[RANT]WTF???

You do a search on anything AR related today and you have to wade through PAGES of Airsoft B.S.[/RANT]

You aint kiddin! I had to put AR-15 .223 cal. firearms in yahoo to get anything that wasnt about airsoft.

Yes.

The worst part is having to watch out for airsoft clone parts when you are buying from individuals over the internet.

[tongue-in-cheek] Yeah, it REALY sucks when the Airsoft ARs are more reliable, better built and have more knockdown power than the real thing, huh?[/tongue-in-cheek]

I feel your pain, but I spend as much on Airsofts sometimes as I do on the real thing- a side-effect of my student teaching in Japan in 1998 (dont even get me started on my Anime habit...). My airsofts are the display pices for the guns in my safe I dont want to leave laying out around the house.

I don't see why these people spend upward of $1000 on a glorfied BB gun.  Damn things would get you shot by a cop too, don't they need an orange tip?

I just roll my eyes shrugh my shoulders and say I'll stick with my real deal.

I understand for people who do this when the real deal is not legal in their country. (like when I was back in Korea)

But for those who can buy the real deal?

Why...WHY??

Quoted: I understand for people who do this when the real deal is not legal in their country. (like when I was back in Korea) But for those who can buy the real deal? Why...WHY??

No shit.  Or if you're too young to get the real thing.

What gets me is how much these people spend on the gear.  I'd kill to have a PVS-7 or 14, but can't justify the cost for an item I'll rarely get to use.  Yet I see more expensive NV in the hands of airsofters than real gun owners.  

Here we have big teams for airsoft.  Here is how I look at it.  You go to the range and fire at clay birds or puch paper what ever.  Then you dress up all tactical with your buddies and shoot kids. Then run around and open up on each other.  You can't do that with your ar.  But you can with that all evil airsoft m4 auto with 203 spraying bbs at kids.  Here we don't have class 3, so if you want any thing evil wou got to get airsoft.  

S_L Brings up a good point too about shooting at one another with airsofts, in the end all the three gun matches and 1000m shots arnt going to be adaquate training if you havnt trained against live, moving targets. The way I see it, Airsofts are the other end of the training a lot of us do with the real deal. Sure, they dont shoot real bullets, but your target is motile, human, dressed in military gear, and trying to get you too. My sister was married to a Survivalist some years ago- he was an abusive, feeble, drugged out jerk, but he also was a wellspring of information about surviving situations like a gunfight as his life depended on it a few times (hells angles, drug deals gone wrong, etc etc) and from what my sister learned from him, the best way to learn to kill an armed smart target is to practice against armed smart targets...

I also keep airsofts for guns like Skorpions, MG-42s, and MP-5Ks, types I'll either never be allowed to own in my home for financial or legal reasons.

Incidently, most airsoft places in the states are rip-offs, I still get most of my complete guns with batteries and chargers for under $350.

Dont knock it until you've tried it.

For most decent search engines, just add -airsoft.  This works for almost all of the major search engines and ebay.  These search engines use boolean logic, and the - sign is usually not.  As an example, here is one of my saved searches on ebay for beretta stuff.  beretta -airsoft -chevy -chevrolet -prop  Always read up on the advanced searches.

Yeah, I need to read up on advance search methods to AVOID Airsoft.