Airsoft Birth

Airsoft The Birth

Airsoft was developed in Japan in the early 1970s to provide an alternative for gun hobbyists because local laws prevented individuals from privately owning firearms. A heavy emphasis was placed on making accurate replicas of real firearms and target shooting. In contrast, paintball was developed in the United States in 1981and as a variation of hide and seek tag, through the use of utility companies' power pole paint marking guns, and emphasizes function over aesthetic qualities.

Paintball is more popular than Airsoft in the United States. In East Asia and the Pacific Rim, airsoft is more popular except in Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand where paintball is legal but airsoft is restricted.

In the interests of a more family-friendly image, the paintball industry usually avoids direct analogies to the military and war (seen by the movement towards spectator-friendly speedball), but Airsoft runs the gamut from Airsplat to full MilSim play.

Airsoft pellets generally strike with almost as much force as paintballs, but due to their smaller size and weight and innovations like hop up, their ballistic properties closely model those of true bullets and can hurt in almost the same way. Unlike simulated shooting games like laser tag the physical impact of Airsoft pellets on targets provide some of the realism of actual bullet hits because they can hurt, cause a small amount of damage, and heighten mental and emotional excitation and/or distress as with the use of real firearms. This makes Airsoft effective for combat training.

Airsoft is a combat sport with the same principle as paintball in which participants eliminate opponents by hitting them with 6 mm (or occasionally 8 mm) plastic pellets launched from airsoft guns. These airsoft guns can be powered by CO2, Green Gas, air that is forced through a nozzle via a manually cocked spring piston, or mechanical boxes that use motors to pull back and release a spring piston. Participants typically use varying types of weapons designed as replicas of real firearms, tactical gear, and accessories used by military and police organizations. Long popular in Asia, there is now a growing interest in airsoft weapons and events in North America and Europe.