The 'How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? Thread

[Adolf Hamster]

27 minutes ago, alxndrhll said:

While aware it is in no way something that can/will/should apply to everyone I found the best fix for the usual suspects of frustration was to ‘fix myself instead’. Not as drastic as it may sound, I simply changed the primary reasons I show up. Those being:

 

A more fun way of getting some cardio in.

A chance to meet up with pals.

To get out of the house and do something just for me.

And coming off a game, more fuel for messing about rearranging my load bearing kit because I thoroughly enjoy ‘chasing perfection’.

 

The actual ‘me shooty, me get ‘kills’, grenade go bang’ side of the hobby is pretty much secondary to me at this point. As long as I can tick off a couple of the above, cardio and getting out of the house being all but guaranteed, I leave a day of pewing happy.

 

i can see where you're coming from, for the most part that's how i've done things.

 

never cared much about the winning side of it, indeed it's a rare occasion i even know wether or not the team i'm on has actually won whatever the objective is.

 

however after all the care an attention you put into getting into a decent spot and getting a good shot off it's terribly disheartening for it to have been wasted by a failure of the target to follow simple rules.

 

30 minutes ago, alxndrhll said:

Now, folks can absolutely be stubborn with the ‘but I shouldn’t have to’ speech… which is an entirely fine viewpoint. But it isn’t going to increase your chances of enjoying more games than you don’t any time soon.

 

ha, you caught me before i even typed it. i guess for me at least it's just depressing how incapable people are of following even the simplest of instructions. needless to say my annoyance at [insert annoying airsoft thing] is exponentially proportional to how long they've been playing (and by extension should know better).

 

34 minutes ago, alxndrhll said:

P.S. FWIW I think the prevalence of ‘BB hose, hot gnu and non-hit takers’ are entirely exaggerated in a lot of cases to try justify why folks just didn’t enjoy a day out. I might just be fortunate with the many game days I’ve attended over the years, but I definitely hear about those 3 candidates on the internet more than I’ve ever experience them.

 

wish i had your luck, in the decade or so i've been at this i can only remember one game that didn't feature a single instance of any of the usual suspects (irony being the only non-hpa gun there was a gbbr, take that stereotypes), hell some places i've played at you'd call it a good day if more than half of the players were playing decently.

[Fatboy40]

52 minutes ago, alxndrhll said:

...I simply changed the primary reasons I show up. Those being:

 

A more fun way of getting some cardio in.

To get out of the house and do something just for me.

 

... add in "and my son loves it too" and those are my three reasons for getting into it.

 

My eyesight is not 100%, I'm overweight, I'm not rich, but if I have some fun then I've "won".

[Shamal]

8 minutes ago, Fatboy40 said:

 

 

My eyesight is not 100%, I'm overweight, I'm not rich, but if I have some fun then I've "won".

Hey you have just described me! Lol 

I've been cloned 😄

Regards 

 

[Impulse]

3 hours ago, Adolf Hamster said:

 

it's a hard question, ultimately there's always gonna be the hicap heroes who will cut down every tree they see that twitches wrongly, there are people who will lost their shit if they recieve more than a single hit, and the rest of the pack who are somewhere in between.

 

one of those problems that wouldn't exist if people weren't assholes.

 

I love the hicap heroes who burn through thousands of BBs per game. Their shooting provides a wonderful soundscreen for me to move about. Nobody's going to notice the light rustle of foliage or the gentle crunch of a slow footstep when John Rambo over yonder is spamming his AEG at everything.

[Rogerborg]

3 hours ago, Impulse said:

I love the hicap heroes who burn through thousands of BBs per game. Their shooting provides a wonderful soundscreen for me to move about. Nobody's going to notice the light rustle of foliage or the gentle crunch of a slow footstep when John Rambo over yonder is spamming his AEG at everything.

 

True, that, and half the time they're doing it from so far back that they're thrashing the bushes 5 or 10 metres short of where they think they're hitting.

 

However, the other half of the time they're doing it against advancing players who run into a hail of BBs the instant we leave hard cover.

 

It's all part of the game, and I'm certainly not advocating semi auto for woodland.  However, I do very much appreciate it when folk keep it to short, controlled bursts.  When I was running a stock CYMA shooting 8 rps in a sort of generally downrange direction, I'd cheerfully hold the trigger down.  Now that I've got some half decent toys, I'm much lighter on the trigger.  Just because you can doesn't mean that you have to.

