Battle Group Parola Milsim Event Picture Post

The second to last weekend of July played host to the biggest milsim event Finland has seen so far. Over 600 participants split into five factions spent around 27 hours in actual Finnish army training grounds and surrounding woodland trying to gain the upper hand, or simply to survive.

As mentioned the area comprised of real, actively used military training grounds

The backstory revolved around a civil war, where a monarchy supporting faction (red team) attempted to take over Finland from the democratic loyalists (yellow team). Also present were the UN, civilians from two nearby villages, and a team of mysterious operators from a foreign nation (blue team).

You don't see traffic signs like these every day!

The training grounds are adjacent to the Parola Armoured Brigade, which coincidentally is also where I received my year long military training, and the plot of the game revolved around a locked and boobytrapped underground tank hangar. Both belligerents were trying to get inside the hangar without activating the self destruct which would blow up these strategic resources. Rumours told of a former hangar foreman who had set up the explosives and thus also held the secret of disarming them.

Both sides were thus scouring the area for the foreman while also securing key crossroads and assets, trying to figure out who the blue nation were, interacting with the UN and the villagers and naturally battling each other.

My personal role in the game was sadly rather minimal, as my injured leg prevented me from taking to the field. While the rest of my team, BFN Airsoft were out in full force, I got a job at my side's HQ as a situation officer. Rest of the HQ were unknown to me beforehand, but team mates with each other, and they had the job so well in hand that I mostly tried to remain out of the way. However, it was definitely a valuable learning experience to see how an HQ is run, how they would interact with the organisers before and during the event and what the challenges are when you're in charge of five platoons with unique missions around the clock.

The view from the HQ tent. My team's tent is visible in the middle.

In addition to foot patrols, teams got around using in game vehicles such as four-by-fours, trucks, ATVs, and the organisers had even managed to bring in a real life IFV, a BMP-1!

Here's another sight you don't see every day!

In the end the red commander tried to enter the hangar, only to blow up the charges, destroying all the vehicles inside. It turned out the aim of the foreign operatives was to ensure neither side could get their hands on this strategic resource, and thus played both sides to the best of their ability.

I enjoyed my time even though I never got to see action. The closest I got was when the BMP-1 made a rush for our HQ, and we had no antitank weapons at hand. They basically ran over all our defences, and we at the HQ decided to opt for a self destruct so the enemy would get no intel. To our amazement they then proceeded to just mill around for a while, never even took a look inside the HQ tent, and then proceeded to leave us completely alone!

Good times, and I can't say I wasn't at least a bit wistful seeing my old stomping grounds 14 years later.

In order to not have a blog post that has nothing to do with teching, I present to you a fantastic field repair job I did on my Kalash/CYMA AKMS.

The L-shaped hop up retention piece had gone missing, and I noticed because of that you could accidentally remove the magazine by rocking it backwards. This was in no way ideal, and lacking proper materials I made do with what I had on hand. This worked well enough, so mission accomplished!

I'm so very much looking forward to returning to the field, so wish me luck on my recovery. I already have a new E&L AK stashed away for just that moment. I'll be doing some work on it in the near future, so stay tuned and play safe!

A New Battery Will Make Me Go "ROF ROF ROF!"

Last weekend was the first game since ages, and I got to run around with both the new MP5K PDW as well as the G36C with its M4 magwell. To make it really short and sweet: Everything went extremely well. Mostly anyway.

M4 magwell

In one very stressful situation I didn't quite manage to slap in a new M4 mag as quickly as I would have hoped, but I put that solely on the newness of it all. Later on it went pretty much as well as I'd expect. Once you get the "reverse AK" reload down, it's definitely quicker than some rifles (the AUG for example). No feed issues whatsoever through 400ish BBs from several magazines.

First slide the back end in, then twist forward while pushing up. The magwell bevel will guide the magazine in perfectly.

MP5K 

The MP5K performed very nicely, and the lightness of it made it a real joy to use. Very quick to pop out of cover and hose someone down. One of only two gripes came up after a rather lengthy episode of running around, when my goggles developed a nice film of moisture on their upper edge, exactly on the spot where you'd need to look through to be able to aim down the very low-sitting iron sights that I was using at the time. This is easy to alleviate with a scope mount and a holo or reflex sight, which will change your head position to a more upright one when aiming.

It does look slightly comical with the sight. The distance from the top of the sight to the bottom of the mag is only slightly less than the overall length of the gun with the stock folded.

The other problem I ran into was with trigger lag, or more accurately the time it took the motor to cycle the action. At one point, I was intending to quickly pop out of cover, shoot one single well aimed shot and take cover again. As more seasoned players are surely aware, the default NiMH batteries that come with guns aren't all that great powerwise. I peeked over the edge of cover, tapped the trigger and only heard the motor spin for a bit, but not enough, so no shot was fired. I had to slink back into cover as I was immediately spotted and had no time to shoot again. Obviously what happened was that the motor had wound the spring back a ways, but not quite enough to make the sector gear release the piston.

To treat the trigger lag issue, a better battery with more amperage is the obvious first choice. It's easy and quick to do, and has worked on my other two AEGs very nicely.

