Ian's guide to noobism on a tight budget.

[Ian_Gere]

We get a lot of people coming along who want to know what's best to get when starting out. For those of us who have been around for a while, it's sometimes difficult to avoid being sarcastic, due to the ubiquity of certain misapprehensions and bad ideas. To avoid repetition then, my two pen'orth is that, in this order, you should:

• Read the Relevant Legal Information: Violent Crime Reduction Act, as it relates to us, here.
• Buy Boots. If you are young I'd guess you're used to wearing trainers. You need boots that support your ankles so that you can trip over or step in a hole while you're running and not break / badly sprain an ankle. They also need soles tough enough to withstand woodland debris / urban rubble. German Para Boots or British Assault Boots are you're best bet, but your feet will be too soft to wear them, unless you get some and go for long walks in 'em to toughen up, and even then you'll want to use tape to prevent blisters if you only wear them a couple of times a month. Magnum Panther 8's should be ok for your feet and tough enough for most airsoft sites, but bear in mind that they are water resistant, not waterproof like most Military Surplus boots. You can get some great deals by visiting military surplus shops in person too. These days it's also possible to get surplus British Army Issue Lowa desert boots for about £35-40 posted from eBay surplus sellers and even surplus Grade 2 (beat up but usable) Altbergs are coming down in price.
• Buy Mesh Eye Protection & Lower Face Mask. There are a number of issues involved, but suffice it to say that polycarbonate lenses often fog up, so a full face mask like this provides the best average between safety & see-through-ability. However wearing one of those means you can't get anything in your mouth without compromising eye safety and causing site marshals to go nuts at you. Hero Shark are currently one of your best bets for eyes, but the website is down so I dunno where you can get them (see below), otherwise get interwoven mesh like these or for those who don't trust Chinese suppliers, these. For lower face, to prevent you losing teeth and/or getting permanently scarred, get a New Version Strike mask in whatever colour suits your loadout best from KH Mountain.
• Go to your Local Site and Rent a Gun plus, if possible, Camo Gear - otherwise just wear jeans and a hoody / long sleeved T-shirt if it's hot (to prevent BB's breaking the skin of your arms). While you're there talk to players about their guns and gear - most people will be happy to tell you anything you want to know and let you hold their guns, shoulder them, etc. Try to have a hold of one of each of these types before you decide which assault rifle suits you best:
  
  M4 or
  AK47/74 or
  G36K/C
  MP5 or
  L85A2 (SA80)
• Buy Surplus Camouflage Clothing from eBay, stuff like these & these. Do not pay more than £20 for both inc P&P, but you should be able to get them for less. This is one of the best deals available from retailers right now, but you'll probably want to sell the boots on fleabay. Even without the boots though, it's still an very good deal for everything you get.
• Buy Plastic Armoured Gloves like these - they may not look the coolest, but they are the best protection from BB hits to the hands (which hurt). Otherwise get Hard Knuckle's for looks or Viper Tactical Gloves for winter.
• Join an Airsoft Site and, if you're over 18, get UKARA registered. If not, your membership still proves that you are an airsofter and some retailers will take that as defence against prosecution under the VCRA. Bear in mind that u18's cannot buy any airsoft gun, RIF or two-tone IF, but it is not illegal for an u18 to own a gun without hideous two-tone paint. Some retailers will sell a RIF to an adult accompanying a minor who has proof of being a skirmisher, but it is also not illegal for an u18 regular skirmisher to 'manufacture an RIF', ie strip the two-tone paint off (with Fairy Power Spray - instructions). Therefore, do whatever you need to do to get a Realistic looking Assault Rifle.
  
