Se Tour Review: Absolute Airsoft (Berkshire)

[Asomodai]

Site Name: Absolute Airsoft

Contact details: 01628 474 756

Website Address: https://www.absolute-airsoft.co.uk/
Facebook Page: Absolute Airsoft | Facebook

Site Address: Jacksons Lane, RG4 7EE

 

Hello all! @Albiscuit and I trundled to Absolute Airsoft near Reading. One that has been put off for a while due to the long distance from our respective hovels. It's barely in the South East.

 

I had heard mixed to negative things about the site ahead of time. Allegedly run by/affiliated with Special Airsoft Supplies who have been accused of as scammers and even have a Facebook group dedicated to warning people against buying from them. Someone also got shot and lost his eye in the safe zone back in 2016. 

 

We popped along on 16/06/2021. It was destined to be a very hot day at 27 degrees which turned out to be an overstatement. Luckily it was a little cooler at 21 degrees. 

 

Absolute Airsoft is a Medium sized Woodland site. (Claims to be 150 Acres, but Apoc in Kent is 200 acres and is by far much larger). For the most part it is flat but with a significant hill used in the first couple of games. There are 5 distinct areas that were used on the day, the aforementioned hill, a typical medium height foliage area with an under-construction oversized shed, an open clearing with battlements, a low grassland/fern area with a Kill-house plonked in the middle of it and lastly a small village area near some classic woodland. 

 

There was a mix of short/medium/long distance engagements. 

 

Good:

 

Value: Good value at £25 for the day including a free hot dog or pizza for lunch. 

 

Turn around time: Very good. To the point that I was struggling to get loaded up after taking a breather to get back out for the next game. They do push you to play. 

 

Safety Brief: Covered everything. Took it seriously. Told people to shut it if they talked over it. Little in the way of gallows humour. 

 

Marshalling: There were enough marshals to cover for the day. I found they were hands off (In a good way). Encouraging, but didn't have to intervene that much. There were two incidences of injuries due to trips and falls and the marshals were right on it. Calling ceasefires and getting the injured out of the way.

 

Shop: Quite a bit on offer, Lots of Rifles in Cabin. Didn't take a close look myself. Al picked up some BBs of somewhat questionable looking quality, they seemed to work ok though.

 

Safe Zone Safety: Very on point and laudable. I imagine due to the incident in the safe zone in times past, they have to stick with what they do. They insist on Barrel socks on everything whilst in the safe zone (Which they sell in the shop for £3 a time, sadly they don't advertise the need for a barrel sock on the website so we were a bit out of pocket on the day) If you have no barrel sock or cant use one (Wont fit on one of my rifles) then they have to be left in the game zone. There are rigorous checks of mags out whilst coming back into safe zone. Pistols have to be either holstered or racked back and on safety on whilst out of holster. Very good to see. 

 

Average: 

 

Playing Area: It was "Good", there were five distinct zones as already described. The Kill-house and village area were quite fun, if somewhat unremarkable. It is refreshing to see a massive open area... However I felt that the areas used were just a little too open, very little medium/tall cover to hide behind. Little opportunity to flank as the marshals insisted on narrow game areas or when it was more wide open they used areas where you would be seen sneaking up fairly easily. Considering there was a high turnout of over 100 players, I would have preferred a larger game zone in play. 

 

Safe Zone: Safe zone was perfectly fine. Lots of the seating under cover, it was quite cramped for the over 100 in attendance and it was incredibly difficult to socially distance. Picnic tables were quite small and suited two to a table with any comfort. Car park was right next to Safe zone. 

 

Hit taking: I didn't experience any massively bad hit taking bar the usual one or two questionable individuals. I did hear a lot of grumbling from people on my team though. 

 

Car Park/Entrance: Dirt/Gravel Car Park right off a long mostly unmarked road. The only sign leading to Absolute is the one at the entrance of the Car Park. Follow your Sat-Nav and you'll find it. Its a big enough car park for even the 100 or so players. 

 

Toilets: Two/Three Porta-loos. I went to the loo at the end of the day, didn't smell that bad considering. 

 

Clientele: Very young clientele, lots of casual players and rentals. Interspersed with grizzled veterans. Did the usual chat with some new players. I was a bit disappointed in some of the players smoking under the shelters in the safe zone despite being told more then once not to. The smell was quite overbearing at times. 

 

Food: Al and I asked for Cheese and Tomato Pizza rather then Hot Dog on the ticket purchase, Al being Veggie and I don't eat pork. However the receipt stated that we had chosen Hot Dog. We explained to the marshal when we got there, yet there were no spare pizzas. Though it turned out the Hot Dogs were Chicken so I had Al's as well. The hot dog was perfectly OK. I felt sorry for Al though. 

 

Bad: 

 

Chrono: Despite all of the attention devoted to safety, checking for mags out, barrels socks on everything etc. There was no Chrono testing AT ALL. No testing at the beginning of the day, no Chrono setup so we could self test during the day and I didn't see anyone get tested on the field. Pretty sure there were a few people running hot on the day too. Why go to all the effort of putting in all these safety measures, but at least not make a token effort of testing for joules? Disappointing. 

 

Conclusion: 

 

So this was an odd one in some ways. The Playing area is... Fine, I believe it could be used better and it didn't feel like 150 acres. Despite the many positives and almost no Negatives, we didn't get much of a good feeling from the site. We found the day either somewhat boring or frustrating to play. "Meh" being the operative word for it. A Local site for local people. Does nothing different to many other woodland sites that we play with no unique feature. 

 

I laud the place for it's Safety inside the safe zone. But the Chrono situation is unforgivable, you can argue all you want that people can change springs and bb weights after chrono. But you have to at least be seen to make an effort that you take overpowered guns seriously. 

 

Bullpup Watch: L85, SRS HTTI, SRS Silverback, PDRC

 

Best Guess Map: 

 

 

Edited June 13, 2021 by Asomodai

[Albiscuit]

Not much more to add as usual but hit taking was pretty poor from the other team, the last game was a joke for hit taking.

I was really impressed with how everything was run, the set up and professionalism of the marshalling team seemed great, except no chrono. 
 

The site was great but not worth the journey from North London imo, lots of other sites with a more unique playing field closer that I would rather attend. 
 

very good for the money though

[snuff]

Mark the site owner is SAS which has been covered in other threads.As the review goes very good,we've played there a few times and as said no mandatory chronoing,which we found "uncomfortable".That for me will always be a big negative at any site,we pressed them about this every time we visited to no avail.As with anywhere you will get cheats,and with the zero threat of chronoing you will experience the odd hot gun,we have experienced that.

[EDcase]

Yep, good review.

 

As with Snuff, used to go there but eventually stopped because of issues such as hot guns (I got hit on the eyebrow which drew blood)

Also marshals ignored some blatant cheating by the regulars.

 

An OK place but there's better around the area such as Skirmish Wycombe and Red Alert.

[PureSilver]

> Run by the same bloke as SAS

> Someone had their eye shot out in the safe zone

> No chronograph

 

This deal is getting worse all the time!

Edited June 15, 2021 by PureSilver