A place for me to review the various rugged, nifty and needful kit that I've accumulated, for every-day preparedness in the event of accident, disaster or world-shifting end-times Apocalypse, be it zombies, triffids or Mayan divide-by-zero errors.
That said, I had a good time, and got to see a lot of cool stuff.
I will just give you a few lines here and there to go with the pictures, and the like, as there was a lot to see at the hundred or so stalls, with everything from taxidermy to targets, bow-hunting to rifles and scopes.
The focus was almost entirely sporting shooting and hunting, as there isn't a big tactical and personal defense market in Australia.
The Beretta stall had this display of pistols, with a variety of their pistols from the M92 range, as well as some old cap-and-ball style too. It was really nice to see the old along side the new.
This big bad rifle from SAKO (in 308WIN or 338LM) caught my eye. I've always been one to lean towards "bigger is better" when it comes to my arm-chair firearms assessment.
Weighing in at over 6kg, (13.2lbs) this was a big piece.
There were a variety of different gun-dealers, (go figure) and Gun Emporium was one of the big ones. All manner of hunting and target rifles, and kit.
Here's a very cool little gun that I saw, a folding skeletonised folding Rimfire rifle, in 22LR or 22WMR, the Little Badger.
This folds up into a small package and comes with its own nylon carry-bag. Perfect for a pack in the wilds, or if you're gong to be salvaging in a wasteland.
Blaser had a impressive lineup too, some very well made pieces on display.
I hadn't ever met these guys in person before, but it was a great chance to shake hands and out faces to names. ZERT on!
I had a good drool over the Accuracy International rack. Some very fine looking pieces of nail drivers there.
I especially admired the thumbhole grips, which were a modular design accessory for these pieces. Again, offered in the big bore 308WIN or 338LM.
As well as all the rifle sellers, there were numerous hunting and trecking suppliers, as well as archery and bowhunting suppliers to browse.
There was no shortage of things for sporting shooters and hunters to peruse, but it was all very light on tactical or survival gear. I did get to play around on the ATV's on display, thanks to Polaris, and if I had significant disposable income (or some actual practical need) I'd be well tempted. They offered singles, doubles and even quad-capacity vehicles, for all your dune-jumping and mud-bashing needs ...
One of the most tempting items I saw for sale were the new boots in the MUCK boot company range.
Waterproof, ruggedised and comfortable, they have three new boots, and well worth looking at if you find yourself often in wet, cold or sloppy conditions.
I was delighted to see Platatac having a stall, and got to catch up wit hthe guys, who showed off the HHA ASOT-01 again, but also had on display their just-about-to-be-released stretcher pack.
This innocuous sustainment and medic's pack comes fitted with a variety of external and internal loop-field and PALS/MOLLE attachment options.
The magic is in the pull-away top and bottom panels which deploy a last-ditch stretcher for rapid CASEVAC. I saw these in the factory months aga, and they're getting ready for retail sale. Stay tuned!
These are offered in .223 and .300 BLK chambers, with three barrel lengths and two different upper lengths. They build these to spec, so if you're in the market for a very professional looking piece capable of being fitted out with all the bells and whistles, you might want to give them a look.
having not brought myself to capture any of the Barbi-Pink camouflage on display "for the ladies" and enplaned to the horrified, practical and ever fashion conscious Omega why Blaze Orange can be a legitimate stalking colour-scheme, we agreed that we'd both prefer Real-Tree or one of the more widely accepted military patterns, she was delighted to come across this dapper sporting shooters outfit at the Beretta stall.
Not quite my thing, but, she's someone I'm willing to make concessions for, there weren't many other partners in attendance at the SHOT show, and perhaps sporting shooting and hunting is mostly a boys-own club, but I'll take capable and engaged family in a survival situation any day!
I enjoyed the SSAA SHOT expo this year, and made some good contacts, which will hopefully be fruitful and informative in the weeks to come. Stay tuned!
I had the opportunity to go and run through the Oz Apocalypse Zombie Experience over the weekend, and wanted to give you my thoughts on it.
