While I love the Motorola XTS 3000 I’ve been running, it’s a bit big and heavy so I decided to pull the trigger on a slightly smaller Motorola XTS 2500. The XTS 2500 has much better hardware (though for my uses it doesn’t matter) and is smaller though not as small as I thought it’d be. Oh well whatever, I purchased the radio for an excellent price and will soon be giving it to Brian to reprogram.

The Motorola XTS 2500 came with an extra long antenna, I swapped that out with a stubby one that I had laying around and a 2400mAh lithium ion battery. No charger was included but I already have a Motorola Impres charger so I’ll be able to charge the battery properly; if I decide to keep the XTS 3000 I’ll pick up another charger as they’re not super expensive. The radio itself is near mint condition and I’m very happy with the deal that I got. 😀

Yesterday Henry, Joe, Jeremy and I attended Operation Bronze Trident at PRZ and it was certainly an interesting game… Initially there were three teams, tan, green and PMCs which was the side we were on however we really acted like a regular fighting force instead of adding a different element to the game. Anyway the game was a complete slaughter for the other teams, in fact later on game control combined both tan and green into one side to take us on and we still wiped the floor with them.

To be fair the game wasn’t very balanced, the other combined team had one gen 3 NV unit however while our team had the technological advantage it wasn’t the largest contributing factor. For me what I observed to be the biggest issue for the other side was the lack of centralized leadership and communication between their units. There was absolutely no coordination in their attacks and any resistance we did meet was quickly neutralized because their units would not get reinforced and the combined tan/green team was very spread out. Henry and I kept a relatively tight rope on the PMC group and everyone on our team was a team player which made things easy to manage.

GC came to talk to us about the situation, we volunteered to play low tech and not use night vision but the other team wanted to play this silly attack and defend in the two story structure where we were defending… I knew it’d be a slaughter but the tan/green team wanted that so we obliged and it turned out the way I thought it would. I’d like to stress that we had a small unit of maybe 6 players we stuck together that did not have night vision and that group did a ton of damage to the enemy as they know how to play together.

Anyway the game was called off at around 1:30AM, to be fair I feel the opposing team psyched itself out going into things and with low morale I’m not surprised the game ended ahead of time. I knew it’d happen but not quite that early… The PMC group packed up and we went to the local Dennys for a celebratory breakfast and that was fun, I got home around 6AM slept for much of the day and got to spend time with the family so I’m happy how things turned out.

I had a great time and it’s good to shoot with a bunch of switched on guys so I got my money’s worth.

On a side note Nick passed me an EOTech 552 that I’ll put on the FCC 416, now all I need is a real flashlight on it and I’ll be set with that thing, maybe I’ll use it a bit more moving forward. 😀

So today I received a WE Gen 4 Glock lower and installed the guts from my TM Glock 18C into it.

The TM Glock 18C is on the top right while my real Gen 4 Glock 17 is on the lower left and as you can see the grip is cosmetically very similar or at least much more so than the generation 3 grip. Wanted something as close to the real thing as hopefully that means I’ll handle the airsoft gun like my real one.

It’s not perfect though, it’s suppose to be a copy of the TM design but a few things are out of spec. For instance I don’t have the rear hammer assembly pin in place or the serial number safety (uh only present with the airsoft version), the latter is not a big deal but the former is very important. The gun fires alright but I can’t afford to shoot it much without the hammer assembly pin or else I’ll destroy the grip. I’ll figure something out there, maybe put something else in that position that’ll work…

Anyway I’m pretty happy with it and am looking forward to playing soon. 🙂

So over the weekend the guys and I hit Force Recon’s Nightfall 3 game at Picton and it was alright. For me this game felt more like a large skirmish than a mil sim but then again I’m sure managing a game where there’s almost 400 players is difficult. Overall green command was poor and ineffective, definitely not how I would have run a company sized group of people and I felt really bad for Henry our platoon leader… Still I spent a lot of time with my friends, the weather was great and I got a lot of exercise so I shouldn’t complain too much.

Here are a bunch of pictures that Eddy took. 🙂

There may be more pictures posted later, if they are I’ll update this post. Jeremy’s rifle went down later in the game so I lent him my M4 PTW that I had as a backup and he in turn lent it to Mike who tripped and fell on it. 🙁 I was a bit annoyed but it happens and I know it was an accident… At least by coincidence I have a a spare lower receiver receiver I picked up recently because it was cheap.

Due to laws in Japan, the metal Systema uses for the body is soft and prone to damage though more so with the upper than the lower. It’s alright though I used the time last night to swap in the other lower receiver…

Woo yeah I put my Elcan & PEQ box on it because I want to give this thing more love… Have used my MK18 Mod 1 for much of the last two years so I’ll try this for the next few ops. 😉

Anyway Nightfall 3 was ok, hopefully it’ll have a more exciting formula next year.

Over the weekend the team and I hit up Nick’s game at Picton and man was it a cold one! The temperature hovered around the freezing mark, that wasn’t bad what really sucked was that the buildings were really cold (like freezer) and there was a strong wind. It’s a good thing I packed extra heavy because Eric didn’t pack enough so I gave him my Condor soft shell and it really helped.

The game itself was fun, I think we lost overall but that’s how it goes you can’t win them all. Henry was in command, for his first time out I thought he did alright though I would have been more aggressive with things. The highlight of the game for me was when Jeremy and I were leading a squad preparing to hit the 3 story and saw a large group of camo team players huddled near but not in the safe zone so we attacked and was able to capture their leader. 🙂

Haha the guy was a good sport. 🙂 The day portion of the game was difficult but the night the other team was on the defense and we mopped up there, even our non NOD guys had no problems dealing with the camo team then, too bad there weren’t more missions at the time.