As I have been toying with the idea of upping the rate of fire on the MP5K anyway, I thought I'd devise a little test to go through the batteries I currently have, possibly finding a good, ROF-upping battery replacement that way.

Battery testing

I set up the chronograph (UFC Pro), loaded up some mags and went to work. The batteries used, in addition to the stock 8.4V NiMH that came with the gun, were the following:

• VB Power 7.4V LiPo (2200 mAh, 20-40C)
• Flame 9.9V LiFe (1500 mAh, 15C)
• Turnigy 11.1V LiPo (1800 mAh, 20-40C)

All batteries were charged fully before starting. They all have their stock mini-Tamiya connectors at this time. I have gold-plated Deans connectors already on order, and will repeat this test once they arrive and I have them installed. That should give some hard data on what kind of effect (if any) the connector has on the system's efficiency.

I listed the batteries and their respective rates of fire (ROF) of in both rounds per minute and rounds per second on the table below.

Battery	ROF(rpm)	ROF(rps)
8.4V NiMH	750	12.5
7.4V LiPo	857	14.3
9.9V LiFe	1000	16.7
11.1V LiPo	1500	25

One interesting point of note is that the lower voltage LiPo outperforms the higher voltage NiMH by a fair margin. According to my understanding, this is simply due to the fact that the NiMH battery basically gives out too little power for the motor to turn effectively.

With all the Lithium batteries, it was practically impossible to get the gun to half-cycle, so any new battery should at least fix the non-firing situation I encountered while playing.

As for upgrading the gun, I would like to reach a ROF roughly around 20 rps (1200 rpm). Of course, with my luck, that lies directly in between the LiFe and the the high voltage LiPo. The latter would empty the 90 round midcaps in 3,6 seconds of full auto. Yes, I'm sure it would be fun for a while, but the internals would likely break somewhere (at least the trigger contacts would suffer without a MOSFET), and I'd be out of BBs really quickly.

I'd be lying if I said that during the test I wasn't even slightly worried something would go wrong with the 11.1V LiPo, especially since the spring in the MP5K only gives out about 1 Joule and the gearbox is completely stock. With no angle of engagement correction and a fairly low powered spring, I was definitely expecting some sort of premature engagement. No sign of that, though, during the 40ish rounds I put through the gun with the high voltage LiPo. I'm sure something would break in the long run, though.

Furthermore, finding an 11.1V stick LiPo that would fit in the gun might also prove somewhat problematic. I am pretty fond of the LiPo batteries in general, though, so I'll most likely replace the stock battery with a 7.4V LiPo when the time comes. Apart from that, I'm not entirely sure at this point which way to go about reaching the 20 rps mark. High speed gears, a new motor to turn them, something else? I'm open to all suggestions.

Stay Frosty

It's winter and it's cold. Well, more or less. Seems the temperature around here goes through a cycle of around 20 degrees, from freezing to few degrees above zero. So any given day it's either the fear of frostbite or slipping into a puddle.

A while ago we had a game in what was closer to the former temperature. Not only was it cold, but also windy. Not exactly ideal. Our typical weekend skirmishes would last for several hours, but this one was over after just two sessions. No one was really enjoying the weather and, more importantly, our guns started sounding rather unhealthy.

Some authentic Finnish snow right there

I had both of my AEGs with me as I wanted to see how the AUG would finally perform in the field. The G36C was there as backup in case something went wrong, but I actually ended up lending it to a team mate. He had had a malfunction in his primary some time ago and had nothing to play with, so a third team mate had brought a second gun with him to lend. That thing then refused to work at all. It just would not fire, not a single shot no matter how many different batteries we tried. Good thing I had one to spare. From what he said later, the G36C functioned perfectly all the way through. Not so with the AUG. Not even close.

I was using 0.25g bio BBs by G&G, which I've heard good things about, and should have performed very nicely. I shot some very nice groups with them in my apartment earlier.

Discounting the one outlier, a pretty nice grouping at 15 metres

While obviously not perfect, I was still expecting some rather consistent performance. I'm guessing the cold and my rubber G-hop did not work well together at all, since I was either lacking range, getting ridiculous amounts of over hop or under hop, or getting sideways spin, all without ever touching the adjustment wheel.

Towards the end of the second skirmish session, I was unable to hit the enemy at five metres because the scope had fogged over and so I had no clue where my BBs were going. I simply walked upright toward him, shooting from the hip. His gun didn't perform too well either, but he finally hit me at around three metres, which I only barely felt. It would have been more effective to just throw fistfuls of BBs at each other. At that point I also decided that I'd play no more, because the gearbox started sounding really unhealthy. I'm guessing the grease inside began to harden in the frost and the action seemed way slower. Needless to say, all of that made the first field test of my "finished" DMR pretty much a complete nightmare.

Slightly less than ideal aiming conditions

In all honesty, I now understand how people can get tired with their project guns. I've spent quite a few hours on the AUG so far, and it's still not doing what I want. But I will not be denied! I will have my DMR. Right now I'm thinking an IR-hop might be the answer to get me where I want, and even allow for winter games if I find a grease that works in the cold as well. It might be a while before I get the materials and the requisite interest, but it will happen. If not this winter then the one after.

