airsoft

Airsoft is a game that not many people play or have even heard of. The majority of players use plastic gun replicas that fire .12g or .2g plastic ball bearings (bbs). It is possible for different weights but those are by far the most common. The people that actually play airsoft (no, I’m not talking about the ones who just like to mess around with the guns) are usually the quiet kids in JROTC that look at guns on the internet in their spare time and want to join the army so they can shoot someone with a real firearm.

Now for a quick physics lesson. Many people say "well, airsoft fields generally allow 400-550 fps and paintball fields only allow up to 300 fps.” That statement means absolutely nothing. Well as a matter of fact it does mean something; it proves that paintballs hurt much more.

This is the average force of an airsoft pellet assuming its a .2 gram bb traveling at 400 feet per second (although many airsoft guns can’t even shoot that fast).

Force = mass X acceleration

.2 grams = 0.0002 kilograms
400 feet = 121.92 meters

F = .0002 X 121.92
F = .024384 N

This is the average paintball force assuming we are using a 3.185 gram paintball (the average weight) shooting at 300 feet per second.

3.18500 grams = 0.003185 kilograms
300 feet = 91.44 meters

F = .003185 X 91.44
F = .2912364 N

So what does all this crap mean? It means that the average paintball has roughly 12x more force than an airsoft pellet traveling 100 fps faster. You can make a fair assumption based on those facts that the average paintball will hurt 12x more than a pretty fast airsoft pellet. Still don’t believe me? Well then think of it this way… what bullet would do more damage, a .22 caliber bullet or a .50 caliber bullet? Oh and airsoft pellets loose velocity much faster than paintballs, I’ll spare everyone from those equations.

Airsoft is just a sport that no one really plays. But its cheaper than paintball so it must be better, right?

81👍 226👎