Oh on another note, I’m so glad I wear a helmet now as three times I slipped on the ice (one time jumping of a window) and the Ops-core saved my head from being cracked open! My back is a bit sore but meh I chose to play. 😉

Good times and a nice way to start the outdoor season.

This year Brian held the TAC14 convention at Ultimate Airsoft instead of TTAC3 and it was a big hit. Not only was there a ton of more space it allowed the team tables to reappear which is something I love. 🙂 Unfortunately since I was infected with pink eye, I couldn’t make it but the guys put on a good show.

Hehe and Q brought out his new toy… 😉

Yes it’s definitely very cool and we’ll take it out for the upcoming Nightfall 3 game in June. 🙂 Eddy was impressed, lol he made a small claymore RC car a couple of years back so he can appreciate the level of difficulty…

Hopefully I’ll be good to go for next year as it looked like I missed a lot of fun.

Stephen has had some bad luck with PTWs over his airsoft career and brought over his FCC 7.5″ Diplomat FTW for me to give a once over and well after around 2k rounds of dry firing it seems to be alright. The Achilles’ heel of FCC guns and parts has mainly been the lousy pinion gear, for some reason they made a batch out of really soft metals that strip easily. I know myself and the guys on the team have gone through enough of them but hey no one’s perfect I guess I mean Systema has had crappy motors for years.

I had an extra replica Aimpoint T1 micro so I gave it to Stephen and I think it looks pretty good on the Diplomat. Man is this thing super light, then again it doesn’t have a lot of crap on it I guess but yeah I can one hand the gun like a pistol! It’s the perfect size and weight for Maggie, if she ever decides to return to airsoft maybe I’ll get her one. Or at least a small 7.5″ upper as I have enough PTWs already. 🙂

I’ll give it more of a torture test over the weekend and see how it stands up.

On Friday Qlong came by the house to drop off a real steel modded AR-15 upper for my PTW. I broke my Systema upper earlier in the week and was super stoked to get this thing, made of 7075 aluminum and designed for real guns, it should be able handle anything I throw at it!

I don’t remember what brand Q said it was but who cares it’s a real AR-15 upper!!! 😀 Installed it last night and it fits the Systema lower like they were designed for each other.

Today I went to play another school game hosted by LT and it was great. This time it was a Catholic school that was closing down approximately at Vic Park & Danforth and man was it fun. The team decided to to go in mixed gear this time so I wore a black top with woodland pants. The games were good and I didn’t have a problem with anything though Garret did shoot me in the right ear and it drew quite a bit of blood.

Heh it hurt like hell but at the same time I was happy he didn’t hit my Nacre QuietPro ear bud, that would break it and probably cost a couple of hundred to replace… It didn’t stop me though and I was right back in the fight 2 minutes later when I respawned.

I stole the first three photos from Robo Murry. Heh even though Mike is Asian, he obviously sucked at taking the team pictures… Oh well whatever I was happy that so many of the guys could make it out. 🙂

Finally… A friend has been running an airsoft business selling FCC PTW guns & gear and I agreed to do of his tech work. He’s very busy with real life and running his real business so if I can help I look forward to it. Heh with that said some of the perks include free stuff to test (FCC likes how I am analytical and detailed when I test) and I also got a company FCC HK 416 that I can use as my own. 😀

The FCC HK416 is in the middle, it’s the 10.5″ version so the barrel length is the same as my CQBR & MK18 Mod 1… Other than the cosmetic differences the gun is pretty much identical to my Systema rifles. 🙂 For some reason the gun I received didn’t have a stock and I couldn’t fit the Systema crane stock over the FCC buffer tube it so I removed the Systema one from my M4A1 SOPMOD Block 2 and am using it on the 416 for now.

I didn’t get to game it today but am definitely looking forward to playing with it in the near future! I don’t have any real optics or flashlights to install on it right now but heh that’s that’s definitely on the list of things to get now.

So on the weekend I picked up a used replica Elcan SpecterDR, I wasn’t in need of a new optic but I decided to get it because it was cheap ($80) and thought it would look good on the M4A1 SOPMOD Block 2 PTW. It had a replica Aimpoint T1 on top previously and while it did the job just fine, the replica Elcan would definitely look better on it. Hey I’m vain and like my guns to look pretty. 😉

The replica Elcan SpecterDR is obviously a very close copy of the real thing, my real gen 2 Elcan SpecterDR is shown next to it for comparison. There are subtle differences everywhere and I’ll let you find them yourself haha… The eye relief of the replica scope is decent, just a bit less than the real thing though with the fake one you can only look at it straight through. The real SpecterDR, the picture doesn’t totally disappear if you’re looking through it at an angle which is definitely handy.

At the 1x setting the picture of the replica Elcan SpecterDR is a bit distorted and there’s a slight magnification, more like 1.25x so it takes a bit of getting use to if you run with both eyes open (as you’re suppose to). I guess I could adjust to it if it were my primary optic but since it’s not I won’t bother. For the record the real Elcan SpecterDR’s 1x setting is a true 1x and you will not notice any distortion at all. 4x is decent and almost as clear as the real thing.

The replica Elcan SpecterDR uses a different battery (forgot which one, at work will update later) than the DL 1/3 N that goes into the real optic. Last but not least a real SpecterDR kill flash will not work with the replica optic as the threads on the real one are much thicker.

For $80 the replica Elcan SpecterDR wasn’t super expensive, sure the casing is a bit beat up but I bought it used and it’ll mainly display piece. I don’t think I would buy one new as they go for $175+, that’s almost half way to a real optic (like an Aimpoint or EOTch) and a real one is a much better investment. For my uses though I’m happy, I’ll never use it and it probably won’t see the light of day but I’m vain and it completes the M4A1 SOPMOD Block 2 look. 🙂