The 'How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? Thread

[Colin Allen]

Today, the lad and I, with some trepidation, pootled down to the wonderfully named Featherbed Lane, which is home to Tactical Warfare Airsoft (TWA).  As some may know, this site has a somewhat mixed reputation for a range of reasons, most of which relate to its proximity to the chav haven that is Croydon.

Having had both good and bad experiences there in the past, we had set our expectations accordingly and were prepared to be disappointed.

Attendance was low at around 40 players and, as the site also does morning and afternoon bookings, the lineups changed throughout the day.  Players were a good mixture of the experienced, the relative newcomers and the complete beginners, that latter being a group of eight.  Even Father Christmas turned up but left by lunchtime, leaving a candy cane on everyone's gun bags.

TWA has a rather decent safezone, although the wind kept finding ways in.  The old and rather disgusting dunny had been replaced by what appeared to be decent toilets, although we did not check them out.

After chronoing and a nicely short but complete safety brief, we went out for the first game, which was in the CQB village.  We were the attackers and had to reach and defuse a bomb, which required holding down a button for 20 seconds; any interruption reset the timer.  We had infinite regens on our starting point, while the defenders had two lives.  Our attack was a little disjointed and we failed to set off the timer, mainly because the chap who eventually reached it got shot after about 15 seconds.

This game was then turned around and, to our shame, the other team completed the mission quite handily.

After this, we went into the woods for a fallback game; we were the defenders and had one life in each of Badger Base, Jungle Base and The Pit, the latter of which is not another name for Croydon; it is literally a large pit with structures in the bottom and halfway up one side.  Attackers had infinite lives with a 30 pace fallback each time they were hit.  We put up a decent fight and fought hard for each position, but were eventually and inevitably wiped out at each location.

In the return, we struggled to take Badger Base and just about managed to take Jungle Base before we ran out of time, leaving the Pit unmolested.

Luncheon was then taken, consisting of cold pizza for us (Yum!) and veggie or meat burgers and chips for those who did not bring their own food.

After lunch, there was a rather silly and pointless game of "everyone against the unkillable marshal" in the CQB village which, while amusing, was somewhat a waste of time.

We then moved back to the area around Badger Base for a game of domination, with the aim being to have a player or players in the Foxhole at the end of the game.  Neither team could advance past the Foxhole.  Regens were infinite and involved returning to your starting point.  This was great fun, with lots of action and several great runs at the Foxhole by players from both sides; I have no idea who won.  This was then turned around and was even more fun because I prefer playing from the far end.  On one occasion, while returning from regen, there was a distinct sound of real gunfire from just over the next hill; it was too close to be from Croydon.  Again, I have no idea who won; I was too busy enjoying myself and shooting people.

 

After this, we returned to the CQB village for a game of "Hunt the Barrels"; the attackers had to recover three barrels from the village and get them back to their regen.  Attackers had infinite lives on their start point and defenders had two lives on a buddy regen.  This was a great game, with lots of action and good play by both sides, which ended with the attackers stealing three barrels from us, as they were intended to do.  However, by this stage, a few players were becoming rather salty and we decided to leave before the game was turned around.

Overall, the day was far better than we had feared it might be; it was a fun day of old fashioned airsoft.  The approach to marshalling seemed to have changed for the better and the only real issue was some appalling hit taking by a small minority of players on both sides, which saw the marshals resorting to taking test kills.  The day was well run and the games, with one exception, were well thought out and appropriate for the numbers present.

 On the basis of today, we would definitely go back, which was a slightly surprising, but rather pleasant, outcome to our last game of 2023.



 

Edited December 23, 2023 by Colin Allen

[Enid_Puceflange]

Well, short n sweet

Hogmanay game at The Depot, indoor site

My first visit there and my first indoor game.

Got to say I will definitely be back, left the house at 6:30 for a 1:20 drive to Port Glasgow.

Used the Sig 553 which performed flawlessly, indoor temp was probably around 5 deg C , there was a good 6 inches of snow on the ground outside, so the place was chilly and not much warmer inside.

Had to adjust the Npas to get it below 350 and they only allow up to .25’s

But no dramas, and had a cracking laugh.

I ended my day early as I had gone over my ankle in Oct and it’s still giving me a bit of pain, so called it quits one game after lunch.

