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I'm taking a mate, from north Shropshire, to Gatwick airport tomorrow afternoon. She'll get dropped off at about 19:00. Is there anything of note that would make it worthwhile staying over to see on the Friday? Or anything on the Thursday evening? Not necessarily airsoft either. I sort of fancy a night away but get bored very easily. Ta

Followup: Should be sorted now with a smallish AK2M4 care package. The gearbox shell continues to surprise, it seems less Chinesiumy than most, and was quite resistant to being radiused. What a bizarre decision to fit crappy plastic bushings with a decent (but unradiused) shell, gears and piston. The shell also has some helpfully-annoying posts intended to keep the very thin stock wiring in place that need removed in order to use anything chonkier. The notchy semi trigger (also reported by other owners) is down to the safety lever that blocks the trigger tending to stay very slightly raised when the selector on (or around) semi. It should wear down, or just nudge the selector a tiny fraction more towards auto. As an aside for the "wut spring 2 get maxumin powar?" question, with the stock spring, plus a new bearing guide, o-ring nozzle, Specna rotary hop (I think), Maple Leaf bucking and a ~330mm 6.00mm[*] barrel, the no-hop power with 0.28g went from <1J to >1.25J (adding some hop brings it under 1.2J for my regular woodland sites, although I may not get under 1.13J with properly hopped 0.2g for CQB ). Air seal is king. But good God, it's time consuming to work on, with so much take-down and put-back to do anything. I nearly wept when I realised that I'd put the gearbox back for the eleventeenth and what I thought was the final time before fitting the hop and barrel, despite repeating to myself "Put them back as a unit" over and over. [*] An XT from AK2M4, labelled as 6.02mm from a sample batch that came out under-sized and was sold as such for a bargain price - it is indeed a proper tite-boi.

Does anyone know what size and length of screw fits the Sterling stock? I'm struggling to find anything and mine decided to pop off during a skirmish. I've tried looking at explosive diagrams but none seem to listen the names or dimensions of the screws. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Airsoft is a 'huge' business so I'd be extremely suprised if any gov would like to ban it. What goverments (aka corrupt politicians and their cronies) love more than anything? You guessed it right. Taxpayers' money.

