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. 🙂

For the longest time I’ve wanted a real Aimpoint M2 to run on my CQBR or SOPMOD Block 1 M4A1 and now I finally have one. 🙂

I purchased a used one on ASC for $335 shipped which is an excellent deal for a real optic. The Aimpoint M2 is NV compatible so if I want to run my PVS-14 behind it I won’t have a problem (though I probably won’t, I don’t like weapon mounted NV) and it uses the same odd/special battery that goes into my Elcan SpecterDR so woo for not having to carry a lot of different batteries around.

It didn’t come with a kill flash so I ordered two from Tactical Products Canada as I definitely have to protect this thing from being shot. Externally it’s a bit beat up but that’s fine with me as I’m pretty rough with my stuff anyway. Most importantly the optic works great and lol as if this was any surprise, the dot is much nicer than on the repro version.

Best of all when I get a real AR down the road, I can simply move this thing over to the real gun. 😀

Earlier in the month I purchased MSA Sordin gel ear pads from SRS Tactical for my 75310’s and man are cool. After the last airsoft game, I realized that if I want to use my Sordins for an extended period of time I’m going to have to do something to make them more comfortable and I think this was a good step.

I guess this isn’t really a review since I haven’t gamed with them yet but am definitely looking to give them a shot for my next game. Will report back then how it goes, for now I think I’ll just walk around the house with it on and drive Maggie crazy. 😉

So today I attended another LT game at one of the local schools (being torn down, totally legit school board is aware) and it was fun. Henry, Marcia, Stephen and Mario also attended and initially I was just hoping to be a shooter but Rob asked if I could command the camo team and I obliged. LOL I knew if he’s asking that he was looking for a favor and I’ve played with him for years so if I can help make the game run smoothly I will.

Overall the games were pretty even all day, though as the day wore on we started to win more and more of the battles which was nice. 😉 In the last game the mixed team gave us a hell of a run but we were able to push all the way into their base of operations and totally wipe them out, from a command stand point that was very satisfying even though I wasn’t doing the shooting. Marcia brought her camera and took a bunch of pictures lately we’ve been too busy playing to take pictures so I was happy that she snapped these.

No action shots unfortunately and most of my video is of me giving orders and that’s pretty boring… Still some of the guys did some good pushes so I’ll see if there’s anything interesting, if there is I’ll post it on YouTube and post it here as well.

Ahh a nice way to start the 2014 airsoft season, this year is going to be awesome I can sense it!

Here are two videos so far from Saturday’s game.

I got a lot of footage and will most likely upload some more videos later but that’s it for now, busy with hosting my brother in law and his family. 🙂