TheFull9

'Heavy looks' are great, until you actually try and run around in them all day or for multiple days. A bit further down the line when you're a bit more in to the gear addiction and have the inevitable itch to buy something in a different camo pattern, look around for some way you can try out something like a Warrior Recon or a JPC.

I don't think there even is a chinese clone of the Osprey in existence; no real demand. IMHO, having worn one along with many better modern plate carriers, it's an awful, awful load carrying option for airsoft unless you're doing a Brit mil impression, but each to their own.

Pro Airsoft Supplies (for example) will change the spring to give a sub-350 muzzle energy at the point of sale if the gun is shooting hot; not a problem. Any other decent retailer should do just the same, I only mention PAS as they've done just that for me with a recent purchase so I can confirm it for a fact. Even if they didn't, changing the Scorpion spring is insanely easy, literally no experience or special skills required.

And as you'll note from the above, when I perceive that people are doing that to me I often do let it go because I realise they probably aren't meaning to. I don't claim to be perfect and I'm sure you're the same. I don't feel a need, but I appreciate the offer.

I'd start looking outside Wolf for starters (if you haven't already). Look at the stuff Land Warrior, Airsoft Zone and Pro Airsoft Supplies have in. The MP5 and P90 you've picked out are, it must be said, seriously dated guns. Well over a decade old designs, maybe pushing towards 20 years in some cases. If you want short, light and ideal for CQB start looking at the ASG Scorpion EVO. The old style basic TM AEGs are still decent and skirmishable for sure, but in terms of external resilience and internal quality and technology the Scorpion is miiiiiles ahead.

Ok, that's an understandable interpretation, clearly I could've taken some more time writing in a clearer version of what I was saying. I don't particularly need or indeed welcome the assessment of my personality if truth be told, to me personally that comes across as condescending in the extreme on a very personal level going far beyond anything airsoft related, but I'm fairly sure that's not your intention so hey, I'm a' keep on strollin'. I very much agree in the vast majority of situations, where practicable I'd rather speak to people on the phone than in any written format. Sadly the world is full of people who aren't able to think about how the things they say will come across even when actually speaking, but everything written down certainly takes on a negative intonation that it wouldn't do if spoken, 100-fold so when between strangers; takes a close relationship to take the piss in a text or facebok message. lol, cheers, but I wouldn't claim that spunking a ton of money of gear necessarily makes me know what I'm talking about. I have a reasonable idea about some stuff, but that's come from spending innumerable hours looking at reviews and articles produced by those far more experienced and knowledgeable than myself combined with simply experimenting and trialling things 'in the field' (airsoft and occasionally in a work context). There's loads of cool guy operators in airsoft who spend tens of thousands on nothing but Crye, but it doesn't necessarily mean they know anything about what actually constitutes good, effective/efficient gear; of course taking in to account there are exceptions in all instances. I've nothing against those people, it's their disposable income and they are more than welcome to do whatever they so please with it. But when some footballer buys a crazy Hyper performance sports car, it doesn't make him an awesome designer of motor vehicles. Spoken like a true intelligent individual. Your referring to other people as genitalia is the sort of entirely immature thing that makes debates get 'out of hand' in the first place. You're in no position to throw out memes as if to somehow imply it's what everyone else did that was a problem. If you don't want things to 'escalate', check before you assume, establish what's actually going on and don't use childish insults in the first place.

