Airsoft and Painball Debate

[skalnok]

Well I used to play on a paintball team. At that point airsoft wasn't so widely known in my area though there were a few here and there who played. I always wanted to try it but just never got around to it. Then the team I played for went from bush ball to speed ball. Eventually I got sick and tired of seeing my paycheck go into a rubber inflatable bunker for no reason other than to maybe just maybe hit one guy or provide a little cover fire. I then started to look into airsoft and eventually got the proper info and picked up my first rifle. First game my god what a difference in the attitude of the players and the pace of the games. I like military style games that actually employ some sort of tactic other than pray and spray. Being in the military made airsoft very exciting. I might play the odd paintball game with my friends if they get a group together and need an extra but other than that I can't see myself playing paintball much.

The pro's cons list:

Airsoft Pro's

The players who play have better maturity level and way better sportsmanship
The rifles
The realism
Milsims are better
Mag Changes
Costs are way better once you own the gear
The honor system, if they don't call hit when they should shoot them till they call hit or cry, but that rarely ever happens and in most games I play we are our own refs we don't need someone to call anyone out and when in doubt call hit. I took one off the rifle one game and it happened to be center of mass and didn't know buddy who shot me told me and I called hit plain and simple. I played paintball with a guy who wore such bulkly clothing that you'd be lucky to break a ball on him, that and he wiped his paint by the time the ref got to him. I wanted to knock his teeth in.(sorry for the explanation figured I'd give my view of why it's a pro.)
The 18+ rule goes along with maturity
And airsoft does hurt if you get hit in the right place as much as paintball, my wife put two welts on me with a G36c that stayed for about two weeks, my fault for volunteering to be her first victim lol.
My wife loves to play airsoft with me (so I can get as many rifles as I want and don't have to explain it)

Cons

Rifle accessibility, but you can still basically get what you want in Canada it may just take a bit and cost a little more.


Paintball Pros

No idea after having played it for 6/7 years
recoil maybe, but it's minimal.

Paintball cons

It's paintball
Cost of Paint
Co2 lines, or tanks
Hoppers
Markers
Masks
Wife hates paintball
The mess
SPEED BALL

quoted for truth except the wife thing...

[rockafella]

Originally Posted by JanusDP

How is "it hurts more" a pro? Honestly, if you're in this game to cause pain you're a sad little person.

See, it's a proven fact that pain is the best teacher, and when your body registers pain it tells your brain that you don't want to be doing that again. Have you considered how much simunition FX rounds hurt even with all the protective gear? And this is what the military and LE agencies train with. Yes, they are marking rounds similar to paintball, except that they are propelled by a primer similar to a regular bullet, and it is fired from a real gun which has been modified to chamber the FX rounds.

I am all for realism, if i could train regularly with siminition I would.
I am also not a big fan of hi caps or hoppers unless you are a SAW gunner.

I love the realistic look airsoft but the marking capability and sound of a paintball gun with the shell ejection of feature of the real deal....

check out www.rap4.com

[wildcard]

Sometimes when I read post like these I wonder whether the person(s) who ever posted paintball sucks, airsoft rules post even stop to think where they were or what they were doing when they first saw an airsoft game. I Mean Guys we are all playing the same game here the only difference is our projectile and the markers we use. if you look at the similarities between paintball and airsoft, stop, and think to your self you'll laugh at these post too(My source of entertainment at work)
It was not too long ago that guys like poncho or crow from team STAT were lugging around c02 tanks for their JAC or Y&E rifle and how everyone at that time thought it was cool, then there was the time where the most hicaps and 450+fps rifle were the norm. Every game whether it's airsoft or paintball evolve, paintball got their start in the woods and now majority of the paintball game is going back to woodsball or milsim type of game.

