Ian_Gere

This is the aftermath of a ricochet off a wall passing between the edge of a lens of a pair of ESS Crossbow shooting glasses and his cheekbone. It happened this last Sunday at Zed Adventures: The Mall, Reading.
 
Thankfully it seems that there has been no damage which will turn out to be permanent, but look how close that is to his iris - who knows what kind of damage would have been caused to the tiny muscles and/or nerves which control the iris? A couple or three millimetres over and it would have been on his cornea, also squashing the lens underneath. Very likely that he would have been partially blinded in that eye for a while; perhaps forever.
 
We all know that looking cool is a big part of airsoft and hey, there's nothing wrong with that IMO, but not being able to properly see yourself looking 'operator' is surely too high a price to pay for it. This is not the first time I've written that shooting glasses are not appropriate eye protection for airsoft and almost always some person/s has/ve a reason why they 'cannot' wear goggles and only lenses with a gap, in some cases as wide as 2 BB's side by side (ffs!), will do. IMO those people need to take a good hard look at those reasons and have another think about all the various types and shapes of goggle on the market. Don't be afraid to improvise either: I'm certain that whatever anyone's problem with goggles may be*, between us we are capable of coming up with a solution.
 
Someone is going to get blinded due to wearing shooting glasses to airsoft one day: it's just a matter of time. Don't let it be you.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
*except when their problem is an inability to not type googles: that appears to be an intractable neuro-muscular issue brought on by a low level of microgorms/s²

I find myself completely conflicted about ownership of firearms. While i am very sympathetic to Dave's stance, if for no other reason than that my general outlook is Libertarian, I also think that the issue is wider than simply "guns=security vs guns=menace" and my conclusions leave me feeling very uneasy. For e.g. why is it that there is more per capita gun ownership in Canada than the USA and exponentially less violent crime in general, gun crime specifically? How about Switzerland where it's the law that every household has to have a firearm? I would suggest that the reason is because the USA has very poor social safety nets, which leads to a much more intense competition between individuals*, which in general effect raises the baseline of animosity, therefore it takes less hassle between people for 1 of them to wig out...
 
*I've seen this in the behaviour of Americans i've known who have spent periods of time longer than just a few months living here: when they go home for Thanksgiving and Xmas, say, and return their stress level jumps remarkably - it takes them a month, maybe 6 weeks, to chill out.
 
However what makes me uneasy is that, ever since Thatcher, we have been placed on a path which leads, seemingly inexorably, towards becoming ever more like the USA. Wages are frozen or falling in real terms, versus the cost of living; the gap between rich and poor has never been greater since medieval times; many frontline services which our poorest rely on for help which is the difference between simple poverty and being trapped in hopeless poverty have been cut or will be soon (as the Tories squeeze local government budgets); if the Tories have their way we will see "workfare" and foodstamps; we are in the grip of a cross-party broad ideology which places "The Holy Market" as the prime mover in all things, yet it is an indisputable fact that no country has ever got out of recession/depression without massive government mandated infrastructure spending (which includes social infrastructure), but we are trapped in austerity instead.
 
There are plenty of people in the UK of whom i would feel afraid if i thought they may be habitually armed: people like Britain First, the EDL, etc., but if they were also more stressed by their economic circumstances, I'd seriously consider emigrating. Worse though is that if we the people could be habitually armed, the police would be too and that worries me an awful lot - many of them are thugs with badges as it is, put pistols in their hands and i'm sure it'd end badly.
 
I love the idea that it is the government who should be afraid of the people, not the other way around; that an armed populace is in a position to remove a despotic government. However look at what has happened in the USA: if there was ever a time when they could have been expected to use the power that being armed gave them, it was when JFK was assassinated... er, no, not a chance... why? Maintaining a grip on power is now a science and propaganda is its modus operandi.
 
My conclusion then is that I feel that when it comes to ownership of firearms the status quo should be preserved rather than more restrictions be enacted - I can't make my mind up, so no change is best. More data may move me one way or the other, but for now I urge you all to sign the petition. You may be right that a petition will not affect the outcome of the proposed changes to law, however one thing we can be absolutely certain will not affect it is if you do nothing. It takes moments - please sign it!

I find myself completely conflicted about ownership of firearms. While i am very sympathetic to Dave's stance, if for no other reason than that my general outlook is Libertarian, I also think that the issue is wider than simply "guns=security vs guns=menace" and my conclusions leave me feeling very uneasy. For e.g. why is it that there is more per capita gun ownership in Canada than the USA and exponentially less violent crime in general, gun crime specifically? How about Switzerland where it's the law that every household has to have a firearm? I would suggest that the reason is because the USA has very poor social safety nets, which leads to a much more intense competition between individuals*, which in general effect raises the baseline of animosity, therefore it takes less hassle between people for 1 of them to wig out...
 
