IN SEARCH OF THE WEIRD...

IF YOU WANT AN AR- OR AK-BASED AIRSOFT GUN YOU ARE SPOILT FOR CHOICE AND WHILST OTHER STYLES ARE PLENTIFUL, THERE ARE SOME THAT YOU SIMPLY CANNOT FIND FOR LOVE OR MONEY. OVER TO FRENCHIE…

We’ve all done it. Whether it’s hanging in the safezone, chatting in airsoft shops, or bantering on forums and online, we have all fantasised about airsoft guns we would like to see. There are a few people out there with the tools and skills necessary to make their ideal guns, they crop up now and then and we all go “Ooh!” but generally you get what the manufacturers give you.

The thing is, I’m not just talking about guns per se. What about El Mariachi’s guitar case full of guns? Personally, I’d like a nice Marini Henry straight from the sunbaked plains of Rorke’s Drift? Yup, movies are responsible for a lot of this speculation and wishful thinking …but not all of it!

Some players would give an arm for a decent crew served weapon, a nice Browning M2 50 calibre perhaps? The problem, as ever, is that this would never be a popular gun, so there is no point for most manufacturers to produce one. There have been some attempts at serious machine guns; M60s which weighed as much as the real thing (not fun) and M1919A4s, but they are invariably seriously expensive and, in my experience, not very reliable. This is exacerbated by the fact their performance is usually the same as junior’s M4, which makes them even harder to justify.

We have, or had, similar issues with grenade launchers until the advent of the TAG range, which at least were more than glorified shotguns. I once spent quite a while fitting an M203 launcher to one of my FAMASs, it was done by the French Army and I thought it was cool. The problem was that it was heavy and unwieldy and the launcher had significantly less range than the gun it was attached to. That mod lasted less than a full game day!