My aeg only came out to get chrono’d for just in case!

Absolutely massive place, pyro’s going off everywhere so my noise cancelling headset was being used to good effect

And what with the Smokey afterboom really highlighted tracers and torches

Fucking SUPERB 👍

 

Pics taken at the quiet end, didn’t want my phone shot out! 🥴

 

 

Edited January 5 by Enid_Puceflange

[Emergencychimps]

Did the standard skirmish day at gunman tuddenham today with a mate, in previous years the after Xmas skirmish has seen over 100 players.....today started around 40 and dropped as the day progressed to around 20, which is super low for tuddenham. 

 

I loved the day though, pure skirmish great hit taking and sportsmanship. The games were different, used areas in ways I haven't seen them before and new to me games.

 

For some reason, it all just clicked and the day felt like it was on easy mode. Some good positioning, lucky shooting and some blind luck just made everything go my way.

 

Most fun day of airsoft for about 12-18 months. 

[TheFull9]

After stagging on all of christmas I've got this week off, which is probably just about the worst one of the year for games but I had to make sure I got one in at least.  Took my life in my hands and drove through the biblical floods (some puddles) down to Zed Adventures last night.

 

I think it's probably fair to say there aren't a ton of indoor/urban regular sites in what I'd call 'central south'; not a huge number of sites in general really considering population.  You've got loads of sites in Essex/Kent, a blob around Portsmouth, couple of CQB places in Gloucester then the map is a little sparse if you draw a circle around Oxford.  With me generally living life around/between NW London, Oxfordshire and Shropshire; Zed was the least-worst place to get to during the evening this week.  I'm really not sure if it was worth the trip in the end though 😂

 

There's a cheap multi-storey (cost me £2 to park) that's well lit and you come out maybe ~15m from the site entrance.. and that's about all that's really positive I could say.  In theory you're totally under cover, but the old shop has so many leaks now I got mud on my trousers.. 🤨 (doesn't matter, just funny).  The crowd that showed up were all really nice, chill players, but obviously that's a positive reflection on them as people not the site staff.  Said staff weren't bad people per se either, but I felt like I was just tagging along at a private speedsoft game night for the marshals, all of which were playing pretty much all of the time.  Not a feeling I've ever had at a game before.  Also the shortest game briefs I've ever had playing airsoft, by a large margin, one of them took maybe 30 seconds and the guy in his SpeedQB get up delivering it didn't exactly show much enthusiasm.  When I say speedsoft players I'm talking HPA guns that were so far removed from any actual firearm I couldn't tell what they were in most cases; looked like Milwaukee power drills.

 

I've been to Zed before something like 3-ish years ago, I think Negative Luke was running it at the time after the Mall and I liked it, had always been meaning to go back.  I don't expect an airsoft site to be gleaming by any stretch but none of the SZ tables had had so much as the briefest brush off, the SZ detritus was all just pushed in a corner as apparently a dustpan was a step too far and despite being inside and rarely used the toilets were in a pretty damn wrecked/filthy state.  Oh and not only was there a christmas tree up and other decorations, but fake spiders and webs stiff clinging to things from Halloween.

They had rigged up sheets and water collectors for the points where the roof was badly leaking, they've also some rigged up the shops' speaker system to an aux lead and put in some funky lights which was cool, but the amount of straight trash in various places definitely counteracted that.  I just wanted to play a game somewhere to iron out those niggles in equipment that never raise their head until you're actually in play, but at £27 for an evening game it's very much not on the top of my priority list for the future.

[Reef]

Son and I did our first games with our own kit yesterday!

 

Spent the morning at Dogtag in Sussex. The guns and eyepro we had bought worked faultlessly and really upped our enjoyment of the games. In total this was our fourth session and we are starting to get a feel for this now, there’s less running around like headless chickens and we’re starting to think about strategy.

Theres lots more gear to buy 😂 like decent gloves, something to hold spare mags, etc. Pretty happy with our weapons, my son got a number or people remark how good his one looks with scope and suppressor.

 

roll on next weekend!

 

 

[Colin Allen]

1 hour ago, Reef said:

Son and I did our first games with our own kit yesterday!

 

Spent the morning at Dogtag in Sussex. The guns and eyepro we had bought worked faultlessly and really upped our enjoyment of the games. In total this was our fourth session and we are starting to get a feel for this now, there’s less running around like headless chickens and we’re starting to think about strategy.