*I've seen this in the behaviour of Americans i've known who have spent periods of time longer than just a few months living here: when they go home for Thanksgiving and Xmas, say, and return their stress level jumps remarkably - it takes them a month, maybe 6 weeks, to chill out.
 
However what makes me uneasy is that, ever since Thatcher, we have been placed on a path which leads, seemingly inexorably, towards becoming ever more like the USA. Wages are frozen or falling in real terms, versus the cost of living; the gap between rich and poor has never been greater since medieval times; many frontline services which our poorest rely on for help which is the difference between simple poverty and being trapped in hopeless poverty have been cut or will be soon (as the Tories squeeze local government budgets); if the Tories have their way we will see "workfare" and foodstamps; we are in the grip of a cross-party broad ideology which places "The Holy Market" as the prime mover in all things, yet it is an indisputable fact that no country has ever got out of recession/depression without massive government mandated infrastructure spending (which includes social infrastructure), but we are trapped in austerity instead.
 
There are plenty of people in the UK of whom i would feel afraid if i thought they may be habitually armed: people like Britain First, the EDL, etc., but if they were also more stressed by their economic circumstances, I'd seriously consider emigrating. Worse though is that if we the people could be habitually armed, the police would be too and that worries me an awful lot - many of them are thugs with badges as it is, put pistols in their hands and i'm sure it'd end badly.
 
I love the idea that it is the government who should be afraid of the people, not the other way around; that an armed populace is in a position to remove a despotic government. However look at what has happened in the USA: if there was ever a time when they could have been expected to use the power that being armed gave them, it was when JFK was assassinated... er, no, not a chance... why? Maintaining a grip on power is now a science and propaganda is its modus operandi.
 
My conclusion then is that I feel that when it comes to ownership of firearms the status quo should be preserved rather than more restrictions be enacted - I can't make my mind up, so no change is best. More data may move me one way or the other, but for now I urge you all to sign the petition. You may be right that a petition will not affect the outcome of the proposed changes to law, however one thing we can be absolutely certain will not affect it is if you do nothing. It takes moments - please sign it!

If it's looks you're after. I'd get a whole new gun entirely
 
 
sorry not sorry

I'd vote to block any "because terrorism" laws being passed.
 
Giving everyone guns because people definitely aren't stupid, not so much.

the ONLY bad thing is the grip... are you sure about that?!

Eugh, looks like something that would come out of a McDonalds happy meal

The Mk12 uses a heavier 5.56 round than the standard M16s though, so it will likely have higher penetration. It actually helps back up the fact that heavier ammo goes further with greater accuracy lol, it's just like airsoft.
 
3 brick walls sounds about right for a 7.62, I'd have put that on the lower end of its penetration tbh, would've expected more.

Though I'm thinking 3 brick walls that are set up on a range with only 2 inches between them, whereas it probably means, through one house and half way through the next one...
 
Also, I've seen videos on YouTube of people hitting balloons at 900m with AR15s, whether or not they were modified or there was some dodgy camera work going on, I've no idea, but it can be done. So anything that's been altered to be better at that is going to be capable of it and I also know a guy who used to be an LSW gunner and an ex para who claims to have hit targets on a range at 900m with an LSW, so if they can equip them with the same ammo the Mk12 uses they'd probably be pretty effective.

The Sharpshooter is supposed to be for targets around the 800m mark though, but a site owner at Skirmish once casually implied whilst giving me a lift to the site that he'd dropped a guy at 600m with a standard L85, which are only supposed to be effective to about half that, so I guess the only limitation is the shooters ability lol.

That said, the longest range kill with a 7.62 is in the 1200m region, so 800m for the Sharpshooter sounds about right considering the record was done with a bolt action, getting that range accurately and consistently with a 5.56 would be exceptionally difficult/impossible. It was probably just the volume of fire that made it possible to hit targets at 900m, that or utterly perfect conditions.

I'm pleased to say that isn't mine. But as soon as I saw it, I thought of this thread.

PBS1 suppressor for my SVD.

Two forum patches :-p

^^I'll bet whoever did that thinks it's well cool too. What a bell end!

TL;DR = Legislation Creep is a real phenomenon - if people with an irrational fear of legally held semi-auto firearms, which are not the firearms used in the majority of simply criminal offences, nor in any terrorist acts, get them banned; there's a very real possibility that the bandwagon will gain enough momentum for them to come after RIF's and maybe even airsoft as a whole. Sign The Petition!

re: IP-15-6110 draft to amend 91/477/EEC
European Commission Proposals to strengthen control of firearms ('Fact' Sheet)

Change.org EU : You cannot stop terrorism by restricting legal gun ownership. by stijn Vandamme

On the morning of 7th January 2015 Terrorists attacked Charlie Hebdo, with fully automatic, unregistered and illegal firearms.
Since then the EU has been preparing new legislation to ban semi-automatic firearms in the hands of law abiding EU citizens. Despite the fact that these weapons were not used by terrorists and are not even typically used by criminals.

