Airsoft

I just started thinking about airsoft since, well...I've got more money in my airsoft gear than I have in my other hobbies, and I haven't played in about a year. My M4 lookalike cost as much to build as a highly custom real-steel version (which I can't own in CA) but I never get to use it.

I don't know if any of my 3 regular readers know what airsoft is. It's a hobby that I got into a few years ago when I got dusgusted with paintball, and I recommend it to people of certain aggressive personality types. If you've ever played paintball and been disgusted by the idiots shooting each other at point blank range dozens of times, airsoft is for you. If you've ever wanted to stalk and "kill" your best friends, this may be the game for you.

For one thing, it's not a game per se. It is MILSIM or a "military simulation." The idea is to look, act, feel and perform like a real military unit within some limits. We wear real gear, carry real looking guns and carry many real commodities, like knives or multitools etc that we may have a use for on a "battlefield."

For another thing, it isn't any sissy semi-auto, C02 powered paint gun competition. Our guns shoot .25g 6mm plastic bb's at between 300 and 600fps - on full auto. They are powered by a battery and an ingenious little piston system that can be fully upgraded at the users whim. The guns come in replica shapes of M4A1's, AK47's, MP5's...there are hundreds.

Here, let me give you an idea what it looks like...

This pic is of a couple guys on my team that can't be identified from this pic but who are sure to recognize themselves. The photo was snapped at a Northern California weekend scenario game in which several hundred people participated.

This is me, and what my kit looked like at that game.

The idea is to be honest and have fun...and kill as many of your friends as possible in the process. If memory serves, we got our asses handed to us in that game, but it was damn fun. Guys like the Gorilla Pack, AXF, SoCal airsoft, the Regiment and my team, TAG and the Beerhunters, make this an awesome sport. Where else will you find a movie theatre set up in the middle of a tent city in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere at an airsoft game if you aren't with TAG?

I'm going to go charge some batteries, load some mags, and shoot some cans in the backyard at 12:30a on a Sunday night...