Airsoft

[Jacob(smooth)]

I did a ton of back garden/empty field battles as a kid and started doing skirmishes last year properly.

I'm pretty sure your from the UK so i'll base what I say on that.

What you want to buy depends on how much you are willing to spend and what range you are playing. You can get some cheap shotguns for like £20 that are accurate to about 20 meters that are a lot of fun if you planning on light hearted fun. They tend to be around 200fps so not too painful either. If you want to go full auto, run and gun in a big area go for G&G combat machines. They cost £120 (not including battery and charger) are accurate up to 50-60 meters and shoot at like 330fps (enough to draw blood if your too close).

You'll have to get transparent or 'two tone' brightly coloured guns unless you are a member of an airsofting site. Those cheap shotguns I was saying about are usually transparent. If you are going the combat machine route, get them from Zerooneairsoft.com they are cheaper and do free two tone on the guns.

Don't forget to wear eye protection and maybe a mask/gum shield unless you want to be minus a pair of eyes and a few teeth. It's also worth taking into account how much the police can get their pants in a twist if you do anything wrong, you have to treat airsoft guns like the real thing, even transporting them with battery and magazine out of the gun. I'm assuming this barn deal is private land of someone you know, if it's too close roads, paths or homes then you might get and unwelcome visit from the police. If you have 2 tones or transparent guns they aren't like to send an armed response team but they can take these things a bit too serious.

Anything else you want to know just let me know.

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Yeah, it's sort of paintball lite. Because the guns are so much easier, lighter, prettier and less bulky (ammo) it seems to be a different style of game to paintball. We're going to be playing in and around the house, few Barns, outhouses and such. Also cheaper, a full auto gun starts from about 40 quid. You can blow that on ammo for a single game of paintball (and indeed I have, many times.

Cept I dunno what to buy! Shotguns, pistols, assault rifles, smgs, you can basically buy replicas of about anything! So far I picked a cheap ak47, my Bro got a Src g36 gen 3 and his daughter got an uzi for each hand (she's just seen the matrix).

In general I'd avoid cheap auto's, my friends made this mistake when we were younger. I had a tiny single shot pistol and would often sprint into a hail of bb's that were nice enough to go in a big circle around me while I got nice and close with the pistol and made them look silly. A £20 pistol or shotgun will serve you much better for accuracy, range, power and relyability. Auto's are tempting because the cloud of bb's should hit something but usually it's just frustrating, lots of time reloading and not much actually hitting things.

I went to airsofting from the cost of paintballing too. Far too expensive, I actually much prefer the experience of airsofting too. Airsofting tends to bring out a more mature compared to painball, well as mature as people running round the woods playing soldiers can be. 25 for the day at a site, £8 for enough bb's 2 last 2 events

Thanks Insanity, that's helpful. Few questions...

Assuming masks and goggles are a must, (nobody wants a pellet in the ear) how easy is it to tell if you've been hit? Do you need to wear shorts and T shirts etc to tell if you've been hit, or do you want to be in thick layers to stop the bruising? I ask cos I'm wondering about involving my nieces / nephews (early teens)

What sort of fps is the minimum for effective use? If it a a weak fps one, does that mean you can't tell if you've been hit or just that the accuracy is for shit at more than 6 feet?