I was also at Redcon-2 for Shift Your RIFTs, but was there for the whole weekend; a very warm Saturday followed by a very warm, then very wet Sunday! I packed my m700, AAP-01 and p226 as a backup pistol in case I had issues with the AAP. We booked in on the Friday and it was incredibly smooth. Plenty of staff were around to direct people who were camping and those of us who were just there to sign in. Got my wristband and goodie bag and then hung out with my friends for a while as there were quite a few of us there. Gates closed at 8pm, so we left at about 7pm to go get dinner at the pub a few of us were staying at and got a good night's sleep for the next day... or at least it would've if my heart didn't decide to act up that night. Anxiety around it made it worse too, but it wasn't so bad I had to take myself off to a hospital, so I popped one of my pills and powered through it. Anyway, next day was glorious. Weather on Saturday was incredibly warm at around 20 celcius pretty much all day! I had a similar experience to @Galvatron; chrono was really efficient with 4 marshalls on them and then another 3 or 4 marshalls after them with cable ties to tag guns that had passed. There was a long queue when I got there, but it moved very quickly and I got through very easily. I did have an issue crop up here though, as I noticed two of my AAP magazines had lost the o-rings in the fill valves, so I decided to use my p226 that I brought as a backup pistol. Everything passed chrono nice and easy and so that was that. We then hung about until the legendary brief and it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. It was long, probably clocking in at about 1 hour in length, but it covered everything that the players needed to know. Also, I heard last year that people on the weekend had to listen to the brief on both Saturday and Sunday, but this weekend we only had to attend the Saturday and could just chill on the Sunday in the safe / camping zone during the briefing, so that was nice. I decided to try and play as much as possible while the weather was good, as the forecast was bad for Sunday. The site itself was a breath of fresh air for me; where Worthing Airsoft is fairly small and quite close-up, basically woodland CQB during the summer, Redcon-2 was huge with a lot of very open areas, though there were also plenty of close-up areas and dedicated CQB areas so when the marshalls said "any gun you have will find a use out there", they weren't lying. I went out with my new under £100 ghillie setup and my m700, p226 and my belt kit; no chest rig as I packed light. We were on blue in the morning and for the first hour I was a bit useless. I had no idea where anything was and bumbled about the site as I tried to work out how I wanted to play it. Fortunately I quickly got into my groove after we took a respawn on the far side of the map and started pushing along the boundary. I managed to tuck into a bush to cover the advance and had a great time plinking at the reds, though some of them were really well dug in! I eventually got taken out, so I went back to the respawn we captured, but as I was returning I saw the other blues who were with me also walking back, so I opted to set up in a position to intercept the reds if they pushed up after us. I took a few out that did, but then I saw some reds coming from the other direction as they must've captured the respawn from the other side, so I laid low and waited for them to pass, before shooting them both in the back. I love moments like that It was then lunch that I was about 10 mins late to, because none of the marshalls called that it was lunch over where I was and I had recently taken out a red from my position; I only went back because I heard one of the vehicles and poked out to ask if it was lunch yet. They had said that they couldn't have tap water to drink due to MoD regulations (as it's an MoD site), so I was expecting some extortionate food and drink prices, but I was pleasantly surprised. I spent £7 on a massive double jumbo chilli dog that was very welcome after the morning games, as well as two bottles of water. After lunch our entire group got balanced onto red team as apparently the morning was pretty one-sided in blue team's favour. This time, I decided to just stick to the massive runway area that the teams spawned at (one at each end, it was really quite long!). There were a number of bushes and some lovely tall grass that worked wonders for concealment, though due to how airsoft guns worked I had to poke my rifle barrel through the grass, which made it a little bit visible, but oh well. I managed to rack up an impressive number of kills from here and completely denied a fairly strong position at a corner as I had it totally dialed in with my bolt action. During quiet moments I found myself hand-loading my magazines as otherwise I would've run out of ammo pretty fast and I was very pleased to discover that my magazines will easily shoot three full magazines on a single fill of gas if it's a warm day. Photographers got some great shots of me too, so that was a nice bonus as I rarely get caught on camera! Towards the end, most people had given up it seemed as I ended up getting hit from behind and having to respawn in to hold the flank pretty much by myself, however due to the tall grass I was able to easily get into a concealed position to do so. The Sunday I wanted to play in the morning as while the forecast said it would pour with rain all day the sun was out and it was nice and warm (a bit windy though!), but most of my kit was locked in the car and the guy with the key was out in the gameplay area. Most of my kit included my hat, so I have a bit of sunburn on my head, and also my armband so I couldn't go and play. I instead opted to have a good wander around to see what people were selling and I picked up the exact TM hi-capa 5.1 that I wanted for £80 and I had a long chat with the guys at Empire Airsoft, so it was nice to put a face to a name there as I order from them quite a lot and have asked Kenny to get me some niche m700 parts from Europe a few times! I also had a long chat with Big Steve Builds about my AAP build and picked up a bunch of parts for that too; only bit I'm missing now is the hammer set as that sold out on the Saturday, but I have a really good idea what I want to do with mine now. Also going to experiment with the flamingo buckings as I hadn't used them yet and he seemed to be very impressed with them in his builds. Went out in the afternoon after lunch and the heavens opened up. It absolutely chucked it down and I got really wet. Didn't play for as long here, playing around the runway again. I managed to crawl into a very forward position and started sniping blues in the tank graveyard from the side; the m700 is so quiet I managed to basically burn through all of my ammo doing this before I was finally taken out by a stray shot just as I was going to shoot someone colour checking me. I was soaking wet and out of ammo and I didn't want to open my ammo bags in this weather as water + bio BBs is not the best combination. Emptied the rest of my pistol mags as I wasn't putting those BBs back in the bag either for the same reason and headed in. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and will be going back next year. I will, however, bring a DMR next time. I was planning on doing so this year, but my MWS was not happy at all lifting heavy BBs, so more tinkering is needed there. The site itself with all the long distance areas combined with the 2.32J DMR limit makes the site very, very good for DMRs. Usually I use my pistol a lot when using a bolt action rifle or a DMR, but I think this weekend I only got 2 - 3 pistol kills and burned though about a single magazine in total, whereas I got dozens and dozens across the weekend with my bolt action and went though many mags. Being able to engage at long distance is a definite advantage at Redcon-2 (as long as you avoid the CQB areas!). If someone is locking down an area with a DMR, it's very strong, but it's also possible to counter because the site itself is so damn big; you can simply go around them. I think the marshalling was top notch and I didn't come up against any issues all weekend with the singular exception of one guy who was blatantly not taking his hits as I took out the people around him, but then every time I hit him he'd look in my general direction and step back behind the bushes and every time he peeked out the same would happen. Everyone else without fail took their hits from what I saw and I didn't hear any complaints about it. Going to be bold and say that Shift Your RIFTs is the best weekend event in the UK at the moment. The airsoft quality is better than AI500 and definitely better than the NAF, and for £85 you get a really solid weekend of airsoft at a great site with great marshalls. Food and drink isn't extortionately priced and there were lots of different retailers about who were more than happy to chat and cut deals you wouldn't get when you buy online. The whole atmosphere was really great across the entire weekend and I'll definitely be going back next year as I loved it!

