Lots of stuff has come up lately and I wasn't able to actually play an airsoft game with my new gun until this last weekend. Finally got a chance this weekend, we were up in Heber and played in the woods on some private property (with permission).
We played a couple hours Sunday afternoon, then played some night games with flashlights, then without flashlights (the moon wasn't too bright, things got interesting). Then we played some more Monday during the day.
I was very surprised at how things went. We had about 6 to 8 guys playing most of the time, so we had teams of 3 to 4 people. Most of them were teenagers. Everyone except for me had spring pistols. I had my Tokyo Marui M93R AEP. I did not use full auto. I figured that if I used semi-auto, it would be pretty much a fair match.
I was VERY wrong.
I have almost no experience in airsoft, but most matches I played in ended with me eliminating the whole enemy team single-handedly. I ended up sitting out or trading guns with other guys because there just wasn't much of a challenge. The TM AEP was such an advantage it was ridiculous.
For one thing, there's the ROF issue. I tried to show some restraint and not shoot more than 1 round per second or so, but even then, the fact that I didn't have to cock the gun each time seemed to make it a lot easier. There were times I gave into temptation and fired off several shots in rapid succession. It was just too easy.
Then there's capacity. The magazine holds 40 rounds. Most of their guns had 12 round mags.
However, the part I didn't expect to be an issue, but ended up being the #1 advantage, was range. I had the hop-up adjusted pretty well so the range was quite good. The spring pistols they had supposedly had hop-up but it wasn't adjustable, and seemed inconsistent. I was able to pick people off from much longer distances than they could with the spring guns. Maybe they just weren't very good springers, I don't know, but the range difference was a big deal. I had guys shooting at me and missing from 20 feet away or less. Meanwhile I was getting headshots at ranges where they thought they were safe.
Another thing that turned out to be a pretty big issue was BB quality. All these guys bought whatever cheapo BB's they could find at Wal-mart or other chains. I was using quality BB's from Jungle Toy because my gun won't work with cheapo BB's. They didn't realize it made a difference. WE did some comparisons in the spring guns and found that the nicer BB's did indeed shoot better.
Anyway, just thought I would share my experience. It was interesting. I had no idea the AEP would be such a huge advantage. I'm afraid it completely outclasses all the cheapo spring pistols they were using. To play with these guys I am probably going to have to buy a cheapo spring pistol. It's just not fair using my gun, it's too easy.
It was funny, however, the different ways they tried to even things up. We had games of 2 guys vs. 4, me being one of the 2. That didn't work, I eliminated all 4 guys. We tried everyone vs. me. They won, but only by rushing me all at once. That was kind of fun but they agreed it wasn't ideal.
I think the most clever solution to the problem was one Jeff finally thought of. With even teams, he had everyone on his team focus on trying to eliminate me first, ignoring my teammates. If they succeeded in eliminating me, they would run over and get my gun and use it. Once I was dead and they had my gun, they had a pretty good chance of winning. However, the hard part was killing me first
It was great fun, I just imagine it would have been a lot more fun if everyone had AEP's or AEG's. The cheap spring pistols are just so inaccurate it's really lame.