They use unregistred[sic], untraceble[sic] black market full auto Kalashnikovs.

The new legislation has been on the back burner since April 2015, only to surface now on 18th of November, barely 5 days after a second attack in Paris.

The victims of this tragedy have not been buried yet, the criminals are still on the loose and the police has not even finished the investigation and yet the EU is announcing measures to prevent something like that from happening again.

Unfortunately nothing in the draft would have prevented these 2 attacks since neither were done with weapons that are now legal and would be banned with this new law. Nothing.

It is not logical and above all it is extremely unfair.
It is unfair to the victims, it is unfair to the law abiding citizens who's hobby and property will be taken away.

Say NO to the draft proposal announced on 18 November 2015
Do not restrict semi-automatic firearms 'because they look like an automatic firearm'

We the Citizens demand that the EU brings focus on the real problems:
- That the external borders of the EU are not protected.
- Our population has groups in it that refuse to allign[sic] with our democratic core values and our culture. (Personally I'm not convinced that this is actually a real factor in terrorism {but it's part of the blurb with the petition on change.org so I wouldn't leave it out}: just because it seems to make sense that it would be, does not mean it is actually happening; for eg that these terrorists in Paris have actually been sheltered or aided by any group/s living in the EU fulltime because this is where they choose to live {which seems to me to be the spin the more rabid anti-immigrationists would put on the petition author's statement}, as opposed to a group who may have come here as an advance party with the specific intention of later harbouring terrorists {which is an entirely different kettle of fish and should be dealt with by our intelligence services, rather than the kind of draconian measures the aforementioned mouth-frothers would call for.})
- Illegal arms trade is rampant within the EU.
- Criminals and terrorists have easier access to illegal weapons then legal gun owners have access to legal arms.

That is the current situation and this new legislation does NOTHING to adress[sic] those problems.
The 18 November IP-15-6110 draft to amend 91/477/EEC is not only populistic[sic] in nature, it is also an insult to our civil liberties and to the intelligence of the EU citizens as a whole.
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-6110_en.htm
 
Sign The Petition!
 
 
My own view: Knee-jerk legislation almost, if not quite absolutely, always produces bad law. In this case however it is also the worst kind of cynical emotional manipulation to try to piggyback legislation which had been prepared previously onto a 'convenient' disaster as the only means likely to get it passed. It's not just an insult to EU citizens' civil liberties and intelligence, it's very disrespectful to the victims and their families.

I need to get some sleep, read the title 5 times before I realised it didn't say homophobes. Was expecting a totally different thread lmao

Sorry, bought mine 2nd hand and wasn't told other than "clone probably made in China". It works fine within the limitations of its 20mm objective lens, which is something they all suffer from, but I suspect it's one of the cheapest though, so if I were you I wouldn't be worried by the hordes of ACM-naysayers out there and end up paying an extra £50 for what is essentially the same thing with a brand name on the box.

Yeah I think there a rebranded/clone a&k, as the I found a bit of info on evike, saying there matrix svd was made by a&k, yet it comes in a b&w box lol

Yeah, i'm on it...

Well i will be 50 in early Feb next year so looks like i will be getting combined pressies xmas / Birthday so i have been asked if i would like a rifle !!!
 
I also shoot air rifles in a pest control / hobby type way aswell so do i go Air Rifle or Air Soft Hhhhhhhmmmmm .
 
Got 3 Air Rifles and only 2 Air soft rifles so to even things up i am thinking of asking for ICS CXP APE as the Tan & Black makes me a little moist , You're only 50 once and i believe myself to be lucky i have reached this age so far still in one piece !!!
 
So yeah think i will go Air soft

Kids happy for 5 mins, missus trying to keep the peace, all going tits up, putting up with outlaws
totally skint - unless Santa is gonna give me the New Year lotto numbers.....
 
well I guess this may apply to me....
 

Ok then 😕Merry Xmas 🎅

Well its normally santa who comes into your house and unloads his sack.

I want my arsehole thieving junkie fucking scum neighbours in the flat below me gone & the fucking piss head bitch above me who just leaves or throws her rubbish bags out the window, screaming at people until 2 or 3am everynight, the dogs who piss & shit everywhere & bark all night gone by Xmas
 
I know it's a bad post & brings the mood down but it's what I want for my kids

Just so I can make an informed comment;
Am I giving or receiving from Santa?

cheers - just ordered one myself - well actually two of them - couldn't decide on which colour to go for
(think they also did some tailoring for an Emperor's new clothes)

Oh I expected they would be for people wounded/injured on the job, but not so much for an accident in civvies. I think there are a lot of employers who would worry about their on site insurance if they employed someone whose eyesight may be compromised and that person's job involved anyone else's safety though. I'm sorry but i've pretty much forgotten what you actually do - fettling helicopters for ops kinda rings a bell... and if so it's an alarm bell, mate !
 
