Airsoft is known as the sport in which the participants of this particular sports shoot round metallic pellets that are placed via replica firearms. This competitive shooting sport shoots opponents through airsoft guns. These guns are magazine fed and have replaceable compressed gas canisters. Paintball is also a competitive shooting sport game in which players exclude the opponents from playing by throwing the spherical dye-filled gelatin capsules that break upon impact. The Paintball technology is used by military forces, law enforcement and many security organizations to help them in the military or other such like training.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AIRSOFT AND PAINTBALL
The major difference between paintball and airsoft is the type of gun used in them. Airsoft guns are almost with a real look or it may be also considered to be the replicas of actual firearms. Their meticulous structure makes them have higher firepower than paintballs. But paintballs are simple than airsoft and have a distinct looking barrel which makes them far from looking like a real firearm. To talk about bullet alternatives in the case of airsoft vs. paintball, airsoft uses plastic BBs and paintballs use paintballs. But the impact of paintball vs. airsoft is far stronger in the paintballs because they weigh heavy than the plastic BBs that are used in airsoft.
WHICH IS SAFER- AIRSOFT OR PAINTBALL?
Airsoft or paintball are popular guns meant for people who like shooting games. While airsoft was invented in Japan in 1970paintball was invented in the United States. To know about the safety between airsoft vs. paintball, it is said that airsoft guns are banned in many countries because they have almost all the qualities of that of a military gun. This makes it clear that airsoft guns are more dangerous than paintballs. Since airsoft guns are claimed to be more dangerous, they have all the safety equipment along with the gun that is sold as a package in the market.
On the other hand, paintballs do not hold the same amount of peril as the airsoft. These guns also have a safety coming with them as a package. As they are not as realistic as the airsoft guns, they are considered safer and better to be played than airsoft.
The shots of airsoft guns are faster than paintballs and also may lead to treating damage of the skin if hit at a close range. The small pellets of the airsoft guns render them with the danger element. But the safety equipment of paintball is compared to be better than airsoft. The goggles available in paintball kit cover the area around the eyes along with the teeth and ears. But compared to this airsoft masks are quite soft and can easily damage the eyes when someone is playing with it.
ACCURACY LEVEL BETWEEN PAINTBALL VS AIRSOFT:
Airsoft BBs fly at a speed ranging between 150 to 600 feet per second with an average speed of around 300 fps. But paintball pellets have only a speed of 200 to 300 fps on an average. Therefore accuracy compared between airsoft vs. paintball is better in the case of airsoft. Moreover, the airsoft BBs are smaller than the paintball pellets and this makes them undergo less wind resistance. The small size of BBs of airsoft is less visible to the opponents which add further to it being more accurate than the paintballs. The paintballs, on the other hand, have their pellets flying towards them and can take over the target accordingly thereby reducing its hit percentage. Moreover, accuracy between airsoft vs. paintball gets more pronounced in the case of airsoft because of the tactics involved in its battles.
AIRSOFT OR PAINTBALL- THE MORE EXPENSIVE ONE
When it comes to the price of a paintball and airsoft being compared with each other, it can be said that airsoft has an advantage over paintballs. The weapons of airsoft range from $300 to $1500 and this price largely depends on the competency level. The pellets of airsoft guns are cheaper than paintball pellets. In the defense academies too airsoft guns are more preferred than paintballs as they are cheap and less risky compared to military guns. Airsoft guns are not only less expensive but have low maintenance costs too. Especially if a spring or battery powered airsoft is purchased then there is no need to spend more money in the future to power up the gun as the batteries are rechargeable and spring guns can be cocked manually. But since paintball guns use CO2, the buying or maintaining of these guns become a bit on the higher side because the CO2 needs to be purchased each time it gets over. So even if both perform the same function, a calculation on their cost has revealed that 1pintball is 11 times more costly than an airsoft BB.
CAN AIRSOFT GUNS SHOOT PAINTBALLS?
As an airsoft gun can fit in the 6mm and 8 mm BBs it is quite possible to load a 6mm paintball in an airsoft gun and use it for shooting. But this is not advisable as Airsoft vs. Paintball have different strengths. Airsoft pellets experience no rupturing or bursting risk but such is not the case in paintball pellets. So, therefore, airsoft guns should never be used to shoot paintballs because this may rupture the pellets while traveling through the barrel. A ruptured paintball can be catastrophic to one’s internals and can also make the paint get spread all over a place. Instead, it is advisable to use regular plastic BBs and a paper target.
PAIN INVOLVED IN AIRSOFT VS PAINTBALL:
To know whether airsoft or paintball causes more pain than the other, many are of the view that paintballs are more painful than airsoft. The speed at which an average paintball flies in the air is around 300fps while that of airsoft is about 400fps. Moreover, paintballs weigh around 3 grams and airsoft BBs have a weight of about 0.2 grams. Since paintball requires more energy in soaring it so it is quite obvious that paintballs hurt more than the airsoft BBs.
MAXIMUM DISTANCE THE PAINTBALLS CAN BE SHOT AT:
To make the paintball be hard enough to make it through the barrel of the gun so that it breaks the set mark depends on the effective range from which the target is being shot at. This effective range ranges between 80 to 100 feet. Also to shoot the paintballs in a safe way have a limit for the velocity of the shot of the paintball marker which is around 280 feet per second and in miles per hour it is 200mph. also to shoot form an absolute range of the paintball marker, the limit can be set up to 150 yards though this differs from one gun to another.
CONCLUSION
Both these sports are a lot of fun and challenging since the games are special for the ones who are ardent fans of it. Having trouble in deciding for which one to go for can be best decided by trying out both.
