Airsoft Squadron Sponsorship Program

Okay folks, here is the complete lists of requirements and "perks" for the Airsoft Squadron Sponsorship Program, as found on their website. As you can see, the program is broken up into three tiers, or levels, of sponsorship based mainly on a teams web presence and and video output. Looks like a great program to help smaller teams develop a following and reap some of the benefits that larger, more well known teams get. Get on it!

Tier 1 Perks

• One T-shirt for each team member 
• One Airsoft Squadron Banner per team 
• One Airsoft Squadron patch per team 
• 20,000 BBs/month (240,000 BBs/year) and one (1) $200.00 annual gift card a year per team 
• 20% off discount code for purchases at AirsoftSquadron.com 
• New products to review (and keep), additional terms may apply. 

Tier 1 Requirements:

• QTY: FOUR (4) 2-minute YouTube videos with Airsoft squadron's “Stinger” and clickable link to Insight Interactive’s YT channel in the beginning & end of the video, plus a link to Squadron site in the video description. 
• Eight (8) posts per month shared on other non-YouTube social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, etc), sharing the videos and giving Airsoft Squadron shout-outs with a link. 
• Will need to have a Facebook/YouTube channel with 300 fans/subscribers or more. 
• Airsoftsquadron.com banner must be on display, wherever allowed, at all team events, including events outside of the ACA. 

Tier 2 Perks

• One T-shirt for each team member 
• One Airsoft Squadron Banner per team 
• One Airsoft Squadron patch per team 
• 10,000 BBs/ month (120,000 BBs/year) and one (1) $100.00 annual gift card a year per team 
• 15% off discount code for purchases at AirsoftSquadron.com 

Tier 2 Requirements:

• QTY: THREE (3), 2-minute YouTube videos with Airsoft squadron's “Stinger” and clickable link to Insight Interactive’s YT channel in the beginning & end of the video, plus link to Squadron site within the video description. 
• Six (6) posts per month on other non-YouTube social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, etc), sharing the team videos and giving Airsoft Squadron shout-outs with a link. 
• Will need to have a Facebook/YouTube channel with 150 fans/subscribers or more 
• Airsoftsquadron.com banner must be on display, wherever allowed, at all team events, including events outside of the ACA. 

Tier 3 Perks

• One T-shirt for each team member 
• One Airsoft Squadron Banner per team 
• One Airsoft Squadron patch per team 
• 5000 BBs/month (60,000/year) for each team 
• 10% off team discount code for purchases at www.AirsoftSquadron.com 

Tier 3 Requirements:

• QTY: TWO, 2-minute YouTube videos with Airsoft Squadron's “Stinger” and clickable link to Insight Interactive in the start and end of the video plus link to Squadron Site in description. 
• Four (4) posts per month shared on other non-YouTube social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, etc) Sharing the videos and giving Airsoft Squadron shout-outs with a link. 
• Will need to have a Facebook/YouTube channel with 50 fans/subscribers or more. 
• Airsoftsquadron.com banner must be on display, wherever allowed, at all team events, including events outside of the ACA.

Shit Airsofters Say

Hah! Another great video from the guys over at Evike's channel on Youtube. I would have liked to see someone walking around asking if anyone had seen their grenade or some kids yelling that airsoft is just like Call of Duty. I always look forward to Evike's new videos because they usually try and throw some humor in there, which I appreciate. If you get a chance, subscribe to their channel and stay in the loop on some of their new products, events and reviews.

As always folks, play hard but play safe. Always wear full face and eye protection when playing airsoft and never, ever, ever, ever, ever take your airsoft guns out in public.

Airsoft Review: JG (Jing Gong/Golden Bow G36K)

Call your hits airsofters! It's your ever lovin' Grim here with my review on my JG G36K that I purchased from Airsplat. Now, some of you are probably thinking, "Grim, don't you already have a G36C? Why by another variant of the same model?" You're also probably asking yourselves, "Grim, is it possible for you to be less awesome?" The answer to both would be "Why mess with perfection?"

Anyway, the real reason behind it was just that, well, I just love the G36 design. It's just a damned sexy looking gun. I'm also comfortable with the guns setup and JG hasn't let me down yet and I also needed something with more range than my G36C and Holy HELL does this thing have some range. Now, on to the review.


