Marksmanship

[Mtemprell]

One thing I have to keep reminding myself with Airsoft is these aren't rs guns. Been watching a few YouTube videos of airsofters and it grinds my gears seeing so much poor marksmanship principles being practiced. Basic things like only the bottom of the but in the shoulder, snapping of the trigger and so on. 

 

I suppose this is why I've read a few times Airsoft can teach a few bad habits that on rs you wouldn't get away with and make you a bad shooter. 

 

But at the end of this everyone is having fun and I need to forget about my training and experience with rs so I'm not one to pull people down if I see bad practices on a site or video. 

[Cannonfodder]

28 minutes ago, Mtemprell said:

Been watching a few YouTube videos of airsofters

There's the problem

[Mtemprell]

 

22 minutes ago, Cannonfodder said:

There's the problem

In my defence it's mainly for gun reviews. Can't stand the ones running round a field shooting thinking they are sas. They never show you how many hits they received.

Edited yesterday at 06:02 by Mtemprell

[Lyndication]

This is why there's only like, three Airsoft YouTubers I watch. 

 

Most reviews they just unbox it, plink at a target in their garden, and maybe put it through a chrono before telling you it's incredible and to buy it immediately.

[Adolf Hamster]

3 minutes ago, Lyndication said:

Most reviews they just unbox it, plink at a target in their garden, and maybe put it through a chrono before telling you it's incredible and to buy it immediately.

 

You forgot the 20 minutes dedicated to listing every individual control on the gun and how ambidextrous it is.

[Mtemprell]

8 minutes ago, Adolf Hamster said:

 

You forgot the 20 minutes dedicated to listing every individual control on the gun and how ambidextrous it is.

Makes me laugh when I see reviews of guns and a big negative they say is this isn't ambidextrous so I wouldn't purchase this gun, even though I only shoot r/h but I'll still pull this gun down. It's like come on do your research on a particular platform and you'll know before hand that the rs isnt ambi. (Yes I'm talking about the l85). 

[Cannonfodder]

Don't forget half the video being taken up by a history lesson on the real version of the rif

[Hobbnob]

3 hours ago, Lyndication said:

This is why there's only like, three Airsoft YouTubers I watch. 

 

Most reviews they just unbox it, plink at a target in their garden, and maybe put it through a chrono before telling you it's incredible and to buy it immediately.

This is something that annoys me greatly and the reason I don't do gun reviews, it's not really a representative review of the gun if that's all you have the space for

[Tackle]

I'll only watch a gun review if its a model im considering buying, & then ill only watch a respected reviewer, someone who will point out its faults, most definitely NOT a 15yo sprog in his bedroom, or anyone with paid promotions within vids, literally sold their soul to the devil lol.

As for airsoft in game play, I'd rather stick a mk5 up my arse 😵

[Mtemprell]

1 hour ago, Tackle said:

I'll only watch a gun review if its a model im considering buying, & then ill only watch a respected reviewer, someone who will point out its faults, most definitely NOT a 15yo sprog in his bedroom, or anyone with paid promotions within vids, literally sold their soul to the devil lol.

As for airsoft in game play, I'd rather stick a mk5 up my arse 😵

The paid promotions in reviews really puts me off. So many reviewers for other products out there that get paid from the manufacturer to do a review they like especially in my other interest of cars, so many car YouTubers I refuse to watch as the endorse terrible products just so they get a pay day from the manufacturer. Makes them dishonest reviews then. 

[rj1986]

23 hours ago, Tackle said:

 

As for airsoft in game play, I'd rather stick a mk5 up my arse 😵

Wait, is this a bad thing, or good thing?

[Colin Allen]

4 minutes ago, rj1986 said:

Wait, is this a bad thing, or good thing?

That rather depends on whether or not it is your kink.

[The_Lord_Poncho]

On 29/06/2025 at 06:09, Mtemprell said:

One thing I have to keep reminding myself with Airsoft is these aren't rs guns. Been watching a few YouTube videos of airsofters and it grinds my gears seeing so much poor marksmanship principles being practiced. Basic things like only the bottom of the but in the shoulder, snapping of the trigger and so on. 

 

I suppose this is why I've read a few times Airsoft can teach a few bad habits that on rs you wouldn't get away with and make you a bad shooter. 

