If you look at the top bar on the forum in the browser you'll see a new link called "Recent Topics" which is much like recent threads on the old MIA system. But it lets you view the most recent threads that were active rather than posts like it was before. The recent post system is still place though so if you prefer that you can still use it, this is just another option to view new threads. Right now I'm going to set it to show 100, but if needed I can change that in the future as needed.

Take care!

Luke

So in typing a post on Facebook about airsoft I got to thinking that well some of you guys might get a kick out of some of my memories of older games. Fair warning this is from memory since the majority of things I’m going to talk about happened 14ish years ago. That’s a long time for specific memories but either way I thought some of you might get a kick out of it. Also I don’t often recall who hosted etc, I do sometimes remember where the event was held. But mostly these will be short stories of engagements that I remember etc.

If you enjoy them feel free to post, if no one does then I won’t take the time to dig back through my memory and type them up;)

My first game downstate, I had a Tokyo Marui M16A2 I had bought brand new around 6 months before that. I also was carrying a KWA Glock 19 I bought at the same time. Running Excel 0.2g BB’s because I could buy 3,700 for around $12 and they were excellent. At the time little was known about BB weight and the effects on accuracy etc. It was an era of misinformation on allot of things we take for granted now.

None the less this was a larger game for me where I’d never played with more than 5-6 people at the time coming from the UP with no airsoft scene to speak of. There were around 50 players at this game, black vs. green I don’t recall any armbands nor who setup the game. It was on the West side of the state and I’m drawing a blank on the city name, but it was outside of the city limits. There was a power line down the middle of the field area, and oil wells or pumps spread around in a few areas.

My team who I’d met a few minutes before was sent out to hold one of these oil wells, so we headed out. We hunkered in around 8 of us and we were expecting from the brief that we’d have contact at some point in the next little bit. Well as minutes turned into hours no contact;) No radio comm at the time, they just didn’t reach far enough to get to us. We heard static a few times, but we held position and waited. It was somewhere around 4-5 hours later(I’m 99% sure this is actually the duration but it was a long time ago). I had a splitting headache from the oil/diesel whatever fumes from the well. My other guys are restless all around spread at the tree line and all of a sudden four guys get killed. Then another and another, all of a sudden I’m the last guy alive out of our group holding the oil wells. There were respawns but they had to go all the way back to the start and come back, none would help me. So here I am at the back side just in the trees watching guys coming up near where my guys got killed on the other treeline around 50 yards away. I’m hiding hoping they won’t notice me, and low and behold they moved off and I didn’t fire a shot. I have no idea why they didn’t try and take the objective, not a clue but they didn’t move in and I didn’t make a noise or movement;)

So after this I got radio comms(from memory) that we were supposed to move up and take some other objective. The trouble was I was by myself at this point, so I moved in that direction ended up catching up with some guys from my team and running with them for a few minutes. Then we started taking heavy fire right near the power line clearing, me being a bit gung ho I dove to prone under a pine tree clocking a low branch with my head;) So headache from fumes, combined with branch to the head I was hurting a bit;) This got me a bit confused and I lost my guys at that point. Looking around seeing no friendlies either they got killed and went to respawn or took off in some direction. So I worked my way through the clearing for the power line in the tall grass over to the tree line on the other side. As I moved into the trees I was moving very slowly not sure if I was in front or behind the enemy line. So I sat at the base of a tree and waited for a few minutes to see if I could see or hear someone. Well in front of my location was fairly large tree’s spread out not allot of ground cover. I saw a group of around 6-7 guys moving across my vision from right to left. Here I am sitting in the open in front of a tree, can’t move since I’m in their peripheral vision and they haven’t looked my way. They were around 50-60 yards out, but there I sat for what felt like forever until they moved to the point I didn’t think they could see me without turning around and started engaging guys off to my left. I wasn’t even sure they were enemy at that point, I was pretty sure but not certain. Well I moved up slowly and quietly to sweep around behind them, and finally got close enough I knew I could make a hit. Leaned out from the tree and shot the first guy I saw. He immediately started yelling “camera man!” as I’m apologizing through yells and transitioning to the other guys with him I shot one of their guys as well as getting myself shot in the process. Had I realized he was a camera guy of course I wouldn’t have shot but I’ll blame the headache after all these years, because from memory he was wearing a bright blue sweatshirt;) Either way back to the spawn for me, after probably 5-6 hours in game at this point.