You are definitely right, very few people actually do their research. However your original post in the thread rather comes across as being written by someone who's maybe not done their research to my mind personally, given how brief and in some parts, mis-informed, it is. Which is why I pointed out the disagreements I had with some of the things you said. I've given advice, info, direct links and buying guidance to more new players than I could possibly count over the years on both this forum, multiple other forums, various social media and in person. Believe me I'm very much interested in ensuring that new guys coming in to airsoft spend their money well. However, to write any sort of all-encompassing 'guide' to explain every single choice regarding tactical kit or apparel as a resource for new players based on everything I've bought in the last decade+ would take far more time than I could ever devote to such an epic task. To truly do that sort of thing justice and do it properly would be an enormous under-taking and that's before even taking to account the fact that brands have peaks and troughs in quality of manufacture, not to mention quality differences from batch to batch or even item to item; so it's simply not possible to generally 'sum up' a given brand and all their offerings in a concise manner. For brand new players coming in to airsoft in the UK, the advice I've given time and again has remained really quite simple over the years, so this would be my best concise guide to brands that have always been good and will work. 1. Eye pro, hit up sales from the quality gear stores or look for military issue stuff on eBay that's still new. If it's something like ESS, Smith Optics, Oakley or Revision it'll be easily and cheaply available with some searching and guaranteed to stop actual frag and 12 bore birdshot if not buckshot, so a BB will be just fine. 2. Go to Flecktarn.co.uk to get some BULLE load bearing kit or UKTactical for some Warrior stuff if budget permits. Both have an incredibly consistent reputation for quality while maintaining very low prices and compared to the other budget brands like Condor, Flyye, Viper and Highlander etc (all of which I'm constantly hearing about or seeing fail in some way or another) every single piece I've seen from BULLE/WAS has been extremely bloody good; quality above the asking prices. Of course checking ebay and the regular sales at the gear shops is a great way to bag some stuff by top end manufacturers for frequently less money than airsoft stores ask for Viper/Mil-Tec knock-offs. Exactly which type of rig and/or pouches to buy is of course dependant on budget, the number and type of mags they have, type of games they'll be playing and aesthetic preferences. 3. Clothing; if the player wants more than their 'old clothes' or hiking kit, old standard issue CS95 is better on the quality front than the current PCS (MTP) overall and there's still tons of it floating around surplus. Even well used 'grade 2' stuff will last many, many airsoft games and even the lesser used stuff can be picked up for less money than some of the branded crap while being much better stitched together. Budget boots I really don't know about so I'll not comment on as the brands change pretty frequently and they're not needed for CQB games anyway; and since this is a gear thread I'll leave guns out, but the good choices in terms of RIFs for the new player have been more than well covered on this very forum numerous times. You're welcome to your opinion based on your personal interpretation of how you think I'm 'speaking' as it were. Of course when you choose to resort to the personal insults as well which I think says more about you than it does me, but hey I'm welcome to my opinion too as it happens. None of it means my intentions aren't also honest. If you like the SERPAs that's fine, they're alright for airsoft, as long as you keep them clean. 'Great' is comparative and compared to other brands they have some serious downfalls which are well publicised if you'd like to do some research, but Blackhawk as a brand is not, overall, anything like 'top end' these days. Again it's always comparative, but the original statement was 'favoured by military operators' and that is simply incorrect and demonstrably so. You do not see military 'operators' (taken to mean SF colloquially) wearing blackhawk anymore, you simply don't. Crye, LBT, BFG, Salomon, Ops-Core, FirstSpear, C2R, Safariland and Eagle (to name a few); yes, but Blackhawk is most definitely conspicuous by its' absence from the loadouts of guys who demand top quality gear and that was the entire basis for my retort about them. They were great back in the day, not anymore and you often can't tell when the product you purchase has been manufactured. The knock-off 600D cordura point doesn't really follow, because it's not actually cordura in the first place, it's just some cheap crappy fabric that's been mis-labeled. Genuine DuPont 600D (not that anyone really makes anything in 600D amongst the truly quality brands) would be fully up to real combat and more than up to the job of airsoft. If it's not real cordura though and it's just being called that by an unscrupulous company, then that's an entirely different matter and players need to look for specific reviews on the exact products that claim to be using said material in order to ascertain whether it'll fall apart on them after half a skirmish. 'ACM' is far too broad a term as I mentioned, you'll find so-called ACM products on the market which use good materials and some under the same name which don't, hence only differentiating by brand name rather than specific product would be very counter-productive decision for new players.