The marksmanship principles do translate directly into airsoft, just probably not in the way you imagine. Having the rifle butt in the shoulder is irrelevant - and not something that is dictated by the marksmanship principles. Indeed there are plenty of RS techniques that don't demand this, yet meet the principles for any particular application.  With guns that are generally much lighter than the RS equivalent, and recoil that is non existent to negligible, the first two principles can be achieved rather easily, and without particular reference to more traditional positioning. The third principle (sight alignment) is clearly fundamental, but the fourth principle (shot release) is largely irrelevant, unless the gun is really being wildly waved around by the trigger pull. Factoring in the generally short airsoft ranges + inherent wild inaccuracy of our platform, fast trigger pulls will generally be better practice than a slow deliberate follow through after a shot - perhaps the exception being using a very well set up sniper rifle at the extremities of its range....

[Lyndication]

Only exception IME is some zestier blowback setups, but even then they don't track to how real firearms recoil. (Zero muzzle flip, and are typically tuned to just throw the reciprocating mass back hard).

 

Hell you can go as far as Koreans custom-machining tungsten parts with 600PSI input pressure to create something that rattles more than a real AR. (Mostly due to the complete lack of locking mechanism and just generally idiotic design).

 

Plus you can make Airsoft guns as heavy or heavier than real ones, but it'll cost you.

[Mtemprell]

2 hours ago, The_Lord_Poncho said:

The marksmanship principles do translate directly into airsoft, just probably not in the way you imagine. Having the rifle butt in the shoulder is irrelevant - and not something that is dictated by the marksmanship principles. Indeed there are plenty of RS techniques that don't demand this, yet meet the principles for any particular application.  With guns that are generally much lighter than the RS equivalent, and recoil that is non existent to negligible, the first two principles can be achieved rather easily, and without particular reference to more traditional positioning. The third principle (sight alignment) is clearly fundamental, but the fourth principle (shot release) is largely irrelevant, unless the gun is really being wildly waved around by the trigger pull. Factoring in the generally short airsoft ranges + inherent wild inaccuracy of our platform, fast trigger pulls will generally be better practice than a slow deliberate follow through after a shot - perhaps the exception being using a very well set up sniper rifle at the extremities of its range....

Oh yea I fully agree with all the points you raise. That's what I mean by keep telling myself it's Airsoft and not RS it's just a pain to let go of habits from being a target shooting instructor for the cadets. 

 

A plastic ball flying in the air out of a smooth barrel isn't going to perform accurate at all every shot. 

[hitmanNo2]

92.7% of airsofters will never touch a firearm. Airsoft and RS are so different, it doesn't matter as long as safety rules are being followed.

[The_Lord_Poncho]

29 minutes ago, hitmanNo2 said:

92.7% of airsofters will never touch a firearm. Airsoft and RS are so different, it doesn't matter as long as safety rules are being followed.

Yep! And when they do on occasion, I mean, its equally valid to state that RS use is teaching airsofters bad habits!

[Impulse]

Having done a bunch of RS shooting and a lot of airsoft, there is definitely some stuff that translates over (breathing, manual of arms with GBBRs etc), but there's also a lot that very much doesn't translate over.

 

4 hours ago, The_Lord_Poncho said:

fast trigger pulls will generally be better practice than a slow deliberate follow through after a shot - perhaps the exception being using a very well set up sniper rifle at the extremities of its range....

 

And I always say this to people. There are a few instances where it helps to have a bolt action or DMR and I had one of those instances last game day where me and my friend were picking people off at 80m down a path with our DMRs by dropping shots onto them, while their 1.1J guns were falling well short of us. However, the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, an AEG will win the direct firefight with that bolt action or DMR because it's very easy to spray full auto at an angle and hit out to 70m+, while a bolt action or DMR is not a precision weapon in airsoft because smoothbore muskets firing spherical projectiles at less than 2.3J with a backspin to combat gravity is far from precision.

 

Accuracy by volume is very, very applicable in airsoft. Especially with the magazine capacity of most AEGs and it's also why while I love filmsim, I dislike the rules when they say that everyone has to use RS capacity mags (and that's coming from me who basically only uses gas guns). Airsoft guns don't behave anything like real guns! A leaf won't really affect a .308 round from a real m24 that noticeably, but it will definitely affect the .48g BB coming out of my airsoft m24

Edited 3 hours ago by Impulse