Airsoft is the Answer

I was late to the range. I took the long way there and stopped to buy goodies. I pulled into the lot and it was already 2:35. Five minutes late. But I really really wanted to shoot something. Thankfully, I had a last resort before I was forced to shoot up a strip mall.

I dug out my Crosman P99 airsoft gun and target from my closet. I haven't shot it for over a year, but it's just a lump of plastic with a few springs, nothing to go bad or break. It is a great buy. A lot of the reputable airsoft pistols are. I highly recommend them for cheap trigger time. I put 100 rounds of plastic .12 gram 6mm BBs down "range" in the comfort of my living room.

My urge to shoot something subsided until I started watching the Emmys.

Incidentally, there are three kinds of airsoft guns: electric, spring, and gas.

Mine is a spring pistol. There are also good spring shotguns and spring sniper rifles along with a lot of cheap crap out there. The bad part about spring guns is that you have to cock it before each shot. The spring that shoots the BB is about as strong as the hammer or striker spring on a pistol, so it is like working a pistol slide 100 times. That part isn't so fun but it is cheap. The gun costs very little, often around $20-30. Shooting those hundred rounds cost me nothing more than the price of the gun.

Gas guns run on "green gas". It is compressed air with a some additional lubricants. You don't have to cock them which is nice, but you do have to pay for the gas. They're still cheaper to shoot than a .22, but definitely not as cheap as a spring gun. Plus they usually cost a fair bit of money to start with. Not as much as a real gun, but still a non-negligible amount. Most of the good pistols are gas guns.

Electric runs the gamut. Some of the very cheap guns are electric. These usually look like superdeformed versions of normal rifles. They're crap. However the more expensive automatic electric guns (AEGs) are very good. They are also very expensive. You can buy a real gun for what you spend on one of these. And in the end it's still just a menacing looking BB gun.