  The G&G Combat Machine range is probably your best bet, from Zero One if you need two tone, because they'll paint it for free, or Pro Airsoft Supplies because they only charge £10 to paint but also sell transparent bodied G&G's which don't look half as arse as orange or green. However CYMA are better for AK's and SRC for G36's. Check out Taiwan Gun too: they're Polish (EU) so there's no Customs charges - right now they're about the best prices for guns (14/01/14) and gunfire.pl are very good also. If you prefer a UK based seller (in case of breakdown for eg), the larger retailers (in no particular order: Zero One, Land Warrior, Airsoft World, Action Hobbies, Redwolf UK), tend to be cheapest but only for certain guns (can't really leave Fire-Support off a list of larger retailers, but cheap they aren't, and Wolf Armouries but their website is a shambles) - but it's also worth checking with smaller retailers who will often negotiate over the price/delivery/accessories - a particularly helpful one being UK-Airsoft.
• Buying Batteries and a Charger is often best done with the Gun, to avoid further P&P charges, but otherwise go to Component Shop and buy Vapex (VP) batteries. (Vapex now have their own eBay shop) or Hobby King and buy Turnigy Nano Tech. A 1600mAh battery pack will usually see you through a full day, but it's best to have a spare of at least 1000mAh also, for those heavier trigger finger days, or just get 2200+. Still, things do go wrong so a spare battery pack is the best plan, whatever power your primary battery is. NiMh batteries can be charged from a trickle charger and these are available with auto-cut-off for less than £10 but once you add P&P from Componentshop it may well be cheaper to get one from Vapex and an adapter for Small Tamiya Connectors. LiPo and LiFe batteries need a smart balancing charger such as iMax B3, or to charge any battery you may ever need an iMax B6 + 12V 5A Power Supply will also run off a car battery or an iMax B6AC has the mains power supply built in. Note: many people have spare basic chargers that will do the trick in combination with an alarm clock - I'd sell a couple.
• Buy at least one Spare High Capacity Magazine with your gun. Later you may decide to swap to mid or low cap mags, but a couple of hi caps will still be useful as back up. MAG brand have a good rep (see below). CYMA make good AK mags. Classic Army or Ares for G36 mags.
• You will also need something to carry your rifle in so it cannot be seen by the general public on your way to and from skirmish days. A British Army Duffle Bag is probably the cheapest option and you can get three rifles in there, or one and a bunch of other stuff. If the muzzle sticks out of the top by a few cm, do what I do and put a canvas bag over it, or a sock would do lol! There are cooler options, Swiss Arms rifle bags for eg, but you'll have to pay accordingly.
• At this stage the whole plethora of accessories and gear will seem very tempting and I don't think it matters much what order you consider / get them in, but a lot of stuff is ultimately useless so I'll just mention things which do help:
  
  A Vertical Foregrip is more comfortable to hold than the horizontal handguards of a rifle.
  
  A sling makes carrying a rifle all day easier by taking some of the weight, but also it allows you to drop it so that both hands are free and still have it to hand / attached if you need to move (a 3 point sling gives maximum flexibility in means of use).
  
  Knee & Elbow Pads make crawling through undergrowth / kneeling in mud easy and also make aiming while lying prone in difficult terrain easier. However these cheap ones do tend to slip off your knees, the best way to prevent which is to add loops similar to belt loops to your combat trousers in line with the upper pad strap next to the outside leg seam for the pad strap to go through - this prevents the pad from slipping down but still allows enough flexibility to allow the kind of movement needed for comfort whatever your position.
  
  A Brimmed Hat keeps the sun out of your eyes, but most Helmets do not, so although helmets look cooler, you may then have to rely on Dark Lenses in your eyepro, which will fog when you get hot and sweaty from running about (a boonie also tends to break up the shape of your head in cover, a baseball cap may look TDB but is more noticeable in cover, and a crap hat makes you look like you should be doing latrine duty). There is another option which is to get Goggles with perforated sheet mesh, like these or these, because they darken the view like shades, but they also interfere with vision in a way which sometimes becomes very annoying so it's not an option I would recommend unless there was no other option.
  
  A Red Laser is pretty useless outdoors, except at night, and a lot of sites will not allow the more powerful green lasers, but Red/Green Dot Holo/Reflex Sights can be good, so long as they are bright enough, so look for one with variable brightness settings. Aliexpress is your best bet for prices.
  
  A Hydration Pouch & Bladder is such a good thing. You will get a dry mouth due to breathing heavily and also lose moisture by sweating. To be able to simply take a sip whenever you feel like it is brilliant compared to messing about with a canteen which tends to be much less comfortable to carry as well as being more hassle to get out and drink from (cheapest here). For most skirmish needs a 3L bladder is way too much, however that size still seems most available and therefore cheapest - no need to fill it all the way! In those pouches with no built in rear padding it's worth adding a piece of foam from a sleeping mat in the pocket many carriers have between the bladder and your back, or just behind the bladder if you have no pocket, to prevent body heat warming the water. Also worth adding a bite valve with a tap, so that you can easily decant water into your hand if you need to rinse dust/dirt/BB fragments out of your eye. Even if you add a funky tube cover, it's still cheaper to buy all these bits separately than a Camelbak, Platypus, or some other big brand.
  