Real Steel Info (from Wikipedia)

G36K (K — kurz "short"): carbine variant with a shorter barrel (fitted with an open-type flash suppressor) and a shorter forend, which includes a bottom rail that can be used to attach tactical accessories, such as a UTL flashlight from the USP pistol. The carbine's barrel lacks the ability to launch rifle grenades and it will not support a bayonet. The weapon retained the ability to be used with the AG36 grenade launcher. G36Ks in service with German special forces are issued with a 100-round C-Mag drum. There are two variants of the G36K. The first and most commonly known has x3 scope/carry handle attached to the top, while the second is the one with the iron sights and rail (no scope included)

AEG Specs:

• Velocity: 340 FPS (0.20g BB's) 
• Range: 170-190 Feet 
• Barrel Length: 16 inches / 40 cm
• Integrated 3x magnifying scope
• Body: ABS plastic
• Folding stock

Now being a JG there are certain things that are a given that you'll be, well, given when you purchase this gun: an unjamming rod, wall charger, 8.6v 1100 mAh battery, crap bb's (WHY do they still give these? Can someone answer this for me?), very good english instructions, and one high capacity (470 rd) plastic magazine and a blaze orange barrel plug. The usual list for JG's anyway.

This gun is virtually identical to the G36C so it's made of ABS plastic, meaning it's very solid and has no wiggle. It has a skeletonized, folding stock and ambidextrous fire select and mag release. The main differences between this and the G36C are of course the longer inner barrel (16" vs. 11.5" on the G36C), the longer hand-guard and the integrated 3x magnifying scope.


Performance:

The range on this gun is fantastic! Using .20g bb's in combination with the 3x magnifying scope,  I could hit targets within the 170-175ft range with reasonable accuracy (as a side note, there are also "manual" sights on the top of the scope for quicker target acquisition). I think the 190 ft range that is advertised on Airsplat is on the extreme side, and I wouldn't bet the farm that you could even graze a target at that distance. However, I will address that again in the My Setup section of this review. Also, the rate of fire is consistent with the G36C, with a much tighter grouping at range.

Issues:

None. And I mean that. I freaking adore this gun! I honestly can't think of a single complaint. Even the weight of the gun is not that much of a issue.



My Setup:

Here is where it gets more interesting. As you can see in the picture, I've added some external upgrades to this gun. My goal is to turn this into a squad support weapon, so to that end I've added the following:

• UTG Shooters Folding Bipod (Amazon) 
• Matrix 1,000 rd Electric Auto Winding Magazine (Evike) 
• JG Full Metal Auto Tracer Unit (Airsoftmegastore) 

The reason for not going with a full drum style magazine was two fold: first, the gun is heavy enough as is, and adding an extra 1,500 rds just seemed excessive. Also, having the dummy 5.56mm rounds showing just looks freakin' cool. The magazine is activated by pressing a small button on the trigger side of the magazine, which automatically feeds bb's, enabling me to lay down ridiculous amounts of fire.

Now, a word on the range. Having added the tracer unit to the barrel has increased the barrel length by about 6" and along with the integrated scope the effective range of this AEG seems to be about 180 ft. I know that using this gun in tandem with the tracer unit at SC Viper, I was able to hit targets on the second story of the palace side two story building while shooting from the one nearest the field entrance. Not only that, but the tracer unit allows for me to use this gun during night games when used in conjunction with glow in the dark bb's.

You can obviously tell that I would highly recommend this AEG to anyone looking for a quality, affordable long distance rifle. It is definitely a hefty gun, so you will feel it after running around with for a few hours. But without a doubt this is a definite recommend on my part. 

So, as always airsofters, play hard but play safe and never take your airsoft guns out in public. Or we'll find you.

Airsoft Community Interviews: Association of Competitive Airsoft (ACA)

Ohhhhh buddy! Grim here, folks.  We have a great interview for you today! If you've been playing airsoft for any amount of time, or watching airsoft related videos on Youtube, you are no doubt familiar with the Rainbow Ops airsoft team They're the guys with the Army of Two style black and white face masks and airsoft-awesome (airsome?) Youtube channel. What you may not know is that David Karstens (Squ1d, of Rainbow Ops), one of the founding members of the team, is also the suuuuper genius behind the Association of Competitive Airsoft, or ACA. The ACA is unique in the airsoft community in that it has successful brought competitive, objective based game play to the sport of airsoft.

I've been following Rainbow and the ACA for as long as I've been playing airsoft, so naturally I thought getting some more info to you, my lovely little plastic slingers, about the ACA and what it's all about would help get the word out about it even more. With that, I reached out to David and asked if he could give us some more insight into the ACA, it's basic structure, and what it has planned for the future: