TheFull9

Pretty rare indeed to see stuff that actually qualifies for the word custom. Wouldn't be personally what I'd go for I'll admit but clearly it fits your tastes exactly and the works looks really great, which is all that matters.

The smith boogie regulators are designed for jumping; they're very much like 'normal' civvie goggles I've been given for freefall courses. I wouldn't say that about all tactical eyewear though by any means, a lot of the rated specs we wear/see that are common military issue would come straight off if you jumped in them. Plenty of times people on ops are stationary as well, how much footage from afghan consisted of lads sat on compound roofs or in trenches shooting vs running while shooting?

Sorry, but no it isn't. No military issues those I can guarantee you. Unless it's China where they're made perhaps...

Out of interest, where is that armour carrier from? It's like the standard issue new airsofters' rig these days.

Looks exactly like every other bog standard CS95 shirt I was ever issued. Unless you mean they're issuing out what's let for jungle training? Which I guess is possible but I've not heard of it.

Most stuff on LegitKit that's an auction will go for big money in the last 4-5 minutes. Not often a place for bargains, but if you've got the cash and want rare stuff because that happens to be what you're in to, it's an easy way to find it with minimal trawling.

FG, long term plan is to alter it to mimic (as closely as possible) the real ones showcased on the WarSport site. The Grey ones were available here a good few weeks ago and I'd had the FG pre-ordered which was supposed to release at the same time, but the UK distributor ballsed it up. Got refunded by Land Warrior, kept the money aside and then picked one up as soon as they let me know they'd shipped in a few (I don't think they brought in many). I won't claim to be part of the brotherhood or anything just yet, haven't fired it yet. Also the people in the factory were inept enough to miss a couple of really basic finishing touches when assembling it that I now need to fix myself before I can use it.

First Krytac. Been waiting a good year or two for one of these.

Looks fine to me. Generally with a fixed iron, the vertical face will be forward, sloping face back; same as the standard A-frame front sight gas block.

I don't really like to discuss my finances publicly in general; sufficed to say I found a good deal else I wouldn't have bought them (as with anything I buy). Price also depends massively whether you want the AOR or another colour/pattern. Either way, AOR versions can't be purchased direct/new and the other colours are basically the same unless you know someone current US mil.

Patagonia trousers, these ones are AOR2 but they make them in MC and flat colours. This diagram explains the keepads best:

Good stuff, cheers.

Where from if you don't mine me asking? A lot of the british stores only seem to have gotten the grey ones in.

You know that was a camo joke right? Or is this a great big double bluff?

I see 7 black guns and 2 helmets.

The back, cummerbund and shoulder pads are FirstSpear, the front and shoulder straps are custom made. I've already got similar sorts of PCs in Multicam and Coyote for the other placards to go on to.

Things Stuff

www.leafgear.com Expensive and the shipping was crazy high, but I needed them asap for work stuff. Mil discount helped a bit of course, extremely good service, spoke to them a couple of times on the phone and great to deal with. Rapid delivery which was my priority. Boots are just about the only kit I won't import from the states. Edgar Brothers offer them as well and they'll be much cheaper, but I think they drop ship and they were gonna be a 4-6 week wait when I asked them, whereas leaf had them in and took about 36 hours from order placed to being delivered to camp from the Netherlands. If I wanted them for airsoft I'd have just gone through EB.

Salomon XA Pro 3D Mids.

Be interested to hear some of your experience thus far. Which models have you been fitting and how are they holding up?

VCRA covers import, so I think you need a defence to move a RIF from the ROI in to the UK. I'm not 100% on the law of how the countries are separated etc, but I'm fairly sure that such a move would be considered importing to the UK. If anyone's read that bit of the act more recently feel free to correct me.

On a firearm you do need plastic covers, these thin, lightweight modern rails get real hot, real fast. Ironically it's actually relevant to airsoft (for me anyway) in the reverse fashion, because I have crap circulation in my hands and holding a bare metal rail all day during a game in the winter will literally put me down and out of action without decently thick gloves and plastic panels.

It seems cheap, but I've owned 2 myself for many years at different points and seen a fair few out on the field, never known anyone mention having one fail. It's a copy of the Tac Tailor 2-piece MAV so no R&D costs and as I say, made in china but using real military materials and very well stitched. I've got a BULLE backpack here that I've had pretty much since I started skirmishing (probably 9 years old now) and even with all the fancier stuff I've got here, I've no plans to get rid of it because it's showing no signs at all of failing. There aren't many reviews because not many people go on flecktarn.co.uk these days and it's not tacticool to run anything but a multicam plate carrier any more, even if you massively sacrifice quality in order to get 'that look' (not that you really have 'that look' in a £50 rig), something people learn once they've been playing long enough. I could go in to a very long spiel about trends in airsoft and gear over time, but sufficed to say since YouTube got really, really big and forums died down a lot (about 2012 ish I'd say) and SF impressions got big and the militaries and SF dudes all switched to compact plate carriers, people have just been going for a look and not asking around on forums and reading guides like they used to in order to get the best value for their money. Hence why everyone just buys condor, viper and emerson PCs because they assume that's the right thing to do and haven't used any other gear before in order to know any different; which is understandable in the online environment we now find ourselves in. When I started playing there were none of these knock-off £30 multisham amour carriers that you see absolutely everywhere now, most people were in some sort of webbing, belt or chest rig which is completely different to what you'll see on the field these days. MOLLE and Picatinny were only just coming in to popularity in fact.

If you want something cheap and you want that look, then hey go for it it's your loadout, just make sure you get it for a good price that's not verging in to the territory where you could buy something much better. You're always rolling the dice with Emerson/TMC etc though, some of their stuff lasts people ages, some falls apart 2 games in. Again when you search around the classifieds and ebay my experience has been that chinese gear like that is a really poor choice generally when you can get stuff like warrior much less than retail quite often, or even stuff like old brit issue webbing (PLCE or earlier) for absolute peanuts that might be used but will still literally last through a couple of world wars. You sacrifice looks if you want to be operator, but if you want stuff that'll actually be well built on a budget you sort of have to; a really good plate carrier just isn't cheap to make. To answer something I missed in your OP, yes Arktis is great kit, I just recorded a review on some of their apparel today. Their old chest rigs are pretty legendary. The other option I often suggest for people who want high quality and skrimish practicality on a budget is this chest rig. BULLE stuff is like Warrior, uses mil-spec materials (unlike emerson and condor etc) and they go way OTT with the stitching so it's seriously solid, but being made in china brings the price right down compared to most US made kit. http://www.flecktarn.co.uk/odtmb2nx.html

Sorry, buy anyone who uses Condor for actual combat is being straight up insane, regardless of who they are. It's fine for airsoft, absolutely, but trusting your life to that gear (which is not definitely not built for life-saving applications) only shows you're either the craziest risk taker the world's ever seen, or don't have a clue about nylon gear. The fact you can get a Tac Tailor PC for 75 when the Condor costs 60 says to me that actually, the quality to price ratio on the Condor is really pretty terrible comparatively speaking. I'm bound to get flamed for this for daring to say anything against the cheap chinese brands, but when you can get something of far superior construction for such a small increase in price then going with the airsoft kit just doesn't make sense. Long term you'll be saving money with the better quality kit. I get that people have a budget and that £15 might just be going too far, but saving up for an extra month or however long will no doubt pay dividends in the long term.