c_sniper1-page

Meeting other airsofters is yet another fun part of airsoft and it makes milsim so much more enjoyable when you meet good people. For me, it's just so rare to find another person doing Russian impressions and when I do, I mark it as a good day.

At left holding my SVD sniper rifle is Red-Jawn. I met him in December 2002 at Cousins Paintball and we skirmished together many times since then. He is a great airsofter and a wonderful person to know.

The following photos are a few that were shot after a hard day of battle and I thought they made a great sniper team impression for wargear.

I like the visual record of each skirmish and I feel foolish for the times I don't take at least a handful of photos. These are a reminder that I need to allow for at least 20 minutes of quality picture time. I am glad to share them with you now.

Red-Jawn couldn't get enough of my Dragunov as evidenced here. Naturally, these are only posed shots which explains the lack of eye protection. Jawn is wearing the Bekas uniform by Splav in tiger. This is a very robust BDU and it has seen a lot of action. His vest here is the Omon vest, also Splav made. He supplements the carry with an additional 4 cell AK mag pouch attached to the belt. The Omon vest is more suited for a police role and sports only 2 mag pouches, holding 1 AK mag each.

This was probably the simplest approach to uniform and loadout I have ever attempted. Because I had used my SVD for a good portion of the afternoon, I chose to leave the assault vest in my vehicle along with my AK. I instead went with a very simple Romanian 3 cell AK pouch for ammo, food, multitool, tape, etc. The only thing I should have brought with me was water. If we were not so close to a source, I would have certainly taken a canteen along. The pants are also from a Bekas uniform but in Berezka pattern. The jacket is a commercial type liner to a hunting jacket. I sewed my Russian patches on it including a sleeve pocket from an old M88 jacket. The color of this jacket was perfect for the wet fallen leaves and if it were not for the bright light of the setting sun, these photos would show how well it blended with the terrain. I believe the scorpion patch is for a special purpose police unit but I'm not sure. Regardless, the look is fairly convincing. Except, of course, for the nomex gloves. Damn, gotta remember to switch to the black leather fingerless jammies when the camera comes out!

My favorite pic: I like that Red-Jawn wore sneakers... nobody gets it but they are very accurate for this impression. I liked checking out his AKM which he changed a bit with some AK74 elements. It's the Guarder full steel and wood model and is so convincing that it felt like my old realsteel version. Anyway, here we are taking a rest after the battle. I was up on a roof for the last hour or so. Had to kneel the whole time... man, I'm getting old!

Guarder Rifle kits - cost a fortune and go figure: both stocks cracked that day. The grip portion of my butstock and Jawn's tang area of the AK butt both suffered from cracking and niether were dropped or struck by anything! Evident here is our attempt at field bandaging. I always carry electrical tape and this day it really payed off. I also used tape to hold the battery in place.

Breaks can be fixed and luckily I had a backup to use.