That's great input
Firstly, I agree to the maturity bit. It's a matter of what company you keep, and there are some pretty hillbilly and retarded airsoft groups out there.
Also, I fucking agree about the "afraid to get dirty part" to some extent.
Manitoba and Sask have THE MOST hardcore airsofters in the prairies. They play in -15 to +40 weather, extreme humidity, high winds, rainstorms, snow, mud, marsh, thick mosquito soup, swarms of ticks that would bring down a moose, and carpets of infectious poison ivy. They also have some of the poorest players, which brings me to my next point;
The rich airsofters tend to play less.
You buy a couple $2000 PTWs, a $9000 NVG/helmet/sordin setup, $500 proper softshell, all the gear you might need for any weather condition. And then you only play when in ideal weather conditions.
There are many geared out airsofters that don't make appearances past october.
But I think harsh weather is the BEST time to play airsoft lol
As for range, agree on the part about effective range, BUT that being said my systema PTW shoots 260ft, and it's effective to 260ft. At 100ft I can shoot a heel sticking out from a corner. And it's certainly not the only one in the country that can do that either.
My pistol shoots about 160ft, and is effective to 140ft.
The backspin on, and weight of the BBs increases their accuracy by a ridiculous amount.
Granted, there is some truth to your statement; most AEG's do tend to fall into the 80-140ft effective, 160-240ft max category. Not everyone has the money to upgrade, or has access to a guntech that's capable of making your gun shoot amazing.
The places where airsoft guns LOSE accuracy, are:
-selecting ammo that's too light
-having a poor grade hop rubber, or an ineffective type
-having dirt, corrosion, bends, roughness, or inconsistent bore in the barrel
-having a poor air seal
-mechanical play in fitments; like hop chamber to inner/outer barrel, inner barrel to outer barrel, air nozzle, etc
-having poor repetitive play; like in the hop arm. If it doesn't move by the same amount every shot, you'll be inconsistent
-bad aim.
-The freaking wind. A major issue to having such light ammo, is that past the 200ft mark, the BBs have lost so much forward momentum that small gusts of wind can throw your shots off by a few feet. This can be counteracted by tilting your gun, and having the hopup work against the wind to maintain a straight trajectory. However small, random gusts of wind will still affect your flightpath.
The ideal setting for your hop, is to have a flat trajectory with no "hump" in the flight path, and it hits the ground in a predictable manner. If the BB flays out in a random direction at the end of a straight flight path, it just means you need to use heavier ammo.
As for the fps drop, it's not nearly as big as you might think. If a gun shoots 400fps with just enough hop to prevent the BB from rolling down the barrel, it could shoot either 390fps or 410fps with the hop properly applied. Guns that are overvolumed at the cylinder have been known to actually GAIN fps by increasing the pressure of the hop up (as this causes pressure to build behind the BB).
Guns with Rhop are even less affected by any fps drop due to the lower pressure applied.
As for the "perception of cheating", the same could be said of not having hopup. The fact is the BB has traveled so far and slowed down so much that it's hard to tell if you hit or not.
The only way to get the BB out that far to start with is to apply backspin, but the backspin isn't causing the BB to slow down any faster.
Heavier ammo will lose it's momentum faster than light ammo, but regardless, shit is not moving fast at 250ft lol
Depending on your setup, the drop at the end of the flight path can be pretty gradual instead of a straight drop, but even if you hit someone at 260ft, it IS entirely possible they just won't notice. That's something we have to live with, so it's understandable if it does happen. I'm personally not going to call someone a cheater for not calling a shot to the back of their shemagh at 260ft.
I guess in paintball it would be similar to a ball not breaking at the limit of your range.
I'd be more than happy to explain any technical questions you might have about airsoft guns!
