I love 8mm. I really, really love it, seriously. I do not get geeky about guns that much and I don't care about the technical stats and abilities of them as much as I should I suppose, but I must say I am smitten by the things: I really am an 8mm fanboy.

It started small, as these things often do, with just about the smallest gun you can get in airsoft (if not the whole world) and that was a Derringer.

It's laughable now, but even then I loved it; loading the double breech with 2 rounds, it felt like it was straight out of an Action film - I think the main fascination with 8mm is the fact that it's almost, just almost, 9mm.

But really it is; loading those first few dozen rounds into the breech of the Derringer was just so realistically cool, because the damn ammo wasn't so damn small, as it usually is.

And I don't try to copy real steel (much), I appreciate much more what I see in films and TV. I think guns are cool, plain and simple. I don't think the army is cool, I definitely don't think actually killing is cool, I don't even think hunting is cool - I like the power portrayed in films; the ultimate control over other individual's lives so I can (in my own sad world) switch them off at will: the total dominance of a lone, vengeance-fuelled dual-wielding gunman, I love Action films. With that well-deserved capital A.

And 8mm brings it closer to you. We're all here for the same reason: we know the score and we love our action films. The performance of 8mm compared to 6mm is almost as good, if you use green gas then it's even better, and the mass of the ammo itself makes it more likely to be detected by even those borderline-Kevlar Kids at your local skirmish site.

To be honest I really do fail to see why some sites don't allow them, and why some players won't accept them.

They really are missing out - take it from someone who knows a bit about Fun Guns