1. How did you get into Airsoft?
group i was in would run the occasional game day, started out a bit rough (not the best site for a beginner learning their way) then found my feet at a local site, then it just grew from there.
2.what would your callsign be?
at the risk of keeping my anonymous hat on it seems my squad has decided on my surname prefaced with "big uncle", yes there's a running joke attatched to that.
3. What would your primary and secondary gun be (optional third)?
kinda tricky, my go-to gun is the m4, it's been a labour of obsession for years with almost all of it now replaced with aftermarket or custom made parts. it's a heretical mess that fits no real theme but it's lightweight (but not plastic fantastic lightweight), reliable, and most of all very very very accurate.
second is a growing love my e&l ak74u, currently doesn't shoot that accurately but i have plans to sort that out, but it's just a really nicely made bit of kit and the current project gun. i'm a sucker for good blued steel. plus it has a massive can on it which with an hpa makes for some top tier sneaky silence.
third is my jg ak74u, because despite it's lowly heritage, despite it's wobbly stock and handguard, despite the stock barrel and hop unit it shoots amazingly, no other gun has me saying "i can't beleive i made that shot" as much as that thing does. normally it's reserved as a backup gun but it does make a showing when air for the hpa's is in short supply or when i just can't be assed running the whole tank setup.
honourable mention goes to the we makarov, it doesn't get used for much more than holster candy, and it doesnt like the cold, but there is so much satisfaction in getting a long range kill with such a small gun and it really can reach out further than my skills at pistol marksmanship can support (and most rifles it meets). there's also the f2000, the gun i love to bits but seldom used because as much as i love it it's just not as good as the others.
4. What Battle dress Uniform (BDU) and gear would you use?
gorka and smersh, fella in the squad has a thing for russian stuff and he kind of ended up convincing the rest of us to get into it. it's comfortable and practical and more importantly it's 1 rig that i can use for both ak's and m4's. used to run flecktarn a lot (it's a good camo) and i still have several amazon special cobbled together belt/chest rigs which the smersh just blew out of the water.
i'd like to add a kapkan in digi flora for sneakyness but apart from that my kit as it stands is pretty much how i like it. i do wish i could run a balaclava/facemask but it just leads to fog city.
5. If you could use rubber melee weapons, what would it be?
i don't as a rule, pretty much my attitude to melee is i either just shoot them or maybe offer a bang kill (with the selector on auto and the itchiest trigger finger out there just in case they want to be funny). i used to run a tomahawk because i figured something so large would be hard to lose, never got a kill with it. same goes for my bayonet which hangs in its surplus russian scabbard more for looks than practicality, although when i get a gun with a bayonet lug you bet it'll see some bayonet charges.
6. What’s your favourite and least favourite game mode?
i'm a fan of a good honest fall back game, the one-sided nature means you don't feel too bad about losing when your defending and it's all about just putting in a good fight. more importantly it's simple, which considering some players still can't get their head around "30 steps back no coming forward" is a good thing. i'd love to do medic games but every one i've played just descends into anarchy.
my least favourite is anything with a single objective and unlimited respawns, just turns into a shitty grindfest immediately and once it's reached a stalling point you can be guaranteed the creative game mechanics will soon follow as people get desperate to break the stalemate. generally for these games me and the lads just dander off into the forest and concentrate on sneaky kills.
7. What’s your best, funniest and worst memory of Airsoft?
best memory(ies) are from the second site i played at, a wonderful place where the regulars took the sport seriously enough to play properly but not to the point of not having a bit of fun. the kind of place where the marshall can jump in for a game some days because he's simply not needed and you rely that if they weren't calling it was because you weren't hitting. sadly it closed down a couple of years back. honourable second mention goes to a game i played a while back which was a breath of fresh air, the kind of game where you can and do stay in semi auto taking paced single shots because 1 bb really is all you need, reminded me of those old times.
funniest happened a few months ago, during a defence game where our team had dug ourselves in deep and the attackers just couldnt get past us one of the lads got rick astley playing on a speaker, we all sat there singing/dancing and somehow at the end we still held the ground. incredibly dumb yes, but also incredibly funny. it kind of saddens me to see folk who hate doing the occasional bit of stupidity, for me it's moments like that that make the game fun.
