Old man bullied into this sport by eldest child

DropShot

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Thought I'd join this forum, the last time I was a member of an airsoft forum was in the early 2000's on Arnie's Airsoft (R.I.P.). Pretty sure my old username was Easytarget.

Quick blurb about me. Started messing around with airsoft guns whilst still at school in the mid 90's. This was before AEG's or Hop-up even existed, the VAST majority of guns were single shot springers, and the most popular brand of guns by far was Tokyo Marui (insert "old man shouts at cloud" meme here). There were also some other funky outliers like Gunze Sanyo, Maruzen, and a few others I've completely forgotten about. First AEG was one of the original TM MP5A5 ones that were pre hop-up as was the style at the time.

Then life (aka the Army) took over in the late 90's and dropped off the radar for a good 5-6 years. Played a bit for a couple of years in the early 2000's with AEG's that actually had hop-up, then life reappeared again (rejoined the Army, obviously failed to learn my lesson the first time around), so once again left the hobby. Got married, had kids, left the Army, ended up in the Police and my now 12 year old eldest son saw some youtube videos, told me he wanted to give it a go and now I'm here 😆

As I don't yet have UKARA I've bought myself and my lad a two-tone Arcturus LWT MK1 each as they were £117 apiece on PatrolBase and had some glowing reviews, and once I have the UKARA they'll be sprayed up anyway (quite familiar with painting camo schemes and have a pattern and stencils all planned out). Also got myself a GE 870 M8884 shotty (£126 PatrolBase summer sale) on the way which I'm very looking forward to, and tracer units for each gun.

Absolutely astounded by how far technology-wise things have come along, although some bits are still very familiar. Gearboxes don't seem to have evolved as much as I thought.

Already realized speedsofters are a strange breed.

Still do some rimfire and centrefire rifle/LBP/LBR shooting as well (find it bizarre that I can't buy a non brightly coloured airsoft gun with a firearms certificate), so basically I like things that go either bang or pop.

Only played the one game at Blackout Airsoft in Cornwall so far (the place with the Mine, very cool and chaotic in there), and trying out Ontarget near Newquay as it's almost on my doorstep.

Here we go again..................
 
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Welcome back! I was skirmishing around 2001-2011 and just came back! Like you I'm playing catch up and was roped back into by my nephews!
 
Welcome back! Glad to see another old timer!

One thing though; are you certain on the dates?
I ask, only as Marui released the original FAMAS in 1991 along with the M16, and the updated FAMAS SV with the first hop-up in (I believe) 1993.

View: https://youtu.be/qjdP4pQFHoY?is=8qKaXBv_ujCfzsKD



Nevertheless, welcome back and I hope that you both enjoy yourselves in the hobby; as changed as it may be since then!
 
Welcome back! Glad to see another old timer!

One thing though; are you certain on the dates?
I ask, only as Marui released the original FAMAS in 1991 along with the M16, and the updated FAMAS SV with the first hop-up in (I believe) 1993.

View: https://youtu.be/qjdP4pQFHoY?is=8qKaXBv_ujCfzsKD



Nevertheless, welcome back and I hope that you both enjoy yourselves in the hobby; as changed as it may be since then!
No idea about the hop-up in the Famas SV, and didn't realise the first AEGS came out that early, they certainly were not on sale at that time where I was unfortunately!

It was like discovering fire for the first time when I saw one 😆

The MP5 I had definitely had no hop up but was a TM gun, Aegs didn't start to appear in a model shop near me called Antics around 94ish.
 
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I had a old tm mp5sd in the 90s. Definitely no hop up in that springer, but great memories of battles in the woods with my mates, and perforating the light shades at home! Welcome along!
 
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