I recently got the pleasure of participating in a weekend long milsim game, operation "Irene" in a big field in Syracuse, in that field there were 456 participants and there was not once any type of argument or bad comments made about airsoft VS paintball in fact what suprised me was the organizers of this game have their own airsoft team and actually ran a field north of where we were playing where only airsoft are played, When I asked him how come he didn't organize an airsoft game like this instead of RAP4 or paintball only, His only answer was that this (RAP4/Paintball) was more realistic, Airsoft can only bring a certain level of realism but this take it to the next level. where have you played in an airsoft game where there is a fireable .50 cal, .30 cal and tanks (Paintball version).

For me it does not matter whether it's paintball or airsoft I just enjoy the game, the debate of who is better, to me is childish and a waste of time i rather be shooting instead.

[rockafella]

Originally Posted by wildcard

For me it does not matter whether it's paintball or airsoft I just enjoy the game, the debate of who is better, to me is childish and a waste of time i rather be shooting instead.

You could'nt have said it better..it's like you took the words right out of my mouth man, thank you!!!

I was hopeing that someone would come to this same conclusion, which is whay I posted this. It's kinda like with organized religeon, what turned me off the most about it is that everyone thinks that thier religeon is the ONLY TRUE way, and so so many wars are waged over this type of small mindedness. Fact is if we concentrated on all we have in common instead of our diffrences one would see that we are all actually trying to reach the same goal.

I for one love both airsoft and paintball equally, and I feel that both sports can learn and grow better if they join hands and help each other out, each has things to bring to the table as for stegnths and weeknesses.

Wildcard's comment only renforces the level of maturity that cetrain members of the airsoft community..Thank you for that. I am gald find myslef among kindred spirts here.

[Greylocks]

Originally Posted by Cushak

One Con about airsoft, is with all the gear we wear sometimes, you may not notice getting hit while running. That's the benefit of having a harder hitting projectile.

That does happen, but it is thankfully rarely done on purpose. When the 'target' notices or gets told they promptly admit it, or err on the side of caution. It's not as if you cant play again in a short while.
Those who do ignore it on purpose tend to not play this game for very long.

[Schwag]

There's no debate. Paintball is fucking gay. Paintballers are fucking gay.
Only a buttfiend would want to play a game that leaves you covered in what looks like neon splooj.

[bean]

I love the amount of randomness and hatred that is used when the word gay is tossed around. Im by far not gay but I would likely be annoyed with its usage here. Paints a really good picture of maturity.

As for paintball I quit because I wanted to go back to airsoft. I disliked the people who played regularly here. If you get a good group of people to play woods ball with its really fun. The new tacti"cool" markers they have out today are a step ahead.

[Flabeo]

At first I was like oh look a Pball pistol that actually looks like a real one



And then I was like.... wait what the hell is that for?


And then..... Oh dear god NO!

[bean]

Replace that attachment with an external rig and you have a lot of classic airsoft guns

[Greykin]

Hnn, for me, the enjoyability of either sport really depended on the crowd I'm currently with.

Somedays you'll have everyone co-operating and going out with some sort of tactical plan, other days you'll have no co-ordination, everyone doing their own thing and waiting till break to look pretty standing around or to pose for pictures.

It's honestly a mix of player mentalities here. I could have more fun playing paintball with a bunch of people wearing jerseys and pink markers, than playing with airsofters who are too afraid to get a little dirt on their pants, the same could be said in reverse, don't get me wrong.

Concerning airsoft and paintballs raw content alone, I'd most definitely side with airsoft, minus the difficulty attaining them.

My reason however is almost solely based on the appearance of the weapons, which in itself, is almost possessing degenerating mentality to the players who are apart of the sport. Airsofts realistic appearance appeal alone almost seems to give birth to "chairsofters". Which tends to result in the lack of enjoyment from certain games I have attended where the airsofters were undermined by the chairsofters, or people who just seemed to be there for photoshoots.

As for the maturity of the crowd, airsofts crowd in a sense is more "mature" almost solely based on the age restrictions of those who can attain the guns, which in a good thing. If paintball were as restricted to age like airsoft, you'd see the same thing there as well.

Just trying to bring out some balance here though, I can't help but feel obvious vibes of biases, but better here than in a paintball forum, because you don't find many ex-airsofters who turned paintball, at least some people here have actual paintball experience.