Honestly, I haven't suggested anything as I'm not sure if it would be perceived of lower value because of the Northeast GBBR and because I don't know what the Real Steel top rail is worth. As this is unique and looks far more usable than either the original TM FAMAS or Cybergun's updated version with the basic MOSFET, I'd guess between £350 and £400 if you find the right FAMAS fan but I openly admit I could be way off with the top rail.

My Saturday was at Redcon-2 in Dalton Barracks near Abingdon, Oxfordshire for the "Shift Your RIFTs 2024" weekender organised by RIFT Airsoft. Getting registered and booked in was quick. Along with the wristband to distinguish between weekenders or one day only, we got a goodie bag with a site map, a raffle ticket for a RIFT game pass, flyers for some of the retailers at SYR, a little plastic wallet from Empire Airsoft (containing a company sticker and patch along with a 50-degree Flamingo VSR/GBB hop bucking) and a few other little bits. Chrono testing flowed quite quickly as at least 4 marshals were at the testing range ahead of the safety briefing and anything we planned to shoot with (including pistols) was tested and tagged if it within the limits. HPA players were apparently required to be tournament locked. Tony's brief was the stuff of legends and we all survived it! The main gameplay went quite smoothly where hit taking was pretty good though there was the odd squabble and a few tellings off by other players that "hit players don't talk" (other than saying they're hit) but it didn't escalate. We were allowed to call for a medic's help (any player able to put a coiled wristband over the hit player's wrist without being hit) if we were hit by a BB (melee and grenade kills didn't count). The medic was only practical for players in groups and certainly not for lone wolves. The morning session did become somewhat unbalanced as a lot of Red Team returned to the safe zone well ahead of the lunch break so Blue Team did become more dominant, especially as we pinned Red Team to their spawn location. In the interest of sportsmanship, Blue Team voluntarily fell back to allow Red Team to spread out and return something of a fight. In the afternoon gameplay, there was some team rebalancing as some players had taken a break. During the morning and afternoon sessions, convoys of military vehicles, including Sntach Land Rovers, were at our disposal to board and be driven along predetermined routes and dropped off at certain points. There were a few additional activities players could take part in off the main gameplay field including a 4v4 Arena Tournament, a Bunker Bash, a Revolver Duel (lots of laughs) and a Target Maze time trial. Food and drink options were plentiful. Breakfast rolls were available prior to the morning brief, hot savoury pastries, chocolate bars, water and canned drinks were available all day. Lunch on Saturday had hot dogs and chilli dogs (the chilli was homemade). In the evening, the MoD fired up the BBQ and served burgers and RIFT opened up its bar for beer and cider to round off the evening. Queues did get long during the lunch break but they moved quickly thanks to the catering staff being so efficient. RIFT's White Sphere Tactical partner store for RIF and accessory sales ran raffles across the weekend. Saturday had an 11-prize raffle with items including a Nuprol (I can't remember if it was large or XL) hard carry case, a tactical vest kit, several RIFs, a lifetime RIFT Airsoft membership. Sunday had 10 prizes available for the raffle. The weekend raffle was for a Tokyo Marui NGRS Mk 18. In addition to the raffles, there were promotional items for the event including t-shirts and morale patches. White Sphere Tactical also offered a 20% discount on Deadly Customs and Viper Tactical gear and they had the TM MP7 GBB available in limited quantities at £250 - they sold out by lunchtime. Charity donation buckets were around the shop and in RIFT's own shop (selling ammo, gas, merchandise and memberships) raising money for blood donor services. As the name of the event suggests, players could sell their unwanted RIFs, parts, gear, etc so there were a few bargains to be had. In addition to the private sellers, there were retailers selling RIFs, parts and gear, including the likes of BZ Tactical, Only Airsoft/Combat UK, Empire Airsoft (joined by Big Steve's Builds), Two Four Delta Surplus, Second Summit Surplus, Finch Embroidery, Viper Tactical and a few more. In terms of staffing and facilities, the event was well covered. As there were a lot more people attending than normal days/weekends at Redcon-2, everything had to be scaled up. There were 30 or so marshals to cover 500+ people on the gaming area, safe zone and camping area. As the event was open to the public for the boot sales, there was security patrolling the site also. I had no cause to fault any of the staff so if you got any grief from them, I would assume you had behaved like genitals and probably for the second time. There was no drinking water for the campsite - you'd have to either bring along your own or buy it at the site. For showers or bathrooms, none were available so it's up to your imagination for cleaning yourself if you stayed overnight. There were lots of portaloos about the site, some of which were turned around intentionally on Saturday so there would be "fresh" ones for those attending on Sunday. Inside White Sphere's shop leads to plumbed toilets but it was reserved for ladies only for this weekend. I had a brilliant time again at SYR and will certainly go back next year. The atmosphere was really good, helped by either catching up with friends to play alongside or making new acquaintances as we were all there for the same reason.

