Airsoft, also known as survival game in Japan, is a shooting sport in which players use airsoft guns to tag opponents with plastic airsoft pellets. Airsoft originated in Japan in the early 1970s from realistic model guns originally developed for target shooting. It spread to Europe and North America in the late 1980s and early 1990s and is now played worldwide.
Unlike paintball, airsoft pellets do not leave visible marks, so the sport relies heavily on an honor system in which players acknowledge being hit. Airsoft is played in a variety of formats, including skirmishes, close quarters battle games, military simulations, and historical reenactments, on indoor and outdoor fields.
Airsoft guns resemble real firearms and are used for military simulation and historical reenactment; they have also been adopted for military and law enforcement training.
History Airsoft originated in postwar Japan during the early 1970s, when photographer Ichiro Nagata, an avid shooting enthusiast himself, thought about making modelguns that shoot real projectiles that could not kill or wound. Early airsoft guns use a manual spring-piston design and are essentially single-shot, tailoring to the needs of shooting enthusiasts while conforming to Japan's strict weapons control laws. Originally designed for target shooting, the plastic balls used in these "guns" can be shot at humans without causing injury due to the low muzzle energy.
In 1986, toy car manufacturer Tokyo Marui introduced a gas blowback replica of the Smith & Wesson Model 59 designed by modelgun inventor Tanio Kobayashi, which used compressed 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane (Freon) refrigerant in a lubricant mixture with silicone oil (later replaced by a propane-silicone oil mixture known as "Green Gas") as the propellant gas. These new-generation replica guns were trademarked as soft air guns because the refrigerant propellant used was significantly weaker ("soft") than the canistered used in proper airguns (pellet guns and BB guns). Tokyo Marui later in 1992 released the first model of its revolutionary "automatic electric gun" (AEG) design, which was a FAMAS F1 replica that used an electric motor-gear box drivetrain to cycle the reciprocating motion of a spring-piston powerplant, allowing sustainable rapid-fire using only rechargeable batteries instead of needing periodic gas replenishment. This practical convenience of AEGs led soft air guns to quickly become popular for casual MilSim games, which the Japanese call . Asahi Firearms was also a model company from Japan who operated in the 1980s and 90s and was one of the early pioneers of the airsoft hobby.
Airsoft guns spread to the United Kingdom in the late 1980s and early 1990s via a company called LS. They were sold in separate pieces and had to be assembled out-of-box before they were capable of shooting. These then became available to the rest of Europe and North America and rapidly gained popularity worldwide. Since the mid-1980s, airsoft has been adapted with a purely recreational application in mind, and the sport is enjoyed by all ages. Airsoft replicas are produced globally, with the majority being manufactured in East Asia. Many law enforcement agencies and military units within the United States now start using airsoft for force-on-force tactical training drills.
Equipment
The guns used in airsoft are typically classified as imitation firearms. They have a mechanism for shooting projectiles 6 mm, 6.4 mm, or 8 mm in diameter.
Airsoft guns are classified according to their operating principle, which can be spring-loaded, electric (battery-powered Automatic Electric Guns, Airsoft Electric Guns or "AEGs"), or gas-powered, which may be referred to as Gas Blowback (GBB) if including blowback features or alternatively Non-blowback (NBB) if they do not. Some companies produce full replicas of counterpart grenade launchers which fire a projectile spray of pellets by use of a high-powered spring mechanism or a compressed gas propellant (i.e. green gas, propane, compressed air, or CO2). There is also a type of airsoft gun that is powered by a single (HPA) high-pressure air tank and a battery pack to power the internal FCU "Fire Control Unit" computer board. These guns are often known for their high and adjustable RPS or "Rounds Per Second" and durability. These HPA replicas are most often referred to as "PolarStars", although this refers to a popular brand of HPA engines and accessories.
A typical airsoft gun is noticeably lighter than its "real steel" counterpart due to the use of aluminum alloy and plastic materials, though some have added weights in them for a more realistic feel. Japan has specific rules about producing airsoft guns with metal parts, while newer guns, especially those made in Taiwan and Mainland China, have both internal and external parts that are metallic. Smoke caps, as well as noise amplifiers, are available for certain airsoft guns to add realism.
Gas handgun magazines usually contain 10 to 30 pellets in a standard-capacity magazine; however, some are high-capacity magazines and can hold 50 rounds or more. In the case of AEG rifles, magazines come in either real-capacity (equivalent to the 30-round capacity of its real steel counterpart), low-capacity (10–50 rounds), mid-capacity (75–250 rounds), or high-capacity (250+ rounds). These magazines have spring followers like in BB guns. The high-cap magazines often have a ratchet wheel that can be wound up periodically to force pellets up from the holding chamber of the magazine to the feeding chute. Due to loose pellets in the reservoir, they often make a rattling noise when running or walking. Some airsoft guns have a battery-powered box or drum magazine that holds thousands of pellets, but these are usually only used and allowed on LMGs (light machine gun) type replicas.