Theres lots more gear to buy 😂 like decent gloves, something to hold spare mags, etc. Pretty happy with our weapons, my son got a number or people remark how good his one looks with scope and suppressor.

 

roll on next weekend!

 

 

Excellent!  Keep on enjoying it and always remember that it is about having fun.

[The_Lord_Poncho]

Superb morning Saturday at Driverwood - first game being a three point domination running the L96, with some memorable hits. The Multicam Tropic 'costume' 😄 (as my wife calls it) coupled with the viper hood lightly crafted during a particularly lengthy and tedious work Teams call proved outstanding amongst the dark rhododendron on parts of the site. Some particularly memorable events included getting well behind the enemy team and wreaking havoc, mainly with the MK23 - including rendering the pistol inoperable with a bit of bark jammed beneath the trigger, but confidently pointing it at an enemy player nonetheless, and persuading him to surrender!

 

Second game consisted a simple aggressive and fast paced 'capture the flag' on a more restricted and linear part of the playing area, and my choice to ditch the viper hood and run with the XM177 proved the right one. All in all, a great morning.

[DanBow]

1 hour ago, The_Lord_Poncho said:

 Some particularly memorable events included getting well behind the enemy team and wreaking havoc, mainly with the MK23

 

Is that the Em Kay 23? 😁

[Skara]

First game of 2024.

 

Nice, chill day with a touch of rain and a lot of wind

Got to use the waterproof jacket i bought specifically for airsoft and it stood the rip and tear test my field kindly offers 

Games were overall okay, we had a few people who were at their first experience so a few blue-on-blue incidents happened, but nothing major and everything was solved with a good laugh

15 people on the field, doesn't seem much compared to your numbers but for us, having so many people during holidays is quite an achievement

 

Gun wise, I was meant to use the long M4 but ran into the same issue I've been having since october, for some reason the piston gets caught by the sector gear right on the edge of the pickup tooth in a way that it jams and needs the piston forced back with a screwdriver to unlock.

Makes me think the spring is done for, so I will remove one more tooth (currently SS'd by one, iirc) with a slightly tougher spring to compensate, may R-Hop it while I'm there.

Short M4 performed well, as expected, just need to loctite the motor adjustment screw so it doesn't shake itself loose.

 

Gear wise I ran my Made in Poland RG belt kit and small backpack, unfortunately I managed to snap another antenna for my radio, so I will have to come up with a proper fix.

[The_Lord_Poncho]

4 hours ago, DanBow said:

 

Is that the Em Kay 23? 😁

Yikes! You nasty man, how dare you ambush me like that!

[Colin Allen]

5 hours ago, Skara said:

First game of 2024.

 

Nice, chill day with a touch of rain and a lot of wind

Got to use the waterproof jacket i bought specifically for airsoft and it stood the rip and tear test my field kindly offers 

Games were overall okay, we had a few people who were at their first experience so a few blue-on-blue incidents happened, but nothing major and everything was solved with a good laugh

15 people on the field, doesn't seem much compared to your numbers but for us, having so many people during holidays is quite an achievement

 

Gun wise, I was meant to use the long M4 but ran into the same issue I've been having since october, for some reason the piston gets caught by the sector gear right on the edge of the pickup tooth in a way that it jams and needs the piston forced back with a screwdriver to unlock.

Makes me think the spring is done for, so I will remove one more tooth (currently SS'd by one, iirc) with a slightly tougher spring to compensate, may R-Hop it while I'm there.

Short M4 performed well, as expected, just need to loctite the motor adjustment screw so it doesn't shake itself loose.

 

Gear wise I ran my Made in Poland RG belt kit and small backpack, unfortunately I managed to snap another antenna for my radio, so I will have to come up with a proper fix.

Is there really any point to fitting an R-Hop to an AEG?  

Exactly how and where is the sector gear catching the pickup tooth?

[Enid_Puceflange]

Partially stripped the Uzi down to solder on a Deans connection 

(all of my batteries are that fitting)

Had to extend the wires a few cm’s as there isn’t enough meat for an easy job using the standard wiring.

Job done, plugged in a fresh 7.4 and the appropriate clicks/bangy/pewey noises were made. 
Relief, it works!

