The cold and wet game

Today we played a cool game with people from Żyrardów in a very nice place. I tried to find a good satellite photo on Google Maps, but in my neighborhood photos on Google Maps are only in low-res. So I will show you photos on our polish site Zumi. At the center of the photo you'll see a bunch of trees planted regularly on a field. It is an old orchard. There was one building (not in very good shape, I must say) and remains of two other buildings.

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This is the building. If one could get to the top of the tower there, he'd found himself THE BEST camping place ever! Fortunatelly, there was no floors in the tower so without much courage (or climbing gear) the tower was inaccessible. :)

I used mG36 with silencer. I think the replica looks much better with it. Since I don't believe in silencing ASG replicas with tubes filled with felt cloth, I removed the felt from the silencer. The only function of the silencer is to look nice, so I don't think I need extra weight there... ;)



The weather wasn't friendly. The temperature was slightly below 0°C (freezing point, 32°F), so the ground was frozen. You couldn't get stuck in a pool of mud. But during the first hour of our game it was raining. It was not a pleasant experience. Everything (replicas, ground, trees) was cold enough for the water to freeze. So my mG36 was soon covered with a thin layer of ice (each drop of water quickly froze on the replica). Water didn't freeze only on our jackets, so I was afraid that mine will become wet (since it's not water proof).

When it finally stopped raining, after a while, the snow started falling. Better snow than rain, right? :)



Now a word or two about the scenarios we played.

The first one was the simplest "you start here, we start there, we shoot each other". The game like this is a must have (a must play?), since it's the best way to prepare your muscles for the strain and to test if the replicas shoot well.
Then we played "storm the building" twice. Since there was 11 of us I had to be in the attackers team two times. We played the most dumb variation of the scenario. Teams were balanced well, and both had respawn points. This is stupid, since the guys who had to protect the building always have advantage. The first game ended with defenders' victory, but the second ended the opposite way. Somehow the attackers (at that moment 6 of us, only 4 of the defenders since my girlfriend's MP5K battery run out of power and the spare battery was in my pocket) managed to get to the building.

The third scenario was in my opinion the best. We set three "bomb spots". The attackers had to go there and blow it up (blowing up was played as firing a cracker). We had "moving respawns". If you got killed, you had to go 20 metres (yards) behind your own team and wait there a moment.
One time a guy from the opposite team almost killed all of us. In such case we'd probably loose the game since we had no "20 metres behind living team members" respawn and couldn't get respawned. :)

I uploaded all the good photos my girlfriend Ania made here, but I can't promise that I'll host them there for long time. I have 80% of my disk space on Picasa empty, but finally it'll run dry. Then I'll probably start emptying it by deleting some old photos. But I think it will not happen during the entire 2008.

My Steyr AUG Classic Army replica

This is a static article about my Classic Army Steyr AUG replica. I will post any updates about the replica here. Latest update: February 24th, 2008.

Replica info.
Spring: Guarded M110 / SP110.
Barrel: 6.04 mm Deep Fire precise barrel.
Gears: helical gear set.
Hopup rubber: black silicone Systema rubber.
Spring guide: metal, with bearing.
Piston: stock.
Bore-up set: cylinder, cylinder and piston heads (the latter with bearing), air seal nozzle.
Used battery: 8.4V 1,200 mAh NiMH, Intellect.

Muzzle velocity: 400 fps on 0.2g BBs.

I bought it on august 2006. In one of our interner airsoft retailers there was sale for new airsoft users. If you were a new customer, you got better price for the replica. So I asked a friend of mine to buy it for me. :)

I ordered it with set of parts I wanted to use for silencing it. I paid $600, but at that moment I paid more than PLN 3.00 for $1. At the moment $1 is worth in Poland less than PLN 2.50. :)

We installed the set of silencing parts soon after I finally got the replica. But the replica didn't become more quiet than before.

Some time after it was silenced it was broken during one of my games. It was later repaired, but soon after broke down again. So I decided that I will ship it to my favorite retailer for repairs and small tuning.

Update: January 10th, 2008.

The replica is now fully operational. It was delivered today after the repairs.

Update: February 11th, 2008.

As it became obvious soon after the AUG was delivered, it wasn't fixed properly. If stopped on full auto with power spring partially compressed, the engine couldn't move it until the anti-reversal latch (and eventually the spring) was released. The guy who repaired it tried to convince me that it was caused by battery. I sent the replica again. After checking the gearbox the guy said that the motor is getting to hot and is probably defected. They replaced the motor and sent me the replica. This time fully operational.

I am a bit disappointed though that fully charged 8.4V 1,400 mAh is not enough to fire the replica. :(

Update: February 24th, 2008.

Here's a photo of the AUG, with attached 3-point sling and battery pack I bought last week.

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During the last game (on February 17th) I used the AUG covered with woodland net masking. It looked like this.

The AUG is gone

Not like it's dead or something. It's just gone, because I sent it to my favorite ASG shop for repairs and tuning. You probably remember that the AUG is broken and I wanted to tune it a bit.

I disassembled the replica a bit and packed it to a solid cardboard box (I got one FedEx box suitable for stuff up to 25 kg (55 lb) and cut it in half since it was too high for the replica). I protected it from any harm with a lot of mashed newspapers. Here's a photo of how did it look like.

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Of course it was later covered with second thick layer of mashed newspapers. ;)

I paid $20 to ship the package. I wonder how much will cost the repair and the tuning...

First game this winter

According to the star callendar, the winter started last week. So this is the first airsoft game I had this winter. :)

Since I have my mG36 at home, I decided to use this replica. My AK47 was broken the other day, and my MP5K PDW is used by my girlfriend. So this left me only one replica to use - the mG36. :)

The game was rather boring. The guys there had more fun with showing off who whas the best stuff than actualy using the stuff. This is quite popular amongst the airsoft players who can afford to buy an expensive replica. In polish conditions, Classic Army replica that does cost PLN 1,300 ($520) is an expensive one, since average salary in Poland last year was around PLN 2,650 ($1,050). People that own cheap pump-action replicas are often very young and enjoy the airsoft games because of the action they may have...

The game took place in a very interesting place that I had never visited before. It is located near Nadarzyn, a town 20 km (15 mi) from Warsaw. The place was used by polish army, I heard that by some anti-aircraft protection squad. I tried to find some photos to show you, but found only these two galleries, made by an ASG team I am very familiar with - the Cannon Fodder. So here they are. :) If you'd like to see how the place looks on satellite photograph, you can see it below.

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Oh, you probably will be interested in some photos made last sunday. I must disappoint you a little, because I decided to show only one, not very intersting, photograph. Photo of me, holding my mG36 replica. I am sorry, but we couldn't get any better photos that day. :(

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