  A Dump Pouch for empty mags makes reloading faster than if you need to replace the empties in pockets or pouches. A Drop Leg Dump Pouch is best IMO, like this.
  
  A Blank Firing Grenade (BFG) will save you money on pyro's in the long run and can be easier to use, but bear in mind that they're also easy to lose / have stolen.
  
  If you are going to carry more than two spare mags, you will want some kind of Assault Vest, Webbing, Chest Rig, or Plate Carrier. Molle is most versatile, but expensive compared to surplus items.
  

  
  This Bulle MOLLE Recon Chest Harness is a cheaper, lighter, alternative to a full Vest or Plate Carrier, but remember you also need pouches for it.

  
  British Army Northern Ireland Chest Rigs are among the cheapest - they used to be on eBay auctions at 1p + £6 P&P
  .

  
  PLCE Webbing is pretty cheap, around £25 posted from eBay if you're patient
  
  and it's indestructible but also heavy.
  
  A British Army Assault Vest
  
  is a good all round choice and you can get them for around £20-25, less sometimes, also from eBay.

• My advice would be to buy some alternative clothing that you choose for the look and a Back Up AEG before buying a Pistol, but hey ho, they are good toys...
• 
  

  
  You do not want a Sniper Rifle or a Gas Powered Rifle / Sub-machinegun

  until you have been into this sport for at least a year. Bear in mind that, on top of the price of the gun, it costs a minimum of about £150 but more like £250 to upgrade a sniper rifle so it's worth taking to a skirmish. It's also very different to on-screen - you are rarely in a position to, for eg, from so far away that you cannot be spotted, simply put your cross hairs on somebody and pull the trigger. If your sights are set for extreme range then at normal skirmish distances of 50-60m you will have to compensate, take wind into account and target tracking, only to find that it took so long for a breeze to drop sufficiently for you to have any chance of hitting that the target has moved 10m closer to you and your BB sails over their head... GBBR's take more maintenance, hence knowledge, and the mags cost about £35-40 a piece...
• Under no circumstances should you think you've spotted a bargain we haven't and buy it before first starting a thread in either the General Discussion Forum (for more general enquiries) or the Guns, Gear & Loadouts Forum (for specific enquiries) to get some opinions. Among the worst sites for selling what appear to be bargains but are in fact rip-offs are those with "bbguns" in their name - there are a few and, whilst it would be unfair to say they are all exactly the same, they absolutely are each arses in their own unique way. We get a constant stream of people arriving here with bad experiences from them, or having been sold something entirely useless, or way more expensive than it's worth.

For information on looking after your first AEG, jump to this post further into the thread.

 

All comments, discussion, disagreements, questions, etc. welcome. Have at it

[TacMaster]

One thing to say- this thread needs to be pinned to the top of general discussion and/or the new arrivals sub-forums so we don't have to keep bumping it

[M_P]

Nice guide Ian! Only two things I'd change- as its about being on a tight budget, I dont think an l85 is worth including and that MAG dont make high caps.

(and possibly change the price of gbbr mags to £35 )

 

Other than that it's good to go

[Ian_Gere]

Thanks Tac.

 

@M_P: whose STANAG hi cap mags would you recommend?

 

I take your point about the L85, but it's there to represent bullpups in general, because they do need a different stance / way of holding the gun - arms closer to the body, slightly more 'scrunched' in the body...

[Mr Enfield]

very helpful guide, thanks

[Bottledtorment]

Oh Ian hate to piss on your bonfire but this should really be in guides , It says to in the title .

Just kidding mate , great guide .

[M_P]

Thanks Tac.

 

@M_P: whose STANAG hi cap mags would you recommend?

 

I take your point about the L85, but it's there to represent bullpups in general, because they do need a different stance / way of holding the gun - arms closer to the body, slightly more 'scrunched' in the body...

Ive only ever used ICS ones which were good but probably expensive. JG ones aren't bad, my friend had some but probably impossible to find. Cyma are generally good quality so I imagine they aren't bad but then it'll vary gun-to-gun.

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

Add another line in the boots section:

 

Pissing in them and leaving them overnight will really soften them up,old trick from our boys in the trenches

 

It'll also add some authenticity.

