We’ve hit a whole new month, and what a month August looks like it’s going to be, with mid-summer range days, games and events all appearing on the horizon!

Although it’s attracted a degree more controversy this year, Bill, Jimmy, and Ben are prepping for their pilgrimage to The National Airsoft Festival (NAF) at the end of the month, and are looking forward to the festival atmosphere of the weekend. In the report for NAF 2023, Bill concluded;

“As I say after every NAF, whatever your style of play may be the National Airsoft Festival has something to offer you. The Festival is first and foremost just that, a joyful festival event that celebrates airsoft in all its diverse and wonderful forms, and a festival that just happens to be set on an awesome site that has an enormous game going on at the same time… BRING ON NAF 2024!”

So, whilst we fully realise that this kind of event might not be for those that like their own airsoft action a bit more on the serious side, and we wonder if all the controversy will detract from the event overall, it is still a milestone in our yearly calendar as we’ve supported it from day one; it’s meant to be fun weekend, and is certainly a chance to catch up with old mates… we’ll just have to wait for the AA Crew report next month to find out how it all panned out…

And on a positive note though, ISSUE 165 is already in build, and the members of the AA LEGION are back to business as usual with another jam-packed monthly! Bill said from AAHQ;

“After our Summer Special last month it’s very much back to AA as you expect it, and we have some really cool reviews and article lined up for 15 AUGUST! Most of my personal testing is now complete, although I do need to spend a little more time on the range this weekend with the ARCTURIS K9 CUSTOM and the TM AKX… yup, I’m back to my very favourite airsoft topic, and that’s AKs… and I am very much looking forward to my rangetime!”

As the summer recess season starts to bite for some, Stewbacca is as active as always and told us “Team TaiJi will be going to Yangmei outdoor CQB again it seems, but I will be helping host another Civil Defence pistol/carbine training course, and our new young lady recruit to the team is going to join me for that as she’s been doing a lot of training with us lately too. I’m looking forward to seeing people putting holes in paper or making use of my electronic targets again with good skills and drills!”

Dan is also hard at it, but this weekend in the workshop, as he said “it’s been an LMG kind of summer here at the shop! I’ve got an HPA’d 249 Featherweight to finish making some final hop up adjustments, then another brand new 249 heavyweight version to build out in top-tier AEG form. I finally tracked down the correct micro-motor for my PKM’s bullgear insert, which previously went down due to the RPM reduction housing on the motor shearing a tiny gear. So I have to take a little time to install that and give it a test so it’s ready for the big game in September. Then I’ve got a quick motor swap and reshim on a G&P Stoner 63 to bring the ROF down to field limits. And interestingly enough, there’s a couple more LMG’s in the wings after this lot.”

Ben will also be in “maintenance mode” for once and added “the MP7 needs a clean after some hard use recently, and I’ve made a start on readjusting my hops on minigun (pain in the royal arse with the M132!) after Jimmy stripped it down and added some new additions to it for me… more on this another day! I’ve also got some video editing to do … there’s some funny clips floating around in one’s head that I may make too…”

Boycie is “hoping to meet up with fellow writer Steve for some much needed trigger time and discussion of future plans and also Vegas ‘25”, and as those summer breaks start to kick in Jimmy is “having some family time; airsoft and MX have consumed enough of me for a while, so I need some away time” and this is especially valid as this week we all wished Jimmy a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY, and our image this week features Jimmy, Jase, and Ben from their local game last weekend!

Even Miguel is winding down from his “robust operational tempo” as he told us “this weekend marks the start of our holidays. August is a quiet period for airsoft in Portugal, so we take some time off”… and well-earned that is too!

So it’s a bit of a mixed bag from us this week as we head towards our own summer break, but don’t fear, there’s a lot of AIRSOFT ACTION goodness to come between then and now! As always we hope that you have a great weekend of your own, and if you’re out in-game (HYDRATE!) Play hard, Play safe, and above all, Play with Honour!