No airsoft game this week :(

Since Cannon Fodder -- the team we play often with -- goes somewhere far and on sunday when I'm busy, it seems that I'll have no chance of spraying BBs this weekend. There's not enough Shamo warriors ( ;] ) for playing within our own team. Once again it seems that we need to get new and eager recruits. There's 15 people in Shamo, but only few of us play airsoft on a regular basis.

The weight of mG36 at phase II

I was wondering, what is the weight of my mG36 at the second phase of it's construction. I went through my favorite ASG reseller (Machinegun.pl) and checked the weights of all the parts that are in my "set".

+ The replica -- 3 100 grams,
+ second hicap magazine -- 200 g,
+ grip with bipod -- 480 g,
- grip without the bipod, but including the outer barrel -- -370 g,
+ outer barrel -- 200 g,
+ the battery -- 450 g.

That gives total weight of 4 060 g = 8,95 lbs. And another almost 200 g in BBs. :)

The calculations were rather complicated, I had to subtract the weight of the original front grip. Since Machinegun only sells the grip with outer barrel, I had to add later the weight of the barrel. It would be much easier if I knew the weight of the bipod, but I couldn't find that info.

The day of returning BBs

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I should say that this week's airsoft game was the day when the BBs were turning back. We were playing at Miami, the same place as last week. The wind was so strong that hitting anything with the BB fired from airsoft replica was almost impossible. The BBs' trajectories were unpredictable, at any point the BB could turn vertical or horizontal. Even very long bursts didn't give a chance to hit the enemy one was firing at.

I shot more than 1 000 BBs, but hit only few times. These hits were achieved by rather short bursts on short distances. There was no need for the large battery nor the second magazine, though they were very useful. It's very easy to refill the one hicap magazine when you're ready to fire BBs from the second mag. And I must say that after that 1 000 BBs I didn't notice any drop of rate of fire. :)

Our team consists of 15 members (including two girls), but it's very uncommon to see more than 3-4 Shamo airsofters. ;) The today's representation of Shamo ASG Team is present on the photo on top of the post. You can see Mamut with his CA870, Ziutek with his M15A2 carbine and Squarek and his MP5A2.

Quick photo of mG36 at phase II

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This is the look of my mG36 replica at second phase of it's construction. It now has the 3000mAh 8,4V battery attached to the left part of the body, connected by a gray wire that goes to the front grip. You can also see the second high capacity magazine. Both give me the very large amount of ammo to be fired in very long bursts. ;)

If you'd like to see how the replica looked like when I got my hands on it, check the post titled G36 @ home

The airsoft game at "Miami"

Today we played airsoft at the place that someone decided to name "Miami". It consists of few old buildings that some time ago were used by Polish State Railways. You can see a part of this place at Google Maps, unfortunatelly most of it is in low resolution. The weird shaped building was used as a roundhouse -- garage for steam engines. You can see the remains of turntable. :)

I had the chance to test my new mG36 phase II almost-machinegun. Soon I'll post here info about the things I did and plan to do with this replica.

You can see the photos taken today at my personal home web server for airsoft multimedia. ;)

Added on Nov. 1st, 2007.
The photos are no longer available there. I wrote an article about this place, you'll find there photos made on that game.

mG36 Phase I completed :D

Today I finally received the parts to my mG36 I ordered last saturday. I got an airseal nozzle, large battery on NiMH cells, 8.4V, 3000mAh and two connector plugs. The latter are required for wiring so I can attach the battery to the stock.

Unfortunatelly I didn't notice that the battery has large connector plug and ordered two mini ones. :(

Todays plan was to prepare the wiring and see where to place the battery. I had to utilise the power plug used to deliver 12 and 5 volts to hard disk drives. It had the metal connectors of the proper diameter to connect to the battery's plug. With a small help of a soldering iron I managed to attach two sets of connectors to the wire, one pair of them was then put inside a connector plug.

Then I started to figure out where to attach the battery. Before I got it, I thought to put it somewhere on the stock. But since the battery is large, it would be very difficult. My father suggested to attach it to the mG36's body, on the left side, between the pistol grip and the optical sight. It will not make the front of the gun heavier (as it happens in the MG36 I wrote about couple of days ago) and will not disturb the aiming through the sight.

The Phase I is completed, I made the wiring and plugged it to the gun. Next thing is to attach the battery and wiring to the body. Phase III is tuning of the gun, i.e. adding the airseal nozzle and 170% power spring.

Parts to my mG36 are now being shipped

On saturday I ordered in Machinegun.pl ASG shop parts for converting my G36 into mG36. First of all I need to explain why mG36. About MG36 I wrote couple of days ago (cheap alternative to M249 machine gun). And mG36 is a...cheap alternative to MG36.

