Well started work on my lasgun for my new loadout.

In the future the standard weapons are lasers from what we’re told. So I have to convert one.

I managed to pickup a second hand TM G36C to be used as the base for the conversion. As people may or may not know, second hand sales are a lot harder to police now in the UK due to the VCR act. I’m a registered member of a game site so I can purchase guns either from a site or second hand from sellers. It was just a case of giving my UKARA membership number etc to the buyer and it’s upto him whether he sells it or not. I managed to get it off the actual Scarovar team forum.

Anyhow, part of the benefit of this purchase was that it was part of the way towards the conversion I had planned, in that it already had the G+P solid stock on.

This makes it look more like the lasgun in the game and fiction. There are however other varients. The Death Korps of Krieg regiments have a lasgun that very closely resembles an M14. However, the Scarovar regiment are using the versions wielded by the Cadians in th game.

The first and only section I’ve manged to do so far is add the magwell conversion. The mags used in the G36C aren’t like those used in the lasguns. Therefore we needed to change these to get the right look. Luckily this was easy enough to do in the airsoft world as there were two piece of kit to help us. Firstly, it was the M16 magwell adapter for the G36. I bought mine on Firesupport for a good price, There are two versions avliable but I found the Private Parts one for sale in the Uk and bought it.

It should be noted that Firesupport are one of the places I get my gear.  They offer good prices and have good service. This shows with this order. I ordered the magwell adapter some time ago but haven’t recieved it still. I talked to the guys and it appears that Royal Mail has lost it and at the time, they cant offer me a refund as they can’t claim it’s lost until 15 days since it was posted (as I type, I believe that’s tomorrow). However I bought it again as I need it for a game this weekend and they kindly offered to send it next day delivery at an extra cost of 50p and if the other one ever arrived, I was welcome to send one back and get a refund. So top notch to those guys and just reinforces my disdain of Royal Mail. It’s not the first time they’ve lost stuff for me.

Anyhow, the second requirement for the conversion is the M16 mags itself. Ideally these are the VN mags and wanting to follow the look of the models more, I opted for a box of King Arms mid cap VN style mags. With luck, Airsoft Supplier, had some them come into stock the day I rang up. While I was there, I also ordered the G+P tracer magazine to give me an idea what this would look like with tracer fire. It is after all a lasgun and lasgun fire light bolts. We’ve all seen Star Wars

Anyhow with that all done, this is how the article looks at the minute.

Not bad for a half hour change over and removal of the rails. The ammo I ordered from Ironfoot Airsoft as they finally stock fully biodegradable ammo for a decent price now. MIA only allow the use of these biodegrable BB’s on site because they are an organic farm. Now they have them at reasonable prices, I’ll use them where I can. Just my part to prevent plastic everywhere.

Tracer magazine works nicely. It’s a nice bit of kit and looks ace when firing. However the BB’s get dimmer if you fire on auto because the BB’s are only exposed to the UV LED when they are near the top of the mag. Because I aim to be using it on semi when using the tracer BB’s (these are expensive! 800 for the same price as 3300!!) this wont matter. Just for looking good I’ll use 100% tracer rounds in the mag when playing in the dark. However, if I was using a tracer silencer (which is now on my list of to buys!) I would mix the tracer with other BB’s to get tracer rounds like the British army use (3 non trace to 1 trace generally).

Anyhow, I’m using it this weekend and we’ll see how it works. I’ll also be dressed in my new loadout, which is semi complete. Just don’t tell the commisar I’m not wearing correct uniform! I don’t want a flogging detail!!!

Well I didn’t really decide straight away I wanted a new loadout, this one just kind of started. I mentioned it before but now I’m fairly much done with it, I’m part way through at least with just some final bits and bobs to draw in.

I fancied toying with a completely different loadout. I enjoy being the odd one out on the battlefield really for some reason. Wearing Russian camo was part of that. I was different to all the DPM, Flecktarn and American camo wearing players. However, I wanted something else. Just because. Something not Russian related (for a change! I’m not stopping my Russian gear! I in fact have a few plans on how to add to that as well )

However whilst browsing the forums I stumbled across an idea that seemed fantastic to me so I got in touch with the guys and got started with my loadout. So now I’m currently an unofficial member of the 9th Scarovian Rifles, a Warhammer 40,000 themed Imperial Guard airsoft team…