I found some of our guys back at spawn from memory it was Frostee working on his APS2 sniper rifle, which let me tell you was the coolest thing ever at this time;) He was running I believe .36g Maruzen BB’s and well compared to my bone stock TM gun that thing was really cool. Either way I got back in with some of my guys we regrouped and took back some of the objectives but a short time later the event came to an end.

This is one of those events that I remember as being an absolute pain in the ass when I was doing it. Even the drive home I thought several times “what the hell did I travel all that way for”. But as the days, months and years have passed I look back fondly on that particular game. One of the reasons was it was boring but it also was one of the very few times in airsoft things got so low key without contact for so long. That it stressed your “any second things are going to be crazy” it was really psychological and despite the fact that it sucked, it really made the game in a sense. Since when things do happen it makes it all that much more difficult to keep your head in what you’re doing.

There are a few other things I remember from that day but it’s pretty hazy now this long past so I skipped a bit here and there to make it make more sense. But generally that’s what I recall, it might not have been Frostee, it could have been one of the other guys that had an APS2 back then but I’m drawing a blank on the name if it was. From what I recall Hado was there, along with some of the guys that I believe later became ACO, Ryan being one of them. This was before 21st Century Airsoft and Bill came onto the scene. So around that time frame, there was a team on the west side that played regular games at a barn forgot all of their names now. Thinking of it Savage might have been part of their team I believe he was. Knief might have been around then too, since my memory of him is that he may have known those guys or been affiliated with them. There was also a couple guys and a team up north including Xaos and his brother who I’m drawing a blank on his name we played games quite a few times together. Since they were from Gaylord and generally had a small team so we’d just roll with them.

Either way long time ago, but fun to remember and think back on.

Take care!

Luke

EDIT: After typing this I had a thought I could probably pull up the old event thread from back then if I could figure out how to search it out;) Well after a little digging I found this: http://miairsoft.proboards.com/thread/56/operation-firebrand

As well this was 2003, so my memory of it being my first event could be wrong. Or maybe I played longer than I remember before going downstate the first time. I really don't recall, but it's very possible this may not have been my first downstate game after all. Either way on page 7-8 I mentioned the fumes from the tanks in a post which confirms that it's this game. As well it was in Muskegon with ACO so it was their first game on MIA. And I had forgotten entirely about WTS Mike, who ran Wolverine Tactical which was a local shop at the time. But allot of my other memories were confirmed reading through the thread. So I'm probably mostly right from memory;)

EDIT: Since I'm feeling nostalgic I also found a Tale of Valor written by Hado about that game as well: http://miairsoft.proboards.com/thread/7167/road-dushanbe

Talisman's version:
http://miairsoft.proboards.com/thread/7165/ambush

Also for fun I decided to pull google maps, well things have changed some since then. The houses right near the tanks weren't there back then. I'd say that whole set of houses weren't there, we were in the woods pretty deep. Either way here is a Gmaps link centered on the oil tanks and you can see the power line etc. https://www.google.com/maps/place/43%C2%B017'11.6%22N+86%C2%B014'17.7%22W/@43.2865549,-86.2393323,421m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d43.286553!4d-86.238238

The nearest hour to the East was where we parked for the game, as well as the staging area. If you read the old stories the "trail" often mentioned from memory led from near the house north around 50-100 yards East of the power line up in that area. I never saw the end of it nor a base, I got killed before getting that far.

So guys we've talked in the past among the staff about offering a patch, and from what I understand some guys did a patch a few years back. But it's sort of been on the back burner for a while now. I wanted to get a feel for how many guys would be interested in an MIA patch. It would also be a way to support the forum and hosting costs etc.

I don't have pricing, since that's all depending on the size of the patch, the design and the number of patches ordered etc. Ideally though it would be fairly inexpensive since no one wants to pay a fortune for a patch. Also color wise something that looks good with most camo would be my vote. But if there is enough interest then we'll setup a contest with designs etc. if we don't get enough designs then we'll just do something decided by the staff for the design.