Hardly a shitstorm mate, you made some vague and baseless assumptions that are factually incorrect and you've been called out on on it. 'Trying to do something useful' isn't actually useful if the info you're posting is duff, it's indeed quite the opposite, because new players learn the wrong thing. There is NO shortage of gear reviews available to absolutely everybody with an internet connection that go in to great depth on specific products from any company a player might choose to buy from, your writing of half a sentence that generalises (incorrectly) about a certain brand is not some miraculous gold mine of super useful new-player advice. If you want to write short summaries about certain brands then hey there's no forum rule against it, it's not any real benefit given the wealth of reviews already out there but if you really wanna do it then crack on; however when the stuff you say is wrong then it's a different matter and if you publish things publicly online you need to be prepared that not everybody is going to shower you with compliments. Also if you come in somewhere with 'none at the moment' next to your loadout description, do you expect everyone to dig around and find out your entire personal history in order to 100% clarify the 'at the moment' part? The fact you need to resort to make it personal and being sarcastically attempting to degrade my character because you can't justify your claims says it all. You, along with most airsofters realistically, also need to understand the difference between 'all the gear I've owned from X brand' and 'all gear from X brand', because that difference between the two is substantial to say the least.

Blackhawk? You come straight from 2005? Their stuff hasn't been any good for a long time now. When their stuff was made in the US it garnered a very good rep for some time, but they switched to cheap far east labour a long while back, the quality dropped and it stopped being at all popular. You'll barely see any of it in use by western SF or any military people in general these days; all the gear stores in the US have random assortments of Blackhawk crap left over in their sales/clearance/bargain bucket sections. You say you have no RIFs and no loadout of gear, but you reckon you're qualified to make huge sweeping generalisations about every single product from a given brand? I'm not having a go, but I think you're being a bit too keen there. 'ACM' isn't even a brand, it's a term applied to literally thousands of different products that come from a number of different chinese factories and can vary in material/construction quality enormously. Also if you think a lower denier cordura is 'worse', you need to do a bit more reading tbh; Crye, FirstSpear, Blue Force Gear, Mayflower etc etc all use substantial amounts 500D and their gear is literally the best on the planet, in fact almost all the top level manufacturers use 500, or indeed even lighter materials in some cases for specific applications. 1000D is unnecessarily bulky and heavy when 'operators' need to maximise mobility.

If not the whole gun I've definitely seen kits, they do exist in airsoft.

A hi-cap that can fire all its' shots once wound would make for the least amount of reloads; discounting a box mag which would add a fair bit of weight. Not sure if you can can flash-mags for the MP5 but from what I've read those can fire all their contents once wound.

I think trying to hold even a plastic SMG up with one arm all day could get pretty painful and awkward come the afternoon, though obviously we don't know how strong the 1 fully able arm is. Also all the 1-arm reloading techniques I've seen with firearms require the disposal of the empty mag; the implication being you're shot in the other arm and retaining empties is the last thing on your mind whereas airsoft is obviously a very different situation. Whatever the weapon type, being able to release the mag with the fire control hand would be highly desirable which would preclude most AKs and G36s but a really compact AR or MP5 could be viable, though a pistol is probably the best bet overall and in a really tight CQB game I find a pistol to be the most practical option overall anyway. Most people mount dump pouches to the front of their belt, but if a the lady in question could put a dump pouch on the front of a belt directly below the weapon hand she could drop empties straight in to it. Then with a pistol, re-holster, insert mag, draw, release slide and go. With an AEG, hang from sling or catch with knees, insert fresh mag and go.

I never did a whole lot to my KC02, but I'm looking forward to seeing how that all ends up coming together. The Magpul stock always intrigued me and I'd not heard of the VSR hop chamber before but it sounds pretty sweety potentially. New arrival back home: -Leo Kohler Combat shirt -Combat trousers by some german brand who're keeping things on the down-low because they're breaking Crye's patent

Humans are humans, and there's all sort of different levels of simulation games with different rules and different types of people attending. There's this notion floating around that somehow you get a totally different bunch of folks at all milsims, but it isn't the case. You'll still get tons of guys with very basic gear who're new (sometimes brand new) to airsoft as a whole; you'll likely see a few more guys who've got all the gucci-ness and have been playing a long time, but it's not all that different end of the day. You've probably got a bit 'more to lose' as it were by cheating at a milsim game, but if you're the scummy sort of person who cheats, you're going to cheat wherever you are.

Belgian Jigsaw.

