CraftySnipers blog
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Another storming LAC match Hello and welcome to my latest blog review. Now the last blog was me reviewing the Lincolnshire Airsoft Club away day event at the Gaol. Now obviously that event went down a treat with us players, so I decided to create a review for a normal LAC match, if there is such a thing. In this event we had 120 plus players, we had great weather and oh yeah we had a tyrannosaurus rex, no that’s not a typo we did have a T rex at the club, but more on that later. Location As with most LAC matches this took place at Combat Zone in Lincolnshire, this is now the home of LAC since our move form our old site a few years ago. Now most of you will know that Combat Zone is a paintball site and though this is true it is still an amazing airsoft site for all those seeking some fast paced in your face airsoft action. Now normally we would have painballers on the site at the same time as us and this obviously means that some of our matches have to be on a smaller scale. But not this time as there was no paintballers on site. So this meant we could have run of the total site. So what was the matches like? Well with the whole site able to be used the matches were great. Normally we would start off with a quick attack and defend the island, this allows players some fast action where they can get straight into the action at Combat Zone. However this time we started off with a quick drop the flag match over the church. One team would attack the church and to win would have to either kill off all the opposing team or get inside the church and drop the flag in the tower. The defending team would just have to stop the attacking team from achieving there mission. This was a timed match and after the first match we would swap the teams roles over and go at it again. I was on the defending team for the first match and my chosen weapon was my bolt action rifle. Now I was at a massive negative as a recon player I had a 35m minimum distance rule, in short I could not move to a flank to engage the enemy and they would be able to attack from all sides. However on the rematch I was in my element, I was able to flank the enemy positions and pick a few players off as they was attacked by my fellow team players. Common talk about the T rex Well I have to say I was surprised about the addition of the T rex. Basically the T rex was one of the marshals and he was protected by a team of other players. There missions was to protect him as he could not carry a weapon. The teams had to shoot the T rex and escort him to another marshal who would be moving through the site. If a team got the T rex to the marshal then they scored two points. The T rex then would be released into the wild to be hunted again. The team defending the T rex could also be captured by either attacking teams, the only difference with them was that they was only worth a single point. This match was capped at thirty mins as it was a hot day and the marshal in the dino suit would be getting quite hot. He also had no ability to move at speed or even defend himself with a weapon, just relying on his defensive team. What about food at CZ? As with all matches at Combat Zone there is a staff member from the Combat Zone team on hand to serve up hot dogs for a small cost. There also is a shop on site which sells everything from cans of energy drinks to smoke grenades. I have a pack lunch with me on most matches but I have to say that the hot dogs did look a treat. So all in all another great day?
Yep, as with most matches at Combat Zone it was another great day. A lot of team work from both teams with very little complaining form the players. The weather held out and even was actually quite warm for a September day. LAC keep managing to put awesome matches on again and again and I truly believe that they are one of the best airsoft clubs in the UK, and before anyone say’s I am paid by the club well that is not the case. If you are in the Lincolnshire area and you are after a great day airsofting then get onto the Lincolnshire Airsoft Club web page or Facebook site and find out when the next brilliant game day is going to take place. Oh and did I say we hunted a T rex? Another awesome day, well done to LAC and there marshal team for putting on a brilliant day for us players. CraftySniper Photo of the T rex credited to Ian Lawrence