There has been quite a bit of controversy around the event, primarily as it changed hands very late in the piece and there was quite a disparity between what the original promoters/organisers (IRL Shooter, who ran Patient 0 in 2013) and the Zombie
Apocalypse Survival Experience: LAZARUS event being put on by OzApocalypse and
Horror Corp Entertainment. This mostly stems from OzApocalypse "buying up" the Pozible Campaign that for whatever reason IRL Shooter found itself unable to present.
This was NOT the sequel that IRL Shooter had promised, this was an event put on by OzApocalypse that drew on that event, its fanbase, and premise. I think that in several aspects it was not as impressive as IRL Shooter's Patient 0 (it wasn't nearly as large or sprawling, and didn't have the embedded story).
However, it was also superior in several ways. The technology for one, I felt was significantly better.
The irM4's from iCombat sync wirelessly to the smart bandoleer
we all wore, which recorded shot data, accuracy, and more. The irM4's
were fitted with a 150 round SmartMag and additional magazine kits can
be purchased. If a player is eliminated, their gun shuts off for a period of time
preventing cheating!
The best thing about the new weapons were that they had CO2 powered
sound and recoil. you could feel every shot, hear every rapport.
I knew
if my teammates were firing, even over the din of the event space, and
that was a crucial improvement in the experience.
The bandoleers were tied to our irM4's wirelessly, and reported back to a central computer, and more importantly, they tied into the headbands worn by the Zombies, these were similar to the bandoleers we wore, and acted as emitters to make proximity to the zombies damaging. Get too close, and they "bite".
Shoot the sensors and they flash and go solid with a kill, and the actors dropped. All this data was fed back through to the behind-the scenes control and scored were generated, and passed against the membership cards we were given at registration, giving you reciprocal rights at other iCombat sites, and the ability to accrue rank in the network.
The OzApocalypse website made mention that there was the ability to customise your irM4, but this is a bit of a misnomer, in that there were a second set of weapons, the short barreled, and Picatinny rail mounted short barreled "Commando" irM4's in their armory, fitted with vertical grips, there wasn't really the facility during the Zombie Apocalypse event to do any customization other than adjusting the buttstock and in my case, fitting my own sling, the trusty 215Gear sling.
Other than this it replicates one of the most known assault rifles in the world, the M16/M4,
and is used by law enforcement and militaries all over the world.
It
has the same form, fit, and function as the real thing and brings the
word realism up to a whole new level. I really enjoyed the "Tap, Rack, Bang" functionality. Removable clips, internal sensors and fully functional parts, from mag-release to selector switches . The weapons and sensors made the event for me. No more reload button or hard to hear electronic sounds. You hear and feel every round, in a longer engagement, if you were kitted out with spare mags you could drop your mag and slam a new one home. They bypassed this by assigning everyone a cylume glowstick, and had a reloading station where we were restocked by a technician, but you can see how it could be easily enough facilitated in a more longterm event.
And that's all before we even get to set dressing, gameplay and the actors! I was really happy with what we faced when we passed through the containment doorways.
When OzApocalypse took the event over, they brought on Horror Corp Entertainment from the US, engineers who specialized in Haunted House and Zombie Apocalypse Experience "in real life" gaming environments. They have three decades of experience in
visual, sound, event and multimedia production, creating theatrically-based, interactive horror and
genre projects. The event at the Melbourne Showgrounds takes place in a
blackened-out, light-controlled battle zone, it doesn’t matter what
time of day it is, – players will step into an ominous world to fight
ravenous zombies. The Prop and Set Designers as well as Makeup Artists create a film set style environment that immerses players in the
Zombie Apocalypse survival experience.
Combinations of lighting, (and lack of lighting), selected use of smoke, as well as a really harrowing and oppressive sound-scape really put pressure on the player as they navigate a maze or debris and horrific scenes.
I had the good fortune to get to go backstage and saw the interconnected
passageways the actors could take to move from area to area, where they
would emerge and lay in wait for the passing players, in and around the
sets. The hospital area bugged me the most, as I work in them, and have done the graveyard shift...
