The Contact Coffee Airsoft Armoury: Every Rifle, SMG and Pistol We Actually Run

by Luke Dalton September 16, 2026

Red On caffeine pouches tin, the between-games fuel that travels in the Contact Coffee armoury ammo tin — The one thing that goes to every game day alongside the armoury: Red On caffeine pouches, 200mg a pouch.

By Luke DaltonUpdated 2026-09-18

In 30 Seconds

Contact Coffee Company keeps a working airsoft armoury: five rifles, three submachine guns, a WW2 trio and three gas blowback pistols, all bought as registered skirmishers and run at UK sites under UK joule limits. This is the honest tour of what we own, what each gun actually is, and which ones get grabbed first on a game day. None of them are for sale on this site, we are a coffee company, but if you want to know what a Royal Marine founded brand actually runs at a skirmish, this is the list, from the HK416 and the AKM to the John Wick Combat Master and a drum fed Thompson.

Run what we run between games: Red On caffeine pouches, 200mg a pouch, 18 plus.

Why a Coffee Company Has an Armoury

Short version: we play. Contact Coffee was founded by Royal Marines, half our customers are serving, veterans or aspiring to join, and airsoft is where that whole world spends its weekends. We covered what the sport is, the law, UKARA and what it is like to get shot in our beginner's guide to airsoft; this page is the follow up everyone asks for, which is simply what do you actually run. Everything below was bought through UK airsoft retailer Patrol Base under the skirmisher defence, gets chronographed at every site like everyone else's kit, and lives in steel ammo tins between games.

One thing to say plainly before the list: these are not products of ours and this is not a shop page for them. UK law puts realistic imitation firearms behind the skirmisher defence, so if a gun below catches your eye, the route is the one in our beginner's guide: play your qualifying games, get registered, and buy from a proper UK retailer. And if you are building the kit that goes around the gun, our airsoft loadout guide covers the whole rig, from eye pro to BBs, in the order worth buying it. Buying for a player instead? The airsoft gifts guide is the answer to what to get an airsofter who already has the gun.

The Rifles

Knight's Armament KS-1 M4 AEG

A replica of one of the most current M4 platforms there is, and the newest arrival in the tin. As an AEG, an automatic electric gun running on a battery and gearbox, it is the low maintenance workhorse of the collection: consistent, accurate enough to reach across a woodland site, and completely unbothered by cold weather in a way gas guns are not. If one gun in the armoury ends up doing most of the actual winning, it will be this one, because boring reliability wins skirmishes the same way it wins everything else.

Umarex Heckler and Koch HK416 A5 Sportsline AEG

The licensed HK416 A5, the rifle silhouette everyone recognises from a decade of special operations photography. The Sportsline versions are the polymer bodied, sensibly priced end of Umarex's licensed range, which makes this the rifle we hand to guests: familiar layout, forgiving weight, and it looks the part in every team photo.

Delta Armory R15 FREYA Gen.2 M4 AEG

A 13 inch M-LOK railed AR-15 pattern AEG, which in practice means a light, modern M4 with all the space you want for a torch and a vertical grip. This is the closest thing the armoury has to a standard issue rifle: nothing exotic, everything where your hands expect it.

LCT AKM AEG with ASTER II Bluetooth ETU

The other side of the fence. LCT build their AKs with real steel and wood furniture, so this one has the weight and rattle of the genuine article, and inside it runs an ASTER II electronic trigger unit you can program from a phone over Bluetooth. A seventy year old silhouette with a firmware update: the contrast is exactly why it gets picked up. It is also the heaviest rifle in the collection by a distance, which is either a feature or a punishment depending on how far the site makes you walk.

Umarex Heckler and Koch G36C Sportsline AEG

The compact G36C, licensed again through Umarex, and the armoury's dedicated close quarters rifle. Short, light, folding stock, integrated carry handle optic rail: for indoor sites and vehicle heavy games it is the sensible answer, and it is usually the one juniors and smaller players get on best with.

The Submachine Guns

SIG Air MPX AEG

SIG's own licensed airsoft MPX. It shoots like a shrunken M4, takes the same batteries as the rifles, and fills the same role the real one does: a personal defence weapon sized gun that gives up nothing at close quarters range. On sub machine gun only game modes this is the first thing out of the tin.

WE Apache A5 Gas Blowback SMG

An MP5 pattern gas blowback, which means no battery and no gearbox: green gas cycles a real moving bolt, the gun kicks in the hands, and every trigger pull sounds and feels mechanical. Gas blowback SMGs are colder weather divas and drink gas, but nothing else in the armoury is as much pure fun per magazine.

S and T PPSh-41 EBB

The Soviet WW2 submachine gun, the drum magazine silhouette from every Eastern Front photograph, held in collections like the Imperial War Museums. S and T build it as an electric blowback with real wood furniture, and it is the gun other players cross the safe zone to ask about. More on it and its two WW2 stablemates below.

The WW2 Trio

The PPSh-41 above plus two American icons: a CYMA Thompson M1928 pattern AEG, the Chicago Typewriter, fed by a 450 round drum magazine because owning a Thompson and not feeding it from a drum would be a wasted opportunity, and an S and T M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle AEG, the BAR, the support weapon US infantry carried through the World Wars, all wood and steel and nearly a metre of it. WW2 loadouts are a genuine sub culture inside UK airsoft, filmic, slower paced, heavy on brass and canvas, and running this trio at themed game days is some of the best fun the sport offers. None of the three are practical choices next to the M4s. That is not the point of them.

