The 'How Did Your Airsoft Day Go? Thread

[Baser]

Back to Apocalypse in Kent on Sunday after last weeks, slightly disappointing, game I really enjoyed myself. Maybe I rolled out of the right side of bed this week.

Took the trusty RPK16, freshly updated with a Prommy purple hop rubber and nub and polished inner barrel. With my trusty Sig 226 on my hip I was ready to go, just about got the RPK through chrono but Ive picked up a new spring to lower the power to be safe. I went to site on my own again but joined a group of regulars so felt like part of a team rather than tagging along. around 140 players on site made it a little quieter than usual but it was supposed to rain which probably had something to do with it.

First game was carry. Players are divided in two teams and a brave Marshall stands in the cross fire. The aim is for the Marshall to carry a case through the site, they can only move with 2 players escorting them, with the other players either supporting or stopping the movement. checkpoints and spawns move as the Marshall moves. I really enjoy this game play and it's the first time I've played escorting rather than stopping the Marshall moving. This game is always intense as the ambushes and pushes are fluid and have a very focussed 'kill box'. Shout out to our rentals who ran at the other team with no fear putting a lot of us to shame. I emptied a 1650mah battery, 2 drum mags and 3 stick mags totalling nearly 6000 rounds. We lost but everyone put 110% into the game with some great positioning and cross fire keeping us pinned back.

Second game after lunch was move the bomb from your base to your enemies base. Again game play was intense with a lot of action somewhere in the middle (no mans land) we got our bomb to the other teams base through distraction, again great play by the rentals going full highlander with a charge worthy of William Wallace shouting 'FREEDOM' to the right of village while the bomb was snuck in on the left. Sadly the bomb was found and thrown out of village while the other team got into our base stockade. After this the snipers/ghilles/DMR players found their fox holes and slowed the game right down. Again we lost this one but not for a want of trying.

Didn't stay for the third game as I'm working away from home this week and needed to get home and get everything cleaned and put away.

Surprising how it only takes a few small things to change a meh day to a great day.

Touring the UK this week so already been into Bespoke Airsoft on Monday to pick up some parts, then off to Patrol Base and Urban Airsoft Mega Store tomorrow for similar before picking up a used LCT AKMS on Thursday.

Gratuitous photo below, held this spot for about 20 mins, the barrier helped keep me protected and took most of the weight of the RPK.

 

[Colin Allen]

There seems to always have been at least one cat at Battle Lakes; the one that was there when I was marshalling was a very friendly little chap.

Click to shrink...

The Battle Lakes cat, 2017.

 

[Impulse]

Went to Worthing Airsoft on Sunday to play airsoft. Though I'm not sure I'd count it as "playing airsoft" with how I played this weekend. I only played half the day, as I needed to make sure guns were working for next weekend at rift, but in the morning games I fired a grand total of... 0 shots. Yes, you heard right. 0 shots. So... how did this happen?

First two games were a king of the hill style game on the new base, a killhouse at the bottom of the site, with sides swapped. It's a really nice base, but it's... not exactly the territory of bolt actions or DMRs, and with me using my mk12 MWS set to 1.8J. I decided to try a cheeky flank, using a route that I knew nobody else would go to. As it turns out, there was a good reason why nobody was using it. Getting to it was hell, as I had to make my way through incredibly thick brambles and stinging nettles that came up to my chest height (and I'm 6'5, so they were some TALL nettles...). Then when I finally managed to get onto this route, the route itself was mega-overgrown and I had to fight my way through some really thick foliage. With the game only being 20 minutes, it took me the whole game time to get through, literally getting off the path as the "30 seconds remaining" was called. Damn it.

Anyway, second game where we flipped sides, surely I am smart enough to not try that again, right...?

Wrong. I did the same thing in the 2nd game to the same result because I'm both stubborn and stupid; I also assumed it'd be easier since I had already pushed through the thick foliage part, and I was correct, but... I got to the point where I went up in the first game, but it was way too close to the enemy respawn and I didn't want to either spawncamp or get spotted, so I had to go further along this horrendously overgrown route which basically meant the 2nd game ended the same way as the first game for me. Definitely got a good workout in, but no shots fired. If both games had been 30 minutes, I could've done some serious damage, but with only 20 mins for each game I just... ran out of time. Just about. Damn it...

Third game was a larger game, with loads of objectives around the bottom of the site that needed capturing. Items that needed to be brought back to our base (and could be stolen), as well as some flip cans that needed to be controlled. I spent this game on base defence, watching that same path I used in the first two games as it was a super easy route into our base, but nobody came along that path. I eventually left with 15 mins left of the game, after having sat there for over an hour, and sure enough 5 mins after I left someone tried going along that path and got hit by the others defending the base. Because that's how timing works. I did essentially get a surrender kill at about 70m though; saw someone coming along the other flank I moved to, but when I pointed my rifle at him, he just called out. When he walked past, heading in for an early lunch, he said that he couldn't be bothered fighting me with his pistol at that range, and wasn't going back to respawn with only about 5 mins left of the game.