 

I can't be the only airsofter who pisses in his boots to soften them up..

 

fuck.

 

 

^^Has not actually pissed in his boots and does not plan to

 

^^Actually wears hiking boots like the fag he is.

[Spawnah]

Great information. Might be a good idea to mention that the kind of gear you'll want to use will be different for indoor sites, though.

[Bottledtorment]

Oh Ian what about nearly blowing your fingers off on 'nades?

Just kidding

Please don't kill me

[Ian_Gere]

Yeah, you've mentioned it Spawnah. There's loads of stuff that I don't know much about and urban CQB is one of them: I've only been twice. That and I don't like M4's and have wanted other guns before an L85, so I know bugger all about STANAG mags. Still, having both badly burned my thumb lighting a smoke bomb upside down with a lighter, and recently leaned on a live BFG, as Bottledcheek says, I am a dick an expert on pyro safety.

 

[Shinobi]

Nice guide Ian! I hope my topics weren't that bad, I thought the questions were reasonable! You covered everything, good job!

[Airsoft-Ed]

I think this has all just been an elaborate ruse...

Ian's true goal was to win this year's "most liked comment" award.

 

 

 

 

Right?

[Ian_Gere]

I think this has all just been an elaborate ruse...

 

Ian's true goal was to win this year's "most liked comment" award.

 

 

 

 

Right?

Busted! I live for the opprobrium of perfect strangers.

[Airsoft-Ed]

Called it!

[Chippins]

George's guide to cheap airsoft domination:

 

1)Buy a G&G combat machine for 120 quid.

 

2) Laugh as it out shoots most of the guns on site.

[jcheeseright]

"but it's not full metal, how can it be best gun?!"

[Chippins]

really tempted to turn up in a paintball mask a hoodie some DPM skivvies and some trainers and troll the fuck out of the 'PTW Master Race'

[Suzuki Yamamoto]

Cracking guide Ian. Can already think of a few recent users who could have done with this guide before posting their threads.

 

Good work!

[Airsoft-Ed]

really tempted to turn up in a paintball mask a hoodie some DPM skivvies and some trainers and troll the fuck out of the 'PTW Master Race'

Don't forget to tell them that you bought it from JBBG after playing all the CoD games since time immemorial.

[geoffreym]

As a slight additional, Hero-Shark has stopped making eye-pro for a year or two as he has gotten a bit tired of it, he might do the special order one as well as give advice.

Unfortunately it's a case of wait and hope in regards to Hero-Shark.

[Ian_Gere]

As a slight additional, Hero-Shark has stopped making eye-pro for a year or two as he has gotten a bit tired of it, he might do the special order one as well as give advice.

Unfortunately it's a case of wait and hope in regards to Hero-Shark.

Ah, thanks for that info Geoff. Bit of a bummer that. Not that they're perfect by any means, but they're tough and way better than even a mildly misted lens, nevermind what we might call properly fogged.

 

I've got a project on the go right now that could result in step by step instructions on how to produce the dogs' bollocks of eyepro for yourselves, and I might make a few pairs for sale. The trouble is that to take the project forward from where I've got to is going to involve actually tempering the steel, so if I was to sell any, they would be a fcuk sight more expensive than Hero Shark

[TacMaster]

Just use a plumbers' butane blowtorch on that bitch, that's how we temper tools we make on my BTEC course. They're not too expensive either, so tempering wouldn't really need a massive price hike

[Ian_Gere]

I'm working on replacements for ESS Advancer V12 lenses firstly, Tac.

 

I'm not sure I could get the whole lens shape glowing yellow at once with a butane torch, so I can quench it in oil to harden the SS304 0.9mm wires of the mesh. I'm thinking of using anthracite smokeless fuel and a bellows on my coal fireplace.

 

Do you reckon sunflower oil at 230°C has a sufficiently high boiling point to be worth using it instead of water?

[TacMaster]

I think you might be able to get it glowing yellow using sunflower oil. Is the SS304 steel you're using carbon?

The temperature colour chart i've found for carbon steel does show a slight peachy/yellow tinge for it when heated between 193 and 216 degrees C, however the temperature you mentioned shows a deeper orange/brown colour.

 

In theory it may be possible, but you'd need an extremely powerful industrial fast-food grade fryer to do it.