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

 

22 minutes ago, Rogerborg said:

 

True, that, and half the time they're doing it from so far back that they're thrashing the bushes 5 or 10 metres short of where they think they're hitting.

 

However, the other half of the time they're doing it against advancing players who run into a hail of BBs the instant we leave hard cover.

 

It's all part of the game, and I'm certainly not advocating semi auto for woodland.  However, I do very much appreciate it when folk keep it to short, controlled bursts.  When I was running a stock CYMA shooting 8 rps in a sort of generally downrange direction, I'd cheerfully hold the trigger down.  Now that I've got some half decent toys, I'm much lighter on the trigger.  Just because you can doesn't mean that you have to.

Very true.  I like to run as support gunner.  I use a 7.4V lipo and chug through BBs.  The gearbox etc is well up to higher speeds/voltages; but I don't see the need to send a solid plastic hose at the other team.   

 

Two or three round bursts that hit solid cover with a loud smack are usually better at keeping peoples heads down than spraying a solid wall at where their faces may appear.   Even if suppressing, you can keep things sensible, sporting and friendly.  

 

TBH I usually run my rifleman rifles with the 'fet set to single or double tap and spam the trigger a couple of times if a burst is needed.   Kinder to the gearbox than semi and all you need 95% of the time.  

[Druid799]

12 hours ago, Tactical Pith Helmet said:

 

Very true.  I like to run as support gunner.  I use a 7.4V lipo and chug through BBs.  The gearbox etc is well up to higher speeds/voltages; but I don't see the need to send a solid plastic hose at the other team.   

Two or three round bursts that hit solid cover with a loud smack are usually better at keeping peoples heads down than spraying a solid wall at where their faces may appear.   Even if suppressing, you can keep things sensible, sporting and friendly. 

This should be framed and mounted on the wall of every airsoft site in the country.

if all played like this I’d be the original pig in shit ! 😁👍

[Madhouse]

So I popped my Airsoft cherry last night at Zmart Newbury and what can I say, I'm hooked!

 

First off everyone was welcoming and friendly and happy to chat about whatever, handily I wasn't the only one flying solo which meant the 3 or 4 of us kinda formed our own group which was good. One of them leant me a torch which was very kind and also very useful (didn't see the replies to my status post till this morning!) and another had a very handy scoop for loading the mag too. 

 

The marshals were great all the way through, keeping things fun while also ensuring everyone followed the rules. There was a couple of issues I noticed, one where a couple of guys were arguing about taking hits which they seemed to sort fairly quickly and another where they noticed a guy who had a hot gun mid-game - looked like they did in-game chrono and were walking off to the safe zone so he could make adjustments to his gun. The guy with the hot gun was rumoured to be slinging .3's which is pretty heavy for CQB, what I can say for sure is he was the only one running HPA.

 

Now I know with most things that require kit there's an element of faffing before you start but it did seem to go on forever, the marshals did note it at the pre-game briefing and said they'd be stricter on it in future. We got started with a couple of infection games which were a good way of getting to know the site and also in my case the gun, which was an M4 I believe (i really should have taken more notice of manufacturer etc), then a game where three marshals were essentially targets and each side had to revive them with the side with the most primary's at the end won and finished with a game transporting a bomb to the enemies spawn point. Can't remember if there was another or not!

The games were pretty much the right length and as you'd expect with CQB there wasn't much waiting around between the start of the game and being in the thick of it. 

 

Overall it was a great evening, I'm peppered with marks where I was hit, but getting hit isn't half as bad as I thought it would be, took a couple at really close range (6ft) and they really stung for a bit but actually CQB is probably the worst it's going to be in terms of the sting of a BB hit. I was also really surprised at how few BBs I used actually - less that the thousand included in the rental - but I definitely saw people going through way more than me, there were guys using tracers too which I can certainly see the benefit of although they do give away your position.

[Fatboy40]

@Madhouse How did your nose hold up to the "smelly stairwell"?

 

When I was there a few a weeks ago the BB hits were so close they drew blood.

[Madhouse]

There's certainly a reason behind the name!! 🤢

 

Can see how there'd be some real close hits there & at any CQB. Although it was hot enough for T-shirt and shorts I'm glad I kept all my skin covered!

[Rogerborg]

Great to hear that you enjoyed it, and also good that they were chronoing in-game.  Did they chrono on site BBs (0.2g?) or on the ammo that folk claimed to be using?

 

Every site I've played at has threatened to start games without waiting for tardy people, but none have ever - ever - done it.  It winds me up a treat, but it's just a part of airsoft, where people pay to play, but then find any excuse not to.