Warhammer 40,000

Right, if you’ve not heard of Warhammer 40K, then you cant really call yourself a sci fi fan. It’s a massive tabletop game set in the 41st Millenium made by Games Workshop. However it has such a following that there are a large series of novels and background to the game, it’s a big a universe as something like Stargate, Star Wars or Star Trek. To me, the backstory appeals. I am a sci fi fan at heart and the stories, espcially the Gaunts Ghosts series of novels is excellent. So when I recently dug out my old warhammer figures in my recent house move, I got hooked on the gaming again and decided I’d start my Imperial Guard army I’d always wanted to do. And a the idea of an Imperial Guard loadout in airsoft reared it’s head…

9th Scarovian Rifles

So being a lurker on ASCUK forums, I knew that I wasn’t the first person to have this idea and I got in touch with a few members of the 9th Scarovian Rifles, a team dedicated to replicating an Imperial Guard regiment from the tabletop, onto the Airsoft universe. Because of the massive amount of work they’ve already done, I pretty much only had to buy the kit and equipment! And they’ve got it all setup very akin to a regiment with a kitlist etc. That might put some people off a team, having a set kitlist etc but I think in this case it deffinetly suits the team espcially with the look they’re trying to put across. I wiuldn’t call myself a real member yet because we’ve not played together but I have the majority of the kit altogether for it.

I’ve not managed to get most of the item together for a picture, because they are currently either in shipping or aren’t in a state to be photographed as yet.

However, I do have a photo of the standard issue uniform for the 9th Scarovian Rifles.

The standard uniform is based on the ACU pattern. I bought my ACU from Flecktarn for the very resonable price of £20 for the entire set! This is the Bulle copy of ACU but having bought Bulle kit before, I know it’s decent kit and will last a good while.

So from the horrible horrible ACU camoflague, I then dyed it using Dylon #34 (olive green) to get the finished result.

I currently have the webbing on it’s way from Flecktarn (it’s sat in the post office due to the bank holiday ;( ) and I have parts for my new (well second hand) G36C to turn it into a standard issue imperial lasgun.

When I have more pictures, I’ll post some more on the new loadout.

In the mean time, if you fancy visiting the 9th Scarovian, just visit the forums at Grim Darkness or visit the Yahoo group.

The Emperor protects

Managed to get to Airsoft Commando at the weekend which I’ve not been to for a while. It was once agbain a good day out with few people there and as also, everyone contributed to make it a fantastic day out airsoft.

My RPK was out in force and performed admirably. I do think I may need a new hop rubber and hop bucking because at the minute I only have a piece of biro inside the hop! I think this showed at the game. However I did manage to get a good amount of kills with it that day. I did find some problems with my cheap airsoft mags and I’ve now decieded I’ve had enough of the cheaper mags and I’ll stick to the more expensive magazines. With hindsight, they seem like false economy.

I wore my Berzerka pattern camoand it bleneded in nicely. It allowed me to do some sneaky flanking manovures which is how I really enjoy playing airsoft games. I also used my 6SH92 rig and found it to be the comfiest rig to use with the RPK (considering it’s a support gun, I lie down a fair amount).

Games were good as always. The afternoon flag game was great fun with the spin on it. The flag game is where two teams have to put there flag on 4 points and keep them there for the game. However as a twist this game, we had a game with a third team whose job was to basically mess everyone else up by either attacking points or mremoving flags etc. Added a really nice spin to the game and made it that much more interesting for me (not sure how the other teams took it though!)

Also, the airsoft commando team have improved admirably and managed to crush us quite well whilst we were playing the “Defend the village” game so congrats to them!

Overall it was a good day and gave me some food for thought regarding the RPK. It’s now nice I have a loadout fairly much sorted for it.

However, I’ve recently spent some money on another loadout (not Russian related!!) and I’ll be giving details of that as and when I feel ready

Last weekend I got the chance to use my new berzerka pattern camouflage in woodland (where it was supposed to be used!) I thought I’d briefly write a few words on what I thought of it.

I have a Rex Design M7 pattern version though I believe you can also get it in a Bekas pattern. This is the first time I’ve come across the M7 and it’s a nicer fit than the Bekas I’ve used before. I might have mentioned it before but it’s very comfy! The trousers itself are very nice, with elasticated bottoms so the trousers don’t slip up the boot and the waistband also has a degree of elasticity. The material is a lot lot thinner than that of my Flora which is good as I bought this as a summer/spring/hot weather uniform to complement my KLMK. The uniform also thoughtfully has some mesh in the crotch area and in the under arm sections allowing air to reach these sweaty places more easily. (yep you all know it!) The uniform could be worn easily without any t shirt or base layer but I have a habit of doing so and in this weather we’ve been having in the UK recently, it got a tad warm.

