Airsoft is like 1990's Paintball !

[Meleager7]

So I have been bored lately with my nightly TV entertainment, so I went down the Airsoft rabbit hole a bit on Youtube , trying to learn more about "The Game Which Shall Not Be Named" , their gear, and how it ticks.

There seem to be several methods to send a bb down range, electric gear boxes , bolt springers, and gas blowback designs.

With my history playing paintball, and my love of Tippmanns, I of course gravitated to the vids reviewing gas blow back replicas. The electric AEGs have less appeal , as the gears spinning action, and the whining noise they make , just kind of annoy me to honest. Maybe its different on the field, when actually playing, but a blow back would be a much more familiar experience.

The propellant used in those designs are either Green Gas, or CO2, and I found it so amusing that those players are struggling with temperature sensitive gases and shoot down at high rates of fire , just like our players did back in the 90's trying to get CO2 working on faster guns like mags and cockers !!

Anyhow, I know this is not an Airsoft forum, I just found it pretty crazy that as popular as airsoft is, that one of their very popular drive trains is a technology that was put through its paces 30+ years ago by the paintball industry!

[NONOBLITUS]

My sons and I play it in the woods behind our house when the snow is flying and it’s in the 20’s or so. It’s an absolute blast and we all have mid range guns. I know nothing about it really but what we do on the property and have never played any fields but I’ll be honest it’s fun as hell with people that play paintball and are straight up honest players.

[iamthelazerviking]

I enjoy watching Novritch snipe videos. Plus he had developed some really awesome products. If I ever played I would definitely get those guns.

[Headshotted]

The Silo videos are pretty funny, a little mean sometimes but nothing crazy.

[Meleager7]

Can’t be any meaner than that kicking mustang guy! If the other players are not wearing face mask coverage, he aims for their faces

[Dusty Bottoms]

Airsoft was already using green gas in the 70's, and fully electronic models came out in the 80's, predating developments in paintball by several years. The reason you don't see the widespread use of more modern HPA systems for the non-electronic airsoft models is because the tanks are too large for a realistic simulation of a firearm. They want absolute realism, at least aesthetically, in airsoft, so that limits the more realistic models to green gas and co2 if they want to simulate blowback, and have some shot noise. Airsoft is so much better at simulating that world, that I've never understood why mil-sim paintball became a thing.

[MrBarraclough]

In terms of having coherent and broadly-enforced standards for safety equipment, airsoft looks to me more like paintball from the late 80s to early 90s, when you still saw the good, the bad, and the ugly in terms of eye protection.

[Seajay]

Airsoft was already using green gas in the 70's, and fully electronic models came out in the 80's, predating developments in paintball by several years. The reason you don't see the widespread use of more modern HPA systems for the non-electronic airsoft models is because the tanks are too large for a realistic simulation of a firearm. They want absolute realism, at least aesthetically, in airsoft, so that limits the more realistic models to green gas and co2 if they want to simulate blowback, and have some shot noise. Airsoft is so much better at simulating that world, that I've never understood why mil-sim paintball became a thing.

From my own experiences... paintball is just so much more fun. It's loud, it's messy, and when you have paint flying through the air it's just an experience.
I've never gotten that same feeling from airsoft. I've had super fun airsoft events, but those could have easily been paintball (or anything else really). I've been to a couple of those super milsim airsoft games, and the event is fun, but the paintball version was more fun (for me).

Whirrling electro gears spitting out 500 BB's at 20 bps just doesn't match up to 20 paintball rentals blasting away with Tippmann's.

[NONOBLITUS]

Totally agree , it’s fun as hell but not as fun as paintball

[gabe]

I definitely agree with the premise. Airsoft has a lot of momentum now among youtubers and it's certainly growing much faster than paintball. Very much late 90s/early 2000's sort of growth in pop culture. The groups are small but close knit and the game is almost entirely outlaw in the woods. That definitely has a draw and I've debated jumping into airsoft but there's only so much time and money to split between hobbies.

Paintball seems to be more of a game for those that played back at the peak of the sport. I don't see a lot of new players coming to the local field but there are a lot of the old school guys still playing every weekend. I definitely fall into that camp and playing paintball for me is a lot about the cool old school guns, the close knit community, and the feeling of the game. I hate to say it but if I was starting out fresh I'd probably pick airsoft today.

