Airsoft for a 10 year old?

[lejife]

Hello everyone.

 

My soon to be 10 year old has asked for an airsoft gun for his birthday. He has a BB gun that stays in the gun safe, but he wants an airsoft to have battles with a couple of friends of his that already have them.

I have absolutely no experience with them but have played a bit of paintball. He's asked about paintball, but having personally experienced really hot guns at public games that left more than bruises I think he's going to have to wait a bit for that.

So what's the deal with airsoft? Is it like getting hit with a paintball? Do folks that have experience with them think that 10 is too young if supervised? Do the biodegradeable airsoft BBs work OK?

Having looked online a bit, I don't like how realistic some of the guns are. I'd be looking for something that looks like an airsoft gun, not an MP5. I'm assuming that a full face shield is also the way to go.

Just now, lejife said:

Hello everyone.

 

My soon to be 10 year old has asked for an airsoft gun for his birthday. He has a BB gun that stays in the gun safe, but he wants an airsoft to have battles with a couple of friends of his that already have them.

I have absolutely no experience with them but have played a bit of paintball. He's asked about paintball, but having personally experienced really hot guns at public games that left more than bruises I think he's going to have to wait a bit for that.

So what's the deal with airsoft? Is it like getting hit with a paintball? Do folks that have experience with them think that 10 is too young if supervised? Do the biodegradeable airsoft BBs work OK gel blaster?

Having looked online a bit, I don't like how realistic some of the guns are. I'd be looking for something that looks like an airsoft gun, not an MP5. I'm assuming that a full face shield is also the way to go.

Thanks for the advice for any help

[Emergencychimps]

10 is probably too young, the closer you are the more it hurts. I still have bruises from last sunday. Id say the youngest with supervision would be 13. 

 

Some sites do young airsofter games (check out battle stations in Norfolk) at lower power levels for an example, but that'll be hiring the guns and using them on their site. 

 

Bio bbs work, they're better than they used to be. 

 

As you clearly aren't an airsofter, you'd have to get a two tone anyway. One of the major things about airsoft is that they look for realistic (generally), but two tone allows any over 18 to buy an airsoft gun as over 50% of it is a bright colour (you generally have to pay extra for this). 

 

If you do ignore the advice and get one anyway, a full face mask is essential, people regularly their teeth shot out.

 

 

[LycaJ]

The pain is not much of an issue, maybe let him play indoors and cqb rather than outdoors. Just feels like a sting, from time to time you get a small bruise that's the size of a pea, but it usually doesn't get much worse than that.

 

The issue is safety, a 10 yr old with a gun in the house which shoots 100m/s+ BBs can go downhill quick.

You can easily go blind, and I'm not sure how mature your boy is, but I'd keep the gun locked and teach him gun safety properly.

A bunch of 10 yr olds playing together can also get them to be less lenient on safety, even if your son is well-behaved, just keep an eye over them.

 

Please teach your son that it's not something to show off, or be outwardly proud of and tell everyone around him about. Airsoft can be culturally unacceptable to some people and it's best not to mention it, especially since he's only 10 years old.

 

Full face mask is good, but for children, it can get heavy and bulky. I think low profile full face masks are better, not massive rental masks.

get him some padded gloves too, don't want BBs hitting the bony parts of the body.

 

In terms of guns, you have to get him a 2-tone unless you have a UKARA membership.

When it's 2-tone, it doesn't look very formidable at all. but of course, if you're looking for something that doesn't look too real, then get him something like this:Specna Arms - SA-F20 FLEX™ Compact Carbine AEG | Patrol Base UK. You can spend more money, I don't know how much you're thinking of spending. I recommend NOT buying any other brands than the following: Specna Arms(Flex and Edge series), G&G, Lancer tactical(Gen3, Gen4, don't buy Gen2 or earlier generations), Arcturus(expensive). These brands are very standard, won't disappoint or break.

 

Try to get a gun with a mosfet in it if possible, not needed but makes everything better. After buying it, the first upgrade you should do to it, is changing the bucking (hop up rubber) to something like Unicorn AEG buckings. The only accessory you really need, if any, would be an optic, like the £30 ones from Amazon or smth.

 

Just make sure the gun doesn't weigh too much or is super long, running around with a loadout for hours is tiring for anyone, let alone a 10 yr old boy.