But at the end of the day it all hinges on whether or not you guys want patches, since no point in spending the money to have them made if there isn't enough interest.

So pick an answer in the poll and feel free to explain in a post below.

Take care!

Luke

PATCHES AVAILABLE HERE: http://adamsholsters.com/MIAPATCH

Well guys I may have bit off more than I can chew;) So I picked up that box of m249 from Gunslinger(which I'm not complaining by the way;), but for some reason I thought it was a CA well this morning I got it in hand. Started researching to see what I had for sure, well everything seems to point to TOP M249 with a bellows system. I remember these existed, but I never worked on them. It's interesting from a technical perspective, however I don't have any interest in fighting with that system, particularly with parts availability being what it is now.

My question is does anyone who's worked on these recall if you can slap an A&K or CA m249 box into them without a huge amount of work? I know PGC made a gearbox for them years ago, and from what I've read CA/A&K are clones of that box. But since I can't find allot of info I'm hoping one of you guys might remember more details. I'm going to continue researching it but so far I'm struggling to find much for info since it's been quite a long time ago most of the topics are DOA and pictures are hard to come by etc.

I could probably try and recover the internals as it stands, but I've always heard horror stories of the bellows system even back when it was the only option available for support guns. So I'd rather take the easy way out and just slap a new gearbox in there and be done with it. But at this point I'm not sure I'm willing to take the risk to buy one to find out for myself if I can build it out to working order without at least some sort of confirmation that it's fairly easy and possible.

Thanks and other quirks and memories of TOP M249's would also be appreciated since this is new ground, I actually remember more of the M60's from this time frame but I still never worked on them either. So any and all info would be very much appreciated.

Luke

Alrighty guys wading into the deep end of the pool now. I've been researching blank firing grenades and their legality. I do understand that many fields wouldn't allow them for insurance purposes etc. And honestly that's not the side I'm interested in since I'm not playing at other people's fields and if I were and they didn't allow them that's perfectly fine. From what I've found, it seems they are pretty dang safe and used pretty commonly overseas, so I'd rather not go off track there either.

What I'd like to focus on is purely legality, and more directly legality in Michigan. From what I've been reading I've found various guys talking about the legality of them according to the ATF that they are a firearm. But that seems to hinge on being able to fire a live round. The grenades I've been looking into are primer only grenades, so there isn't a way to fire a live round, there isn't a spot to chamber a live round.

So I'm hoping someone out there has researched this further than I have thus far, because at the end of the day whether or not they are legal is just the first hurdle but it's also a very important one. So info regarding legality specifically is what I'm on the hunt for. Whether or not it's actually an ATF issue, or if it's someone reading the law incorrectly. Also whether you know of any particular Michigan State laws that would have an effect as well. I do plan to do additional checking into it with some local LEO's etc, but I'm hoping someone here has dug into it deeply enough to save me some time in my search.

Thanks!

Luke

LOCATION: UP Airsoft Channing MI

WHEN: 07/16/2016 10AM-6PM CST
 
MAP: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Adams+Holsters/@46.2082177,-88.0897517,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x4d518023f687487b:0xe1b8c96a8873771c

Facebook link to event: https://www.facebook.com/events/149711772114274/

Expected player count: 15-30

EVENT DESCRIPTION:

Operation Sunset
 
SCENARIO GAME RULES AND INFO
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MEDIC RULES:
Specified players are medics, 1 medic respawns before going to mobile/master respawn, then repeat cycle. Once shot a teammate needs to get to the down person, place there hand on their shoulder or other body part IE foot etc. then count off twenty slowly. Once a twenty count is reached then both players are up and active again. If contact is lost with the shoulder or counting is interrupted then they need to start over again from one. For example if your reviving a player and you take fire and decide to return fire then you’ll need to start at one again to revive them. The person shot can decide if they want to call for a medic or just return to the respawn based on the number of players around. So if you get shot and you're behind enemy lines, or just a long distance from any teammates you can elect to just return to the master/mobile respawn.
 
RADIOS: There will be team designated channels, as well as an admin/staff channel, and an emergency medical channel. If there is a medical emergency all gameplay stops and it’s expected for everyone to relay that to the other players in their area. Leaders for each team are expected to have radios to be able to communicate with command and keep the game running as expected.
 