[Rukus]

Though when it comes to the paintball experience there Rockafella I haven't tried what you guys do so my comments are strictly on what I've experienced from when I was playing. When I quit the electronic guns were just beginning to come out and become main stream, had I experienced your style of paintball I might have stuck with it a little longer but in the end I would still have crossed over to airsoft. Though I probably would have kept my paintball guns for the odd game instead of selling them for scrap and parts. You guys look like you got some good things going best of luck with it. And might see you in an airsoft match here or there on the island somday.

[rockafella]

Just to calrify for those who may look at this picture and not sure what they are looking at. This is a RAP4 Sig 226, it comes in two versions internal air (pictured here) and the disposable air version. The 3rd of those pictures shows a CO2 bottle attached to the bottom of the gun, one would not play with that ugly thing hanging off of the pistol (although i guess you could) what is being don there is filling the pisol's internal tank that is hidden within the pistol grip next, to where the magazine is inserted. After the ineternal tank is full you would take unskerew the tank which has the adapter and you not be ablt to tell it from a real gun. In the other version would just take the disposable 12grm Co2 cartrages and inster it into the "holding tank" instead of being filled via the larger CO2 tank. It would use one 12gram cartrage hidden in the grip per 3-5 mags.
So once the pistol is charged and loaded it looks just like an airsoft gun and the blowback is amazingly strong.

Originally Posted by Flabeo

At first I was like oh look a Pball pistol that actually looks like a real one

And then I was like.... wait what the hell is that for?


And then..... Oh dear god NO!

[Janus]

Originally Posted by rockafella

See, it's a proven fact that pain is the best teacher, and when your body registers pain it tells your brain that you don't want to be doing that again. Have you considered how much simunition FX rounds hurt even with all the protective gear? And this is what the military and LE agencies train with. Yes, they are marking rounds similar to paintball, except that they are propelled by a primer similar to a regular bullet, and it is fired from a real gun which has been modified to chamber the FX rounds.

Except that airsoft is neither military or law enforcement and simunition is used for the closeness to realism and NOT because it causes pain.

Do me a favour, let me know when you're on the field out here so I can make it a point to not bothering to show up to it when you're there. I'd like to have as little as possible to do with someone who seems to enjoy causing pain to others. :smack:

[bean]

Actually it is used due to the pain and for closeness to realism. They want the round to behave like a real one but also cause you pain so that you can learn from mistakes. I know I got to shoot lots of people on course with them.

[wildcard]

Originally Posted by Rukus

Though when it comes to the paintball experience there Rockafella I haven't tried what you guys do so my comments are strictly on what I've experienced from when I was playing. When I quit the electronic guns were just beginning to come out and become main stream, had I experienced your style of paintball I might have stuck with it a little longer but in the end I would still have crossed over to airsoft. Though I probably would have kept my paintball guns for the odd game instead of selling them for scrap and parts. You guys look like you got some good things going best of luck with it. And might see you in an airsoft match here or there on the island somday.

I was kind of skeptical when I first saw these RAP4 but after playing with them with a bunch of guys out in FT McMurray I was hooked, Finally a marker that can take any punishment I dish out on it and after doing a little research on it I discovered that some of my friends out in H.K and in the Phillipines Have been playing with them for some years now and ALL of them gave the RAP4 METS a glowing review and the fact that these guys can almost get anything they want their review counts more than any review board.

I've own JAC, AEG and pretty much All of the WA, maruzen and Tanaka Blowback, as real or these "guns" get they are still the fragile and durability issue to these guns, I mean there is probably no one out there as rough with their guns especially their AEG or blowback than myself, guys like Poncho can be a witness to how many mechbox that have met their doom in my hands and the countless metal bodies from Zeke, Systema to the old and sturdy CA,
Unfortunately for the paintball bashers out there these RAP4 markers are made to last longer than your average aeg, and when I do play with them it sort of brings back some good old feelings like the time when we are playing with our JAC back in the days.