Then noticed the only battery that will fit in the battery trough is fractionally too tall, stopping the top cover clicking down properly.

Looks like one of the squillion ranger bands I made will do the trick just fine

 

Chrono and range test tomorrow 

🤞

[Skara]

13 hours ago, Colin Allen said:

Is there really any point to fitting an R-Hop to an AEG?  

Exactly how and where is the sector gear catching the pickup tooth?

Not really unless raw performance is your goal. I ran out of stuff to do so might as well try R-Hopping something.

 

Took it apart and forgot to take a picture.

The piston I'm using atm (FPS white) is a tiny bit narrower than usual, I believe it's to prevent the spring from rattling during use but at the same time I found some damage near the hole, which makes me think that the piston is getting caught by the spring guide.

Cut another tooth off the sector (3 off the pickup side now) which should fix it as there is now a good 3mm between piston and spring guide bearing at full travel.

Power has dropped to 0.78J but I have installed a zci m100 spring that should, in theory, bring the energy back to the 1J limit..

[Enid_Puceflange]

Bit of a soft shitshow today

Visited a site for the first time, which had been running a good couple of years, but had to move to fresh ground last year.

Operated by an established retailer in Scotland, so they kinda should know better imo.

 

First game was a “warm up” which was a kind of Capture the Flag

Defenders had two lives , attackers had infinite 

First game took the attackers just under an hour to achieve the objective 🙄

Swapped ends and we did it in 16 minutes

This game should have had a time limit to apply pressure to the attackers, and not just an “it’s over when they do it” attitude which was what I got from the marshal when I asked how long this had still to run. 

 

Went back to safe zone to bomb up after that, to get told we would have lunch early. 
So I’d defended from a slow attacking team for almost an hour in zero deg temps, then a 16 min warm up, to sit around for an hour having lunch!

I was effing freezing

Then a “flip the barrel” game

both times we won that in roughly 8-9 minutes

To get taken to the safe zone again and stand about for 15-20 mins, before being taken back up to the same area for another mix up of a game.

Sadly, I’d had enough and just said cheerio to my crew and made the hour drive home.

 

No facilities to speak of

no toilet that I could see (but I can pee behind a tree, so not a biggy)

Just a gazebo and a camp table for booking in and buying ammo/pyro

 

My Ghk m4 just sucked ass in the cold, even using red gas so it got replaced with my backup aeg for the other games.

 

It was a free game, to entice new players to start coming

Thanks for the taster

I’ll not be back 😂

Edited January 14 by Enid_Puceflange

[Impulse]

Was good to get out today to Worthing Airsoft for my regularly scheduled skirmish experience. Was the first game day in a month so I was eager to play, however it is at the end of the first week of my new exercise regime so I was very tired. I was collecting two of my m14s from a local tech and I wanted to experiment with my VSR with its new widebore barrel, so I had a lot to do between all the experimentation and also zeroing the LPVO and setting the hop on my short m14. However, as I attended the safety brief they went over the first game of the day being an all-morning game with a whole load of different objectives all over the site so I instead decided to quickly set my VSR up for 2.3J and headed out for the morning.

 

It started slow. We were almost getting spawn-camped, but there was enough space to get out so I headed to our base and set up a position to defend in a nice little sniping spot that I love to use. However... nobody was approaching in my arc of fire. I cautiously pushed up to try and get better shots but I didn't find anyone for a while, but I eventually got into a place where I had a line on a barricade that the enemy team were fond of using. The shots weren't easy, especially as I realised my hop was wonky and all my shots were arcing right. I also realised I had a great line on a holly bush and was posting shots into there as well and got a LOT of hits from that position. I played around that area through the rest of the game, moving between a few shooting positions and hitting about 16 people across the hour or so I was playing there. I finally got hit by someone who got rather angry with me and it made me chuckle. It was a ghillie with a proper MTW wankergun build, spraying BBs at about 25rps on full auto. I lay behind a tree and tucked myself in while he spammed full auto in the tree and started yelling "there's no way you're not hit, just call it!" at me, but nothing was hitting me as I was keeping close to the ground behind it. There was a marshall standing right next to me and I was just laughing while looking to the marshall just seeing how many of his BBs I could make him waste (it was a LOT). Eventually one did hit me and I called it, went off and respawned and then hurried back to a spot that I could draw a line of sight onto his position as he hadn't moved. Took him out with a single shot and took up a position defending the base again, but by this point most of our team had decided to go in for an early lunch, leaving me and another sniper as the only base defenders. Two bolt action rifles are not good for holding, so while we took out a bunch of them without getting spotted, they just bullied into our base and stole all our objectives at the end, so we very much lost the game