The bipod I already got, since it was attached to my gun when I bought it. I just needed a large magazine (drum magazine would be best) and a large battery to power the gun. Since I couldn't afford the drum (to be honest I shouldn't buy any airsoft stuff until I buy the VW T3 :( ), I chose to buy second hicap magazine. This would give me almost 1 000 BBs in magazines. And since the magazines will hold not 2 500 BBs but less than 1 000, the M in MG36 is not capital. ;)

So I ordered one hicap, one large battery, two battery connectors (I need to prepare a wire so I can attach the battery to the stock and power the gun from there) and a nozzle with seal. I want to install the CA 170% power spring to my G36 so there will be a chance to install the nozzle and get another 5 or so fps. :)

Shamo Warsaw Airsoft Team advertisement at Google Video

This is the movie we made with my friends from my airsoft team (Shamo Warsaw ASG Team) almost two years ago. We had lots of fun during the shoot, unfortunatelly the source material that was later cut to this form was lost so the fun can't be replayed.

I just received the photos from our two latest airsoft games, but since they're only in 480x360 resolution, I will not post them.

The cheap alternative to M249 machine gun

Few days ago I saw the MG36 Project. This would be for me a cheap alternative to M249 machine gun, especially I already own a G36 with bipod. The only purchase that would need to be done is the large battery and drum magazine. Since I can't get the drum for less than $170, I will only buy second hicap (for $35). And a 3000mAh 8.4V NiMH battery. I will have to stick it to the stock with ductape or something like that. This won't look nice but will feed my apetite for very long bursts. :D

My next airsoft replica

At the last airsoft game I had another great idea of what should be my next purchase. I don't need to change the gun I use because I am quite satisfied with G36 and MP5K PDW, but the events that took place last time have shown that I need more firepower and bigger rate of fire. :)

I decided that I will buy an M249 "Minimi" MkII replica. Isn't it beautiful? It weights more than 7 kilograms (15 lbs), including box magazine for 2400 BBs and a large battery (9,6V 3000mAh).

What happened two days ago that had that strong influence on the choice of my dreamweapon? In two cases I needed to fire many BBs at more than two targets at the same time... The very large battery and magazine full of BBs will allow me to fire not only when I have a chance to hit someone. :)

But for now I have to fulfill my machine gun dreams with G36 equipped with only 600mAh battery but 470BBs clip. Gotta buy a larger battery.

The airsoft game at SD, Warsaw

SD is the name of the place where we had our todays airsoft game. I don't know how it got its name, but I guess that's not very important at the moment. The army had there SAMs and AA guns, it was a part of Warsaw's anti-aircraft defense.

Now the place is owned by a guy who runs commercial paintball games. He allows the airsofters to play for free, he just wants them to take some trash from the place and put them in plastic bags and leave (later he takes them from there).

Today there was about 30 of us. I took a friend of mine, I borrowed him my G36 and used only the MP5K PDW. It was warm 15°C (59°F), with no wind so the BBs flown in the direction they were shot.

Unfortunatelly, a bunch of people with "cheap" replicas (around 15 of them) were amongst us. They didn't want to play with the people who owned the standard or slightly upgraded Classic Army or Tokyo Marui guns. I don't understand them, since I had a pump action shotgun and was not afraid of playing with guys who could fire on full auto. But I guess they are too young to understand that the pleasure of airsoft is playing, not winning...

After a short discussion with those people we split into two teams, in my team there were around 10 people. And we had 20 enemies in the opposite team, a case I like very much since you have many targets to shoot and little competition. ;)

In two rounds I fragged more than 5 guys, I am glad of it since I don't think of myself as of a skilled shooter.

The funniest thing that happened? There was an embankment, seen from the top would look like a very large U. On the right side of the U (inside) were three guys, firing at us, we were outside. I went to the bottom side of the U, climbed up, shot the nearest guy with two or three BBs and fired four more at the second guy. He was sitting under a very small tree, that had only few thin branches and was not higher than one meter (3 ft.). The guy obviously didn't feel I shot him so I turned the selector to fullauto and fired something like 30 or 40 BBs at him. He had to feel that...
And then the guy turns his head to my side and asks (I don't know whether he asked me or his teammate who was sitting between us) if the rebounds do count as hits(*). I yelled at him something "f--k, what rebounds!?" and at that moment the guy realised that I was firing at him, not someone from outside of the embankment.

(*) The question asked some other time wouldn't be so stupid since in Poland we believe that rebounds do not count as hits.

I hope I will get some photos soon, I will post them here.

Added on Feb. 24th, 2008 - this is the only interesting photo I got. Courtesy of Squarek.

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