[gabe]

Yeah the sniper videos get really old. I'm still amazed with how brutal some of those face shots look that full face protection isn't more popular in airsoft. I think if I took one of those heavy weight sniper BB's to the lip I'd be done for a while. But yeah, super tiring with the clickbait titles. On the other hand if it wasn't a popular game you wouldn't have those videos. The day when I see "BRUTAL BUNKER AND RUNTHROUGH COMPILATION PAINTBALL" as a recommended video I'll know we're back in the mix.

[MrBarraclough]

Until that day, I guess we're just stuck with "Barker laughs at his own jokes, volume 8."

[uv_halo]

Hmmm, Airsoft getting more popularity in the same timeframe as speedball.. Coincidence? I think not.

[Alexndl]

Three years ago I sold a couple of pellet gun I had and bough a bolt action airsoft sniper
its really fun to shot beer can in the backyard with friend
Its spring action so no green gas or battery required
got it cheap at Badland paintball

https://www.badlandspaintball.com/asg-m40a3-bolt-action-spring-sniper-rifle-black-ot

[flyweightnate]

I think 8mm airsoft just has to be better, and the gas powertrains make it possible where the electric wasn't.

The "classic" guns were interesting - I never got a great explanation, but evidently the gas was charged in the magazines with the BBs, so they'd really come out at the same time. Then AEGs, then LiPo became cost-effective making winter more fun, then a switch back to gas and even PCP. I heard a lot about the "Polarstar" guys with HPA tanks, and it absolutely felt like listening to a guy holding a KP2 talking about someone ramping their Luxe.

I played with some friends, but the lack of energy really takes some of the excitement out - and led to heated discussions when a guy's piston stripped, leading to calls of playing on, when in reality he was only shooting about 30fps and no one could feel it . The ergonomics of real steel are awesome, though, by comparison.

Best airsoft game I played was in Bosnia, up in the mountains, with a couple hundred people. Crazy couple days. An average day of paintball is still better.

[uv_halo]

Larger calibers by themselves won't make a difference. The ratio of weight to caliber will have a bigger difference. This is why it took something like the FS round to get enough of an improvement to justify a higher price.

[flyweightnate]

I think from an energy perspective (assuming they stick to FPS, not joules) it could make the hit more noticeable without being more pressure.

[Hp_lovecraft]

I knew of airsoft in the 80s. Friends who were stationed in Japan would tell me it was popular there back then. It is curious to me that airsoft now, is played much like the paintball I played in the 80s.

Back then, paintball was wargames. Nearly everyone called it wargames, or survival games. and the accuracy of the simulation was nearly as important as the kill. When paintball came out of the woods in the 90s, many of us saw it as a gimmick... then by 2000, people were looking at woodsball as the offball gimmick.

so in that respect, I can see the attraction of airsoft. Its like oldschool paintball, with lower overhead, and easier to get into

[fullofpaint]

I think the one huge advantage Airsoft has is the lack of mess. They get to play in some crazy cool locations you'd never get permission to do with paintball, like those WW2 fields Silo and Novritsch post, that mall in the Mid-West, or even just the ease of running an indoor field compared to a PB field.

[NONOBLITUS]

Thought I would just post up a photo of my son and I playing last winter behind my house

[MrBarraclough]

Cool looking pics (no pun intended).

Decades of being a paintballer have made it hard to not instinctively cringe whenever I see exposed faces, though.

[Cunha]

Ya I mean some of the most fun I had was with springer pistols around a house. I almost got a rack of springer guns for everyone to go into the woods and do BB gun fights but never got around to it. overall I think proabbly still a fun way to shoot at eachother.

[gabe]

Can confirm spring pistols are a ton of fun. Way back in the day my cousins and me and my brother all got spring pistols and played around in the woods with them. It was a total blast.

I played with some AEG's later on and that was a lot of fun too. Definitely ratchets up the tension. The thing I liked was there was no dodging BB's like you can in paintball. A string of those BB's at 15-30 rps in a laser straight line is hard to escape from. I felt like it was way more realistic and kind of "scarier". Like with paintball you can come around a corner and then jump back in if someone fires and usually be okay. With airsoft you were just done as soon as you made contact.

[Crimson Death]

I'd 100% play it in the woods behind my house with friends. I'm not sure I'd pay to play at a field just because of the obvious cheating that can happen.