OUTDOOR/OPEN FIELD ENGAGEMENT LIMITS**
• 1 - 349 fps - Arms length engagement limit
• 350 - 400 fps - 20 foot engagement limit
• 400 - 549 fps – 50 foot engagement limit, bolt action or permanent* semi-auto replicas only
• 550+ fps - Prohibited or allowed with permission of event organizer only
 
*Permanent semi-auto refers to replicas that do not have full-auto fire capability, no matter how the selector switch or other user input device is manipulated.
**The FPS rules for my games will be lenient for players who have shown good judgement etc. Exceptions can be made for certain people and guns, but I do reserve the right to not allow guns if guys are using them in some way that doesn’t make sense. End of the day we’re out there to have fun and not hurt people, so that’s the goal.
 
BACKGROUND:
 
The spark that ignited the American Revolution was a supposed three percent of the population of America who decided to begin a revolution for freedom. Two Hundred and forty years later facing another tyrannical government which had gone off the rails many years before the descendants of those original Founding Fathers of America began their own Revolution.
 
Thomas Jefferson – “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”
 
It all began appropriately enough on July 4th 2016 with the celebration of the “independence” of the United States. A group of approximately three percent of the population of the United States rose up to fight against the oppression of the government. The taxation of alcohol recently tripling the existing tax was still smoldering, as well as the government's response to those who illegally bootlegged alcohol across the country. Their response was so brutal and heavy handed that it brought even citizens who would have normally stood by on board with outright insurrection of the current government. The loyalists to the existing government come from all sorts of places, their ranks are full of folks who would either like to avoid the bloodshed caused by an outright guerilla war on the United States, or people who are loyal to the goals put forth by the current administration. The Patriots on the other hand are formed of citizens who feel the need for freedom from oppression, after seeing people murdered in the streets for simply not following the new government directives. They also saw that the current Republic had become more and more about mob rule, and who could buy favors to get their own will imposed on as many people as possible. These Patriots also saw elections bought and sold, to impose the will of rulers and politicians on the good people of the United States.
 
So they rose up, they fired the first shot which ignited a firestorm which is still blazing strong today. The killed a UN contingent of soldiers who were enforcing the alcohol regulations, and once word of that attack reached the leaders of the United States the real bloodshed began. There were multiple attacks, and despite many successful missions completed by the Patriots to destroy infrastructure of the United States Military. There are still a large number of UN soldiers loyal to the President and his cabinet despite the outright desertion of most of the United States standing military.
 
After the destruction or decommissioning of most of the large scale weapons of war, this has become again a fight much like our forefathers fought with the British. There are fewer horses and more automobiles but the premise is the same. It is house to house fighting with small arms in the worst conditions, turning family members against one another and we hope and pray that Jefferson was correct and that the bloodshed here will lead us once again on the path to Liberty.
 
 
OUTLINE:
 
The Loyalists along with the UN troops won the first round, there isn’t any other way to explain the pure destruction of the majority of the Patriot strongholds. That said that bloodshed brought even more strength to the Patriots in the form of even more citizens throwing themselves into the fight for Liberty. The Patriots are spread through the population, but there are also groups forming within the vast wilderness of the United States, on open land, private land. They are preparing to bring the fight to the enemy and setting up bases where they can lead their attacks and to allow protection of Patriots who aren’t on the front lines, support as well as infrastructure personnel.

The Loyalists are trying to form a preemptive strike against a reported base deep in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The location has such dense tree cover that satellites are useless and they are somehow intercepting and hijacking their signals to keep themselves hidden. So the job falls to the Loyalists and UN on the ground to be able to route out the Patriots, discover their base and bring back any intelligence they can about enemy plans and troop movements.

Secondary Objective is to destroy as much equipment and personnel as possible to weaken their fighting strength.

So guys another thought/project I've been rolling around I wanted to share at least the concept and hopefully get some ideas and suggestions from the community. Best I can search no one else has done this yet, but it seems like a logical direction for milsim and just general airsoft use.