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Hello and welcome to my latest blog episode, in today’s episode I will be reviewing my time at the Gaol. As part of Lincolnshire Airsoft Club I was able to take part in a very special airsoft match. LAC arranged a special match where we as a club took over an old jail. This jail was the famous Gaol events in Leicestershire, the premiere airsoft cqb site in the UK. An introduction to the jail The Gaol is an old prison with a multitude of buildings including actual jail wings, canteens, office blocks and a what seems like never ending long corridors. Most buildings are lit up very well by either lighting or sun light is allowed through the thick jail cell windows, how ever some parts of the buildings are in pitch black and make you feel very confined. Along with the buildings there is all the grounds surrounding the wings and other buildings. There also is a car park with actual cars and vans dotted around them. All in all the site is an absolute blast to fight around, something very very different form the big open woodland sites that I am normally playing in and around. There also is a large indoor safe zone with many rooms to put your kit in. Each room is full of chairs and tables so you can relax before or after a match. They also have toilets and a room for checking the fps of your chosen weapon or weapons. I have to admit one of the best parts of the safe zone apart from the comfy seats is the canteen which sells excellent food and drinks. I always make straight for the canteen to get a bacon roll before I get down to the finer parts of airsoft war. Lincolnshire Airsoft Club at the jail This event was to be a bit different as the normal Gaol staff would not be running the day, this would be done by a mixture of LAC, Gaol and Airsoft Commando staff. This was advertised many months ago on all the pages as an LAC run jail match. To say that I was excited would be an understatement, I have been to the jail a few times before and I have always had a brilliant time. Now LAC my home club was taking over the jail I was sure that I was onto a winner. This event was a prepay through PayPal event so there was no need to pay on the door, it was just turn up and rock out in one of the if not the best cqb sites in the country, this time run by LAC. My chosen weapon I had a long time to think about which weapon to run at the jail and knowing that this is a up and very close kind of site with only some outdoor areas I decided to bring my TM Scar H recoil rifle. The only change I made to the rifle was to take off the rather long suppressor and flash hider and put the much smaller flash hider form my GHK G5. I know that this would only remove a few inches fro the over all length of the rifle but ever little helps. For my secondary I had mt TM MK23 suppressed pistol. I picked this pistol over my other secondaries as it would be a great silent choice in the dark corridors and would not give my position away. How did the day go? Speaking form a players point of view it went well, I had no issues with my chosen weapons and I witnessed no player related issues. The matches if a little on the confusing side regarding the match rules played out well. To be honest it would have been better playing some attack and defend single buildings, this would of shown the 80% of first timers to the jail just what is expected out of a cqb site. The ranges are a lot closer and those bb’s carry a lot of the momentum right into there chosen targets, as such there also is no full auto in this site. This is not a problem to me as most of the time I am shooting in semi auto only. But to some players it was a shock that they could be attacked from all around them, you can be shooting through the office blocks and the enemy can suddenly be right at your side shooting you at less then 5m. Protective clothing is a must at this site. The weather was very hot through out the day and with a lot of players me included carrying a lot of kit and wearing lots of clothing the temps soon started to rise. Unfortunately this soon got to a small group of players. There is choke points on this site and these become cluster points with lots of up close and very personal fighting. It was it this point that I heard my first temper o’clocks as I like to call it. At no point did this ruin the event for me or the payers around me, in fact it was maybe only 1% of players who had an issue. The downside is that when tempers start to rise then the marshal team have to step in. We had payer marshals who was looking forward to this event just like me who then had to step out of the fight and marshal the players. But by the end of the day most issues were sorted out and the rest of the players came back in with smiles on there faces. It seemed like LAC had done it again, they had run another excellent match. What was the best part Crafty? There was for me only one point that was the absolute best. Through out the site and in the buildings there was brown envelopes, if you found one you could ignore it and carry on playing or open it. Most had a card and some spare arm bands inside them. You then made sure no body else was near you, you then swapped your colors and you was shooting for the enemy team, in short you had the chance to shoot your friends that was on your team. I found one of these such envelopes and as I was on my own and in the office block I decided to open it. With a smile I swapped my bands and went on a rampage which ended up with the deaths of a good few of my friends (haha). Eventually I was hunted by my own friends in the office block, I actually was hiding in the dark besides an old toilet as they searched for me. A few grenades later and I was dead. When I came out of my toilet we was all laughing at the whole firefight. Will there be another event like that?