[Madhouse]

I believe they chrono'd on what people claimed to be using, I say that as one guy was told he was running hot but he couldn't understand why - turned out he thought he was using .25's but he was actually using .2's. As far as I know they didn't weigh any BBs, that said, as a rental I didn't go to chrono.

 

 

[Shamal]

At the nae and zero one you have an empty mag and they put .2s in before chrono.

Regards 

[Madhouse]

1 hour ago, Shamal said:

At the nae and zero one you have an empty mag and they put .2s in before chrono.

that’d take one variable out of the equation 👍

[Rogerborg]

1 hour ago, Madhouse said:

that’d take one variable out of the equation 👍

 

But adds in another, Joule creep.

 

Sites should be chronoing with 0.4g+

 

You either care about it, in which case you chrono in-game with heavy BBs, or you don't, in which case you're just wasting everyone's time with voluntary pre-game chronoing with 0.2g, or worse, trusting players.

 

I mean, if you trust us, why bother chronoing?

 

[Shamal]

8 hours ago, Fatboy40 said:

@Madhouse How did your nose hold up to the "smelly stairwell"?

 

When I was there a few a weeks ago the BB hits were so close they drew blood.

Haha. Good to hear you had a good time.

Yep the airsoft anglers have now hooked you and are reeling you in! Lol 

Regards 

[Adolf Hamster]

1 hour ago, Madhouse said:

that’d take one variable out of the equation 👍

16 minutes ago, Rogerborg said:

But adds in another, Joule creep.

 

to expand for those who might be unfamiliar with the term, joule creep is the phenomenon that some airsoft gats (namely gas blowbacks, hpa and some bolt actions) can have varying energy outputs purely by changing what weight of ammo they're firing.

 

so someone could chrono their gbb using a site's .2g's and pass chrono just fine, slap in the .4g ammo they normally shoot in-game and suddenly it's hitting a lot harder. needless to say many sites/people might not even know this is happening.

 

chronographing on player weight does eliminate the issue of accidental use of joule creep, however it does allow (but also require the cheater) players to simply lie about the weight of ammo they're using.

 

the jury's out on which method is better (using site .2g or player weight) which is why you'll see sites using one or the other.

 

26 minutes ago, Rogerborg said:

Sites should be chronoing with 0.4g+

 

might reverse the tables for creep suseptible gats though, if you're in-game weight/energy is lower.

 

you could keep stock of the common weights to test individual cases but that applies as much when using .2's as the site ammo.

 

still think the ballistic pendulum idea has legs.

[Rogerborg]

41 minutes ago, Adolf Hamster said:

might reverse the tables for creep suseptible gats though, if you're in-game weight/energy is lower.

 

In my fantasy world, we'd get in-game chronoed with 0.4g, then the tiny, tiny minority of people who come in over could get looked at harder, using the BBs that they've actually got loaded.

 

 

41 minutes ago, Adolf Hamster said:

still think the ballistic pendulum idea has legs.

 

If you could set something up for point-and-pew, that would give a clear, unambiguous reading, in any conditions, while being effectively maintenance free.

 

Bearing in mind that there are still sites and staff that can't cope with the concept of Joules.  But a borg can dream.

[Adolf Hamster]

2 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

 

In my fantasy world, we'd get in-game chronoed with 0.4g, then the tiny, tiny minority of people who come in over could get looked at harder, using the BBs that they've actually got loaded.

 

 

i preferr my fantasy world where people are honest.

 

although i admit yours is possible more attainable......

 

2 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

if you could set something up for point-and-pew, that would give a clear, unambiguous reading, in any conditions, while being effectively maintenance free.

 

that's the idea, although point 4 onwards present the biggest challenges.

 

hardest part would be reliable bb capture and getting the precision, of course if you coupled it with a regular chrono it might only need to be accurate enough to detect the liars.

 

2 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

Bearing in mind that there are still sites and staff that can't cope with the concept of Joules.  But a borg can dream.

 

yep, i blame google, when you look up "fps calculator" it's all links to figuring out why fortnite is running slowly.

yep, 

[PopRocket123]

7 hours ago, Adolf Hamster said:

 

i preferr my fantasy world where people are honest.

 

although i admit yours is possible more attainable......

 

 

that's the idea, although point 4 onwards present the biggest challenges.

 

hardest part would be reliable bb capture and getting the precision, of course if you coupled it with a regular chrono it might only need to be accurate enough to detect the liars.