Get AEG's for him, not GBBR, GBB or HPA. Just makes things easier to manage for beginners.

 

Airsoft guns can shoot a lot further with less down curve than most paintball guns. 30m for a stock gun and up to 100m+ for an upgraded build. It's quite different to paintball in my opinion; the way the games are played, especially outdoors.

 

I'd recommend going to a friendly field, like mayhem airsoft, and let him try a few games with a rental gun before going full in.

But beware that rental guns are usually shit, so he might not have a good time compared to using a proper, new decent priced gun.

 

These are just my suggestions, some of them are objectively true, some are just preferences. I'm sure other people have something to say as well.

 

 

 

[EDcase]

Yeah, 10 is too young.

As with your experience of hot paintball 'markers', the same can happen with airsoft.

Let him shoot in the garden for a few years.

 

Yes, full facemask is essential.

[LycaJ]

Oh, and get a gun bag, you can't walk out in open public with an airsoft gun, even if it's in a gun bag. It's illegal, so you need to put it in your car when driving to the field. You can do whatever you want with the gun, when you're in private property owned by you or someone who is fine with it. You can bring the gun out, as long as it's in a gun bag, to a less public area, like the front of your house, as long as you're just going out to put it into the car or something sensible like that.

[The_Lord_Poncho]

34 minutes ago, LycaJ said:

The pain is not much of an issue, maybe let him play indoors and cqb rather than outdoors.

To be honest - I'd advise the very opposite - the most painful shots I have had are when playing indoors - ranges are much closer, and frequently point blank. At least outdoors it it more usual that the BB's will have had a chance to lose a bit of velocity first (even if heavier BBs are used than typically indoors). Also when playing outdoors you usually have an opportunity as a parent to regulate to a much greater extent how far your child is in the 'thick of the action' - i.e  you can work with them to keep just on the edge of the action that it feels exciting without there being a high risk of them e.g. taking a hail of pellets in a close range ambush.

 

I took my daughter along for a few games when she was 12 - she loved it for a while, but the last two games got too many painful hits, so we are sitting it out for her for another year or so until she gets a little older.

 

For garden fun with his mates, maybe have a look at 'gel blasters' - the gel balls are completely inert in the environment, the pain is an awful lot less - and whilst you need to wear a mask, the danger of losing an eye or a tooth if one of them removes their mask is much much less.

Edited 6 hours ago by The_Lord_Poncho

[Anonymoose]

5 minutes ago, The_Lord_Poncho said:

For garden fun with his mates, maybe have a look at 'gel blasters' - the gel balls are completely inert in the environment, the pain is an awful lot less - and whilst you need to wear a mask, the danger of losing an eye or a tooth if one of them removes their mask is much much less.

 

 

Gel blasters are so much fun. I have two and at my last 2 jobs we used to have full-on battles with them. In a garage packed with cars, running around, ducking, hiding, pelting each other with them.

 

I've been hit in the eye with one and it didn't even really hurt.

 

 

They're also really cheap.

[LycaJ]

33 minutes ago, The_Lord_Poncho said:

To be honest - I'd advise the very opposite - the most painful shots I have had are when playing indoors - ranges are much closer, and frequently point blank. At least outdoors it it more usual that the BB's will have had a chance to lose a bit of velocity first (even if heavier BBs are used than typically indoors). Also when playing outdoors you usually have an opportunity as a parent to regulate to a much greater extent how far your child is in the 'thick of the action' - i.e  you can work with them to keep just on the edge of the action that it feels exciting without there being a high risk of them e.g. taking a hail of pellets in a close range ambush.

 

I took my daughter along for a few games when she was 12 - she loved it for a while, but the last two games got too many painful hits, so we are sitting it out for her for another year or so until she gets a little older.

 

For garden fun with his mates, maybe have a look at 'gel blasters' - the gel balls are completely inert in the environment, the pain is an awful lot less - and whilst you need to wear a mask, the danger of losing an eye or a tooth if one of them removes their mask is much much less.

fair enough, I was saying CQB not because it's less painful but because you're less likely to trip on pieces of wood on the floor and get a serious injury, especially for 10 year olds. Also, I found that I get way more bruises outdoors than indoors because people have higher joule guns and they can spray you down, and sometimes you get lit up by a random ghillie in the middle of nowhere.

[Galvatron]

3 hours ago, lejife said:

Do folks that have experience with them think that 10 is too young if supervised? Do the biodegradeable airsoft BBs work OK?