As for effectiveness, I was unable to test this out as much as I would have liked due to the nature of the game we played (our team was attacking a lot and camo just doesn’t hide you when you supporting an infantry assault down a road!) However I thought it seemed to blend in fairly well with the sunny weather we’re having and with the sun coming in thought the leaf canopy.

Unfortunately because I ordered a size or two to big, I managed to rip the crotch section slightly. And the buttons seem a bit to large for the button holes and it can be a major struggle to do them up. However I reckon this will get better in time and use.

Overall it’s a very very nice piece of camo and one of my favourite ones I’ve owned. Also I think it’s the first time since I started airsoft (4 years ago!) that I’ve had a complete set of camo in one pattern! (as in boonie/hat, shirt, trousers and webbing/vest) Not since I skirmished in flecktarn have I worn all one camo pattern.

I bought myself a PBS1 silencer from RSOV.com a while back.

Picture from RSOV.com.

The silencer recently arrived, mainly due to it taking time to reach me from my mate who had ordered it as part of a team order.

My initial impression of this silencer was good. It has an impressive weight and I ordered the lighter aluminium version over the heavier steel one. It has an nice weight.

However, when I attempted to attach it to my AK47, I came across my first problem. The small section of the silencer you see above the TM in the picture above is what attaches the PBS to the AK. It screws into PBS at the base of the silencer. The problem is with the attachment to the AK. The AK itself has a small nipple (for want of a better term) that extends out of the front sight that stops the flash hider unscrewing. The attachment on the silencer was to small to allow this nipple to lock into place. I filed this down for quite a lot. This allowed the attachment to to fit.

The second problem was related to the first. My attachement wasn’t quite locked into place and whilst trying to screw it off, the attachment section actually screwed off INTO the silencer, thanks to the attachement screwing onto the AK one direction and into the silencer in the other. However I managed to remove it by unscrewing the thinner front part of the silencer from the fatter rear section.

Eventually I got onto attaching it and test firing. This is were the big disappoint happened. BB’s would not exit the silencer and those that did, exited in pieces, shattering inside. Having gotten into the silencer before, I had another look inside. The sponge rings inside I believe are casuing the issue. It’s low quality foam inside and probably wont silence BB’s much but I’m mainly using this as cosmetic aspect for the AK. That leads me onto my next article where I investigate it further and find out how to allow the BB’s to exit unaffected. I have already found out that the problem is not related to the fatter rear end as I have attached that to the AK and use it without any trouble. So my next article will be how I managed to fix the silencer.

A bit late to post this review of the Spectre game up but I feel it should be posted, especially considering Spectre Urban maybe forced to close at a point in the future.

For those that don’t know, Spectre Wargames is a smallish site located near Hereford and Abergavenny in the Midlands. It has a woodland section and a small CQB site, both in very close proximity to each other. The site is run by a chap named Yams who is very accommodating and if you ask nicely, it is sometimes possible to stay overnight in the well equipped safe room. However this maybe a perk earnt as this isn’t the first time our group has played at this site.

The site is quite a distance from both my current location in Leeds and the overnight stay is a very helpful. The site is split into two. The woodland section and main site office is about half a mile from the urban site. This safe room is well equipped with sofa’s, portaloo and a kitchen area. Adjoining the barn is another barn with old beds and mattresses. To register for the CQB games, you must come to this section, sign the waivers and pay and then walk or drive upto the urban section. The urban section is a collection of old barns where pigs used to be kept. It’s a fairly small site and no walk on’s are allowed, you must book via the website or telephone. Games are generally restricted to single shot only and the FPS limit to the site is 300FPS due to the close nature of the games. This means close range hits don’t hurt and games don’t dissolve into people being pinned by fire all day. It also allows people to use those expensive side arms they’ve bought with less of a disadvantage.

As I mentioned, unfortunatly Spectre is under the shadow of possible closure at the minute due to a noise complaint from a neighbour. This means that all pyro’s are strictly controlled. Any bought on site are fine as they are made for Spectre and are an impressive thermobaric grenades. Blank firing grenades are also disallowed, even if they have the convertor to use .22 short blanks in. Smokes, however are allowed because they have no noise.

Practical Pistol Shooting

Arriving early on Saturday gave our group the chance to do a spot of practical pistol shooting on the course Yams had setup earlier. Practical pistol shooting is basically a course or “stage” where a shooter has to take out targets in a time limit and is rewarded for accurate shooting as well as a quick time. It’s not really related to airsoft, except in the fact airsoft pistols can quite happily be used as the weapon.

