TheFull9

I agree with what you've said, but you seem to have ignored what I mentioned about nav lights. A 20-30 lumen light in red, green or blue will certainly not be visible from long distances/across lanes/around corners etc the way a strong white light would; very far from it. If people flash their weapon lights around just for the purposes of seeing where they're going then that's a problem with their specific equipment and tactics, it's not a problem with lights. One thing we all got told to buy going through basic was a small Gerber torch with filters for the above mentioned colour as well as white, we all used them extensively through many long nights and they worked well indeed. A white light will absolutely give away your position as well as ruining your night vision along with the rest of your teams'; a small red light will not do any of those things realistically when used properly. Airsofters just don't take this in to account as they're not aware of it, you can't bunch all lights in one category as all having the same effects.

Wouldn't dream of suggesting it always works like that, I'm talking basic real-world tactics that you can apply to any environment, regardless of knowing the place you're in like the back of your hand (or not). Personally I don't ever go to the same place often enough to learn it down-pat, so I use a light the same way I would in reality. I like the practice aspect of doing that. Either way, from a safety aspect, using a small nav light, or indeed any light, never works against you. Plenty of crap to trip over at The Mall (as an indoor example) and even more brick walls to smack your head on if you do fall over.

VAT is at 20% at the moment, so that's what folks need to factor in (as a minimum) to any purchase coming in from outside the EU, being sure to factor in shipping as mentioned. At around £130 import duty kicks in, which varies by the type of goods, plus your nice fee of around £10-20 from PF/UPS/FedEx for 'handling'. Last I read, the threshold at which VAT kicked in was £15 regardless of stuff being a gift or not. Doubt it's changed, but gov.uk has the info for average individuals all mixed in with the business info and spread across many pages; PITA to find right now. You get a white sticker explaining it all on the outside of any package you import ant pay VAT on.. wish I'd kept one as that's the most concise source for all this stuff. It's usually the slightly smaller HK businesses that will fudge the paperwork and sometimes they take it too far. If customs don't believe the value written on the package based on the size and weight of the box (sometimes they open them up, but not often in my experience of importing multiple packages per month for about 4 years now) they'll send you the above mentioned letter asking for invoices etc then you'll definitely have to pay full whack and it takes bloody ages for them to sort it out. It gets even worse with RIFs if they query the value or the agent that checks your package isn't fully clued up on the VCRA. I've had guns held for months when they've questioned my defence and the value together, took a lot of e-mails, letters and fairly long and annoying phone calls with some particularly jobs-worth people to remedy the problems. Many of the larger retailers like eHobby and AS Global will not make false claims on the paperwork, so it really varies by who you're buying from. I always use WGC and their checkout does allow you to change some numbers, but obviously nobody should do that as it's like, illegal and stuff and I'd never do that. I don't see them as being much in the way of competition to UK airsoft businesses personally. It's maybe once in a turquoise moon that a UK retailer actually stocks the things I want, so they're not 'losing' my money in that sense. I import 99% of my airsoft and kit/gear, it's saved me a lot over the years vs buying from within the UK. Probably clocking up in to the thousands by this point if I were to hazard a guess.

Eugh.. facebook.. great for throw-away content (memes etc), absolutely rubbish for anything meaningful if you ever want to find the information again any time in future, or indeed have a decent discussion about anything in a format that's not insulting to the eyes. I guess I'm just old...

I think there's a lot of misunderstandings regarding the tactics of light employment in this thread. Nobody who has even the faintest clue what they're doing ever walks around with a 300-500 lumen light set to constant on; or indeed turns on their light for any more than about half a second when there's any chance there might be enemy presence close by (and only then if it's really necessary). All my weapon lights are equipped with momentary-only switches/remote pads. When you need light to navigate, you have something small in the range of sub-50 lumens using red, green or blue and obviously use it as sparingly as possible but just as much as is necessary to not break your face on something. The light on your pistol or rifle will depend on your environment as if you're outside you want something brighter than if you're indoors (especially with white walls) but will generally be white and 200+ lumens. You use it in short, controlled bursts to highlight your target once you're actually engaged with said target, then fire and move inbetween firing the light to keep an eye on the enemy. If it's a strong light and they've been in the dark for even a minute or so it'll be disorienting to the enemy. Regardless of how much their eyes have adjusted the source of the light they're seeing won't be small enough to give an accurate aiming point; often quite the opposite and they'll likely see a very large cone of light. When combined with the fact you should be moving and they're trying to fire back while taking fire themselves, they shouldn't be able to get a proper bead on you at all, whereas you will have seen them clearly through proper employment of your light and will be able to get a precise aim on them. Not having a dig at anyone, but I think there will be lurkers who aren't familiar with this sort of thing as it's rarely mentioned in airsoft.