...I'm assuming that a full face shield is also the way to go.

 

 

Most sites I'm aware of have a minimum age of 12 with an adult around (insurance policies).

 

Biodegradable BBs are less likely to break in your gun than they were before. Are you looking at them for the sake of breaking down in your garden more quickly than non-bio BBs?

 

Full-face protection is a must-have for an under-18. If you buy it from an airsoft retailer, you shouldn't have any concerns but if you buy from Amazon, eBay or other mainstream retailers, be on the lookout that it is safety rated (Z87 or EN166B/EN166A) as you can find unscrupulous or underinformed sellers who sell face masks as airsoft products but they break with a single impact.

[Tackle]

Based on what the op has told us, I'm torn on this one.

It's always good to see new blood in the game (no pun intended), my lad was 8 or 9 when he first played, woodland mod site with very strict agreement with the organisers that I'd be close to him all day.

He's just turned a youngish 27, got 3 pistols & 4 aegs, in bags in his room, BUT no bbs/gas/batteries, they're all under lock & key with my kit in the garage, I got him in to this, so if he or one of his mates lost an eye messing about, I'd blame myself (as would my wife probably).

So the idea of some 10yo kids being let loose in a cqb environment, without parents playing at their side, let's just say it sounds like the opening scenes of an episode of Casualty on bbc1.

For me, the only acceptable option is the dads (or mums) start playing too, get to a woodland site & experience it for themselves, understand the risks, & make the journey in to airsoft together.

 

[Galvatron]

4 minutes ago, Tackle said:

So the idea of some 10yo kids being let loose in a cqb environment, without parents playing at their side, let's just say it sounds like the opening scenes of an episode of Casualty on bbc1.

For me, the only acceptable option is the dads (or mums) start playing too, get to a woodland site & experience it for themselves, understand the risks, & make the journey in to airsoft together.

 

 

I have to agree on that. Marshals can only watch so many people at a given time.

 

 

[Tommikka]

The typical minimum age for both airsoft and paintball is 12

This is mostly in relation to insurance against the wider risks of controlling younger children - previously the limit dictated by paintball insurers was 13, but as much of rental paintball is for organised groups, and for children that was birthday parties sites were being asked to let in 12 year olds for their classmates 13th birthday and site insurance dropped a year to cater for those.  
 

The introduction of .50” paintballs (or more precisely reintroduction of .50”) was due to industry marketing to sites as low impact paintball.

The smaller size and lower mass had some marketing to permit higher velocities still within legislations energy levels, but it was the low impact that won sites over (and to a degree the smaller boxes which caused quite a few sites to fully convert their rental equipment to .50”

 

This low impact version of paintball brings me to the relevant point - insurers will allow cover for sites to reduce age limits to 8+
 

 

For general impact, airsoft BBs are smaller and have less energy in them, which means they have less impact when hit.  But they aren’t designed to break on impact, which with paintball absorbs some of the energy

 

Rental paintballs tend to be a lower quality than those used in tournaments and larger events.  This is a deliberate design choice for rental sites as it prolongs the life in storage and simplifies storage requirements but makes a rental / recreational paintball hit harder than a fragile tournament grade paintball

 

Keep skin covered to absorb the initial point of impact whether it’s a BB or a paintball

 

For venues general woodland is better for young and new players with the openness rather than the up close environment of CQB & urban

Ground is rough and uneven, but if you are lacking awareness of woodland surfaces then indoors is less forgiving - not only likely to be concrete floor or at least hard floor but the random things around the old buildings used for urban / CQB

 

Then add slippery paintball gel or lots of BBs luring around on a hard floor 

(I played the infamous paintball game in the Reading Mall which left slippery residue for weeks/months - when ‘cleared’ the walls and ceilngs bled out some more

BBs and paintball shells can be swept away, but the gelatine will remain - it’s going to need washing down, ideally by pressure washer

 

 

I recommend a 10 year old waits, but low impact .50” will satisfy the itch for a year or two - and ensure that they are addicted if they continue to upgrade at 12

[Enid_Puceflange]

As @Anonymoose was saying, get him into Gel Blasters

Probably the best “gateway” hobby to see how he gets on with it, then step up in a couple of years

A site relatively close to me (near Glasgow) runs parents and kids days, with no age restrictions. 👍