The course setup for us at Spectre consited of three stages, a walk through a barn and clear section, a stationary target shoot where the targets where place around randomly and had to be engaged numrerically wihout moving off the spot and the final stage was a hostage rescue, clearing out three terrorists from a room in as quick as possible. The targets are wooden cutouts with a metal flap in the head and chest area. Both these metal bits had to be shot for the target to be counted as clear.

For the course, I used my only pistol, a DE USP AEP. The first stage I managed to engage clear 9 out of the 14 possible targets meaning I’ve missed 5 hits. The second stage, I was given another pistol as it was assumed my AEP might struggle to pierce the cardboard boxes. That’s not something I think would happened having tried it out in the safety of my home but nevertheless I borrowed an Infinity GBB and did the section. However I performed terribley and the pistol gassed out halfway through and I was penlised even though I could not reload it or continue because it was not my pistol. What made this worse was the fact that it was the course referee’s pistol! However I manged to redeem myself in the third section, winning it by clearing the room in 3.1 seconds with two hits on each target. There was conterversy with this result though as although I hit all 6 metal parts, only 4 toppled. This was due to the low FPS of the AEP range of pistol compared to the gas ones. The referee did decide to favour me in this case and I was declared to have shot all 6 and it was just the lack of power that prevented the unargueably clean run that a higher powered pistol would have achieved.

Game Day

Game day was a full day with about 30 players in attendence. Most of the players were the regulars, with our large group of semi regulars and a team that had never played there before. Morning games passed quite quickly. A variety of different games are played, most using the entire site. There are a few games though that rely on just moving through one building. These games are usuaully very good fun, espcially if your on the defending force as in these games, defenders are outnumbered hugely (in both games we played, there was 5 defenders against the rest of the players) but when they are hit, they move back down the building by one room or 5m depending on the building they are in. It’s usually plays out like the scenes in Enemy at The Gates were the Russians charge in and get slaughtered. Espcially as there is one regular who has a large collection of moscarts and every week buys a large portion of the sites grenades. Trying to flush him of the building is a nightmare! These games I would definetly recommend a full face mask. Because the site is small, all the games are usually small quick games, maybe an hour or two at the most, but usually much less. The afternoon games were also very good. Everyone was in the swing of things and had a really good time. There were pictures taken during the afternoon and I was photographed posing in my new Russian camo and using my TM vz61 Scorpion.

Overall, Spectre is a great site and with luck, it’ll get over it’s noise troubles. As usual, the games went without any hitches, thanks to the fantastic marshalls and the players. One person did have to sit out a game though after repeated warnings about lifting up goggles whilst in the play area. Just don’t do it as a stray shot could take an eye out! It should be noted, that Spectre has one of the highest proportion of female players than I’ve seen at any other site, bar the odd occasion at MIA in Cornwall. This maybe down to the fairly good facilities in the safe room at the urban site (no portaloo’s up at this safe room!), the friendly, welcoming atmosphere or maybe some other reason. Anyhow, there were 4 or 5 female players in attendence and most of these appeared to be regulars.

I think from my results on the practical pistol side of things, I feel  should purchase a gas powered pistol. I’ve been put off by gas pistol as when I first started airsoft about 5 years ago at college, I had a gas powered NBB USP that was very unreliable and generally not very good. I then sold that and got myself an Infinity which I found to require far to much maintance (oiling the entire pistol after about 3 mags of BB’s) to really be used as a skirmish weapon, and again the mags leaked. Both purchases were second hand. It put me off pistols until the electric AEP range came out. Since then, I’ve bought a few but sold them on when needed. However, I now feel that a GBB pistol would be a worthy investment as I am considering joining a local gun club to take up target shooting with air guns. They are also setting up a practical pistol section for use with airsoft and air pistols. I am currently tossing up between a full size USP (the same as the AEP) or a P226. If I can, I will be buying Tokyo Mauri as they are a make I trust fully, having had my TM AK47 for so long. And being put off by unreliable pistols in the past, it makes sense to go for an option that I know will work. People have told me KJW is cheaper and a better option but I have heard contradictory remarks about them, whereas the only bad points against the TM pistols is the price compared to the cheaper alternatives. However, in my case, the reliabilty more than makes up for the extra cost in my eyes.

Because it was the first time I’d got to use my new camo properly, along with the new assualt vest, I’ll be adding a review to the site very soon.

