Airsoft guns are highly detailed replica firearms that are manufactured primarily for recreational purposes. Games are organized where players attempt to shoot each other in a similar manner to paintball. They fire small pellets, rather than actual bullets, at speeds of 30 to 260 miles per second.

The pellets are often launched by some type of compressed gas. A spring powered or electric piston is also common. Airsoft guns can be operated manually or by using an electric motor or by using compressed gas, which is usually Co2.

Airsoft guns are designed for people aged sixteen and over. With proper care they can be perfectly safe, although some safety concerns have arisen because of the airsoft guns. The pellets are almost always non-metallic and usually travel at to low a velocity to actually penetrate the skin. However, although metal pellets are banned on all Airsoft sites, they are still available from specialist stores. Some players even manufacture their own metal pellets.

In addition, a non-metallic pellet could penetrate the skin at short distances, when a gun is upgraded to higher than 150 miles per second. Some sites will specify that these kinds of guns should not be used to play with when they have been upgraded in this way. There was also a concern of these guns being used in place of actual weapons during criminal activities.

In the late 1990s there was a spate of holdups where the criminals used airsoft guns in place of real ones. These fakes were much easier to obtain than actual weapons, but could be used for a similar purpose. In order to counter this it has now become illegal to import airsoft guns that do not have bright orange tips on their barrel.

The airsoft gun originates in 1970s Japan. During this time it was illegal to own a real firearm, and consequently there was a big demand for replica weapons. A few companies began manufacturing realistic guns that were spring loaded. In the beginning they fired a wide variety of both plastic and rubber bullets. However, they were eventually standardized to 6 mm and 8 mm caliber. These spring loaded guns were superceded by the gas powered guns in the late 1980s.

The hobby took America by storm in the 1990s. Classic airsoft, as it would become known, used the early Japanese guns. About ten years later the new generation of airsoft guns arrived. These were designed by Tokyo Marui Co. Ltd. And were termed the automatic electric gun. At this time Japan had just entered into a recession. Hundreds of Japanese manufacturers collapsed and eventually only Tokyo Marui remained as the main producer of airsoft.

Marui then worked to improve the accuracy and range of these guns. It developed an advanced Hop up system, which forms the basis of the modern gun. At the beginning of the 2000s a new company came to challenge Marui’s dominance. Classic Army of Hong Kong began to introduce more and more accurate guns to the market. Since then dozens of Chinese brands have flooded the market with more basic entry level guns.

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