 

After lunch I decided to do all my tweaking and setup and... I've created two monsters. The short m14 was shooting absolutely phenomenally and the LPVO was easy to zero, which was good as I wasn't sure how the mount would be on the Cyma m14, but the G&P low mount worked really well. It was firing 1.06J on .32s, it was snappy, quiet for an AEG and slinging those .32s fairly accurately to about 60m. Very accurate on the 50m target, hitting it literally every single time too. The second monster was as I was experimenting with the VSR. I got the widebore so I could try and run it at 1.1J, as with the 6.03 in there it was 1.4J on 80psi, which is the lowest operating pressure for the Wolverine Bolt. With the widebore it was right on the 1.1J money, with the lowest shot being 1.096J and the highest being 1.111J. The hop was still off and the BBs were arcing, however what I discovered was that on 80psi the VSR was disgustingly quiet. My friend stood about 2m in front of it and couldn't hear it firing, and I shot past my other friend as he was trying to work out what was wrong with his bazooka and he didn't notice at all. I'll probably still run it at 2.3J for now, as the site is fairly open (and it really isn't during summer) and you won't hear the 2.3J sound at 30m away, but seeing how it performed and, most importantly, sounded on 1.1J was disgusting. Not too long either as it's an internally suppressed Maple Leaf bull barrel. Next private game we do at the UCAP Bunker I might put a red dot on it and run it there...

 

Also, the other thing I realised today was how quickly exercise makes a difference. This was the first week I've done my new training regime (I swim 1km every weekday) and... airsoft was nowhere near as difficult as it was before Christmas. Going to be continuing the regime as I have some tablets to help mitigate my heart symptoms when it pops up, so hopefully as I drop the weight and put on a bit more lean muscle it'll just get easier and easier.

Edited January 14 by Impulse

[Colin Allen]

1 hour ago, Enid_Puceflange said:

Bit of a soft shitshow today

Visited a site for the first time, which had been running a good couple of years, but had to move to fresh ground last year.

Operated by an established retailer in Scotland, so they kinda should know better imo.

 

First game was a “warm up” which was a kind of Capture the Flag

Defenders had two lives , attackers had infinite 

First game took the attackers just under an hour to achieve the objective 🙄

Swapped ends and we did it in 16 minutes

This game should have had a time limit to apply pressure to the attackers, and not just an “it’s over when they do it” attitude which was what I got from the marshal when I asked how long this had still to run. 

 

Went back to safe zone to bomb up after that, to get told we would have lunch early. 
So I’d defended from a slow attacking team for almost an hour in zero deg temps, then a 16 min warm up, to sit around for an hour having lunch!

I was effing freezing

Then a “flip the barrel” game

both times we won that in roughly 8-9 minutes

To get taken to the safe zone again and stand about for 15-20 mins, before being taken back up to the same area for another mix up of a game.

Sadly, I’d had enough and just said cheerio to my crew and made the hour drive home.

 

No facilities to speak of

no toilet that I could see (but I can pee behind a tree, so not a biggy)

Just a gazebo and a camp table for booking in and buying ammo/pyro

 

My Ghk m4 just sucked ass in the cold, even using red gas so it got replaced with my backup aeg for the other games.

 

It was a free game, to entice new players to start coming

Thanks for the taster

I’ll not be back 😂

A brilliant way to sell a new site to potential players!  So many sites seem to be run by people who do not have a clue.

[hunter511]

12 minutes ago, Colin Allen said:

A brilliant way to sell a new site to potential players!  So many sites seem to be run by people who do not have a clue.

I remember attending a site down Hampshire way (name rhymes with skillet) where the owners took over an hour to get chrono and safety brief sorted..... made a big fuss of teams (another 20 minutes of messing about with yellow amd red tape) and then decided to do all against all for the first game. Needless to say I've not been back to any of their sites.

 

Then again I've had some horror stories with other well known companies as well.