Thought I’d add this post here for anyone that stumbles upon this blog. It’s an article on how to paint your fake wood furniture on AK’s (and other inferior weapon systems like M14’s )

The article was written by a comrade over on the Red Alliance forums and it works a treat. I’ve had it done to my AK47 for the last two years and in my opinion, looks fantastic. Cant remember how many times I’ve had people ask me what wood kit my AK is using.

Here’s the article.

Well final review!

Took it out to Cerberus Airsoft on Sunday for it’s first test fire in anger. Earlier in the week I sorted out a hop problem but I lost the hop bucking. My team mate fixed that with a bit from a biro. Cant really adjust it now but luckily the hop was set pretty perfect!

Dboys 1000 Round AK74 Style Mags Review
Feeding wise, the gun performed admirably. The only let down were the Dboys large mags. I’m not sure as to wether it was the BB’s I was using (ICS white from Zero One) but the mags seemed to be jammed. The BB’s seemed to stick to come almost to the top of the magazine but would not have enough pressure behind them to come out from the mag. Also they were to large to carry about. My M23 Pioneer chest rig is fantastic and that carried them but I have a couple of other russian vests/webbing that they would not fit into thanks to the sheer width of them.

I believe they need further testing to see if it is the BB’s I used or the mags themselves.

The gun managed quite a few kills in the morning and it was easily out ranging the hire guns on the site, which was good because they were mainly on our side and I was glad to provide support. The longer barrel seemed to come in useful, making the gun more accurate.

Unfortunatly, various parts managed to come loose and fall off or nearly fall off. I lost the rear sight. I knew this was a bit riskiy leaving it on but it fell off well before I expected it to.

The bipod screws onto the barrel and I nearly lost the screw to this. I had stuck a piece of electrical tape over it and this kept the screw in place so I managed to resuce that. Also the selector plate rattled loose towards the end of the game and I stuck that in place using tape. I’ve ordered some loctite from eBay so that’ll be sorted out soon and that should also fix the bipod problem.

The battery lasted for the mornings game and began to give out towards the end of that. I used about 4000 rounds in that game so I think that’s a decent enough battery life. My home site in Cornwall, MIA, run a different CQB games in barns in the afternoon so this would be fine for there but up north in Leeds, I play at sites that have woodland  games all day so I might need another battery for it.

I’ve noticed now after leaving the gun for a few days, that some rust patches have appeared on the barrel. I’ve ordered some oil to take care of this.

Overall I’m impressed with it and the problems can easily be sorted out with a bit of effort.

I’ve been reading this free online magazine for a while now.

U.S.A.S.O.C. Magazine

It’s worth checking out, even if it does focus on American airsoft much more than British airsoft. It’s also free which is nice to see! I recommend at least giving it a once over.

I believe they are also trying to come up with a European version of the magazine as well, which is something to look forward to.

Finally finished! Well as a project gun, I reckon it’ll never be finished…there will always something that will need doing to it, but as a skirmish able weapon, it’s now finished!

As you can see, it’s missing a furniture retaining part but I have that on it’s way to me now. it’ll be field tested at Cerberus Airsoft near Leeds this Sunday.

I’m also missing an RPK flash hider but I’ve been unable to find one. I’ve found real steel ones but only in America and they wont ship to the UK so I’m on the lookout for someone to act as third party if I decide to purchase one. For some reason, my standard Mauri flash hider wont fit. I will give that another go.

As my first airsoft conversion, it’s been a learning experience. It’s been good and bad and at times stressful. As a first attempt, I also believe I’ve done a good job. The gun could never be 100% accurate to the original RPK74 due to the body not being available so I took it upon myself to keep bits I prefer, such as the top cover. (An RPK74 has a smooth one, similar to the AK47 but I’m using the AK74 one because I think it looks meaner and meatier!)

It’s not put me off conversions, but has given me an insight into what I should have done first, such as more research into the parts I needed to start with. This would have saved some hassle and if I’d have know it would have been trouble to get some parts etc, I would have used an AK as the base of the conversion. I do now have a collection of parts that I can possibly put together at a later stage to form a small CQB AK similar to a folding stock Beta Spetz. Though I may just purchase a Kalash AK74SU for that. Even though my Scorpion is great for CQB.

I’ve stayed clear of the side of conversion I don’t want to touch quite yet and that’s gearbox upgrades. I’ll leave that for the time being.

In total (so far!), my RPK has cost me £232. And I’m still thinking of re staining the wood. No doubt it’ll make an appearance later in my blog as well. I’ll field test it on Sunday, so it should be mentioned then as well.