Airsoft anyone??

[Rusty]

For the last several weeks I've been listening to podcasts of the Guntalk radio show with Tom Gresham. He has been talking about the ammo shortage we all know about. One thing he suggested was to get an airsoft gun to practice with. If anyone has used them could offer any information on them?

Is it possible to set up a paper target that they will punch through?

Can you re-use the projectiles?

Thanks,

[cshold]

“One thing he suggested was to get an airsoft gun to practice with”

I’ve been backyard shooting my X-bow much more.

Also been seriously thinking about the purchase of a quality
pellet rifle or pistol for my indoor cellar range.

[Rusty]

Well I don't have to reload for my longbow either but that's not exactly what I had in mind.


The idea is to simulate handgun practice at a fraction of the cost.

[cshold]

Well I don't have to reload for my longbow either but that's not exactly what I had in mind.


The idea is to simulate handgun practice at a fraction of the cost.

Okay, then back to the pellet rifle / pistol idea.

[KirkD]

A LEO friend of mine told me they regularly convert their carry guns to some sort of plastic pellet firing gun to practice dealing with school shooters. One or two LEO's are the shooters, others are the kids, and others are to take out the shooters in the midst of a room or hallway full of kids. Our police are trained not to wait for the ERT's. The first man or men on the scene charge into the school, locate the shooter ASAP and take him out. The idea is that every second counts, so first car up to the school goes in and others follow as they arrive. I suppose this can be tricky, so they practice with the pellet conversion on their regular carry weapon (SIG 40 S&W). With all this in mind, airsoft might be a good way to practice family, in-house clearing/home invasion scenarios where the shooting is close in.

[Old Ironsights]

Kirk: The product is genericly called "simunitions" and simply requires a barrel swap on most semi-autos.

And that LEO protocol for an Aactive Shooter scenerio makes more sense than anything the US can seem to come up with...

[BenT]

My son has airsoft guns . His full auto one is a hoot to mow down dandilions with. Punching paper isn't a problem. The pellets do have lift when they leave the barrel, because it puts a backward spin on them.

[sore shoulder]

A lot of the airsoft guns are pretty exact replicas, especially AR15 replicas that use the same accesories and parts as a real one, that would facilitate conducting weapons handling drills very well. Many of them are also spitting out a pellet at over 300 fps, enough to penetrate cardboard easily. Magazine changes, controlled pairs etc and can all be conducted safely in your backyard in the city without alerting the SWAT team. Seems like a must have for urban dwellers to practice, and really most people since the chances for an ND are removed from the training.

[piller]

I have a lot of fun in the Summer taking an AirSoft and shooting Grasshoppers. It doesn't take too long for me to start hitting them first shot without any aiming, just point shooting. I especially like those big green tree grasshoppers as they may still try to fly off after one hit. Hitting a flying grasshopper is a lot of fun.

[gamekeeper]

Being as we are not allowed proper handguns I bought Shirley a co2 Baikal Makarov BB pistol, it's built with genuine Makarov parts and was used my Russian police for training.
Unfortunately they are banned in the USA but not here!

I use ordinary softair pistols on Wasps.

[Grizz]

I have crosman air pistol and rifle and use them for trigger time and muscle memory drills. the triggers need work, but all the basics apply and sometimes a lousy trigger helps with the discipline of making the sight stay on target throughout the discharge cycle.

The rifle gives 1000fps with a 4.5mm -- .17 cal lead pellet that will through penetrate a 2-1/2" plastic bottle of water.

The pistol is quite accurate and at 60 feet it will penetrate into a steel soup can at 600 fps.

They reportedly kill varmints and harvest food too.

I am enthusiastic about them.

Grizz

[MrMurphy]

There's two major categories in Airsoft.

Spring guns, i.e single shot manual cocking, which are inexpensive ($20-75).

Then there's the electric guns, which run on 'green gas' typically and a battery. Those will fire semi or full auto and generally replicate the real gun almost exactly. Having shot an airsoft MP5 and a bunch of real ones, it's very close....


Some of the pistols will take actual accessories and fit right in the real holsters just fine.

Carboard IDPA type targets work and out to about 20 feet, accuracy is decent on most of them. Never tried to reuse the pellets (I don't own any Airsoft but i've shot quite a few) but they're cheap, like thousands for $20.

One of our rangemasters used a spring M16 to get more training time for problem shooters without burning up (highly limited) ammo and training time since our range was constantly busy. He had them in the prone practicing fundamentals shooting the length of his office down a hall. 30 foot 'range' worked fine for getting guys on the right track with sight picture and trigger press, then they went back to live ammo.

[sore shoulder]

Gas and electric are two seperate classes of gun. Making 3 classes total. Spring guns require manual cocking and are considered the best operating system for bolt action type rifles. Electric use a motor to fire the pellet and gas of course uses compressed gas similar to a paintball gun. The electric seems to be preferable as it is more consistent shot to shot, and doesn't require having to find a place to fill your gas bottle.

Btw some of the spring powered bolt actions are firing a pellet 450 fps.

[olyinaz]

What you are willing to pay has a significant impact on quality (no surprise right). My boys enjoy "airsofting" and the guns that cost a pretty penny are quite nice. Green gas seems to matter more regarding auto pistols. Auto rifles seem to do just fine with electric.

Personally, I much prefer quality air guns.

[MrMurphy]

I was under the impression the green gas guns were also electric, but like I said, no expert on them, i've shot them, that's all.

[sore shoulder]

I was under the impression the green gas guns were also electric, but like I said, no expert on them, i've shot them, that's all.

I don't know anything about the gas guns either Murph, it's very possible they have a battery for some part of the operating system, but gas and electric are definitely two separate classes of gun. Otherwise, I'm like you, not an expert, but, I've used several electric and I've been doing a lot of research on the full metal electric AR replicas that use regular AR accessories in preparation for purchasing one for training.

[Rusty]

I was looking at them as a substitute for the Glock line of pistols. I saw on a web site for a company from Atlanta that there is no "official" Glock Airsoft because Glock isn't allowing their name to be used. Even though there is a pistol that looks like a Glock in every aspect they aren't calling it that. It's out of stock anyway.
When Rusty Jr. was going through his initial Dept. training they did use some kind of a simulator that used Green Gas and fit their duty holsters. He said he thought it was made by Glock for L.E. use only.

[flyfisher66048]

I took a close range gun fighting class from Gabe Suarez (highly recommended) a few years back. We used airsoft guns in force on force exercises, they hurt when the hit skin and leave a nice bruise. I got hit on my trigger finger when it was my turn with the rubber knife. I got a huge internal blood blister, and could not bend my finger when it was my turn with the gun.

We continue to use airsoft gun in this manner. They are accurate enough for this purpose.

[Ysabel Kid]

For the last several weeks I've been listening to podcasts of the Guntalk radio show with Tom Gresham. He has been talking about the ammo shortage we all know about. One thing he suggested was to get an airsoft gun to practice with. If anyone has used them could offer any information on them?

Is it possible to set up a paper target that they will punch through?

Can you re-use the projectiles?

Thanks,

Y2K is into this big-time. His AR-15 accepts most after-market parts for the real AR-15's. Just the upper and lower internals are different. In our basement range it will shred a soft-drink can in half on full auto. These things aren't really toys. They do make great training aids (and are a ton of fun).

[Ysabel Kid]

BTW, Y2K says they make a levergun airsoft gun too!

[Ji in Hawaii]

BTW, Y2K says they make a levergun airsoft gun too!

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