TheFull9

ShooterCombatGear got themselves in to gear, eventually. If the guts of my current M4A1 fit neatly and easily in to this 7075 receiver set I'll repent all sins and become a monk.

You're pretty on the money with that map mate, yeah. If there's another clear lane in the west I didn't even see it and I had no idea there's playable area south of the stream as well lol. Though all the objectives for every game that day were very much clustered in the yellow area with not much to be gained from a long flank around the really dense bits of the woods (far as I could tell anyway). I'll take the hit on this one guys, I took an interest in playing after many years, which with my luck means the entire site gets closed down right before I go to try and book on.

I've been there myself.. the horrors 😭

I just posted ads on Prefired and Airsofthub last week for the first time in many years, got a few e-mails with very similar wording essentially trying the exact same thing. If you're new to/not familiar with the site in question they can be somewhat convincing, and they English was actually correct in the e-mails I received. Of course the message coming in the wrapper of a normal DM is the main giveaway but I wouldn't blame people for falling for it if they're new to a given site. I'd say I'm surprised at these scammers becoming so active on niche little airsoft sites within the last year or so, but I'm sure it's happening in all hobbies and areas of interest where folks commonly do online buying and selling.

You're not in a great spot for sites admittedly, looking at the map, Eastbourne is maybe the worst in the SE. Have to go a bit North or West to reach anywhere and weirdly there's nowhere South of that. But from Brighton you've also got UCAP GreenOps and then maybe.. 5 or so places in and around Portsmouth which is about within a reasonable journey.

I also went once before, maybe 3 years ago or so, that time was better. They sell VIP tickets with unlimited games so they've got a solid customer base clearly, in fact the bloke sitting next to me that I spoke to said he'd bought one, but I couldn't see it myself. Be good if you just need that motivation to get outside on the weekend and you live pretty close and that can be a big deal for some, but maybe it's a grower not a shower. I should have mentioned that food rule, good prompt. Absolutely comical! As if you're going to police me eating a digestive biccie during a break, lol. Even ignoring that fact it's total weapons grade bs, what if you don't happen to want to eat what they offer? Worst case, it's a 90 second walk back out to your car during the lunch break anyway. The whole day did lock in my idea of getting a DMR you're quite right. I've got a build in it's early stages that I was on the fence about but my mind has now been made up. There's so many long lanes you can just look down and make use of a range advantage. Funnily enough someone next to me said DogTag was worse, but the (older now) review on here is glowing. Be an interesting comparison, the two are fairly unusually closely located. I'm trying to figure out where you are though for those places to be the only ones reachable. To get 2 hours from Imperium you reach Chichester, Winchester or Basingstoke, but if you're central south there's lots of other places slightly further West than Driver Wood that are within a reasonable travel time? It stuck in my mind that the borders were never actually mentioned, because there weren't any, but it's actually kind of hard to break from the normal mindset of being fairly penned in. I'm pretty sure it was far quieter last time I went and it was better, but of course it's just warming up now, ground's mostly dry, clear skies. I'm sure you're absolutely right about the numbers, with DT shut it makes total sense for the other nearby place to get way busier.