Not a new concept, LBT, Crye and a couple of others have been making stuff like that for at least 3-4 years (probably far longer for sneaky types). The problem with armour carriers vs webbing is that a properly adjusted PLCE belt would sit on your hips and the yoke took the other part of the weight, whereas Osprey etc hangs all that weight of armour and ammo/med kit/water/food/whatever else on your shoulders. I've not tried any system like this myself to comment, but from what I've heard it has been used a fair bit in afghan by certain types who did benefit from not having so much weight hanging purely from their shoulders for greatly extended periods. I know from the shorts amount of time I've had to wear ECBA that it rubbed the sides of my neck absolutely raw in quite little time given the poor fitment, felt bloody awful and I wasn't in combat or anything even close.

I wasn't actually saying I prefer alternatives; if you're worried about damage to a SureFire you just put in a sacrificial lens, the metal body of the light's never going to be damaged by a BB. Various ways of covering up the actual light emitting head. But I'm quite conscious of the fact they're excessively built for most airsoft usage and to be honest, I'm pretty wary of reverse-snobs these days after various things I've had said to me. But anyway, right now I have a few SF lights of various models because I tried some Insight clones initially and they quite literally fell apart on me the first game I tried to use them. That made me purchase a Streamlight TLR-1 and once I saw how much higher the RS quality actually is (even at the 'lower end' with the TLR) I never looked at a clone again. The clones have generally gotten quite a bit better since then, long as you're careful what you pick (from what I've seen), but personally I don't trust them any more. Plus I like the fact I can get a wide variety of mounts and other things for the SF lights and know they'll all fit together and work. But as with anything, it all depends what you want in this great game of ours.

Most mag pouches that use a lid will have velcro loop on the front of them, with the hook part on the lid. So if you tuck in the lids, you can put patches on the mag pouches. Not my preference personally, they'll get damaged when you're prone/crawling. An admin on the front/hydro on the back with loop and potentially loop on your arms as well as helmet (loadout dependant of course) is more than enough; those places make much more sense.

SureFire hasn't 'gone away', far from it they've significantly updated their entire line and come out with some really good new models over the past year or two. They're just really bloody expensive and you can get a pretty bright LED light that's fine for airsoft use with a picatinny mount for £20 or less. In the current economic climate (combined with the availability of cheap stuff from china) the real deal stuff is never going to see much popularity amongst the average skirmishers.

I'm just about to buy more, they'll be packaged up with some other stuff I'm importing and sent in a few weeks. Don't wanna keep spamming about it in this thread but if you're interested feel free to keep an eye on my FB page or IG.

*hits 'new thread' button* "Hey guys, I just already bought this new chest rig.. was it the best chest rig to buy in olive drab with a £45 budget?" ...

With that budget, definitely go Warrior over Bulldog. No question. Their new Recon PC has a lot of features that set it apart even from many of the much more expensive brands IMO.

Gotcha. I've been using the TM loaders myself for ages now, I always fill my mags but I find it handy to count in 4s just to get an idea when the mag will be reaching capacity so as not to over-stress anything. WGC used to be really slow on dispatching, but they're decent now. You can pick between EMS, which is just the normal post in Hong Kong that all the stores there use, or one of the international courier services of your choice (think UPS was the main one they offer AFAIK), but you'll see all the options if you go to the checkout.

You'll have to explain that last part? WGC shop have all the different HexMags. I, of course, wouldn't tell you to do anything illegal, but they have certain options while going through checkout related to the import VAT which mean you can get stuff from there pretty cheaply, quite probably cheaper than buying them here and there's the option to pickup other stuff that UK stores don't have while you're at it.

Had a set of those a while back. Cheapest feeling, worst feeding mags I've ever had, binned the lot after 1 game as most of them just simply didn't feed BBs in to my guns. Not worth the money.

Loooong ago, back in the dark times when there was barely any selection on the market, there were a lot of TM 68rnd lo-caps at most stores. Never seen an exactly 60rnd mag though, best to just get some normal 100-140 midcaps and have a quick count of how many BBs your loader dispenses per push.

For a minute I was thinking "who's going to buy a replica where they've moulded the blade upside-down?" but no, the russians just made them to be the opposite way to the L85 and M16 bayonets I usually see. Does make sense though when you look at the relation between the main cutting edge and the largest part of the hilt. Learnt something new today.

