Airsoft Vs. Paintball

[luketabasco]

I know which is the best obiously its airsoft!

However there is a massive group of us are going and im trying to find reasons why it is better. At the moment paint is winning in thier minds as they have not played airsoft before and dont know how much superier it is.

So I need reasons for.

Thanks
Luke

[Coz]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

Paintballs come in hundreds, BB's come in thousands. Huge price difference.

I could go on but I'll let others have some fun

[SAS Scott]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

Cheaper..
One day renting at airsoft its about £45 with 3000 bbs but with paintball you got the £40 to rent the gear then the stupid price of £10 for like 200 paintballs by the end of the day you have spent more than £100.

Airsoft also looks alot more realistic (excluding the two tones).

Airsoft dosnt have those supid hoppers sticking out of guns..

Airsoft has more gun variations

Airsoft is cleaner

but what makes paintball better than airsoft

You dont need any form of defense to get a kinda realistic looking marker (gun).

Its seen as a respected sport and no one will think badly of you for playing.. Unlike airsoft.

With the latest ammo types ranges are longer than basically all airsoft guns.

Its harder to cheat in paintball because of the splat when you get hit but then some paintball sites run a rule where its only a hit if the paintball does splatter.


So I think airsoft is better purely because its my opinion of it and every person will have a different opinion may it be big or small difference its still based all on personal opinion.

[TobyRoberts]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

Its much more realistic, more teamwork and tactics involved, greater range, you don't have to reload a hopper every 10 seconds, and the BB's cost about £10 for 5000, paintball's would cost about £250 for that many! and you don't get covered in paint.

[JOE90]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

I didnt know a paintball gun could outrange an airsoft gun? By how much would you say?

[andre the giant]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

Joe, Tony was saying Airsoft is better, saying it's cheaper and gun have better range.

In defence of paintball, it's so mainstream that sites run special offers when you can pay £5 a head and get 100 paintballs free, that's why most ppl see it as better because the advertised price is cheaper, problem is as pointed out balls cost a lot more than bb's. So cost quickly escalates ..

If you prefer Airsoft great, or paintball great too. Airsoft is cleaner but paintball's disintegrate where s you have to buy specific bio bb's to be environmentally friendly.. Equipment is about the same in costs to start up.

I prefer Airsoft just because I don't like getting paint all over me, if I wanted that I'd do what my wife said and do the spare bedroom after 3 years of nagging... That's a plus point of both,it get you away from the nagging..

[cannon_fodder]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

Paintball is much more mainstream and you can even get gift vouchers to go.

ACPO recommendations and the guidance notes to the VCRA both note that "some paintball markers should be regarded as RIFs" but paint is so mainstream they flout the law and no one cares......

Also paint ball markers have more range because they are up around 9-13 ft-lb ... that's why they hurt more if the ball doesn't break

[Tiercel]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

Id like to see some proof of "paintball guns outrange like every single airsoft gun" :/ paintball guns have a MUCH shorter range than airsoft, paintball youre looking at an accurate range of about 30-40ft maybe if even that? Unless you start lobbing shots by aiming your gun at a 45degree angle, which is just gay and should be punishable by death.

Having been both a paintball and airsoft marshall I think I can comment pretty fairly on both.

Airsoft pros:

MUCH cheaper
Guns dont look like bits of plumbing equipment
Dont have to wear those godawful masks
You can wear all your tacticool gear and not get it ruined by paint
better range and more accurate guns
More realistic gameplay, its pretty damn hard to use radios and organise teamplay with paintball masks on
Dont have to lug around bottles of compressed air and huge spare ammo tubes that only hold like 200 paintballs

Paintball pros:

Less likely to have people mistake you for a gun nut
harder to cheat (though of course people still do)
... Thats about it really :I

[blobface]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

It's like asking whether tennis or squash is better (to which the obvious answer is badminton). While it's true that airsoft potentially can be a lot more realistic, that's only really the case if you went to a milsim game where people take it seriously, otherwise, we're looking at a speed ball game, except instead of semi-auto paintball guns, you have people resting the butt stock over their shoulder and holding full auto at 30+ RPS in a general direction. There is this company Rap4 that makes realistic (sort of) shell ejecting paintball markers, magazine loaded etc, supposedly aimed for law enforcement training, and there are milsim paintballers out there who use them.