The Pistols

Army Armament TTI JW3 Combat Master, the John Wick pistol

The 2011 pattern Combat Master built to the Taran Tactical Innovations spec from John Wick 3, in its airsoft gas blowback form. Hi-Capa based pistols like this one are the racing bikes of airsoft sidearms: double stack magazines, flat triggers, fibre optic sights, and a slide that comes back hard on green gas. It is the most asked about pistol we own by a distance.

Umarex Glock 17 Gen.3 GBB

The licensed airsoft Glock 17, and the sensible one. It carries like the real thing, points like the real thing, and never argues. If the Combat Master is the race gun, this is the duty pistol, and it is the one that actually rides in a holster most game days.

Army Armament R31 1911 GBB

A single stack 1911 pattern gas blowback to complete the set: the hundred year old design the other two descend from, slim, all metal and satisfying. Between the 1911, the Glock and the Combat Master the armoury covers the whole family tree of the modern pistol in three guns.

What Is Not in the Tin, Yet

An honest armoury tour admits its gaps. There is no bolt action sniper rifle, partly because the airsoft sniper role is a patience discipline that rewards hundreds of pounds of upgrades or none at all, and partly because nobody on the crew has volunteered to spend a game day crawling. There is no shotgun either, which feels like an oversight every time a close quarters game starts. Both gaps are known. Both will probably not survive the next Patrol Base order, and when they close this page will be updated, because this is a living list of what we actually run, not a one off article.

What Keeps It All Running

The unglamorous half of an armoury is the consumables, and the invoices do not lie: LiPo batteries in stick, nunchuck and PDW sizes with a proper balance charger and a fire safe charging bag, NUPROL 2.0 green gas for the blowback guns, 0.20g and 0.25g EAGLE BBs by the kilo bag, a KAC pattern QDC suppressor and a one point sling. All of it travels in genuine M2A1 ammo tins, the same 28cm by 18cm steel tins we sell with coffee in, which swallow a pistol, gas, BBs and a tin of pouches per box and stack flat in a car boot. The same kit discipline from our military kit guides applies: batteries charged the night before, gas kept warm, one tin per gun family.

Game Day Fuel

The armoury's last tin holds no gun. Skirmish days run eight hours and the slump between games is real, so the crew rule is the same one from our beginner's guide: coffee bags in the safe zone when there is hot water, and Red On caffeine pouches when there is not, 200mg of caffeine and 50mg of beta alanine per pouch, zero sugar, tobacco free, nicotine free, strictly 18 plus with a hard maximum of two pouches in 24 hours. The UK Food Standards Agency advises healthy adults stay under 400mg of caffeine a day, so one pouch mid morning and a brew at lunch is the pattern that actually works.

Frequently Asked Questions

What airsoft guns does Contact Coffee use?

The Contact Coffee armoury currently runs five rifles (Knight's Armament KS-1 M4, HK416 A5, Delta Armory R15 M4, LCT AKM, G36C), three submachine guns (SIG Air MPX, WE Apache A5 gas blowback, S and T PPSh-41), a CYMA Thompson with a 450 round drum, an S and T M1918A2 BAR, and three pistols (TTI JW3 Combat Master, Glock 17 Gen.3, a 1911), all bought as registered skirmishers from a UK retailer.

Does Contact Coffee sell airsoft guns?

No. Contact Coffee is a coffee company and none of the guns on this page are for sale here. Realistic imitation firearms are sold in the UK under the airsoft skirmisher defence by dedicated retailers, and the route to buying one is covered in our beginner's guide to airsoft.

What is the best airsoft gun for a beginner?

Rent for your first few games, then buy an M4 pattern AEG. M4 electric guns are reliable, cheap to feed, easy to upgrade and every shop and site tech knows them inside out. Exotic guns are more fun to own but an M4 AEG is the right first gun, which is why three of our five rifles are M4 pattern.

What is a Hi-Capa in airsoft?

A Hi-Capa is a gas blowback pistol pattern based on a widened 1911 frame with a double stack magazine, popular because it is fast shooting and endlessly customisable. The John Wick Combat Master pistols, including the TTI JW3 we run, are built on this pattern.

What is the John Wick airsoft pistol?

The pistol from John Wick 3 is the Taran Tactical Innovations Combat Master, a 2011 pattern race gun, and it is available as a licensed airsoft gas blowback replica from makers including Army Armament. It is the Combat Master in our own armoury and the most asked about gun we own.

Are WW2 airsoft guns any good for skirmishes?

They give up practicality to modern rifles: heavier, slower to reload and harder to find magazines for. But WW2 airsoft is a thriving theme in the UK, and guns like the PPSh-41, Thompson and BAR are the reason those game days feel like a film set. Run one for the experience, keep an M4 for the sweaty games.

What is the difference between an AEG and a gas blowback?

An AEG (automatic electric gun) uses a battery and gearbox: consistent, weatherproof and low maintenance. A gas blowback uses green gas to cycle a moving bolt or slide, giving recoil and realism at the cost of gas consumption and cold weather performance. Our rifles are AEGs; our pistols and the Apache A5 are gas blowback.

Do you need a licence to own airsoft guns in the UK?

No licence exists for airsoft in the UK. Legal airsoft guns are not firearms in law, and realistic replicas are bought under the skirmisher defence, usually evidenced by UKARA registration after three games over 56 days at a registered site. The full legal picture is in our what is airsoft guide.

What BBs and gas does the armoury run?

0.20g BBs in the high rate guns and 0.25g in the rifles for a steadier flight, bought by the kilo bag, with NUPROL 2.0 green gas for the blowback pistols and SMGs. Heavier BBs trade a little muzzle velocity for noticeably better consistency at range.