What part of "I don't wanna kick off some argument" made you thought I was interested in that? I'm sure you're the same as me and everyone else on here, nobody needs to spend their time having slanging matches on forums, that's why I asked what your intention was rather than getting offended and then replying. I think you might want to perhaps consider bearing in mind that there is literally no way for me to somehow telepathically sense your sarcasm or comedic tone of voice on a forum post, I don't know you or anything about your character. Expecting total strangers to 'lighten up' and just automatically get your intention through text is a little unreasonable.

Are you actually addressing that at me or am I reading it the wrong way? It comes across like you are, but I don't wanna kick off some argument if you're not actually talking about me. And if you were taking the other stuff personally because I repeated what other married men have said to me, don't. I wasn't saying that's what happens with you personally, I was just passing on what I've heard since I've no experience of married life. That's what my last girlfriend wanted, but it doesn't interest or appeal to me, so that's not the direction I've chosen to go with my life.

Every married man I know (after the honeymoon period) does nothing but complain about things in that regard. And that's before they have kids, then they just stop with that stuff entirely. Doesn't sound like a price worth paying to my mind.

I see an awful lot of "she calls it sad", "doesn't get why I need to much camo/so many guns", "huffs when yet another package turns up" yet nobody asking why said females 'need' 200 pairs of shoes and how that is in any way different? If I ever went out with a girl and she lacked the cranial capacity to acknowledge such a simple fact, she'd get the boot fairly sharpish. People who're unable to look at anything from others' perspectives (and get shitty about it) are definitely a pet hate.

Your KAC triple tap brake is off, the centre most cut of those grooves that run in line with the axis of the bore should be at 12 o/clock ideally. If you're not bothered then hey no matter, just FYI. Not many AR-10s around so I always like to see them, the rifle itself looks good. Any reason for only the front iron sight out of interest?

Given how many mags I have (I tend to use my PTS TMAGs), the fact I often use TM recoil guns or my GBBRs and the rarity of actually getting to games, I'll be honest it could take literally 2-3 years before I even manage to use them enough times to give much of an opinion. In the event I do decide I fancy using them in an AEG at a game in the near future then I'll certainly post up about them on my FB/Insta to comment on how they do. Right now I can say they feel well built and solid, one has already passed a drop test on to rough stone. Fitment in the one gun I've tried was rather loose and I could actually pull the mag out without pressing the release button, but that was an Avalon receiver and nobody else runs those. I'll try them in a G&G and G&P at some point. IMHO, for reliability and durability the EPMs are the right choice, PTS mags are almost excessively well built. The Hexmags are not your cheap chinese midcaps by any means, they're surprisingly heavy, nice matte finish and well moulded overall. I think they look cooler than the EPM too, but for skirmishing I'd predict the PTS option will hold up longer. I wouldn't feel as confident doing the same torture test on a Hex as I conducted on an EPM (smashed the hell out of it, ran it over and I still use it every game). Be interested to hear more about your experience of moving over there mate, especially getting in to the tactical industry. Once I get out of the mob one of my potential plans is to try and work in either the weapons or gear industry state side. One a side note out of curiosity, did you not get any of your airsoft stuff surface shipped over there?

Really fancied some Hexmags, so grabbed some other little bits while I was ordering from WGC. Lots of small pistol parts, I've had quite a few handguns 'in the shop' as it were and needing attention for ages, always tricky to get the little springs and screws etc I wanted to finish the builds. 4 x Dytac Hexmag midcaps Hexmag base plate/followers pack PTS Comp Ready Fighter Kimber 1911 mag bases Guarder steel 1911 grip screws, black and chrome First Factory extended PTS ACR handguard pin Modify VSR/Pistol bucking 3 x Stark G17 trigger springs Mechanix Originals and 0.5mm Originals AR-15 'TekMat' MSM patch

Pedant about zeroing, just not about image orientation. I don't recognise the RIF, looks like one of those fictional type Co2 pistols? Either way, it can't shoot accurately enough for super-picky zeroing to be necessary, because no smootbore airsoft gun can; not saying you shouldn't do what you do as this is airsoft and you can do what the heck you like. It shouldn't need zeroing every time you want to play though, unless the sights are adjustable and the adjustment system is really loose and the recoil is incredibly strong; causing them to move significantly such that point of impact is shifted significantly within the short engagement distances of airsoft. At the range I'm generally using my pistol I'm shooting instinctively 95% of the time anyway, apart from the odd occasion somebody's not aware of my presence/actually shooting back at me and I have the time to line up the sights in an ideal world bullseye-shooting fashion. If I intend to leave a red-dot on a rifle for some time I'll give it a quick zero as far as airsoft accuracy permits, but that's as far as I go.