The maze was a CQB nightmare, with blind corners, concealed alcoves and all manner of cover for the zombies to lurch from and come at us. Importantly though, for all its twists and turns, it was a "safe" environment, from an OH&S perspective and you could easily cope with the 6-8 person teams recommended. We ran it in a team of three, and were like a well oiled machine. I didn't have to worry about anyone actually getting hurt for real during even an intense simulated combat.
We weren't rushed along as we had been in the Patient 0 event, and even though the maze was relatively small, much more in line with a Haunted House event rather than the sprawling warehouse/factory sit utilised for Patient 0, and we went through the maze twice, as a part of the gameplay, I certainly didn't feel any less fearful of my life when zombies came at us from dark corners, or rattled on us from behind chainlink walls as we faced more direct threats.
Back in the registration area, the stark lighting, clean floors and all too living other players was a more jarring experience. I wanted back in to my comforting darkness, screaming and sirens. The one upside of the "real-world" was that I got to fool around with both the Glock training weapons. The Glocks had the same "real features" as the irM4's, removable clips, wireless targeting and scoring, and ammo-counts. Unfortunately due to limited battery capacity, and high accuracy, they weren't really suited to the spray-and-pray zombie hoard threats the game presented with.
A regrettable technical difficulty, but one the organisers preferred to keep it out of the game, but available for range use! I also got to use the notorious pain-belt! It was a really, really unpleasant experience and I heartily recommend it for all gamers. Again, it apparently was not suited to use in the zombie game, but us perfect for PvP shooting. I tried it on the low setting, which was startling and also all the way up at high, which was curse-making, but didn't hamper me as soon as it stopped. Incentive not to get shot, for sure.
So, all in all I was really pleased with the OzApocalypse Zombie Apocalypse event. I was a Pozible campaign ticket holder, and I feel it was pretty amazing that they would offer to honour the IRL Shooter LAZARUS ticket holders at all, which was super generous. It certainly is NOT a sequel to the Patient 0 game, and its really hard to compare the two events as apples and apples. I really enjoyed it, and really look forwards to going back for more.
The Zombie Apocalypse Experience is running for two more weekends, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays while weekdays and weeknights
give those who love games like Call of Duty the chance to combat team vs
team combat in the BATTLE APOCALYPSE arena, which is the same area as the Zombie Apocalypse event, but with the connecting areas opened up, some walls opened up, and more personal threats, with pain belts available on request, I believe. I'd really recommend you get along and enjoy it, in either its Zombie Apocalypse, Battle Apocalypse or even the kid-friendly FAMILY versions, before it finishes.
AND, thanks to the organisers, I can offer all my readers a whopping 35% discount with the code "COYOTE0415" (thats charlie-oscar-yankee-oscar-tango-echo-zero-four-one-five).
TICKETS: Lazarus www.flavorus.com/ozapocalypse
Battle Apocalypse www.flavorus.com/battleapocalypse
Group Bookings (minimum of eight players) email tickets@ozapocalypse.com
Facebook and Twitter OzApocalypse
Instagram ozapocalypse.com.au
I met up with some of my mates from Q-Squadron ZERT .
I did get to play around on the ATV's on display, thanks to Polaris, and if I had significant disposable income (or some actual practical need) I'd be well tempted. They offered singles, doubles and even quad-capacity vehicles, for all your dune-jumping and mud-bashing needs ...
One of the most tempting items I saw for sale were the new boots in the MUCK boot company range. 
I was delighted to see Platatac having a stall, and got to catch up wit hthe guys, who showed off the HHA ASOT-01 again, but also had on display their just-about-to-be-released stretcher pack. 
having not brought myself to capture any of the Barbi-Pink camouflage on display "for the ladies" and enplaned to the horrified, practical and ever fashion conscious Omega why Blaze Orange can be a legitimate stalking colour-scheme, we agreed that we'd both prefer Real-Tree or one of the more widely accepted military patterns, she was delighted to come across this dapper sporting shooters outfit at the Beretta stall. 
