we’ve seen a wave of increase in “big government”. Many will disagree with me here, but I just don’t believe that the government really wants to help me, or any citizens really. They’re people, and as such they have all manner of motivations, chief of which is often money. Public office pays almost nothing—why, then, can an official enter office an ordinary citizen and leave extraordinarily rich? Thus, to some of us, government moves affecting gun control (or any increased control) look like power plays. When we assume that everyone has the chance to be corrupt, and everyone could simply be going for money, then we have to question the media, government, everything. Sorry, “fact” is the wrong word. Coincidence is a better one. Gun death numbers have no bearing on how safe you are walking down a certain street in a certain city. It stand out to me how unsafe cities like Chicago and Portland are compared to large cities in other states with different laws.

When talking about civilians, you’re probably correct. This does not, however, account for any kind of preventative protection, or cops, who are also “Good Guys With Guns”. In many areas, a large percentage of people carry. Half my coworkers carry, and their wives. And my bosses. And their wives. And their parents. (Not their children 😂) I’m in Central Texas, which is both a very gun-rich area, and a very safe area. This is not a hard fact, but cities and areas with stricter gun laws tend to be far less safe. I have been to every state and almost every major city in the USA—the areas that make it hard for citizens to defend themselves experience more violent crime. This is what I’ve seen from personal experience. Anyone can twist numbers to say what they want. Obviously there are people in the world and even in my city that I wouldn’t hand a loaded handgun to. But, who am I to arbitrarily make that decision? What if someone else arbitrarily decided that I shouldn’t be allowed to own a firearm? It’s a slippery slope, deciding who should be allowed to do what. I think I’ll agree with Colin; my view on these things is extremely simplistic. However, I see nothing wrong with that. I’m not an extremist of any wing trying to either set the 2nd amendment into iron, or to tear it down. I’m just an ordinary Joe who wants the ability to defend his family, and for his family to be able to defend themselves. I also don’t have any kind of political agenda—this is just an engaging discussion with me and a bunch of Brits on an online forum dedicated to shooting plastic balls at each other l. 😂

Agressive and fearful society with terrible mental health care? For sure. A horrible education system? Absolutely. However just stating that our system is well and truly messed up doesn’t do much for us is ordinary Joes. The question is, what should ordinary people do to combat both the symptoms of the problem, and the roots. I’m curious to hear why you think my view is simplistic.

Good to know! So, being that I’m not an AK expert, THIS model is TM spec, yes? I matched the hop unit specs to TM, so I assumed these were TM clones (creaky as anything 😁), but it’s possible I’m wrong and VFC uses the same spec as well…

Of course. But as long as there are guns to be owned, there will be those owned illegally. At this point it’s impossible to remove all firearms from the equation. https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-church-shooting-man-take-out-gunman-west-freeway-church I wasn’t trying to quote actual attacks, just to give examples. More guns are not the answer. That’s not what I said. What I said was that adding regulations to firearm ownership that already exists is hurting legal owners far more than illegal, which defeats the point of regulation. In any case, I also spoke about the presence of firearms being preventative. What % of attacks take place in schools specifically? Why not go shoot up a police station instead? Guns are not the problem or the solution. They’re an equalizer that allows anyone to take a life. The bad guys have guns. The good guys should have them too.

I’m a little late here, but if you ever want to spend the beans, the Salomon Crosshikes are amazing—by far the best shoe I’ve ever used. I hike difficult/steep/wet terrain with some frequency throughout the Americas and Europe. I ate through my Keen boots after a trip to the Rockies, and the Salomons have lasted over a year of use at this point, which is really considering my track record with hiking/outdoors shoes. they also weigh something like 1kg total for the pair…

I’ve never messed with the VFC clones, what’s the advantage over the TM do you think? The two TM cloned versions perform awesome for just under 100 beans each:

Alright y’all. I’m a born and raised American, so here’s my perspective. Other Americans would probably disagree with me here, but I’m a decent representative of the airsoft-playing demographic. In recent times, there have NOT been a lot of police deaths related to airsoft replicas. The danger is when misguided and deluded people (often teenagers), brandish airsoft guns as weapons. When a teenager has what appears to be a fully loaded AR-15 and starts coming towards the cops brandishing the weapon, they have no choice but to shoot. If they don’t, the individual could be a prospective neighborhood/school shooter. I.E. People are literally being shot for pretending airsoft replicas are real guns, and refusing to put them down when asked by the cops—there’s plenty of footage. In one recent example, a teen called 911 and asked for police help at his home because of domestic violence. The teen then answered the door with an airsoft M4 with the mag in and walked out at the cops with the gun pointed at them. There was no evidence of domestic violence. Everyone will have a different perspective on gun laws, but in America, guns laws primarily serve to remove the rights or privileges of law abiding citizens. Why on earth would the criminal obey gun laws? There are more guns in America than people—any criminal can get his hands on a gun through a private sale. In America, and in Texas in particular, concealed carry firearms (and open carry) is legal. A criminal or shooter’s WORST fear is not the cops catching him. It’s that the old lady in the diner or the kid’s baseball coach will pull out a concealed 9mm and shoot them from ten feet. This has happened repeatedly. School shootings are popular in part because staff are not allowed to carry weapons, as opposed to public places where shooters can be taken down by anyone. All that to say, the attempted restrictions/bans on airsoft weapons are likely attempts to remove freedoms rather than based in actual fact. Real weapons can be purchased in private or under the table sales by both legal and illegal owners extremely easily. Weapons are bought and sold at garage sales and over forums. Restricting sale and ownership of replicas and real weapons only harms and hinders legal buyers and owners because those with malicious intent will simply buy illegally.

That’s not so great. locktite the PH screw if you’re still worried.

Controversial opinion incoming: you get way more accuracy from simply stabilizing your current setup than from replacing parts. Polish your current inner barrel, wrap it in scotch or teflon tape until it fits tightly with the outer barrel. Shim your hop arm with scotch or aluminum tape. Shim your hop unit with aluminum tape, O-rings, or whatever else provides consistent pressure. You want it to be just a little hard to put the upper receiver back on. (springs are fine but not optimal) Look down your inner barrel with a flashlight and make sure the nozzle is centered. Things like this are huge accuracy gains--in my experience I gain much more accuracy by doing these mods than by adding aftermarket barrels and crap, since without stabilization the barrel can still wiggle and wobble, and the upgrade is useless. A millimeter or less at the barrel translates to feet downrange. And if you want to go further while still keeping it cheap, flat hop your rubber and then make a flat nub out of 8mm vinyl tubing. You're probably in the UK, so a ML Super Macaron and plastic nub is a quality cheap option anyways, but if you want to feel like you really did something, along with saving just a couple more beans... flat hop is the way to go.