That's my point, those who are interested have those opportunities and those who aren't will do anything they can to get out of it. Also please tell me I'm not the only one getting Starship Troopers vibes from this

At first I was very surprised to hear this, but then remembered the election is coming lol. Glad to not see any predictably emotional way-OTT rants in this airsoft forum thread. 😂 It's all public knowledge that the MOD has been closing/selling bases and shrinking on pers numbers at a steady rate for decades, though as with anything if you're not serving in the affected branch then the majority of the population naturally won't be aware of everything. Physically we are.. tight on space, i.e. physical barrack blocks on stations (all 3 services), even for the current cohort. Same story for instructors; lots of legal boxes to tick for being allowed to train young people, as mentioned above. I presume back in the 50s there were tons of camps with thousands of Nissen huts left over from the war to shove folks in for their 2 years; the war time military was just sort of stretched/dragged out a big. Definitely a challenge to just go back in to it now, but when you're looking at a very decent possibility of an election loss then I guess the 'big ideas' suddenly all come out. The wording is that the kids in the military would be full time so they'd have to get paid, and as with anything in life that significantly challenges you most folks come out the side overall better for it and it's not like they'd be on the front lines having a really bad time. You'd at least come out with some skills, experience and more interesting stories whereas the weekend volunteers presumably wouldn't be getting paid given the use of the word volunteer. Seems iffy to say the least in a lot of respects, since you're just forcing these kids to work for free, they won't add much value most likely given the minimal training they'd get and the inevitable risk aversion to giving them any responsibility. Plus they'll need to be trained and managed and the overall scheme is actually going to cost tons of money even though the 'volunteers' aren't getting paid. Yeah that'll kill most of the youth vote for the Conservatives big time, so presumably they're banking on the older turn out, probably pretty standard battle lines there.

Went to AWA Herts today. It wasn't a great day and I won't be back (at least not for a fair while!). It just wasn't good and frankly, there didn't seem like the potential it would ever be good. 1. Timings, they were late starting and then finished early for lunch. Lunch was almost 1 hour 45 minutes. Between each game it was a trek back to the safe zone for more time wasting. End of the day, there wasn't enough people with bbs to have another game before the day ran out....so they ended it early. 2. The games were very funnelled and limited ability to do anything other than a full frontal attach, the game zones aren't marked or explained before games, but when you've been hunkered down for ages and you're 3 metres outside the zone you'll get told. 3. Hit taking (for me) wasn't bad (for a member of my group doing his first game, it was terrible), but it wasn't great either. 4. The site has a few set piece areas, they're a trek from the safe zone and frankly either not used well or it's just a dull woodland site. 5. Swamp like mud and water. I get its very hard to manage drainage on a site, but they've been going at least 13 years and everywhere was like a swamp with little to nothing to prevent players having to go through 7-8 inch deep streams/ditches (3-4 feet wide) between the safe zone and game areas (and in game areas). No sign of bridges, anything on the paths to improve drainage etc. The staff were all friendly enough, took feedback etc but I got the impression nothing will change. I just can't see how I could justify going there when much better is available for similar money. It wasn't terrible, such as arsey marshalls. But there just wasn't anything really positive.

God how tired and desperate must they be to try and peddle this old rope? I am always skeptical of people who push national service in the name of building 'community'. If only it were that fucking easy! If we are interested in building community and stopping the disintegration of 'civil society' we must start much earlier and rethink the core values that have been rammed down people's throats. As Thatcher infamously said 'there is no such thing as society'. This disastrous myth, the first commandment of neoliberalism, insists that we are individuals first and only. We must support ourselves, we are on our own. People been fed this shite for a long time now. How can a society hold this toxic credo at its core and then demand national service in the name of solidarity and community, some nebulous greater good that they have little to no real share in? How can those people who are richest, who have benefited most from a prior era of relative stability and prosperity demand anything from the first generations in a long time projected to be far worse off than their parents in almost every metric? It reeks. Youth clubs have been decimated for over a decade. Even third spaces for adults seem to be slowly drying up. Wages are stagnant even while corporate greed continues to squeeze us. Childcare costs are beyond extortionate. AI is apparently coming for everyone's job. Housing is in total shambles. Our rivers and seas are being pumped full of shite... like its an actual fucking shit show! The caliber of leadership has utterly plummeted. They are out of ideas, just throwing shit like this at the wall now to see what might stick. Labour won't do much better but I think seeking a bit of stability and taking stock of the situation without a fucking new leader every 6 months would be a start.

I believe from what I have read it will be much like the reserve model where you do a weekend a month. Question is then would you be remunerated for your time as well? I do agree that this does smell of gaining votes rather than doing anything that might benefit society.

I would go for the Hybrid; it has better functionality, particularly trigger sensitivity, and anything that gets rid of trigger contacts and cutoff levers is to be applauded.