I honestly do no know, I have since spoke to the club boss and he has said there was lots of issues that need to be resolved before another event at the Gaol. All the marshals had a hard time at the event and I would like to say thank you for putting up with all the issues. I do think that if there is another match like that it will be limited to 40/50 players max, it may also be a pistol & shotgun only match. This would still be a good match to me and if it happens next year then I will be putting my name down very quickly so I can once again go to jail with the guys and girls from Lincolnshire Airsoft Club. CraftySniper Photo credit goes to Chris Lee (great pics bud) Hello and welcome to my latest review blog, in this episode I will be reviewing my latest action camera. I will also be talking a bit about action camera in airsoft too. Now when people talk about action cameras in airsoft most people will think of GoPro and to be honest they are a great example. I myself have an old GoPro that I use for POV shots. In fact if you have watched any of my action videos you will of been watching the results of my GoPro. Nowadays you can get many different versions of the GoPro, all with differing abilities.My GoPro is an early version one of the Hero range. To be honest it’s been a very good camera with great quality visual as well as audio abilities. Along with the GoPro I have a Stealth action camera which is another great choice. I use the Stealth as a camera that looks back at me, I normally mount this camera to my chosen rifle and have it look back at me. Now there is one thing that makes the Stealth camera better then the GoPro and that’s the ability to spin the lens around. So you can change which way the Stealth camera records an image, where as if you tried this with the GoPro you would have to edit this feature into your video with some editing software. Now there is another camera that I have in my collection but I will wait to give that camera it’s own review as it’s something quite special. So what’s this Crafty Cam? Well glad you asked. For many years I have been making videos of me taking part in airsoft matches. Now with the GoPro and Stealth cameras I hope I have been making good videos. But there has been a void in my videos, something that I could never record and it’s something quite important. That is recording the actual kill shot. I have shot lots of enemy players (some players on my team) and I have thought that it would have made a great video seeing these players getting shot by a Crafty player. So I got onto my computer and looked at ways of recording these shots. I looked at other airsoft players and checked out how they got there kill shots onto camera. I was left with few options. One was to fit an actual video camera to the top of my scope. This would allow me to record zoomed images but the downside is that the camera is quite expensive, quite large and quite heavy. Now I know some of you are going to say that most of my airsoft replicas are heavy and that is true but the weight of the camera was very noticeable and it’s very top heavy, so it makes the rifle feel different. The other opting was to get a special camera custom made for me, and I could not find anyone in the UK that would be able to do this. Whilst searching on Facebook one day I came across a company that would do this and the best thing was that they are in the UK. FNKY Airsoft I was searching through Facebook and I came across this guy who makes custom zoomed action cameras based around other action cameras. I started to talk to this guy and soon I realised that this guy knew what he was talking about. He had the ability to create just what I had been looking for. After a lots of messages we had both agreed just what type of camera I needed. Now this is very important as FNKY airsoft mouth different size lenses onto normal action cameras, cameras like the RunCam. Now obviously you will need different size lenses for different replicas. If you are using a normal replica at under 350fps you will need a lens that is zoomed but not that zoomed as you will only be shooting at around 40-50m. Now if you are using DMR’s or bolt action snipers that are shooting at 60m+ then you will need a lens that has lots more zoom. So after lots of messages too and from we had come up with a camera that would suit my needs as a long range shooter. I paid for my camera through PayPal and he got onto making my camera. In just a few short weeks I had my new camera in my hands, and boy was I blown away. What comes in the box? Well obviously the camera is the main object in the box. You will also get a small USB to micro USB charging cable, you will then get a few cables that allow the RunCam to be connected to your TV to play the video clips that are on the memory card. Now talking about the memory card, you don’t get one in the box. So I already had one ready for my new camera but you can pick these up at any electrical shop. Now onto the camera, my camera has a 50mm lens fitted to it. This allows it to record a man sized target in great quality out to 70m. It does take a bit of dialing but eventually and quickly you will have your action camera set up for the ranges that you take shots at. Now due to the 500mm lens being quiet large for the camera it does come with a plastic cap that fits to the end of the lens and protects it whilst you are travelling too and from a match. So how does it stay on the rifle? When you get FNKY airsoft to make you a custom camera not only does he fit the lens and do all the software sorting out for you but he also creates a 3d printed case to sit around and protect your new camera. On the bottom of the camera is a 16mm picatinny rail that allows this camera to fit to 99% of replicas. In fact to be honest I am planning to fit the camera to a rail that sits on the top of my scope. What about battery life? Well you was never going to get a good battery life form this camera as it records in full 1080 and 720 so you can use a slightly longer power cable then the one that comes in the original box and then fit it to portable power pack. I found that my sniper rifle could fit a power pack at the rear of my stock. I then fed the cable through my scope rings and up to the camera. The cable never came loose all day but this is something that you will have to work out as all replicas are different. So will you be recommending FNKY airsoft?