So that was that. A morning of airsoft, not a single shot fired, and got 1 kill. I will say I'm incredibly happy that we're finally playing the bottom of the site again. It's been literally years, and even though it sucks for sniping since it's so overgrown, I'm really happy that we're using it. The top of the site was getting very samey.

 

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

Took the trusty RPK16, freshly updated with a Prommy purple hop rubber and nub and polished inner barrel.

Gratuitous photo below, held this spot for about 20 mins, the barrier helped keep me protected and took most of the weight of the RPK.

View attachment 28153

Click to shrink...

I play with an RPK most games. I remember the tedium of cleaning the aftermarket barrel all too well. Rodded about half a kitchen roll soaked in meths through it.

What's the weight of that beast like? Looks like a lower back killer tbh.

 

[Baser]

I play with an RPK most games. I remember the tedium of cleaning the aftermarket barrel all too well. Rodded about half a kitchen roll soaked in meths through it.

What's the weight of that beast like? Looks like a lower back killer tbh.

Click to shrink...

5.5kg without batteries and BB's. 1kg+ of BB's, 1650mah lipo, 3x AA batteries, 2x CR123 must push it close to 6.8/7kg.

I don't feel it in the lower back more shoulders and upper back. Makes carrying a standard AK74 or MP5 feel like nothing.

Usually don't play a whole day with it as a LMG, as numbers thin out and games get more CQB in the afternoons I swap to something else or feed it with stick mags which takes over a kg out of it.

 

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

5.5kg without batteries and BB's. 1kg+ of BB's, 1650mah lipo, 3x AA batteries, 2x CR123 must push it close to 6.8/7kg.

Click to shrink...

Hats off mate. That's not dainty!

I use my standard RPK all weekend on filmsims/milsims. It weighs about 4.2 - 4.5kg. I agree that it makes a standard AK feel like a stick. Strangely it feels lighter than my CYMA M14 which is actually lighter by a kilo. All down to balance I suppose.

Absolutely love the way your setup looks. Really purposeful!

 

[Impulse]

Got home from this weekend's Shift Your RIFT event and holy hell was it a scorcher. A not insignificant number of people went down with dehydration, heat exhaustion or sunstroke because it was basically 30c all day on both days with very little wind and limited shaded areas. Fortunately for me, I have experience from my time living and playing in Spain, though I'm definitely not acclimatised as much as I was back then as I was feeling it. My 2.5L hydration bladder was definitely the winning piece of kit for me this weekend and got refilled many times.

The drive up was hell. I typed it into google maps and followed the route. It was on the M25. There was a huge accident on the M25 on the Friday that closed the entire road going north up the west side of London. I literally turned my engine off and people were out of their cars as we just had to wait for ages for them to re-open. Then when they did re-open, someone broke down so they had to close 2 lanes again. The trip was supposed to be 2 hours with no traffic. I am no fool and anticipated it could take up to 3 hours 30 mins because the M25 is cancer. It actually took us 5 hours. Driving back I went on a load of smaller roads instead to avoid the M25 because fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...

Anyway...

I love SYR. It's a proper airsoft festival. The vibes were immaculate, there were loads of great retailers there, and the gameplay was pretty enjoyable, though there were some of the standard-issue Airsoft Problems(tm) that reared their ugly heads. I suppose I should talk about the gameplay first

Kudos to the marshall team, they run a tight ship at SYR, and organising an event of this magnitude takes some doing, so props there. They re-chronoed all gas guns at lunch because it was significantly hotter and people had guns running a bit spicy. When I chronoed my mk12 MWS at the start of the day it was only 1.7J, so I was okay as I had 0.6J of wiggle room, but I saw other players getting sent back to the safe zone to either tune their guns down or swap to something else as they were now over the limit due to the weather being so warm and gas guns now running way warmer.

The teams weren't the most balanced, and blue team generally dominated the weekend from start to finish. The key difference between red and blue team wasn't necessarily skill gap or luck or random bullshit. It was aggression, plain and simple. I always say, as a sniper myself, that it's not the snipers who win games. It's the aggressive pushers who win games, and blue had waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more of those than red did. I was on red and frequently found myself the last man standing on the front line, and don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and had some cracking last stand moments where I bagged a metric shit tonne of kills, but it was somewhat soured when I eventually got hit and found that support was absolutely nowhere to be found, even after I had done a good job being an absolute menace where I was. Red just... didn't push anywhere near as much or as effectively as blue, and that's what had blue dominate the weekend. Honestly, well played to them, though they did have to get moved off as there was a bit of spawncamping that ended up happening because of it.

