Russe11

Consider a shotgun? I don't know which ones are good but it's a cheap option for CQB sites. If you are doing only CQB a pistol might suffice. An HFC Mk23 Socom is a very cheap option which performs quite well.

There is no age restriction on owning a RIF, only on buying one. The age restriction is the same for a 2 tone. The problem is that to buy a non-2-tone you will need to sort out UKARA. The only way round it is to get an over 18 friend or relative to play, they get UKARA registered and they buy you a gun as a gift.

http://www.onlybbguns.co.uk/bb-guns/gas-guns/hfc-hg-302-mk23-airsoft-gas-pistol.html#.VPtS9XysU3k
This is still my only pistol and it has never let me down. It's rather big but mags hold 28 rounds and its quite capable of being your main weapon for indoor CQB.

Consider a shotgun? I don't know which ones are good but it's a cheap option for CQB sites. If you are doing only CQB a pistol might suffice. An HFC Mk23 Socom is a very cheap option which performs quite well.

In that price range you will only get very poor quality guns. Wait and sort UKARA (if you are over 18) and rent in the meantime. Save up a bit of money and see if you enjoy airsoft. With UKARA registration it is possible to buy from abroad where you will get better deals.
 
Taiwangun.com is in Poland and is the only place I could find a decent gun in your price range
http://www.taiwangun.com/en/jg069-m5-j-jg?from=listing&campaign-id=19
http://www.taiwangun.com/en/cm-028s?from=listing&campaign-id=19
http://www.taiwangun.com/en/608-jg?from=listing&campaign-id=19
You will need UKARA in order to buy from here but this is your best bet for anything skirmishable for less than £130.

In that price range you will only get very poor quality guns. Wait and sort UKARA (if you are over 18) and rent in the meantime. Save up a bit of money and see if you enjoy airsoft. With UKARA registration it is possible to buy from abroad where you will get better deals.
 
Taiwangun.com is in Poland and is the only place I could find a decent gun in your price range
http://www.taiwangun.com/en/jg069-m5-j-jg?from=listing&campaign-id=19
http://www.taiwangun.com/en/cm-028s?from=listing&campaign-id=19
http://www.taiwangun.com/en/608-jg?from=listing&campaign-id=19
You will need UKARA in order to buy from here but this is your best bet for anything skirmishable for less than £130.

How long a battery lasts depends how you play, type of battery etc. Generally though a battery will last a day but it's always wise to have a spare.

No-one really cares what gun you use as long as its correct period. It's accepted that guns are expensive so if you play British and German and use a sten for both thats fine. In fact Germans had a copy of the Sten that was issued to their equivalent of the home guard and the Sten was copied off a German sub machine gun anyway. Just don't turn up to a WW2 game with a Systema
If all you have is a 2 tone M4, just wrap hessian around it and take off any red dots, lasers etc. It's accepted that it takes time to get everything together for WW2 airsoft and generally it's preferred that people go to the games rather than sit at home until they have all the gear.

The HFC Mk23 socom is quite good. It's a clone of the TM version but not as good.
http://www.onlybbguns.co.uk/airsoft/airsoft-pistols/hfc-hg-302-mk23-airsoft-gas-pistol.html#.VOovknysU3k

Well I have my case just about finished for my Owen gun. It is a wooden box bought off amazon, lined internally with craft foam and externally with lots of different pictures relating to WW2 Australia (recruitment posters, newspaper clippings, photos, paintings) glued on with PVA. I then varnished it and replaced the flimsy hinges with T hinges and a hasp and staple. I am still debating handles or lee enfield sling loops (I will have to carry a sling anyway so why not use it to carry the box). I will try to have photo's next week, when I have the Owen gun.

Well I have my case just about finished for my Owen gun. It is a wooden box bought off amazon, lined internally with craft foam and externally with lots of different pictures relating to WW2 Australia (recruitment posters, newspaper clippings, photos, paintings) glued on with PVA. I then varnished it and replaced the flimsy hinges with T hinges and a hasp and staple. I am still debating handles or lee enfield sling loops (I will have to carry a sling anyway so why not use it to carry the box). I will try to have photo's next week, when I have the Owen gun.

Well I have my case just about finished for my Owen gun. It is a wooden box bought off amazon, lined internally with craft foam and externally with lots of different pictures relating to WW2 Australia (recruitment posters, newspaper clippings, photos, paintings) glued on with PVA. I then varnished it and replaced the flimsy hinges with T hinges and a hasp and staple. I am still debating handles or lee enfield sling loops (I will have to carry a sling anyway so why not use it to carry the box). I will try to have photo's next week, when I have the Owen gun.

Don't we have the "Ed, let's play a game!" thread for this?

Sadly the point of the VCRA is to only allow realistic coloured guns to be sold to people who legitimately need their guns to look realistic. For target shooting the colour is purely aesthetic. UKARA isn't the only defence, re-enactors get a defence as well but that requires membership of a re-enactment group and not every retailer will be familiar enough with this. A lot of WW2 airsofters use AFRA membership rather than UKARA, as we rarely go to the same site 3 times in a year and our games also qualify as re-enactment.