So there are devices called machine gun simulators, typically used in reenactments etc, but they basically insert a flammable gas into an expansion chamber. This gives a loud report, some muzzle flash and a fairly convincing emulation of an actual gun firing. Since I've seen an expansion of blank firing guns in various nationwide milsim settings this is interesting. Blank firing though is fairly expensive, and you've somewhat got the issue of using real firearms even if adapted to fire only blanks etc. Also you don't have a projectile so it's a cool prop basically used in game.

So my idea of theory at this point is building a mounted gun like an M2 since it's a fairly simple shape etc. Doesn't have to be perfectly accurate just an approximation. Then building out a machine gun simulator if I can find plans and figure out how to do it. And that by itself would be really cool. But the addition I think for our application would be to build an airsoft gun, and mount the barrel near the muzzle of the machine gun simulator. I haven't ironed out the details and this is likely a long term project since I don't have the time or money to do it faster. But this would allow a full auto sound of machine gun fire, along with actual airsoft BB's and a firing mechanism to go along with it. You are safe in the sense your not firing BB's via an explosion, your just using the two systems at the same time to better emulate a real firearm. Since it would likely go through a fair amount of propane a mounted gun seems to make the most sense having a tank on board etc. Also weight from both systems and size means a larger mounted gun like the m2.

Here is an example of an LPG machine gun simulator:


Purpose of all of this and posting this, somewhat of a "when I build it or as I built it" I'll post more. But also more importantly I wanted to toss the idea out there if other people have more experience, money, time etc. Your welcome to use my idea I don't care of it's commercial or not. I just thought it was a cool way to make our games more interesting, and if someone else out there can take this idea to an actual functional device that would be very cool. If other guys have already thought of this, or built it, I'd love to know more about it. But this has been something that has been rolling around in my head the last few months just sorting out how I would do it.

Take care!

Luke

EDIT: I also found this in a link via a youtube video that shows a basic schematic of the design or at least a version of it.

http://visualcollector.com/OBLI/Vickers.htm

So guys I've come into an odd question and yes I can figure this out via trial and error but I figured I'd throw out a question and see if this has ever crossed anyone's mind as well as maybe save me some time etc.

So my son is very young just turned 4, but he's got an interest in airsoft. Now I'm not planning on getting him out playing anytime soon and shooting will be done with me there hands on the gun. But we've been shooting with my guns for the last year off and on and he always takes an interest when I'm hosting a game here.

So I got to thinking about building him a gun, originally it was buying a gun but I quickly went off that. I had planned to buy him a "boys" series gun like the old TM's. But those are not very durable and quite fragile. So I started thinking about building something sized more to him like an M733 or there about but lightweight. Since normally I could just say "here use my stubby M4" but all of my builds are heavy full metal setups and they would be too heavy. So I started thinking about taking a bunch of parts I've got around and building a light weight low FPS build. IE my goal FPS is somewhere between 150-200fps way under what would be considered a normal build. The reason is safety but also making it hurt less at this point. Now using standard parts I can upgrade the spring over time and get it to a level he can actually use it in a game once he's older. And doing it this way I can just change things as needed and it's not a waste as a cheap boys type of gun would be.

So I'm planning on building out a small M4 platform with plastic body likely, more less the lightest body parts I've got around likely front wired with a normal set of handguards for a battery. Then likely take a stock spring and cut it down, do full compression and shimming work like normal. Then likely a stock bucking and a simple barrel setup.

But then that's the question FPS, since my goal is so low has anyone figured out a means to reliably get that low of FPS. I mean I'm shooting for approximately AEP velocity which I know can't be a common thing since I've never thought to do it till now;) I could drop the FPS via compression, but I don't honestly trust that things wouldn't change or swell and all of a sudden it's shooting much hotter than anticipated. So I think doing it via the spring would give a more stable end result.

So I'm curious maybe someone has built out a super low FPS build for very close CQB or something of the like, if so I'd love to hear any tips you have etc. Otherwise I'll just plan on tossing it together based on my plan and post the results once I get it all done. This isn't a quick project since of course my son doesn't "need" this gun anytime soon. We're not to that stage, so it's more of a background project, might even end up being a Christmas present this year depending on time scale when I get around to building it.

Take care!

Luke