AirSoft....WOW!

General General Discussion
1

I’m really out of the loop it appears. I had no idea airsoft has become such a HUGE thing. I got an email from someone who belongs to a professional airsoft team (yes, fully sponsored and everything) who told me he and his team had been using my P.A.S.T Program to great effect, etc, etc.

I thought that was great, but I also had a WTF moment from it.

Professional teams??!! I had no idea. I recall when airsoft came out, it was generally sh&% on as a silly toy at best. Then some shooters decided it had some potential as a training tool and was incorporated for that use (as I understand it) and seemed to get a pass by shooters if used as one tool in the tool box, etc.

That’s as far as my knowledge went, so I started looking around on the net, YT, etc, only to see it appears to have become quite the mega business.

Wow, I had no idea. Not trying to be a hater, but some of them seem to take themselves very seriously.

Hey, if you can actually be sponsored to go play airsoft, more power to you I say.

I don’t really “get it.” I enjoyed paint ball the few times I did it, but it was not a real firearm, so my interest was not that high. Fun sure, but it’s no IDPA, course, or good day at the range, at least for me.

Learn me on airsoft. How did it get so friggin’ big and popular without my noticing? Am I the only one who didn’t know how big airsoft has become?

Check out this vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2KNI2LQbPU&feature=related

Two points:

There’s tons of vids like this and they get HUGE volume of views.

2

Airsoft is still mostly a silly toy.

It lacks the distance and accuracy of even paintball. What makes it more popular is it is less messy. Now there is some legitimate training application. For “in the room” kind of drills it is useful as a training aid.

You can also use it for indoor practice of draws, stance, etc… The big drawback of course is the POA/POI with most airsoft products will be dramatically different from the POA/POI with actual firearms.

We had some Tokyo Maru MP5 airsofts and we used to practice room clearing drills. It was fun stuff we couldn’t do in most places with real MP5s but it didn’t make us special forces qualified for anything.

3

I understand that AirSoft can be used for all the things SteyrAUG said,but when I see a young person with one all I can think is,

“I guess Mommy and Daddy won’t let You have a real gun.”

I know there are plenty of young guys who are the real deal and could be using them for training.They aren’t the ones I’m talking about.

I mean the ones that learned everything they know about guns from CoD.

4

I had real guns from the age of about 7 or 8, but if they made airsoft back then I’d have that too. I had toy guns, toy guns are for playing. If my friends and I had airsoft when we played “army” that would have been a dream for us. Somehow caps just didn’t quite get it.

5

The good saving grace of Airsoft guns is Force on Force Training without the cost of simutions.

6

Close… :wink:

7

I have written off airsoft because when ever I’m scouting for gear online, all I get is forum posts and pics of REAL eagle ciras vests, mich helmets and eotechs on what I thought is a real sopmod II
Gun. Nope, further reading turns out it some IT guy looking for praise for his finished “DevGru loadout” assembled from hours of internet research and 3000$ worth of real war gear.

Times this by the hundreds of times I’ve found the same thing. I don’t think your alloud to airsoft unless you reseamble a super delta sealsoc para-ranger.
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8

There really only is a finite set of training circumstances where airsoft makes sense (urban/MOUT; force on force; draw/no draw LE role playing scenarios) for real training evolutions.

For every other application, a lot of the crowd is the same as the paintball guys, with the added COD flair of dragging a replica M4 through a CTD catalog with a crap magnet. It is what it is.

It’s there, and as a business it’s great. In non-permissive countries (Japan, where they originated, Britain, Germany, Hungary, Philippines, etc.) it’s absolutely huge because mommy state says no guns, so the market for these is huge, and the replicating detail is usually excuisite.

Complain all you want about the stereotype fat airsofting kids, but at least they’re not on the couch 24/7, and their conception of gunfighting isn’t limited depressing thumbsticks.

9

This is the kind guy I’m talking about.

If You use AirSoft guns to train or just as a toy,that’s cool.

But if You are over 18 and want a gun get one.Not a toy.

10

You guys are crazy, airsoft is a blast. Not only does it allow you to train in different ways, buts its fun to get a couple of guys together and play a realistic paintball game. Lighten up francis.

11

I broke down and purchase a couple airsoft guns, a krink clone (use it as a blue gun since I couldn’t find any other sources with the weight and moving parts) and a g19. The little g19 is pretty realistic feeling, even the trigger has nearly the same reset and pull. Not a bad little gun for dry firing exercises and gives better feedback than the real thing dry.

No I haven’t shot any one with either :stuck_out_tongue:

12

I have a friend with an airsoft M16A2 that is really well built and pretty accurate. If you spend some money on them they are not pieces of crap. My friends airsoft can hit a soda can from a good 50 feet (farthest I have shot it) easy and will actually pierce one side.

I have played around with it at his house with a cardboard box as my bad guy. Its good training inside a house. Just because a lot of idiots use it doesnt make the item worthless. Good airsoft guns are good training and is pretty fun.

13

Who has time for airsoft? I spend all my time in my mom’s basement playing the latest shooter. You know so I can be like the guy’s who got OBL. :suicide2:

14

This is a bit of a tangent, but I noticed a lot of the guys in the videos were crossing their feet when moving laterally. My years of football, basketball and baseball taught me otherwise. Is their movement OK to cross their feet or are they not doing it the best way?

15

I can see using it as a tool in the tool box for working on those skill sets it may be helpful with and in locations where bullet holes are frowned on (per others comments above), and I can even see perhaps a few guys having some fun using it popping some rnds at each other. It’s the level of gear and seriousness and size of it all that really blew my mind. Had no idea.

I need to stop concerning myself with the health/fitness/performance of the tactical community, and start working with airsoft teams! :lol:

16

Just like any hobby or game you are gonna have some of the people that go all out. Its the same with paintball too. I like airsoft more than paintball because of the realistic guns and you can get actual capacity mags.

17

I bought one for an AMIS class. For $40, it was worth it. Cheap and effective. I felt really dirty when I bought it, like I was doing something morally reprehensible. Great fof trainer. SIMs are much better, but not available to us “citizens.”

As far as the “pro’s” go, its a bit silly but more power to them. Bell, if I could get paid to play all day, I sure as bell would.

18

As for the video, what they are doing has almost zero value if nobody is shooting back. This has TRAINING SCAR written all over it.

19

I dig it, but I a lot of the AirSoft culture is people being stupid, and 50 year old dudes playing Army.

I had the fortune to play against a group of cops once. That was AWESOME.

20

I like airsoft because you can get together with your buddies and shoot each other. You just can’t do that with real weapons.

On the other hand, the window-lickers that act like idiots ruin it for me sometimes. They give airsoft a bad rap. Airsoft can be just an adult sport as paintball if people were 100% mature about it.

Where I live now, I only play with Airmen and Sailors, and we all use serious guns. I don’t play with the locals because it’s a frenzy of 12-year-olds running around the jungle with airsoft guns they bought at K-Mart and not calling their hits.