You can sort of argue that paintball is more expensive, but that's only if you buy paintballs from the blood sucking sites where they charge you £15+ for 100, and to be honest, yes we can get up to 3000 rounds of BBs from airsoft rental, but that's because everyone else has 3000 - infinite rounds, where as in paintball, everyone has similar number of balls as everyone else (yes, 2, well done), so it's very different, not to mention there is no rental full auto paintball markers. People who play them seriously buy paintballs in bulk, and we're talking about less than £30 for 2000, since the markers are cheaper than most mid-high end airsoft guns, that argument doesn't really hold anymore. Similarly, airsoft is bloody expensive if you don't have your own gear (which even if you do, is an expense on its own) a game would easily be £40-50 because of the rental charge, which is potentially more than a paintball game. Besides, why are we talking about that anyway, price doesn't really matter anyway, with both hobbies, you can spend as much and as little as you want, and the starting out cost is roughly the same.

Paintball gives me a better adrenalin rush, hits are more satisfying as you can see the impact and usually the reaction, and compared to casual airsoft games, people are more cautious and more likely to take their hits. Where as with airsoft, as a milsim player, I almost see it as role-playing, kind of like raven shield IRL, and for me 60% of the hobby is collecting and modifying guns myself. The whole airsoft vs paintball thing is quite bizzare to me, not sure why there are haters on each side, so un-necessary.

[psirus101]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

Blobface talks sense.

At the moment paint is winning in thier minds as they have not played airsoft before and dont know how much superier it is.

Surely once they experience both they will be able to make up their own minds. Having played both I know which I prefer.

[snuff]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

..are you waiting for a reply from and ex-paintballer.....
I was paintballing for years..too many years..god it's expensive the guns do not look plastic and are very expensive,they will outrange a bb gun purley because of the projectile weight.
Most of the comments are valid i.e you get covered in shit...the games usually are shot and out no respawn.
And tournaments are for the rich and famous or infamous we were palaying 8 x 3 min games and that cost around £120 for the day,for me that was one of the nails in the coffin.
The other reason I came to a/s is that a young boy(step son of my m8) wanted to play and his mum was worried about welts,we came with an open mind and we've never looked back.
There is a lot of difference between recreational and tournament,as I see it paintball "tourney" heavily outweighs rec' but the opposite for airsoft,to paintball's loss as there is little chance of new blood entering the sport.
Entry into airsoft is much,much cheaper,for what I sold my paintball gear for I could equip a small unit...
I'm not as blinkered as some "haters" I've enjoyed both,I've met some great people and had some great times,airsoft is my thing now and I love it.
As someone else said the haters thing is bizzare there's enoguh room for all of us to get on;I found this when I was green laning and the red sock brigade tried to drive wedges in between m/cylces,4 x 4's and horses,we have to stick together we are all enjoying shooting each other running around woods if they start on us who will be first??Paintballers in their pyjama's with "plastic" guns or authentic looking"airsoft warriors"...thanks///Flame suit on\\\\\

[cool-breeze87]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

The whole airsoft vs paintball thing is quite bizzare to me, not sure why there are haters on each side, so un-necessary.

To be honest the only real airsoft vs paintball prejudice thing I've ever seen is someone I used to go to uni with was a paintballer and said that all airsofters are just playing dress up pretending to be soldiers. I've never heard airsofters say anything in that style about paintball, most of the comments about paintball at my local site are about how it's really messy and is pretty boring. I have to agree, I've been paintballing once and I found it pretty boring, there was no real skill involved in seeing where people are because you're all in boiler suits. Plus it's not as dangerous as airsoft as in airsoft if you're shot at point blank range in the hand the worst that is going to happen is you might bleed a bit, do that in paintball and you've got a broken hand.

Where as airsoft there's nothing more satisfying pulling out a rubber knife and silently taking down a sniper and then taking out several of the enemy from behind them. Paintball seemed to just be two sides running at each other shooting without aiming, that was my experience of it anyway.

[jediknight129]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

paintball is more expensive, less access to full auto and its a different style of game, speedballl would suck in airsoft for example.

paintball however is big and certainly has social acceptance however we need to remeber we are on the same side otherwise what happened in Califailia would happen here, in that the paintballers got an exhemption and basically said as an industry "screw you guys we got ours so....."

paintball is limited to roughly 300fps iirc the range isssue I would imagine comes from ball weight resisting wind and air resistance better. both are cool and both are fun however I prefer airsoft.

paintball has a loit of interesting tech we could do well to learn from, with stuff like the goblin deuce being useable for airsoft.

plus of course the majority of people heres experience with paintball would be rental partys and that isnt the be sll and end all of paintball same as airsoft walk on days are a totally different animal.

[snuff]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

Each to their own as long as we are all happy;I don't understand comments from people that have only played one of the above...
TBH IMO there is more skill in paintball (discounting newbie outings on both sports) because you only have one life,no standing in the open,no full auto and a different firing style.
You can take good points from both an almagamate then all to be come a killa...snap shooting is a must in paintball not so in airsoft but what a successful technique it is...cool...cheers.

[jediknight129]

Re: Airsoft Vs. Paintball

full auto can be mimicked though with ramping and walking the trigger.