G36C Field Day

Another fun-filled game day behind me, I now have some first-hand experience of the JG G36C in action. I arrived an hour early with the friend who first got me into the hobby, in order for us to zero our sights. I could immediately tell there's a lot more power than there is on the AUG. The default hop-up seems to be doing its job quite nicely too, I'm getting great range. The short barrel of the G36C does seem to have some effect on the accuracy, so my shots aren't quite as consistent. I was expecting that, though, and the trade-off between accuracy and handling is more than acceptable in my opinion.

I know I complained about the distance between the bore and the sights regarding the AUG earlier, but this thing has it double. At one point I was pinned down behind some trees and rocks, and decided to crawl a bit to get to a better position. I manage to ninja my way forward about 5 metres and not be noticed. I get the drop on the guy that was suppressing me, but sadly as I took aim and fired prone, I only managed to shoot up some leaves and dirt in front of me. Naturally I got spotted by him and caught an expertly planted BB on the shoulder.

That is some serious distance ("Serious distance" defined scientifically today as "about 10 cm or so")

I called the hit, got up and started walking back to the off-game area. That's when I noticed my drop-leg holster with the P226 in it had twisted forwards around my thigh and had dragged along the ground as I crawled, netting me a nice collection of dirt, pine needles, twigs, leaves, squirrels, and other typical forest ornaments. Maybe it's time for a different holster? I'm starting to notice this hobby is very good at creating shopping needs.

Otherwise I was quite happy with the day. The G36C has some sideways wobble on its stock, but I'm thinking there's a pretty easy fix for it. I'm definitely stoked with my purchase.

A Problem of Chronographic Proportions

It was game day again. One member had brought a chronograph so that we could see how our weapons actually perform. I had read on several online shop descriptions that the AUG should be shooting around 100 m/s (330 fps) out of the box. When my turn to step up to the chrono came, I was seriously disappointed to see that the best reading I got was 78 m/s (256 fps). The average was around 76 m/s (249).

Something is obviously wrong, either the hop-up leaks like a sieve or there's something wrong with the gearbox. With the G-hop mod I get damn good range, but it takes the BBs forever to get there. The game itself was still fun, even though somewhat overshadowed for me personally by the poor performance of my gun. I now had real, indisputable evidence that it was a bit sucky. Now I'm really looking forward to the new spring arriving. Hurry up, Mr. Postman!

Second Game

Today was my second game. We started an hour earlier than usual and trained urban assault tactics on a team level. The game location had a nice abandoned two storey industrial building so we could practice room clearing, taking stairwells and the like. Pretty cool stuff, although my mask made it pretty awkward. I need to be turning my head all the time to counter for the tunnel vision, especially to avoid tripping over things. During the game itself I was a bit cut out of the communications loop since most everyone else is using radios. Might have to get one myself later.

The AUG has some weird hop up problems. I don't seem to get very much range, even when I adjust it. It also doesn't seem to have very much power when compared with the guns others were fielding. I will have to investigate. Otherwise I'm pretty excited with the it with the angled foregrip and the reflex sight. It feels good to hold and target acquisition is quick. I think the sight is not quite zeroed in though, I'll need to zero it one day.

I also like the selective fire trigger. Half a pull gives you semi-auto shots, pulling it back all the way and it goes full auto, so no fiddling with a selector is needed. There's quite a bit more pull required for it to go full auto though, there might be something it's snagging on.

The one point sling I have seems to be a bit too long. It might have something to do with how far back the AUGs rear sling mount is sitting. When the gun is hanging down, even with the sling as short as it will go, I can't reach the grip even with my hand straight.

I also managed to shoot myself in the hand with a ricochet, simply because I didn't take into account the fact that the barrel is somewhat lower than the sight. So when I thought I was aiming out of a broken window, the barrel was actually pointing at the window frame. Oh well, you live, you learn.

Other than that, it was loads of fun again, and even the ricochet was funny after it stopped stinging.

Game Time!

I'm back from my first ever airsoft game. It was arranged on an abandoned, overgrown industrial lot, which was pretty sweet just in and of itself. Long grass and a small wooded area mixed with the decaying ruin, broken glass and rusted machinery made for a pretty Zone-like atmosphere.

The holo sight is yet to come through in the mail, so I was mainly spraying and praying with the AUG most of the time. I managed to get a kill, though, as I was hiding behind a desk in an otherwise empty garage and a group of enemies approached. Put enough BBs their way and some of them were bound to hit!

The mesh mask is a bit of a problem occasionally. The way the goggles sit so far away from my face, I have very little peripheral vision and need to constantly stare at my feet lest I fall down a ditch. And still I did. Luckily it was dry and I wasn't going too fast.

I'm writing this about an hour after the game ended, I've just eaten and I'm completely knackered. The adrenaline rush was incredible, and the group, despite my apprehension, were a great bunch of guys. Definitely doing this again. As soon as I get some sleep first. Damn I'm so beat.