Is the sport unrealistic?

Saruman

Sorry if this has been asked before, I am just curious.

The Airsoft guns are replicas so look like the real thing. However they can shoot faster and more importantly far more pellets than the real thing can they not?

So if out doing a skirmish, would it not be more fun to be limited to the same abilities as the real thing? A cartridge you load containing the same number of pellets as you would get in the real version in terms of bullets? And a similar rate of fire?

Some of the guns hold hundreds of pellets before you need to reload.

I know paintball is the same sort of thing, as a result it is not exactly realistic is it.

I know almost nothing about Airsoft, other than what I read on some websites before this post so forgive my ignorance.

Oh and I am not saying Airsoft is not fun, in fact I would say its probably brilliant fun, I just mean that it could be more realistic if you were more limited in the guns capabilities.

hairyman

What you need is MILSIM,,,
Think gas blow back pistols and rifles,comparable in rate of fire to their real steel counterparts and with the added effect of recoil.

Also most gas blow back rifle mags only hold around 30 bb's.

delta-boy

I'm going to start off by saying that shooting people with plastic BB's was never going to be realistic. I love MILSIM. From what I've heard, this hobby can not be compared in the slightiest way to real war.

Get a grip peeps, its a game, thats why many prefer to shoot plastic at people rather than 5.56.

NakedDex

The guns themselves have little to do with the amount of ammo they carry. Magazines, in airsoft, are available in everything from real capacities, right up to the somewhat frowned upon "box mags" which have capacities into the the thousands.

It's all about attitude really. Some people prefer to play with low capacitiy magazines, others with high caps. The middle ground, and the most popular choice, is the mid cap magazine, holding an average of 100 rounds (varies depending on mag type, give or take 40).
This sounds excessive, given that real magazines only hold 30. But real mags hold real bullets, which are fired supersonically from an incredibly accurate rifled barrel with a twist imparted on the bullet as it passes through. Compare this to the system in an airsoft device, where you're firing a polished, spherical ball of a size .6-.09mm smaller than the smoothbore barrel through which it's fired using an external air propulsion from an unsealed source.

All that is basically technical mumbo-jumbo for say that an airsoft rifle is in no way comparable to it's real world counterpart for performance. It'll never be as accurate or as powerful, which is why mid cap mags are the common ground on which most airsofters stand, as they mean you are forced to reload on occasion, but you have those extra rounds to make up for the odd shot that goes wild in the wind, or that simply wasn't felt by the player because you hit him/her from in excess of 40m (where most of the energy would have been bled off in the flight at that stage).



As I said, it's about attitude more than anything. You can pick up any airsoft device and modify it to have a higher or lower rate of fire, carry more or less than it's counterparts, or just about anything else. While it's completely possible to modify something to do in the region of 40 rounds per second, very few people bother.

You might be surprised how close to reality it's played, compared to what the equipment might lead you to believe. Give it a try.

evilrobotshane

The short answer is that different groups and events play it different ways. Some go for infinite-ammo death-matches styled on computer games, and some go for slow-paced tactical games where the objectives are more important than actually killing the opposition, and there's a spectrum in between.

As has been mentioned (if not explained), the styles attempting to emulate greater realism are generally called MilSim, short for Military Simulation.

Stercus Accidit

I got shot the other day at a game and didn't even die!

Its really unrealistic, I'm off to play halo.

CaptainCook

its totally unrealistic but great craic, i mean war is feckin horrible who would want to reenact such a horrific thing, airsoft might have realistic guns but its more like a live action video game or a big stupid action movie.

tonyj_mc

To be honest you can say the same about almost any combat or combat sim sport or hobby. I used to fence a few years ago and that sport evolved over centuries to what it is today. When it started It was to simulate sword fighting without dying and to a degree airsoft is the same.

With regards to mag capacities I do hate high caps and box mags, but if you are using mid caps or real caps it forces you into changing strategys and being more flexable, not really a bad thing.