Oh yes very much so. He provides great service at great prices and if you tell him what you are looking for in an action camera then he will be able to build you exactly what you need. I will most likely be ordering another camera off of him in the new year. Only difference is this new camera will be setup for shorter AEG ranges. CraftySniper Hello and welcome to my latest blog entry. In this episode I am going to be talking about the sticky subject of rate of fire and what’s acceptable and most definitely not acceptable. Now I have been playing airsoft for around 5 years and in my time I have seen some very high rate of fire weapons and I have been on the end of them too. I myself had also had a Tokyo Marui P90 high cycle replica which was able to shoot at around 25-30 rounds a second. But every other replica in my collection has never been setup for a high rate of fire, bar the MG42 which was setup by G&G but I play the burst fire rule on that replica which I will go into later in this blog. So where is the issue? Right we all have been in that situation where we are in a firefight with the enemy, we are shooting semi auto rounds and from out of no where we get hit by 10+ rounds, all of which hit us. Needless to say most players in this situation usually are a little annoyed with the enemy shooter. What’s worse is when the enemy shooter fires his/her long burst into you and they are really close to you. Not only does it hurt but with airsoft replicas when one round hits you from very close the rest of the rounds will hit and you won’t be able to get out of the way of them. I can safely say from my own experiences of airsoft I am not in the business of hurting anyone and I have been known to check on an enemy player when I have hit them with three of my rounds ( I must remember that a Tokyo Marui will still be accurate at 50m). Some players though not all seem to think that a high rate of fire replica is a must and they are willing to fit these replicas with highcaps and spray enemy players, I hope that they are not intentionally trying to hurt other players. It used to be that airsoft companies would not be making high rate of fire replicas but now more and more companies are making there products capable of these high rates of fire weather it be by adding an 11.1 lipo batteries or by setting up the internals so that they will have faster motors and gears that will with stand the pressures of a high rate of fire setup. And this say’s nothing of players who will themselves gut a replica and rebuild it with a new higher rate of fire internal setup. Sounds like you have a real issue with these replicas Crafty It may sound like that but if I am honest no I do not have a problem with these replicas. I think the issue lies with the shooters themselves. A high rate of fire replica does have a place on the airsoft field, it just needs a shooter that will treat the replica correctly. How does he/she do that then? Quite simple really……………burst fire. I am a member of a club who have been trying to solve the high rate of fire issues over the past year or two. They do this by showing all players at the start of the day at the safety briefing what is acceptable in full auto. They will show semi auto which is self explanatory, then they will show a full auto burst which is around 4-6 rounds. They will then show what is not acceptable which is a long full auto burst. Then through out the day the marshal team is watching out for any really long bursts which lets face it can’t be hidden on the battlefield. But what about machine guns? Glad you asked, other then in Hollywood movies you will never find a real machine gunner putting out very long bursts. He or she won’t be doing this because….. A. They don’t have enough ammo for that B. They want to have some level of accuracy C. Prolonged rates of fire will heat up and damage the barrel. Obviously in airsoft those restrictions don’t really apply. Most machine guns have thousands of rounds and they still have quite good accuracy and they don’t have to worry about heating up the barrel. So for machine gunners who have dedicated machine guns and no an M4 with a box mag does not count as a machine gun, they have a little longer for there bursts. Somewhere around 8-10 rounds. So how do we stop overkill?
I honestly think we as players and clubs including marshaling teams have to stand up to stop this issue. As a player I very rarely use full auto anyway but when I have had to I make sure to only put small bursts down range. The players that have these very fast rate of fire replicas need to remember just how fast there replicas can really shoot at. Some replicas can have burst wizards installed that will only allow a certain amount or rounds to be fire in one pull of the trigger. The club’s too will have to keep an eye out and ears open to listen for these longer then normal bursts. It only takes a few times to tell players to watch there bursts to stop these issues. CraftySniper |
AuthorHello, my name is CraftySniper and this is my Blog section. I have been doing airsoft for 5 years and its one of the best sports I have ever played. Archives
May 2019
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