Edited January 14 by hunter511

[Enid_Puceflange]

4 hours ago, Colin Allen said:

A brilliant way to sell a new site to potential players!  So many sites seem to be run by people who do not have a clue.

The thing that saddened me the most, is that there were about 6 first time rental players there.

First impression’s definitely count in this game.

[Colin Allen]

8 hours ago, Enid_Puceflange said:

The thing that saddened me the most, is that there were about 6 first time rental players there.

First impression’s definitely count in this game.

Aye; that is a shame. Hopefully, someone told them that this was not the norm for most sites.

[rj1986]

Tried a new site, but by a regular host - RIFT: The Battery.

 

Numbers were fairly low - about 35ish on the Sunday, and the previous day was about 25-30 by all reports. So under half, but this really helped the gameplay. Only a couple of rentals, and only a handful of people who have been before, so a bulk of people were in the same boat.

 

It's an old Battery Hen house, so 4 large interconnecting hen houses in an H shape, with obstacles and props in the outdoors area. The site is CQB, but i like it as it's not all right angle turns and dark rooms (yes, there are portions of that) but there are also good lines of sight, multiple flanking positions and not just people stacking up on corners. No pyro, so you had to shoot your way out, and Single shot only, with a gentleman's agreement of no just shooting at a corner to pin people down or spamming the trigger, only shoot when you see them - this really helped people push up.

If you locked down a corridor or opening, there was opportunity for the opposition to fall back and find a path to sneak up behind you. Doors and paths changed with the games, which is a nice touch. Being young and fleet on foot was definitely an advantage, so everyone actually ran from the spawn points, rather than the usual of a few of them sprint off and the rest trundle up.

 

Blue team dominated the 1st game, so a few went to red to balance. Same story for the 2nd and 3rd, so by the afternoon, Reds had more bodies to try and make it competitive.

 

Staff, as always, were on it. Minimal no-calling hits, and only the odd "I got you, no you didn't", as the spawns were only a minute or so walk away, and everyone generally seemed in good spirits.

 

Overall a really good day, one of the best I had, thanks to the site. It had a nice balance of not being out ranged by snipers and DMR's, but not to close that you walked into someone around every bend and doorway.

 

Most of RIFTs site are based around Bucks/Beds/Oxon sort of area, so this one is a bit of a drive way in comparison out in central Essex, and even though it's not a financially viable, the lowish headcount really helped the gameplay and pushing up.  I would need to see what it's like with a full compliment of 60 to see if it makes it better or worse.

[gavinkempsell]

On 14/01/2024 at 17:50, Enid_Puceflange said:

Bit of a soft shitshow today

I know where you wennttt !!!

[Poach]

23 hours ago, gavinkempsell said:

I know where you wennttt !!!

 

I do not, but as someone who plays in Scotland, likes to float about different sites to keep things fresh, and has clearly missed the news of a site moving locations last year (so the clue is totally lost on me!) I really would like to know because I'd think twice about booking to it, to be honest. If naming-and-shaming is off the cards, is a stronger hint by private message allowed? 😀

[Tackle]

7 minutes ago, Poach said:

 

I do not, but as someone who plays in Scotland, likes to float about different sites to keep things fresh, and has clearly missed the news of a site moving locations last year (so the clue is totally lost on me!) I really would like to know because I'd think twice about booking to it, to be honest. If naming-and-shaming is off the cards, is a stronger hint by private message allowed? 😀

Nah fuckit, we're all good naming & shaming here, we try to look out for each other & that includes warning each other if a site isn't worth the green fees (& all the other costs associated with attending a game) 

[gavinkempsell]

19 minutes ago, Poach said:

I do not, but as someone who plays in Scotland, likes to float about different sites to keep things fresh, and has clearly missed the news of a site moving locations last year (so the clue is totally lost on me!) I really would like to know because I'd think twice about booking to it, to be honest. If naming-and-shaming is off the cards, is a stronger hint by private message allowed? 😀

Nah, not my place & if naming & shaming was on the cards then I'm sure Enid_Puceflange would have said.

[gavinkempsell]

I must be looking forward to playing my next game day in the mud, wet foliage & possibly snow coz I've just spent the past hour or so sorting out my kit & not even playing until the 28th.

GBBR's first outing with me (will take a couple of aeg's too just in case it's too cold).