How Automatic Airsoft Guns Work

By Author: Vikram Kumar
Total Articles: 9503
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Airsoft guns can be divided into 3 main categories based on the mechanism that they use to fire projectiles. These 3 categories are – purely spring operated guns, electric spring guns, and gas operated guns. And of these 3 categories, only 2 feature automatic airsoft guns.

In order to understand how automatic airsoft weapons work, however, one must first understand how the simpler manual weapons operate. The most basic airsoft gun is spring-operated. The spring sit within a tube, and when pulled back and released, pushes air forward through the tube, thus providing the propulsion for the BB. In a simple airsoft weapon, the spring has to be manually cocked for each shot, so the slide must be racked for pistols, the bolt pulled for rifles, or the pump shucked for shotguns.

Of course, the need to cock the spring back with every shot severely limits the rate at which the operator is able to fire, and airsoft enthusiasts eventually found themselves dissatisfied with such performance. In order to overcome this limitation of manual spring-operated guns, automatic airsoft guns were conceived and manufactured.

Electric ...
... spring guns built upon the existing mechanisms present in manual spring guns. Instead of having to rack the slide or pull the bolt in order to cock the spring for each shot, however, an electric motor was connected to the spring so that this task could be accomplished automatically. This greatly increased the rate of fire of the weapons because the operator could simply depress and hold the trigger and the motor in the gun would repeatedly pull the spring back and release it without the need for the application of any external force.

Airsoft weapons with mechanisms that operated based on springs, however, were limited in their power because a spring can only be made so stiff before the casing of the gun would crack due to the pressure exerted on it by the compressed spring.

Compressed gas came to be used as an alternative means of propulsion, and gas that was stored in canisters under high pressure would release that gas in short bursts that would send the BBs flying from the barrel. While this system provided greater power and a higher rate of fire, each canister of compressed gas could only hold so much and the canisters tend to be depleted relatively quickly.

Although many people enjoy using automatic airsoft guns much more than they enjoy using manual ones, using automatic airsoft weapons is not conducive to accuracy. This is because, with each consecutive shot, your accuracy is increasingly affected and diminished.

Enthusiasts can take full advantage of automatic airsoft guns in close quarter combat situations, where the accuracy of a single shot does not matter as much as the ability to lay down a blanket of shots to drive your opponents back and discourage them from taking proper aim at you or storming your position. As with any and all airsoft guns, wearing the proper protective eyewear is of the utmost importance when using automatic airsoft weapons, especially because of the potential for having so many BBs flying through the air in short succession.

When it comes to Automatic Airsoft Guns , quality is a key factor affecting both accuracy and performance, so you should only purchase Airsoft Guns from Airsoftrc.com, where you get only the best in quality and service!