Sorry I haven’t posted much in the last week, it’s been very busy at work and in my personal life but I did want to post a bit of a rant…

Retail airsoft stores are few and far between in Canada and every now and then for some reason I find myself paying AirsoftDepot.ca a visit. The temptation is higher now too since I moved closer about a 10-15 minute drive from the place and every time I buy something, I’m disappointed… I guess my story starts last week so let’s get to that first.

Maggie and I wanted to go out for lunch and wanting to repair the ARES CQBR I decide to go to AirsoftDepot.ca’s store to pick up the buffer tube I need. While there I saw an Element Manta strobe, the box claimed it could do both red & IR, it wasn’t super expensive so I figure why not. I know it’s not going to be as good as the real thing (and that my boys would make fun of me for buying a replica strobe) but I guess the Chinese in me came out lol.

So when I get home, I pop a Surefire CR123 battery into the thing and unfortunately it doesn’t work. Frustrated, I decided to bring it back for an exchange but there were no more red/IR replica manta strobes available. On a whim, I take a battery cap from another strobe (owner was ok with it) to test and it works so I give the guy the strobe with the broken cap back and he puts it back on the wall… Whatever I don’t know what ended up happening to that strobe, perhaps he just put it there for the time being and sent it back, I’m also not saying that he’s selling broken merchandise knowingly.

Anyway the strobe ends up being a POS (as expected I guess), it doesn’t do IR, the red LEDs just glow at a much lower brightness but it’s noticeable at about 20′ in the dark. I decide I didn’t want it but didn’t want to go back to the store a third time on the same day. At least to be fair the owner of AirsoftDepot.ca does allow you to exchange things if you’re not happy so that part is nice.

Fast forward to the today, I bring the Element Manta strobe back to exchange and pick up a few parts, odds and ends mainly because everything he stocks is generally garbage. I get home and when I put a fore grip I grabbed off the shelf onto one of my guns, it’s broken right out of the packaging! It was the was opened and the last of the colour I wanted but god are you kidding me. Luckily it’s something I can fix but that’s it, I am never buying anything from AirsoftDepot.ca again.

I’ve probably been there a handful of times and have generally never been satisfied with anything I’ve purchased there. Perhaps I’m not being fair, most of the stuff on my guns and my gear is real so comparing repro equipment to real parts is wrong but yeah I am not going the cheap route every again because it always just leads to headache.

The buffer tube for the ARES CQBR works great, it’s kind of hard to screw up a metal tube but in any case, lesson finally learnt! Ain’t buying crap ever again.