I actually swapped to my SRS after lunch. Not because my MWS was hot, but because my MWS was jamming. Asked around some of the retailers later that afternoon and it sounds like my nozzle return spring might be on its way out (unsurprising, I've been running this mk12 as a DMR for a while now and the nozzle return spring is still the stock TM one). Much of the same happened in the afternoon, but this time I only got taken out once as the spot I found was absolutely diabolical (had a lot of people shooting in my general direction, but not sure where the shots were exactly coming from, and all the 1.14J guns were falling well short of the mark anyway). I only got taken out when the enemy team had once again pretty much pushed to our spawn and thus could see me a lot easier from that angle. Got whacked by a trigger-spamming HPA DMR that I'm pretty sure was hot though; I've got a nasty welt on my neck and a painful bruised nail from it and it was at about 70m. Laced me up all down my side, which I wasn't too happy with, but you're always going to get those players at these large events; unfortunately it's part and parcel of them.

Overall with the airsoft, I had a cracking time. The last stand moments interspersed between long distance shots (longest I confirmed with my rangefinder this weekend was 114m, still not my record but satisfying as hell nonetheless!) was an absolute blast, even if it was a very sweaty one. My ghillie is only a cobra hood, but leafy boonie + cobra hood + shemagh + chest rig + backpack + shirt (sleeves rolled down because while I have very olive skin, that's a LOT of UVs over 2 days!)... it all adds up! There was definitely the classic 3 o'clock syndrome, but it was accelerated due to the rather toasty weather and players obviously being dehydrated and moody; hit calling deteriorated, tantrums were thrown, your usual airsoft skirmish day blues. Fortunately it wasn't too widespread and when informed about it, the marshalls were on it, but with that many players it's bound to happen, and it's going to be hard to police everyone carefully.

Outside of the airsoft, as I said the vibes were immaculate. There were a lot of vendors there and once again I took some time to chat with the guys at Empire Airsoft (they're great), as well as telling SniperMechanic that his buckings are fantastic. Also had a chat with the guys at White Sphere Tactical about why VFCs are so goddamn pricey in the UK (basically, vendors have to pay a huge premium on them to import, and they usually go through multiple companies, all of which put their own mark up on to make their money, before getting to the shop that wants to sell them to us. I wanted a VFC G17 Gen5 MOS, but I was told to import it because it'd be easier and cheaper. Also went around the car boot to see what others were selling and picked up a few nice items from them, as well as some spares / upgrade parts from Empire Airsoft (some Flamingo and 4uantum buckings, and some MWS nozzle return springs). From other players I only bought an SCG autumn rifle wrap (I already have and love the spring/summer one) and a big ol' Vietnam style L shaped flashlight

I think the vendor that made the most profit though was...

The ice cream truck.

Yes, there was an ice cream truck and he was making bank with how hot the weather was. Every time I walked past it there was a queue of people there.

Me and my friend left at lunch time on the Sunday. It was hot, I wanted to get home and fit in a swim at my local outdoor pool after this scorcher of an airsoft event, and my friend... isn't fit enough to do two full days of airsoft, especially not in the heat; he doesn't deal with hot weather well. Got home in good time, went for the swim as planned (which was gorgeous), but I haven't unpacked anything yet. Only thing I've unpacked was my dirty clothes (as I wanted to put a laundry on straight away!) and my hydration bladder as I wanted to make sure that was hung out to dry asap. All my camping stuff has already aired because I didn't sleep in my tent on the Saturday night so it was basically just out to air from 6am on Saturday until about 11am on Sunday. Slept in my car instead as our group was watching a movie on a projector and no way was I getting to sleep with that going on. I think my car might be more comfortable than my 1 person tent anyway...

Definitely going again next year. This is just going to be a regular occurrence for me with how much I enjoyed the first one I went to and now this one as well. Next year though, I said to one of the guys in our group that I'd join him and his friend in the CQB tournament they run on the Saturday evening each year; seems like a bit of fun, and if you can't humble yourself, then you have an issue. I am a sniper / DMR player. I generally stay away from CQB as much as possible. Apparently a lot of the teams who entered were proper speedsofters with the rash guards and the HPA pistol ghostbuster guns, so you know I'm going in with my plate carrier (with weighted training plates), heavy helmet, and MWS GBBR. I think it'll be a bit of fun; I doubt I'll be great at it, but who cares?

TL: DR - Shift Your RIFT is good. You should try it if you haven't already.