What about a contained unit, kind of like the type of thing gunsmiths use to check a gun is functioning without taking it to a range. It's a box with a small hole with rubber shields blocking it. You stick the muzzle of the gun through the rubber, fire of a couple of shots and the box and rubber catch any ricochets. 

[Rogerborg]

7 hours ago, Adolf Hamster said:

i preferr my fantasy world where people are honest.

 

There are two things that we could assume.

 

1) That everybody is honest and knows what they're doing, in which case a site chrono is just a tool for players to self-check.

 

2) That at least one person will have maliciously or accidentally cheated the chrono, and if they aren't strutting around cackling "Ha ha, the perfect crime!", the only way to catch them is to test everyone in game.

 

In the first case, mandating pre-game chrono isn't necessary, and in the second, it's not sufficient.

 

 

I do like the idea of actually measuring energy, but it's a tricky one.  We don't have a lot of energy to play with, so we'd need a very light mechanism, and/or a very sensitive measurement of deflection, which would be skewed by the slightest sticking and would need to be regularly calibrated and maintained - which, let's be honest, isn't going to happen at an airsoft site.  The elasticity of the collision against a hard surface (as opposed to meat-parts) would also be a consideration.

 

Non-moving solid-state solutions don't seem great either.  This vendor is honest enough to admit that their force sensitive resistors are yes/no rather than accurate.

[Adolf Hamster]

9 hours ago, PopRocket123 said:

What about a contained unit, kind of like the type of thing gunsmiths use to check a gun is functioning without taking it to a range. It's a box with a small hole with rubber shields blocking it. You stick the muzzle of the gun through the rubber, fire of a couple of shots and the box and rubber catch any ricochets. 

 

yeah that general idea.

 

8 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

I do like the idea of actually measuring energy, but it's a tricky one.  We don't have a lot of energy to play with, so we'd need a very light mechanism, and/or a very sensitive measurement of deflection, which would be skewed by the slightest sticking and would need to be regularly calibrated and maintained - which, let's be honest, isn't going to happen at an airsoft site.

 

that's the tricky part of the design, although it is possible to get that level of sensitivity, for example scales work pretty much the same way just slower. it wouldn't necessarily need to be massively accurate, just enough to tell if my ".2's honest guvnor" is actually firing .4's, and there's nothing says you cant back it up with a regular chrono mechanism to determine the velocity.

 

8 hours ago, Rogerborg said:

The elasticity of the collision against a hard surface (as opposed to meat-parts) would also be a consideration.

 

it would need to be a bb trap, if the bb gets caught then you know all its energy has been transferred.

[Rogerborg]

Really good today, due to some well thought out fallback variant games that kept things moving.  If I never play another game with infinite respawns for both sides again (regardless of what gimmick you try and layer on top of that), I'll be happy.

[Skara]

I didn't feel like being useful today so I took the vsr, mk23 and aap smg/dmr out for a spin.

 

Well, it turned out to be a good combination: 

The vsr didn't get used much due to the bushy nature of our field, I did get two long-ish kills with it (on the same person, right off the helmet because it's all I could see and a very satisfying "twack"), the third person I shot with it decided to tank both bbs (to the face, btw, from 40ish metres) and shrug them off despite bleeding a tiny bit from one of the impacts.

The mk23 and AAP, though, got used way more. Sure I could have carried the pistol AAP for convenience, but the added stability provided by the stock and foregrip really helped a lot! Swapped the short dot with my T1 at the last minute before the first game, but in hindsight I should have kept the optic on there as I think it makes much more sense on a gun that is so accurate it would make the vsr redundant if it wasn't that quiet.

 

As always, there were a few negatives: apart from the guy who didn't call his hits (he's the one who lost the national finals for us, btw, I'm used to him doing this kind of shit and the solution is generally a good burst to the face, couldn't do that today unfortunately), there have been a couple of arguments between the younger members, mostly about whose cock was the longest as it often happens between teenagers, you know, cooks and hens and farmer Joe.

The main gripe of today, though, was kit (mhm, never had an issue with kit, ever, I swear):

I had already tried doing this a while ago, but damn, trying to carry three guns at once sucks. Especially when one of these guns is hanging off a makeshift one point sling and keeps bouncing off and getting caught in stuff. Back to the drawing board on that one.

[rj1986]

DMR decided to shit itself and eat the BTC Spectre (i suspect) so that's an expensive repair. And once again snipers being liberal with the 30m med.

 

But on the plus side, I manage to come home with all my kit so that's a bonus.