I know a local film maker who has borrowed my guns before. Look for local airsoft sites on facebook and ask on there, no-one is going to want to send their gun via courier so best to find them locally. Alternatively ask a local retailer such as Landwarrior airsoft if they could help you out.
Some sort of idea about the type of guns would be helpful in making better suggestions.
You may as well try and use the airsofters as extras, they will feel better knowing that their prized possessions are not leaving their sight and they may already have the uniforms etc.

you do know that 11mm-20mm adapters exist?

If you want to declutter, a replacement rail for just the sight should cost about £5 and a torch foregrip will cost from £20 upwards (the cheap ones will have glass lenses which you will want to replace).
http://www.taiwangun.com/en/mp5-flashlight-fore-grip-acm?from=listing&campaign-id=14
http://www.taiwangun.com/en/rail-mount-for-mp5-g3-low-acm?from=listing&campaign-id=14
 
In fact if you don't like the meat tenderiser rail, you can probably sell it for enough to pay for the cost of making the gun look all nice

I have deliberately never mentioned the price. It was probably not as much as you would guess though. Dadio doesn't do this for a living, he does it for fun. The hard part was getting him interested with an intriguing project. If someone else decides they want one, I don't want him tied to doing it for what he charged me, as it won't be as much fun a 2nd time.
 
 
There is something fun about turning up to a game with a gun that no-one has ever seen. This goes way beyond that though. The idea was actually a result of that thread ages ago asking what gun you wished you could get but can't. It just stuck in my head that an Owen gun would be awesome, then one day I worked out that an Owen gun is basically a Sten with the trigger moved forward and the magwell rotated. Once I had worked out it could be done, it was simple progression of the madness to find someone who could do it.
As you can see from the number of photo's taken during the construction (and I left half of them out), the process involved a lot of discussion about how I wanted things. This mean't I had to know how I wanted things to look. I love researching stuff, so this was a great excuse to sit and study photos and basically learn everything I could about the Owen gun.
As for the competition, I am sure it should win, sadly though I have a suspicion that it will be won by some tricked out M4 with a fancy rail system.

Compare with the real Steel:

Had you considered using them? It's great exercise (especially with a gun that big).
 
When selling the gun, you have to do reasonable checks that you are selling to someone who is using it for airsoft or re-enactment. The easy way would be to ask for a UKARA number and email address, then check here: http://www.ukaraselfcheck.co.uk/

As I do a WW2 Australian impression, I leave the Zeroing to the enemy

....I'll just get my coat
 
I just check that bb's are flying straightish as far as I can see them. Most of my sights aren't adjustable anyway.

Bio ammunition is just as good and having seen the difference in appearance of a local bio only site (spartan airsoft) I have to say I think it is the way forward.
As for banning replica weapons, this will hit re-enactors even more than airsofters, they won't even be able to have 2 tone weapons in public. The whole thing is so badly thought out that it has no hope of becoming a reality.

MP5's are great for CQB and tbh theres not any major differences between the different manufacturers in terms of design. Some manufacturers are better than others in terms of reliability and Cyma are a reasonable manufacturer.
 
If you like the look of it, then go for it. Personally I think it has too much clutter and I prefer a collapsible stock for CQB.
 
There is just no need for any rails on an MP5 other than a small top rail for a sight. If you want a torch then you can get a foregrip with a built in torch.

As I do a WW2 Australian impression, I leave the Zeroing to the enemy

....I'll just get my coat
 
I just check that bb's are flying straightish as far as I can see them. Most of my sights aren't adjustable anyway.

Okay, I don't actually take delivery until 28th Feb so these are not my pics, but my Owen gun is finished!!
Meet Evelyn:

 
This earlier photo shows how she strips down for storage:

 
Internally it's an ASG Sten Mk2 with a modified hop up. That means a modified ver7 gearbox. It takes MP40/Sten magazines. The entire hopup/barrel assembly can be removed using the barrel release catch, as you would on the real steel gun.
The Owen gun was the Australian equivalent of the Sten or the M3 Grease gun. It featured a vertical mag as this allowed mags to be changed whilst prone. The Sten also allows easy mag changes whilst prone but a mag in the side of the gun makes it more likely to catch on vegetation. A vertical mag also improves feeding. Unlike other submachine guns of it's era, it has the cocking handle in a separate section of the receiver from the bolt. The bolt will jam if dirt gets to it and the slot for the cocking handle is the most likely place for this to happen. This is the reason for the removable front end, as to strip it you have to take the bolt out from the front. In trials it was pitted against the Sten, Thompson and some german submachine guns, after immersion in sand and mud only the Owen would still fire. The design was not as cheap and easy to produce as the Sten, but Australia was in a very different position to the UK in that they were more self sufficient in terms of raw materials and their factories were not getting bombed.
Incidentally Evelyn Owen was the guy who invented it, hence my choice of name for this gun.