Wow, you must have felt fucking terrible! I accidentally broke a mate's nose at uni - we were dicking around light contact Shotokan (me) vs Shukokai (turns out to be the weaker karate) sparring while we were waiting for some people to finish plugging a stage-full into the FoH desk and, even though i was pulling the punch, he was stepping forward right at that moment - instant Steven Fry off to his right. I felt soooo guilty...
 
But it got worse when it turned out that he was secretly more than a bit vain, so when we got in front of a mirror, just the 2 of us, he started crying and trying to make out like it was just the pain making his eyes water again. But even that isn't the worst of it as I had to persuade him to let me manipulate it so it would start to set straight, because i had had experience with my own after my step-dad butted me in the face when i was about 14 but i didn't want to go to the hospital because my mum was working there in A&E and if she found out that it'd actually come to blows between him and I, while she was at work, it would have been just too bad to contemplate, so even though i did get a Dr. to look at it the next day it was already too late to get it completely straight unless he broke it some more.
 
You see my mate (who shall remain nameless in light of the severely unmanly blubbing over a wonky konk) was refusing to go to the hospital also, mainly because we had an assessment of a multi-media live performance coming up and he didn't want to leave me in the lurch building sets & then trying to run video at the same time as i had the front of house live mixing of a few bands one after another to do (and during 1 song all the members of 1 large band except the drummer and bassist stopped playing their instruments and pulled out kazoos, so they all had to have a vocal mike as well, which created a potential mare for feedback) so if the show was going to go on, i totally did need him, although TBH i was willing to just fuck the talent off, take a referral and go for a C grade at a later date - that's how bad i felt about it. I lost touch with him when he moved back to Germany, but a few years after the event I got one more twist of the dagger: he had come over to the UK for a mutual friend's wedding and it turned out that he was about to have surgery because although it had healed pretty straight, his breathing through 1 nostril had never been the same and it made him not only snore like a chainsaw but prone to infections in the sinuses
 
Somehow i think i'd have felt worse if i shot somebody in the eye though (and that's totally not me telling you how you should feel btw, i mean it was an accident, i just know i'd have been horrified at myself if it were me).
 
See now that i just don't get... you've seen the evidence: you know ricochets do hit people in the eyeball past shooting glasses and you have a pair of Profile Turbofans, ffs!
 
 
Well that is something to be grateful for. If airsoft had been around when either my father or step-wanker and I had been around each other i'd have spent the entire skirmish days looking for ways to shoot either of 'em in the most painful place i could manage i say "lol" mind: i'm not really joking...
 
Dunno how old you are, but take this as consolation if you're not yet in your mid 40's - since being about 44 when pieces of my teeth come apart now they don't hurt much: the nerves are pretty much all dead. I haven't actually been to a dentist since '99 when at the very end of what had turned into prolonged maxillofacial surgery to sort out problems which had developed over the previous decade or so, I needed a simple filling and what with all the psych, tranquilisers to get me through the door, sedation during the treatment, and mates supporting me, I had gained a degree of confidence. The dentist who had undertaken most of the work on my teeth, as opposed to the surgeon who did the work on my broken roots, gums, bones, etc., was the head of the practice and on the day I was due to have this last little thing sorted he had to deal with an emergency patient...
 
So, feeling this newfound quantum of confidence, I allowed myself to be persuaded to let another dentist who had just joined the practice do it and without sedating me. Thankfully the mate who was with me at the time is an ex-marine and sometime bouncer, because i would need to be held down in the chair or i think i may have killed this dentist - during the work, and bear in mind that i was physically trembling the whole way through and just concentrating like mad on not pissing my pants, the head of the drill came off in my mouth and rattled round the inside taking a couple of, albeit small but nonetheless actual, chips off other teeth and making my tongue bleed. TBH i really should have sued, but after Mark had sorted my head out, I just ran out of the place and never went back (strangely that tooth with the 1/2 finished hole in it is 1 of the few i have left).
 
Turns out he was left handed and there is such a thing as a left handed dentist rig, but since he was new to the pracice his hadn't yet been delivered from wherever it had been previously, so he went ahead and used the rig that the previous bloke had left behind in the room he was taking over. I mean what an absolute cunt, right? Anyway, since i haven't seen a dentist i don't know if the reason for the nerve death is damage due to various abscesses I've had over the years (which do still hurt on the odd occasion i get one btw but i get antibiotics from my GP), or something which we can all look forward to as a consolation for old age. I'm pretty sure it's not the result of the peripheral neuropathy i suffer from though, because mouths are hardly peripheral, eh so you may get lucky.
 
Wow it's all coming out this evening