Chemical Airsoft, Ashton-under-Lyne

[DanBow]

New thread to start fresh from the old one.

 

 

My daughter and I played here last night, Tuesday 18th June. It was a bit of a trek for us, 60 miles to the opposite side of Manchester at rush hour! Still, only 1hr 40m, a lot of that was sat on various bloody motorways going a walking pace!

 

Anyway, easy enough to find and there was plenty of parking.

The staff were friendly, the shop is only small but has a few pews, the normal consumables and sweets, drinks etc. I did like that there was a parts/broken bin for you to rummage through but I forgot to have a proper look before we left. I did see a shotty with a broken stock though, probably good for my bank account that I didn't have a proper look!

It looks like we're both becoming patch whores and made a beeline for the "Chemical Airsoft" Velcro backed patches. There were 2 designs, one was glow in the dark, so naturally we opted for those but were quietly shocked to find that they were £15 each! Don't get me wrong they are very nice patches but we didn't expect them to be that much. Still, 2 were bought as whoever said airsoft was a cheap hobby? The other was design was £12 so still a little pricey but not filled with some glowing radioactive nonsense! For a 3 hour session it was £15 each which I think is really good value, especially as @sofieb doesn't really get time off at the weekend to go to other sites.

 

Right, gameplay. Bloody brilliant. Apparently there are 2 parts to the site, the part we played on was quite small. It's a very close quarters combat, with lots of obstacles and spawn points are never more than a minutes walk away so your right back in the action. The site looks like an old manufacturing facility with long corridors, punctuated with barricades and open doorways that lead off to another room/corridor. Before the game started one of the marshals said that we, Sof and I, could go and have a look around as it was our first time playing there. I did wonder whether my CG16 would be too long for the quite confined space but as my MP5 has no light, and it is quite dark with lots of glow in the dark and LED lighting, I went in with the long'un and my trusty WE P226. At the start of the evening there was only 8 of us playing. I did have a 'oh no, this is going to be shit' moment but thankfully it wasn't. Chrono was dealt with quickly, safety brief was ok. Apart from my eldest semen demon and I, the others seemed to be regulars. I, at 51, was definitely the oldest and there were all a couple of teens too.  There was at least 2 HPA pewers and a youngish chap, in full MTP camo with an L85. Then the rest, in civvies may have been rental but I'm not sure. Most games were team death match and it ran very fast. The final game was a raise the flag game, I think my team won but I was having too much fun to care.  The small site made it fast paced and, as I've said, the spawn points are not far away so your only out of the action for a minute or so. Its single shot only so my bb consumption was quite low but I did get lots of hits, and got hit a lot. Even got a couple with my 226. Made me very happy.

 

There are a couple of points that caused a raised eyebrow though. Firstly, the chrono/briefing room is about 5m square. Shots were fired through the chrono towards the opposite wall, rebounding everywhere. Not a massive problem, we all had eye pro and face masks, which are mandatory, on but there were far better places right by the door to the safe zone to do this. Secondly, the marshal was quite happy for lots of shots being fired in that room while we were stood there. Again, no real problem but separating the chrono from the briefing would have stopped this. Thirdly, at the end of the evening, as we were packing up, one of the marshals got out his very shiny . . . . thing . . . .to show us! He did say what it was but I cant remember, its like a skeletonised short body that runs on air and magnets! Very nice but certainly not a RIF. Anyway, he puts it together, connects the air and starts spamming the trigger to show how quiet and lovely it is. This, I didn't like. Yes, we watched him assemble it but a safe zone should be a safe zone with no dry firing. 

 

Overall though, we both really enjoyed it and will probably go back but the drive to get there and home is off putting.

[Cannonfodder]

Sounds like it was a good night overall apart from the last bit.

19 minutes ago, DanBow said:

a safe zone should be a safe zone with no dry firing. 

This. It's one thing for a player to be dry firing in the safe zone, but for a member of staff to do it is worse as it sets a precedent for others to think it's ok and is a negligent discharge waiting to happen

[Colin Allen]

16 hours ago, DanBow said:

 

There are a couple of points that caused a raised eyebrow though. Firstly, the chrono/briefing room is about 5m square. Shots were fired through the chrono towards the opposite wall, rebounding everywhere. Not a massive problem, we all had eye pro and face masks, which are mandatory, on but there were far better places right by the door to the safe zone to do this. Secondly, the marshal was quite happy for lots of shots being fired in that room while we were stood there. Again, no real problem but separating the chrono from the briefing would have stopped this. Thirdly, at the end of the evening, as we were packing up, one of the marshals got out his very shiny . . . . thing . . . .to show us! He did say what it was but I cant remember, it’s like a skeletonised short body that runs on air and magnets! Very nice but certainly not a RIF. Anyway, he puts it together, connects the air and starts spamming the trigger to show how quiet and lovely it is. This, I didn't like. Yes, we watched him assemble it but a safe zone should be a safe zone with no dry firing. 

That is all rather concerning.

[Shamal]

Yes I agree.

Ucap are quite hot on dry firing in safe zone even to the point of 'put it down' as I was shouldering the gun to check red dot was working.

[DanBow]

My regular site is hot on safety too. It's never a bad thing.

[Cannonfodder]

I don't know about any of their other sites but when RIFT ran The Village near Royston it was policy that dry firing in the safezone would get you sent home. This might seem a bit harsh but IMO you can't be too careful when it comes to preventing injuries caused by negligence