It is common for owners to "tech" (modify) their guns. The majority of gearboxes are made to Tokyo Marui specifications and have aftermarket upgrade parts available commercially. Some gearboxes are proprietary in design. It is also possible to perform DIY modifications.
Hop-up
The "hop-up" system, which is installed in most stock airsoft rifles and pistols, is used to increase effective ranges by putting backspin on the pellets. The Magnus effect causes the pellets to experience more lift as they are shot, counteracting against gravity. A small rubber nub protrudes into the top of the barrel through a small hole, applies pressure on a rubber bucking, and catches the top of the pellet as it moves past. Adjusting the hop-up makes the nub more or less protrude into the bucking, so that backspin is increased or reduced. Ideally, the hop-up should be adjusted so that the pellets fly as far as possible in a straight line without curving upward too far or dropping too quickly. Hop-Up does decrease the muzzle velocity (a gun firing with the hop fully unwound can drop to as low as ). Ease and location of adjustment vary by gun design; some equipment provides a control that can be adjusted quickly during gameplay, while others may require partial disassembly. For example, a common location for Hop-Up adjustment is where the ejection port would be on a real firearm, which allows the machine to be covered while still allowing quick access to adjust the Hop-Up.
Customization Some players customize their airsoft guns, either to improve performance or for purely aesthetic reasons. Additions include scopes, fore-grips, and flashlights, red dot sights being the most commonly used. Red dot sights are used to help aim, fore-grips are used to get a better grip on the airsoft gun, and flashlights (whether mounted or held in another hand) are used to illuminate dark areas and/or to blind opponents.
Even though in certain countries lasers are illegal, they are popular attachments in the U.S. and Europe. Laser sights are more for their appearance than any practical effect, largely because they must be weak enough not to carry a risk of damaging another player's eyesight, which rules out using any laser powerful enough to produce a visible dot on the target in sunlight (although lasers can be useful for night games).
Also available are "mock suppressors/silencers". These resemble the actual firearm accessory that dampens sound. Since Airsoft does not use combustibles for propulsion these usually serve no function. Although there are models that function to "light up" a glow-in-the-dark BB using UV light similar to a tracer round.
Projectile
Most airsoft guns fire round plastic pellets, usually white, but Tracers are common as well. The pellets mostly range from 0.12 to 0.48 g. However, the most popular weights for AEGs (automatic electric guns) and GBB* (Gas Blow-Back guns) are 0.20 g to 0.32 g (whose muzzle velocity ranges from approximately to ). Heavier rounds (0.36–0.40 g) are typically used in long-range and sniper applications since they are more stable in flight and less easily deflected by wind.
The pellets, which are called BBs (ball bearings), are usually bought in bags or bottles of 2,000 to 5,000, but other sizes are available, such as a 250,000 round (65 kg) package of tournament grade BBs. Biodegradable BBs are a fraction more expensive than non-bio counterparts, but many fields require them. BBs are typically 5.95mm ±0.01 mm in diameter.
Ballistics
+ Kinetic energy calculator g ft/s Energy J
Due to the low muzzle energy (less than even for high-power models) and poor sectional density, the pain an airsoft pellet causes on skin impact is about the same as getting pinched. As a reference value, a standard 0.20 gram 6 mm pellet, which is the most common size and weight, traveling at has of kinetic energy.
Calculating the kinetic energy of an airsoft projectile is important for ensuring player safety. While a projectile’s ability to cause injury or penetrate a surface technically depends on energy density—that is, the kinetic energy divided by the impact area—this variable is nearly constant in airsoft, as most BBs have standardized diameters of 6 mm or 8 mm. As a result, the primary factor affecting the potential for injury or penetration is simply the kinetic energy of the BB. Despite this, safety limits in airsoft are often expressed solely in FPS, which fails to account for variations in BB mass. Heavier BBs, even at the same FPS, can carry more kinetic energy, a situation sometimes referred to in airsoft as "joule creep."
The kinetic energy formula is:
where is the mass in kilograms and is the speed in meters per second.
Different regions vary in the velocity airsoft guns are allowed to shoot at. In the United States, velocity differs from the type of gameplay field. Close Quarter Battle arenas typically regulate velocity on airsoft guns at around . For outdoor fields, velocity is usually regulated by the type of gun. With a standard pellet, fully automatic Airsoft Electric Guns (AEGs) are often set at less than , semi-automatic DMR-style AEGs at , and bolt-action (manually cocked spring-piston) sniper rifles at .