If it was saturday, we surely played airsoft

As usual, saturday is the day of our weekly airsoft games. This time we also visited Fort Chrzanów. The weather was very nice, warm 18°C (64°F), sun, light breeze (enough to cool you when it's necessary but not enough to change the BBs' trajectories).

I tested my new outfit, the parka in flectarn camouflage I bought about two weeks ago. This camouflage was developed by German army. Because Germany lies next to Poland and we have similar climates and vegetation, this camo does it's job nice in polish forests. I also have helmet covered with a cloth with the same camo and a piece of camouflaged in woodland net masking, which I use to cover my rifle.

On the right you can see how those three elements blend into surroundings. I am very satisfied with the results. We'll see how it works during summer or spring, when grass and leaves are green, not brown, yellow and red like now.

If you'd like to take a look at the photos one of us made today, I suggest going to my airsoft photo web server.

Fort Chrzanów -- where we played airsoft this saturday

I forgot to write something about the place of our last airsoft game. We met at so called "Fort Chrzanów", one of many ground fortifications that surround Warsaw. Well...they used to surround it, now they're inside the city boundaries. The place consists of few small hills, one long building, partly destroyed. This building has entries only from one side and many rooms, it's not much but better this than nothing.

I think that one image is worth more than a thousand words, so I'll show you few photos from the site. First of all -- take a look at a page from website about Warsaw fortifications. You can find there few photographs of this place (they were taken few years ago I guess, the place looks now...cleaner (now you won't find there so much toilet paper)), map of this fort (taken from Warsaw city map) and aerial photo. The latter looks VERY NICE, especially when you also take a look at this fort in Google Maps. I can't tell when they were made, so I don't know how to understand the differences between them.

A bit about marking "dead" players in airsoft

In Warsaw there is an agreement that a player that was hit by somebody is considered dead. For his own good he should mark himself properly, otherwise he can be mistaken with somebody alive and get shot again. It is also important for the gameplay, so the shooter will know that he shot him and he can find himself another target.

How the guy can identify himself as corpse? By rising his hand high enough and shouting "I'm dead" or by waving with a piece of red cloth. I wear the cloth on my helmet, makes no difference. On the right you can see how I look when I was hit.

Why I write about it? Because today one of my enemies shot me few times when I looked exactly like this. I have no idea what got into him, what thoughts shown in his empty mind. Of course I got so angry that I shot him with a series of BBs myself. He started to shout that I can't fire at him because I am dead. Of course he was right, but it was not him who killed me. After this I explained him with few short furious words what happened.

The guy is mentally handicapped. He shoots his teammates, cheats (doesn't feel hits or feels them but says that he wasn't hit) and now this.

Airsoft explained III - the Hop Up

In this episode of "Airsoft explained" we'll discuss the magic caused by the "Hop Up" system. HU is a part of most airsoft replicas, you would not want to buy one without it.

As you know, a stone thrown horizontally after a moment hits the ground because of gravity. The same goes to airsoft BBs. Hop Up was designed to somehow balance the gravity and allow the BBs to travel horizontally on a longer distance. This device uses the Bernoulli's principle.

What is the mysterious Hop Up system? It's a small device placed at the end of a barrel, next to the clip. It consists of a rubber 'gasket' and a mechanism to adjust it (which I'll describe later). This rubber 'gasket' has tubular shape, and in one place inside has relatively thicker spot. The rubber is placed on a barrel (the spot goes into the hole on a barrel). When a BB goes through the barrel it touches this thicker spot which causes it to rotate.

Before I write anything more I suggest opening the page airsoftclub.ru/FAQ/hopup in a separate browser window. I'll explain everything referring to images at the bottom of that article.

The first image shows the BB fired from a replica with HU. It translates and rotates at the same time. Because this rotation means different relative velocities between upper and lower semispheres of the BB, the slight pressure difference occurs. This pressure difference balances the gravity, as in airplanes. You can see how the HU is installed on the barrel (and the schematics of a gearbox) on the images no. 5 and 6.

Because BBs are manufactured in different weights, a good replica must have an adjustable hopup. By adjusting the depth the rubber spot goes into the barrel you can change the speed of rotation fo the BB fired. This way you can adjust HU to stabilise the flight of BBs with different weights.

ASG basics part II -- the mechanics

Today I'll try to explain the hows and whys about airsoft replicas' insides. I'll start with the easiest -- gas guns.

First, excerpt from Wikipedia's "Airsoft" article.

Gas-powered airsoft guns use pressurized gas to propel pellets. These guns are capable of automatic and semi-automatic operation. The most common gases used are propane (usually referred to as "green gas" by airsoft players) and HFC134a refrigerant. Less commonly used gases include CO₂ and nitrogen.

Gas-powered airsoft guns are somewhat gas-fueled. I mean that gas is pressurized outside of the gun, and is only released from gas container after trigger is pulled. The hammer hits the valve hard enough to open it, gas flows to the barrel and the BB is propelled. Nothing more. In winter valves like to freeze (decompressing gas causes a temperature drop). Some of the gas-fueled guns have so called "blow-back" system -- it is a mechanism (also powered by gas from container) that moves the slide or bolt to simulate the "real steel" gun operation and to create recoil.

Now, the spring guns. They're the cheapest, but the schematics of its operation is bit more difficult to explain. The mechanism of this gun creates the compressed air on its own, inside the gun. Imagine a syringe in which you have a piston attached to the spring. When you compress the spring you suck the air inside the syringe. After you release the spring the piston moves very fast and creates a flow of compressed air through the nozzle. The operation of a spring powered airsoft gun is very similar. The spring is of course compressed by the shooter (there's a mechanism that allows to do it with the same movement like while reloading a firearm).

The airsoft electric guns (AEG) also have spring, piston and cylinder. But this time the piston is moved by an electric motor, with the use of so called "gearbox". You pull the trigger, the engine starts and rotates the gears (three of them), the last one pushes the piston causing the spring compression. In the proper moment the piston is released. The rest is as in the spring gun. The only difference is that in this case most guns have fullauto option, allowing to fire up to 600 or more BBs per minute.

What is ASG (part I)?

Because two days ago we had our weekly airsoft game (not a very succesful one, to be honest) I want to start today a series of post which will explain -- what is a ASG, Air Soft Gun.

First let's take a part of definition of airsoft from Wikipedia:

Airsoft is a term used interchangeably to refer to one or both of the following subjects:

• A military or law enforcement simulation sport in which players participate in mock combat with military-style mock weapons and tactics,
  
• 1:1 (or sometimes 'minis' or 3/4) scale models of real firearms, with a typical example firing 6 mm or 8 mm spherical, solid plastic BBs of usually 120, 200, or 250 milligrams, with propulsion for the projectile provided by manually compressed springs, electric motors, or compressed gas.

So... this explains what I mean when I write ASG. I don't exactly know why it is called airsoft -- probably because of two reasons: the bullets (BBs) are propelled by compressed air (in spring or electric guns) or gas (in CO2 / Green Gas guns), and the effects of hits are somehow "soft". Of course you'll have bruise in the point where bullet hits you, but the bruise will be the size of a mosquito bite. Of course without protective glasses you'll probably get eye damage with enough bad luck. BB marks on face are also not nice, that's because I wear a face mask. :)

How does the air get compressed and differences between the most popular gun designs (spring, gas, electric) -- next time, hopefully -- tomorrow.