So, anyway... After the foreign trip I was obliged to take last year by His Majesty I've had lots of leave to use before the new tax year and I've done 3 games this year already, which puts me on track to play the most I have since about 2009 💀 After reading a fair few very good reviews I wanted to try out Dog Tag near Gatwick as I've not been before, but they weren't running this weekend so I went over the road to Driver Wood. Their site slogan should be something very 'safe' and unassuming, like 'Driver Wood, you'll definitely not have a bad time'. It was absolutely: fine. Track leading down to the entrance is the closest to a real mettled road I've ever come across, car park pretty solid. Tons of decent benches, stringent SZ protocols, big range of hot food (plus snacks) available, not a bad little airsoft shop with tons of consumables and a selections of shooters. Rather than a the standard rotund organiser/marshal shouting in an attempt to herd the pack of unruly cats they've got a tannoy system for the briefing and timings to get back in etc, gives it a very commercialised feel that's pretty strange to experience by airsoft standards. Safety brief was delivered in a tone that comes across like the bloke is sick of his job, which I do fully understand, but I also don't pay to be slightly patronised in the morning tbh 🤷‍♂️ Made me wish I'd gone back to AP. Seems it was a busy day, ~130 players. The site is big enough I'd say, but at the end of the day the main area which is used for regular airsoft play (there's various other small arenas for paintball and kids' airsoft) is mostly just a flat piece of dense pine woodland. There's enough barrel clusters and the like dotted around, but apart from the one fire break where all the old vehicles are, I found within an hour or two it's already pretty stale. They've got a few other areas that didn't fit in to the scenarios and weren't used. I say scenarios loosely, because there wasn't much to them, no opportunity for more than 1-2 people to really be involved at any one time, and since the 2 games for the day were similar and were both just reversed, the entire day was basically just 'fight over the site' (essentially no difference on attack/def other than regen point). Nobody got spawn trapped or anything, but it was a tad WW1 feeling, and not in the sense of brutal trench CQB. The one thing I really found odd was MEDs. Their rules online say 10m for auto and 0m for semi with a standard AEG, which I think makes total sense, seems like a good rule. Possibly I misheard in the morning, but what I heard was 10m minimum for any primary weapon and only sidearms or melee to be used within 10m, pretty sure I heard it again later too. Now that makes no sense to me, because sidearms and rifles have the same muzzle energy rules; one of those things that made me question my own brain a bit? It just puts a damper on all movement as if you don't have a pistol (I don't bring one unless it's definitely a requirement), then you have to 100% ensure you'll never round a corner and come upon an opposing player close up. Oh and one marshal doing chrono'ing said 0.23g BBs don't exist... Didn't see any major agro, all ran pretty smoothly, good safety all around. They actually allow some types of TAG and they sell charges and smoke to launch from 'mortars'. I saw a lot of different interesting gats and gear on people which is always fun. So I'd never say I'd never go back, but I won't rush to book again either. If you live SE and ever feel like 'I just want to play somewhere' but the sites you want aren't on or you can't get to them or whatever, it's the safety option for you. P.S. Did get very lucky in one regard, I've had an item up for sale here and an interested buyer messaged me who happened to live right nearby, which circumvented my least favourite thing about online sales i.e. when you send it off and spend the next couple of days praying RM/PF don't fuckin break it. Top bloke too, we had a lot in common.

While the BFBS article of course isn't objectively correct on the law.. like.. come one now, for journalists, they got pretty close right?? Compared to most pics of SF blokes that the sun puts out and labels every item of kit totally incorrectly. Personally, I got my first AEG 06, joined up in 07, not because of airsoft but I'd spent my entire childhood being taken to military museums of all kinds at any opportunity by my parents, so that seed was thoroughly planted in my mind. They didn't intend to give me that mindset by any stretch, not much service history in my family at all, but that's how it went. As we know of course the reality is totally different to this game/hobby, but that's absolutely fine, that's what basic training is for. There's no difference between an avid CoD gamer and an airsofter in that regard, both might have misconceptions going in which will be very quickly dissolved. They'll either follow instruction and pass, or they'll get put back and try again if they're unsafe or don't generally get with the program. Fact is there are... concerns, with retention and I don't think recruitment numbers are very high either. Spending your recruitment budget on targeting people who might actually have an interest is one of the better decisions I've seen in quite a few years personally.

On the one hand, definitely worrying to think about how many temu unsafe masks/rusty 10 year old mesh masks are probably floating around out there. Fortunately we seem to be pretty lucky, as I think anyone actually getting an eye punctured at a game would probably get well publicised and I don't know the last time I heard of it happening; though if I'm just living under a rock and it's happening every week at different sites I'd definitely like to know of confirmed instances that people have seen.

The story and parts on this one would take up way too much space for a forum post, if anyone really wants to know here's a link to my own site. Very short version, this started as a basic af short M4 (KWA LM4c) in 2015, but I've only changed a few little bolt-on accessory bits since I took these pics in 2020.

Kit from yesterday.