Last month my teammates went to visit Airsoft HQ in Austria for a shopping spree. They’ve spent quality time (and a bunch of “eurobucks”) and they came back with nothing but good impressions. I’ve found out later that Markus from Airsoft HQ is one of our readers and he actually recognized my teammates who were featured in one of the earlier issues of the Popular Airsoft Magazine. Deathless Kings and Airsoft HQ are both organizers of airsoft events so they had a couple of things to talk about and exchange ideas. Markus is a team leader/player so he can see both consumer and retailer side of the airsoft world.

Airsoft HQ Shop

Here is an excerpt of my chat with him:

DOM: What is Airsoft HQ?

MARKUS: AirsoftHQ started as a project in summer 2007 and the site went online on the 23rd of October. A friend of mine, Martin and I used to play airsoft for some years and we thought it’s a good idea to start a shop in Austria so we did it. We’re located in Eisenerz, Styria about 80 clicks away from Graz. I’m the managing director and there are 5 people working for AirsoftHQ currently but it’s some sort of a second job for us because our main profile is working in an ISP company as Network Engineers and AirsoftHQ is a part of that company.

Do you offer special services like maintenance and upgrade?

Yes of course we do service and upgrading, but it takes some time if someone wants to upgrade his/her gun because we try to do quality work rather than shove in the parts and get rid of it.

These days almost anyone can order straight from Hong Kong. Is it hard to compete with the HK prices?

I don’t think they are really cheaper on the long run because customs and shipping fees make an individual order from HK more expensive than a simple EU order plus when it comes to repairs or similar things it’s a lot easier for our customers to bring it over to us than to send it back to a HK retailer and spend more bucks for shipping than the whole part costs! The biggest problem is the really long re-supply time if we order at HK wholesalers. Sometimes it takes more than two months (and yes we get it via air cargo) for an order to arrive.

Popular Airsoft had a survey not too long ago where Tokyo Marui came out first as the most favorable AEG. What is your experience about this? Which one is the most favorable in your store?

The ACM guns are the most favorable at this time but it’s only because of their low price. Their quality is getting better and better now but they still can’t keep up with the high quality brands. I must say that Tokyo Marui is one of the best choices on the market. They are very high quality, very reliable and you don’t need high fps to have a good gun! We’ve never had any problems with TM guns and I love their GBBs.

Everyone has its own favorite brand or product. Working in an airsoft store is a huge advantage as a player because you pretty much know every brand out there. What do you use when you working on your own project?

I leave most of my AEGs like they were when they came out of the box! I only upgrade them in case some parts don’t work properly or something breaks. Of course it’s great for an airsoft player to get his hands on all the new guns, and it’s always like Christmas for me when we receive some new items and I can’t wait to get my hands on the guns to test them! So you can guess I got a pretty big collection of my own guns, ha-ha. My all-time favorites are the TM M14 SOCOM, the TM MP7, my Systema M16A3 and the TW5. I always take 2 guns to a skirmish in case one breaks down. For upgrading I use Modify, Systema, Prometheus parts and Madbull Barrels.

What do you think about the upcoming Chinese brands who offer a lot for very little money for example JG with their FB6604?

For players who want to start or someone who doesn’t want to spend all of his hard earned money it’s the best choice to have a gun with good performance. Based on this fact here’s one more: we sell mostly ACM guns (sad but true). I don’t know a single ACM gun that has no flaws and in case of the FB6604 we had loads of troubles with these. The biggest problem is the lack of availability. As a retailer you got pretty much to do, to keep enough of these in stock, so that you can satisfy your customers (the factories are so unreliable; we had to wait 7 months for new shipment).

As a player I must say I hate them because they bring nothing but high fps and low detail in manufacturing (the dimensions, the colors and the crafting simply can’t match the other well-known brands). We have FPS limits for full auto AEGs of 400 fps and then the players wonder why they can’t play with their cheap ACMs because they all exceed the limits.

ASVE Loadout

There are any special regulations in Austria regarding Airsoft?

The FPS limits (400 fps AEG, 450 fps semi/AEG, and 550 fps spring/gas snipers) are the internal regulations between the teams in Austria. You have to be 18 years old to buy/ play with airsoft guns and to sell them you must have a gun dealer license (to get this I had to learn all about the real steel firearms).

Austria is known for its cleanliness and beautiful countryside. The endless mountains and forests probably giving you unique battlefield but are you not afraid of spoiling it with hundreds of BBs every day?

Of course we are not allowed to play in national parks and yes it’s a big problem, we are currently looking for a new site! But many teams are lucky enough to find an owner of a big forest where they can play. We have a lot of great skirmish sites for woodland skirmishes but there is a lack of CQB sites!

What is your view of airsoft in Austria?

It’s a quite a good and growing community and there is also a lot of teamwork between the teams. I can’t mention the best ones because there are so many. We also keep good connections with our neighboring countries and attend games outside our borders. The only thing that makes me mad is that some teams don’t care about the love of the game but the only thing they care about is their looks. Those Gearwh*res are only posing in their 4,000€ gear and everyone who’s not like them doesn’t count. I don’t have to wear real steel gear and 40 pounds of real armor plates to have fun (btw, I wouldn’t have much fun carrying so much weight anyways)!

ASVE Group

Tell us something about your team and how it is connected to Airsoft HQ.

I am the team leader of the ASVE (Airsoft Sportverein Eisenstrasse). We have about 15 members (boys and girls) and four of these guys are working at AirsoftHQ. We used to play nearly every weekend somewhere but it’s very rare that the team is complete on a skirmish because of our jobs and families but every one helps out at events if they can. We also have close friends in other teams who fill up the empty positions during a skirmish.

Your team is more into Milsim or you guys prefer the Urban/CQC games?

We tend to play everything but everyone has his/her personal favorite. The official team load out is Danish camo in woodland areas, but we don’t force team members what to wear as long they wear the patches. We try to attend as much events we can to obtain experience in both urban and woodland areas.

Tell us about the events organized by your team.

Since our own site (we lost it this summer thanks to a couple of silly teenagers) was really small we were able to organize events for 25 people maximum but we used to help other teams in promoting and organizing their games. We supply food, T-shirts and other stuff and help to get the teams together. We had some very good operations this year and I hope 2009 will be as good or even better. At the beginning of December we had a CQB Christmas skirmish in the Czech republic where we offered prizes for those guys who where able to capture the gifts during the event.

Do you have zombie issues on your event or you are trying to stay away from bad apples?

Yes, zombies are big problem especially on “Free For All” games. So, when we or a friendly team organize events, we always take a close look on the teams we invite and we invite only selected teams because no one wants “cheaters” or people who are shooting with glass or metal BBs.

What are your future plans for your team? Did you get yourself any new toy for Christmas?

I only have three wishes: I wish we could find a good skirmish site for ourselves. I wish all those wank*rs will get a proper radio one day! I wish I could have the strength to haul my new Inokatsu M240B (Xmas treat for myself) during a 24-hour skirmish.

All I can say is keep up the good work Markus and I hope we can meet shortly on the field. Just don’t forget to send updates on your upcoming events!

Thanks a lot for the interest in our shop and thank you for the nice words from your teammates! I hope we meet you and your team sometime. I’ll keep you and your readers up to date about our events. Just make sure you tell your readers to contact us if they want to experience airsoft in Austria. We can recommend teams and sites all over our country.