worst memory is a tricky one, i've had my fair share of lapses of judgement, lost my cool a few times (thankfully never descending into fisticuffs despite some temptation), tbh i think my memories of the first site i went to are the scariest, i'll not name and shame because it's been a few years and by all accounts they've cleaned up their act but looking back now and realising how bad it was to have been playing with a crowd of regulars who took the whole fps thing somewhat liberally (if anyone wonders this is why i tend to be so vocal about chrono'ing in joules not fps that's why), back then i ran mesh goggles because i couldn't stand fogging up. needless to say it was a lesson i'm glad i learned before losing an eye.
8. What is your favourite patches (maximum 4)?
i don't wear patches as a rule, i'm very much "that guy" that just doesn't see the point. it's not that i'm against them though unless we start getting into the whole stolen valour thing.
9. If there was a gun you wanted or not yet built, what would it be?
kind of have 3 candidates for this. the e&l i discussed earlier is my current rebuild target. i've been fighting open bolt hpa in it since i got it (because my standards for accuracy in an airsoft gun are pretty demanding) and hopefully before long that will be fixed. i also plan to coat it in superglue and drag it through the zenitco catalogue at some point.
the second is the mg42, it's been on a rebuild for nigh on 2 years now, originally after i dropped it and bent the reciever, but now it's evolved ever more into a ridiculously over-engineered project. at the end it'll probably be a bastard to skirmish as it'll be using an actual '42 ammo can instead of the gurt trommel so it'll be pretty much only be used for fixed defensive positions. current plan is i have another box mag (the third it's had, including one belt driven off a v2 gearbox because go big or go home) and replace my ghetto air system (great on paper if you can make a box strong enough to feed it) with the polarstar out of the e&l. it won't be the true bb hose i'd originally planned but hopefully it should be able to fire more than 100 rounds before something breaks/jams/starts burning.
however probably more in line with the question is i want another ak, specifically an e&l full length 74 with wooden furniture. i have a lovely pk-a reproduction sight (something i've never seen anyone else field) which isn't really meant for the aksu it's mounted on (i had to space out the rail by near 1/2" to get it to clear the iron sights). internally i'd probably go for a nicely balanced aeg build (no high speed, i have polarstars for that), probably mostly stock internals with maybe a dash of hop work and a titan.
10. What do you see as a step forward, for the game, in the future?
in terms of general advancement? i'd quite like to see more expansions of dedicated sites, especially where i am, there's only a couple within practical driving distance that aren't cqb only (translation: fuck getting up at 6am to go shooting). it'd also be nice to see sites being more organised with setting, communicating and enforcing rules. i don't care if for example bang kills are mandatory, optional, or banned, but i do hate it not being clear which ruleset is the one everyone should be sticking to. i've also heard of folk complaining because "headshots don't count" or "gun hits count/don't count" regardless of what the site's particular ruleset is.
technology wise i don't see anything big in the works, i do have some hope for mechanical hpa becoming a bit more available (translation a decent closed bolt kit with select fire that isn't daytonagun's "you'll need to sell a kidney for this one" kind of expensive). the aeg is pretty dug in (some folk might remember i joined this forum with grand plans to revolutionize the aeg only for them to fail spectacularly) and frankly i doubt the basic design will be changing much. i'd love to see heavyweight ammo becoming a bit cheaper but that's probably just because geoff's now owns 40% of my soul.
i would like to see more variety in the guns you see fielded, yes i know the ar15 derived platforms are good, ergonomic, have mountains of parts available and can be made to suit any wallet, but it does raise a smile when i see someone who's got the guts to charge into battle with a sten or a g3 or (insert not an ar-15 derivative here). same goes for camo and rigs, the scales are definately tipped in favour of the multicam plate carrier at the moment.
oh and if someone makes a good co2 makarov made out of proper blued steel that's marui compatible and not nuclear fps out of the box i'll give you the other 60% of my soul that isn't owned by geoffs.