You only get these 'weights' in reaaaally cheap plastic springers, I had some in my first ever spring gun back in the day and found some in the stock of a clone L96. It's essentially manufacturing slag I'd imagine, a mixture of many metals, unwanted impurities and other junk that's been cast in to lumps to give weight to the really feather light sub-£50 springers. Most 'decent' metal airsoft guns are a very cheap aluminium/zinc alloy as mentioned; some use proper aluminium and steel for the receivers and barrels etc but that's a minority rather than the norm sadly. Not like it's even hard to make a gun with steel, JG and CYMA have done loads of them.

£800 is the price without warranty if you try to add it to the basket, £1050 with the warranty. How Systemas have gone up 50% in price over the last 8 years or so when other AEGs have, if anything, gotten a bit cheaper, I don't know. They were around a grand for a new rifle when I bought my first AEG in 06, now 1400-1500 seems the norm for a totally basic version.

I don't have a "problem" with it, sometimes you gotta do work. Still personally wouldn't want to have to do it all day while airsofting, but each to their own. Myself; I don't like realism even in the military, that's why I chose to be a uniformed civvie and deploy to hotels (4* minimum of course). These are the cheapest I can find, still about £8-9 (before shipping from HK) for 30. Compared to 30p for a midcap worth of BBs.. quite a hike it must be said. Maybe there's some others around and obviously cost is relative to the person, but if you weren't spending a lot of time picking the things up, that could sure be an expensive skirmish. http://shop.ehobbyasia.com/top-brown-plastic-cartridge-for-ultimate-ejection-blowback-m4a1-aeg-30pcs.html#.VmTEOvnhD1s

The TOP shell ejectors' been around for.. hm.. maybe 2 years now? Rough ball park. You never actually see them around because most examples are horrendously unreliable and get stoppages every other round fired. Also bombing up 30rnd mags is only 'fun' the first couple of times, once the novelty wears off it very much becomes a chore I can assure you.

I usually flag these things up on my page, figured I should share here as well: http://www.asmc.com/Gear/Military/Load-bearing-equipment/Body-armour/TT-Plate-Carrier-MK-II-multicam-p.html 85 euros down from 150 and the exchange rate is pretty decent to the £ right now.

No gas involved, you can see the mag, no valves. The odd high pitched noise is most likely just an unlucky combination of the room and the camera. There's another video on the GBLS site without said noise evident. If it actually made that sound every shot I wouldn't buy one personally, but I'm confident it won't whenever they release another video.

Piston and cylinder etc (or at least equivalents) are presumably sat in the area that the bolt would sit in on a real AR. Can't see any other way it could function. On a real basic (over-simplified tbh) level it's like a split-gearbox ICS or a TW except the upper GB/cylinder actually looks like a BCG and reciprocates. I've never owned a Systema but the magazines look awfully similar to my eye.

The relationship is convoluted and rather hazy at best, but essentially ARES is what came out of STAR, same line of guns at the time they diverged. If you've got a good, reliable STAR gun put it on display over the mantle because you have something truly unique.

What is it you do in airsoft that's so much more hardcore and damaging to your kit than the stuff actual soldiers and SF types do? Honestly I am curious because a SEAL (or whoever) does get through a set of Cryes every few weeks on deployment given the things they go through, but we're talking a combined total of many days worth of time kicking in doors and taking names, whereas actual time spent shooting during a skirmish day is probably between 5-7 hours at a rough guess. I've met a fair few army blokes and other guys who're at the pointy end, talked about their experiences when 'away' and they'd spend days upon days in the field, often involving a lot of fighting, but they weren't getting through even the crappy issued trousers at anything like the rate you're describing. - On a different subject, for anyone interested, here's the more typical pricing on the Drac trousers: https://www.nightgear.co.uk/en-UK/ArcTeryx-LEAF-Drac-Pant/5195365ng.htm?colour=Wolf+Grey If anyone here wants a real heart attack look up the Arc'teryx Alpha line. The current EB pricing on the Dracs and Talos is well below usual RRP and you won't find Crye combat trousers new in Europe for under £200 (and Cryes are made of just the same fabric as a lot of Tru-Spec and Propper apparel).

The Arc'teryx trousers just have strips of webbing as reinforcement on the knees to protect the main fabric from abrasion against the ground/walls etc. You can put their knee-pads inside to give actual padding in front of the knee, but they don't have an external pad like Crye.