Most airsoft and Paint
ball games are extremely similar. So similar in fact that it has sparked a rivalry, what is better? Airsoft vs Paintball!
Airsoft and Paintball are rapidly growing sports played all across the world and the choice is totally up to you. The biggest controversy is cost, is paintball more expensive than airsoft? With either sport equipment costs will vary greatly depending on how much you like the sport. You can equip yourself from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand. The difference in a $200 gun and a $1000 gun isn't going to usually make a huge difference to a casual or competitive airsoft player, but in high levels of competition with paintball you need the fastest most functional equipment possible to even be able to compete. Paintballs are generally quite expensive in relationship to airsoft bb's. Airsoft bbs costs roughly $20 for a bag of 3000-5000 airsoft bb's depending on the quality compared to
$30-50 for the same quantity of paintballs. Generally more paintballs are used per game vs airsoft bbs. In paintball, the volume of paintballs you send downrange is critical, especially at a more competitive level. In airsoft, spray and pray occurs, but usually if a player is spraying bbs, they aren't aiming or hitting their target. You would pay around 5 times as much in ammo alone for paintball than you would in Airsoft. Both Paintball and Airsoft guns use different types of propulsion (electricity, compressed air, or manually cocking the gun). Paintball guns use either Co2 or compressed air, the large canister is generally attached to the back of the gun. Click here for one of our articles to provide you information on
paintball propulsion. As for airsoft propulsion there
are three main types, first being a spring gun. A spring airsoft gun is manually cocked after each shot by pulling back a section of the pump. When you release it it forces air out of the gun, propelling the bb forward. The second would be an AEG airsoft gun or Automatic Electric Gun, which harnesses electricity to pull the pump back, making fully automatic fire possible. The last type is a gas gun and there are two types of gas that can be used. The most common is a 12-gram Co2 canister, and the other is compressed air in the form of either Green or Red gas. There are pros and cons to all three types of guns, look back later for a more detailed comparison. Again Airsoft wins in price, because those tanks cost to fill. With airsoft guns using spring or electric no gas is used, and with Co2 pistols very little gas is used, for the projectile is much smaller, however you have the added cost of running airsoft guns due to the batteries. Safety gear is generally minimal for both sports because all you need in Airsoft is eye protection, and all you need in paintball is full face protection. About $10-$20 for ether goggles or a mask. You can get additional padding at similar costs for each sport again. Airsoft players generally say airsoft is better because it hurts more and the guns are more realistic as you don't have a huge hopper and air tank sticking off your gun. A huge downfall to airsoft in the eyes of paintball players is that everyone is at their word and don't have a big paint slat to answer to. Speedball players also generally are not big on the milsim attitude of airsoft players or milsim paintball for that matter so the sport is even less appealing to them.
"automatic electric guns" a.k.a. AEGs. The AEG arisoft gun is the most popular type of airsoft gun and is widely available.
airsoft guns. Spring airsoft guns are manually cocked after each shot by pulling back a section of the pump. When you release it it forces air out of the gun, propelling the bb forward. The more heavy duty the spring the harder it is to pull back, but you will aslo get increased muzzle velocity. Spring airsoft guns are single shot mechanisms, meaning you have to do this to fire each shot. Spring airsoft guns are simple and are generally very high quality replicas. This makes them very durable since they have few moving parts. Another advantage is that they do not require batteries or gas as they are powered by you and the release of the spring.
