Hey everyone!
Welcome back to the blog! Today I have another player spotlight for you and this time we'll be chatting to James AKA kickingmustang.
10 years, I was originally introduced to it by a friend who ran the fund I was trading for in The City. I was a Trader for 15 years before I’d ever heard of airsoft. His son had had a nerf party and his friends had turned up with BB guns, which we confiscated, and realised we could shoot each other with them. Which we did. And loved it. I was hooked.
What’s your playing style?
I’ve evolved a lot over the years, I quickly became frustrated with the randomness of CQB, which I played a lot of when I first started. I learnt about concealment, ghillie suits and having had a love for hide and seek since I was a kid, I began to understand how I was able to control the environment and use stealth as my weapon. When you are aware of what your opponents can see, or not see, and you figure out how you fit into the environment you are playing in, you are in control of the situation. I like to pick when I engage. A lot of people will call me a ‘ghillie sniper’, but I think my style is more like a ninja. I love getting very close to opponents, silent takedowns, one shot at close range, unseen and unheard.
Are you a woodland player? CQB fan? Or do you like to mix it up?
I find it easiest to play in woodland, I’m able to vanish in plain sight when I need to, and can move silently when others make noise. I have an edge there. But I do like to mix it up a bit. I love mountain terrain, there’s a field I play in France, The Bear’s Head. It’s the toughest field in the world, they don’t allow night games there because it’s too dangerous, but it is the best place to stalk. An overgrown WW1 fortress on a forested mountain with a labyrinth of tunnels through the mountain.
My favourite piece of kit is, of course, my Kicking Mustang Concealment System (KMCS) Ghillie Suit which I am very proud to have brought to market in 2019 and is what I believe to be the best ghillie suit available today. In terms of weapons, I’ve always believed my MK23 pistol is my primary and my bolt action rifles are my back up for when I can’t get close enough to use them. To be honest, if I wasn’t making YouTube videos I’d probably run just an MK23 every game, with a fun GBB gun and some sort of occasional challenge weapons. I love fun challenge weapons, you know like sawn-off shotguns or bonkers Mac10 machine pistols with a crazy rate of fire but mags that only hold 40 BBs, and my friend’s at Swit Airsoft are amazing at supporting that. I love their passion for vintage airsoft that they upgrade into usable platforms. They let me have free pick of all their guns that they have in stock, and they often send me crazy guns as a surprise. Years ago the airsoft community seemed to love weird and wonderful guns. Now everyone wants the longest range, the highest rate of fire, quietest… I’d love to see more fun guns and unique loadouts.
What’s your most memorable event?
Tough one, I’ve had so many. The first time I went to the Ciudad in southern Spain, which is an abandoned town with a supermarket, gardens, houses, disco, petrol station, working street lights, was mind-blowing. It’s like a Call of Duty or Counter-Strike map. Just wow. Playing with two elite milsim teams in Texas at a US Army base last year was intense. The event was ok, the field was good, but the players I was with, their dedication, their teamwork and ethic of wanting to improve themselves as players were on a different level to anything I had experienced before. It was amazing to be a part of. But the events run by my friend Sascha at The Bear’s Head in 2018 are probably the best. I went there with a team of 8 Sniper Ops, including Airsoft Camman and Cleanshot, and we dominated that place. We had so much fun. It was our mountain and nobody was going to take it from us. And the videos we put together from that were pretty special as well. The Bear’s Head is the ultimate airsoft arena, nowhere else like it in the world.
Is there any advice you can give to other players out there?
Get together with some friends, grab a ferry or get on the channel tunnel, and get over to Europe for the weekend, some of the fields over there are well worth visiting.
Where can my readers find you on social media?
On YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. I love Instagram stories and sharing teching, ghillie crafting and live streams there. On Facebook, I have a community group for ghillie snipers at facebook.com/groups/sniperoperations, but please make sure to read the rules when you join, they are a bit different to all other airsoft community groups and are the reason it is quite possibly the only positive and troll-free airsoft community group out there. But if you want the fun gameplay videos, youtube.com/kickingmustang
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